I've been talking to a local journalism start-up about a job. They are very small and fun by the owner (no venture capital, or anything like that).

The owner says the operation is "self sustaining." But the employees don't get health insurance. The owner says "the right person" for this new position might get health insurance. But as of now, there are no benefits.

I think she wants to hire me. But I question whether a company can call itself self-sustaining if nobody gets health insurance.

If I have to buy my own health insurance, I might need a salary above what the owner is willing to pay.

Also, I wonder if this is a subtle form of age discrimination. A younger person might not value health insurance as much as I do. So the owner might be trying to weed out the older applicants.

You know what I could do with $10,000?

I could buy a 2013 Chevy Cruise with 109,000 miles on the odometer!

Well, la dee da! Them kids 'er gettin' rich!

I thought it would be easy to switch out a ceiling fan. I've done it before. It's not complicated.

But, our condo is in a 1928 building. Once I got the old fan down, I discovered a nest of jury-rigged-no-way-is-this-up-to-code wiring. I tried to "fix" it and ended up killing the power to the lights in two closets and an outlet I use all the time.

So, time to call an electrician, right? If only it was that simple. My wife and her 94-year-old dad decided they could figure things out.

My father-in-law is a retired scientist with a doctorate in chemical engineering. My wife has a master's in urban policy. How that adds up to "electrician" is a mystery for the ages.

But I guess this gives them a project to work on until they either succeed or allow me to call in an expert.

What could go wrong?

Are people over 50 just completely toxic to recruiters?

I keep getting phone interviews that seem to go well, but don't lead to further interviews.

Just recently, an HR person told me I was a strong candidate and said she would set me up to meet the hiring team the following week. Then she ghosted me for two weeks, only to eventually tell me the hiring team was "pursuing other candidates."

This is not the first time I've applied a job in which I checked virtually all the boxes, but dropped for consideration or never called.

I'm not blowing all these phone interviews. Like I said, most seem to go very well.

But, with a little Googling, it's not hard to figure out my approximate age. And I'll be 60 on my next birthday. So I'm wondering if that's the problem.

I have a job now. But I really feel I need to leave it. And I have neither the desire nor the money for retirement.

Am I being paranoid, or is age discrimination as widespread as it seems?

Many people seem to think the Trump/MAGA crowd will abandon Trumpism once investigations reveal the movement's fascist aspirations.

But, does anyone here doubt the Trump base WANTS fascism?

For years, they have repeated the lie that the United States is not a democracy. Never mind that a "constitutional republic," as they refer to it, IS a type of democracy.

They have been training conservatives for a time when democracy is virtually eliminated. I'm pretty sure that their end game is to retain the trappings of the republic, similar to how the first few Roman emperors retained the facade of the Roman Republic. That way, people could pretend that the autocracy was consistent with the US Constitution.

But to pull that off, the right needs to put as much daylight as possible between the the words "republic" and "democracy."

I don't feel sick. I've been a bit sluggish, which I attributed to not sleeping well and getting older.

Now, there's stuff in my blood tests that could indicate a serious illness. Also could be less serious. I just don't know. Options range from some kind of infection to cancer or an autoimmune disease.

I went in today for a slew of new tests. Some results were alarming and some weren't. What the fuck am I supposed to do with this information?

The doctor says there's something wrong. But doesn't know what. So I'm waiting. I feel like I'm a character on an episode of House.

The cat we adopted a couple of months ago is a neutered male that had been declawed by a previous owner. We play with him (he loves feather toys) and give him all the pets he wants.

But what he really wants to do is roughhouse in a way that gets one of us (my wife or myself) bitten. He doesn't bite hard. I am sure he is being playful. He also tends to bite one of us if he feels ignored -- not often, but enough to make it an issue. I am starting to think he's bored and frustrated at not getting enough of the cat-like play he really likes.

The shelter told us he'd be best in a home without other cats. But I think that was mainly because of his no-front-claws situation.

But I am wondering if what Coltrane needs is a companion he can chase and wrestle with. It'd probably have to be another high-energy cat. We'd almost certainly need to find another declawed shelter cat -- probably about the same age or younger. And I think the other cat should be female to avoid a struggle for alpha-cat status.

What do y'all think?

I am worried that my latent desire to have as many cats as possible could be making me biased toward getting another one. But I also know that cats are more social than many people think.

… to form a new party?

If they did, Democrats and the new party could form a kind of coalition government in the Senate. That would be far from ideal. But it could keep the Trumpists from controlling the body, even if they do well in November.

They would have to start with senators like Mittens, who are not running in 2022.

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider a case about the so-called “independent state legislature” doctrine. For democracy, that's not good news.


Reflecting on the scheme crafted by Donald Trump and his team, Luttig made the case that the cornerstone of the Republican plan was to have the Supreme Court endorse an obscure idea called the “independent state legislature” doctrine, which, according to the plot, would make it possible to overturn the election results by allowing then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject certain states’ electoral votes.

[link:https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/supreme-court-consider-radical-independent-legislature-theory-rcna36301?fbclid=IwAR1BunV7hbwNkd4AtF8YkZ9mOld1zez8XLpev_Qy7v8sYOHuAQHG_yY83TA|

Could you imagine what the official Church of Alabama would be like?
————-

America First Legal (AFL), a right-wing group whose team includes several former Trump administration officials, is urging the Supreme Court to do even more to shatter what’s left of the wall between church and state.

On Tuesday, June 28, the group issued a statement essentially calling for a total overhaul of the First Amendment’s establishment clause, a key provision separating church and state. The statement arrived one day after the Supreme Court cracked part of the clause’s foundation with its ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton. In that case, the court’s far-right majority ruled that public school officials in Bremerton, Washington, violated the First Amendment rights of high school football coach Joseph Kennedy when they fired him following a controversy stemming from his ritual of praying at the 50-yard line during football games. The 6-3 decision effectively overruled a 1971 precedent for interpreting the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

[link:https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/america-first-legal-trump-establishment-cause-church-state-1375776/amp/?fbclid=IwAR2FXDrtlpHNBCah3lfupQV_hP8xkjxZ6pmgO2oUXh-ljDS0i0-zIt-o07Q|