(Brendan Miller) Feb. 7, 2025: Disruptor Trump is f'ing S up like radicals and liberals and revolutionaries always dreamed of doing to Washington, DC. But he's the wrong individual for the job. He and Pres. Musk are likely to take things in a worse direction rather than actually routing out any corruption, government waste, and political bias. (First, he's an unindicted co-conspirator in a treasonous insurrection, e.g., Jan. 6th, and now he's there to finish the job from the inside out -- pretty impressive for a total outsider with no common sense, no brains in evidence, and nothing but contempt, rabblerousing, and revenge on his mind. He always said his backers would get sick of winning, and now it actually seems to be coming true with winners: Tulsi Gabbard, JFK Jr., a blackout drunk in Hegseth, Tom "Project 2025" Homan,

(War Stories) June 17, 2024: In January 1933, Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany with promises of peace and economic recovery.

However, his true agenda soon emerged (antisemitism), targeting Jews and anyone else he perceived as an enemy within (gays, gypsies, liberals, undesirables).

This documentary explores how Hitler and the Nazis manipulated the German populace, transforming the nation into a totalitarian regime. Discover the propaganda by Joe Goebbels, economic strategies, and brutal policies that shaped the early years of Nazi Germany.

(LastWeekTonight) Oct. 31, 2024: New American citizen John Oliver discusses hayseed Lee Greenwood – the man behind one of MAGA America’s most popular anthems, played by Trump at many of his Neo-Nazi rallies and other staged performances – and he suggests a better song to play at naturalization ceremonies.

“Half of the Israeli public is no longer in favor of the war,” one friend told me Saturday night as we witnessed thousands of Israelis take to the streets to protest the Israeli government under the slogan, “Elections Now.” [So half the Israeli public is in favor of their genocidal war?]

“Yes, but the other half is all-in, and REALLY in favor,” responded his wife. “And they are the more powerful group.”

She, of course, is right. For months, reports of torture and rape have emerged from Israel’s military base turned torture camp, Sde Teiman, where Israel has imprisoned thousands of Palestinians [hostages] without charge.

I wrote about it in a previous diary earlier this month. Palestinians who have emerged from this torture camp refer to it as the “slaughterhouse” with horrendous tales of torture, rape, abuse, and sleep deprivation being meted out by [bisexual and gay] Israeli prison guards.

Nearly 30 Palestinians have died while in Sde Teiman and other prisons, according to the information provided to date. 

And while the precise chain of events is unclear, what we do know is that the Israeli military advocate general decided to dispatch the military police to question nine Israeli soldiers on suspicion of gang-raping and sodomizing a Palestinian man from Gaza at Sde Teiman.

Israel's gay rape battalion needs its own flag

The man was rushed to the hospital where he exhibited signs of rape, including a ruptured bowel and broken ribs. It would be a mistake to simply think that Israel’s actions in prisons like Sde Teiman came only after October.

Since becoming Israel’s national security minister in 2022, ultra-nationalist Itamar Ben Gvir has made prisons his target, with him authorizing abuse against Palestinians. He has also called for the death penalty to solve problems of overcrowding.

The arrival of the military police was violently resisted by the soldiers being detained for questioning and by others at the site. The soldiers barricaded themselves inside the camp and pepper-sprayed the military police.

Now, to be clear, Israeli investigations are usually “rubber stamps” to Israeli war crimes, with few charges ever laid against Israeli soldiers.

But for some members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party and his coalition, the idea of merely questioning those accused of gang rape crosses a red line. As a result, they mobilized in defense – not of the male gang rape victim – but of the accused Jewish rapists.

Jewish crowds stormed the Sde Teiman prison camp with Jewish soldiers struggling to expel them. The Israelis who stormed the prison included

(Right-wing Israeli activists attempt to break into an Israeli military base after nine Israeli soldiers were held for questioning over the abuse of a Palestinian detainee. Photo by Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

In protest of the raid, members of the Israeli Knesset announced that they would convene an urgent debate to discuss the arrest of the soldiers – not the [homosexual] abuse that is being meted out to Palestinians.

Gay Jewish recruits wanted for "special" ops

That would be absurd in Israeli think. To highlight the actual absurdity of this position, lawmaker Ahmad Tibi asked, “Is inserting an explosive into the rectum of a person legitimate?”

Likud Knesset member Hanoch Milvetsky responded with what has been the position of the right (more than 50% of the Knesset): “If he is a Nukhba [Hamas commando], everything is legitimate.”

This is what happens when you claim to be a “moral” army or an army that was “forced into” genocide: You can always justify everything. And this is precisely what Israel has done. 

However, unlike in the past where (some) convicted soldiers get a slap on the wrist, these soldiers will likely get a pat on the back [for raping male prisoners], just as Elor Azaria got when he shot a motionless Palestinian man in the head in 2016. He was named “Man of the Year.”

Israeli peace activist and negotiator Gershon Baskin, who is perhaps the only Israeli to have direct contacts with Hamas over the past two decades, will join Mehdi for a live town hall on Thursday morning ET, to react to the Netanyahu government’s assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. More + VIDEO

Put me in the center of the three rings, PT!

“In the 1850s, the circus overlapped with theater, minstrelsy, and lectures in a bubbling stew of adult fare, full of near-nudity and racy jokes, of violence, and public affairs,” writes David Carlyon, author of the book, Dan Rice: The Most Famous Man You’ve Never Heard Of.

I would fit right in, like my rallies today.

“Violence was one of America’s favorite sports,” Carlyon writes, and the circus was one of its favorite venues. Local ruffians waited to stew up trouble in each new town as eyes looked on with suspicion and excitement.

There was gambling outside the tents and plenty of alcohol. It was rare if there was a show without a fight.

“A circus had to be,” says Carlyon, in the words of one circus veteran, “an efficient fighting unit.” Performers were hired for their talent, but also for their ability to brawl.

One extreme incident was the Hippodrome War in 1853, in which a circus outfit was unable to leave Somerset, Ohio, for two days because of ongoing fighting with locals. Many people were seriously injured, and some were killed.

Audiences felt that they could freely participate during performances. As with other forms of entertainment during the time, they proclaimed “the right to hiss,” to yell out, demand a monolog be repeated, enter the ring, or even drown out an entire show with their own noise.

“Audiences considered themselves a partner with performers,” Carlyon says. Crowds could shape the success or failure of each show, and the performers had to learn how to effectively manage them.

This is dramatically different from the circus we are familiar with today and the one Carlyon experienced firsthand, performing as a clown for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The 19th-century version was a show catering to adults and immensely popular. It was an American institution, says Carlyon: “Everyone saw the circus.”

It was also a show teeming with sex. Acrobats and other performers wore tight, skin-colored clothing called fleshings. You could go to the circus and see near-nude men and women and claim you were merely admiring the human form.

Aside from off-color jokes and scantily clothed bodies, there were stories and songs about people who had run off with circus performers, which newspapers freely commented on. And though there are no records proving it, suggestions of prostitution at the circus “must have some basis in fact,” says Carlyon. “For all its cotton-candy image,” he adds, “the circus has always peddled sexual allure.”

Everyone who saw the circus (and that was almost everyone) saw Dan Rice, one of the most famous men in America in the mid-19th century — “a talking clown, quipping spontaneously, booming out Shakespeare, singing about bloomers, feuding with Horace Greeley — and running for president.”

He traveled the country commenting on politics, popular issues, and the big names of the times. Rice was a man surrounded by fictions, like the one claiming he was the model for Uncle Sam. He wasn’t, but wearing a goatee and top hat, Rice struck a strong resemblance. That Zachary Taylor had named him “Colonel” Rice and that he and Abraham Lincoln were good friends were legends Rice created himself.

His circus was the first one called “the greatest show on earth.” He was the “Great American Humorist” before Mark Twain, whose circus scene in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was most likely inspired by Rice’s visit to Hannibal, Missouri.

Rice even made earnest runs for political office, including one for the presidency in 1867. Carlyon credits Rice’s popularity with his ability to connect and interact with his audience, “to boom out words and ideas and jokes and songs, while thousands of human imaginations bounced them back.”

Toward the end of the century, the circus was disparaged as a crude, low form of entertainment.

I'm tired. I just want to cheat at golf now.

It began to soften its image and cater to children. So too, did Rice’s image soften as he became known as Old Uncle Dan. His shows lost their rough edge in the collective memory, his feuds and fights disregarded as mere run-ins.

In Carlyon’s lecture, “19th-Century Circus: Sex, Violence, and Politics,” he strips the circus of the “rosy glow” it has acquired in more recent years and shows audiences what it really was — “a combination of rodeo, burlesque, and Jon Stewart.”

Not on my watch. I'll prosecute that felon.

Imitating the crowd-performer relationship in antebellum America, Carlyon says that during his talks, “I’m not simply a talking head spouting facts, but rather I’m engaged in conversation with my fellow New Yorkers.”

(The Daily Show) July 17, 2024: Ronny Chieng recaps RNC Night 2, including Lara Trump's many reminders of who her father-in-law is, Vivek Ramaswamy's weak appeal to Gen Z, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders's many minor personal tragedies. Plus, Michael Kosta says goodbye to the convention's short-lived unity theme. #DailyShow #Comedy