Dear Everybody:
Somebody suggested that September 25 be Dolly Parton Day (9-2-5–get it?) in the same way March 17 is Pi Day and May the Fourth is Star Wars Day, and I for one think it’s a great idea. And I think we need to start it this year. (Besides, devoting a day to Dolly is definitely better than devoting one to Trump.) So here is some Dolly Parton news to start off the day:
–California officially named today Dolly Parton Day. Christopher Webb: “A tribute to ‘9 to 5’ but more importantly to Dolly ‘s decades of music, generosity, and service, including her Imagination Library helping California kids fall in love with reading.”
–Tennessee is renaming Nashville’s airport after Dolly Parton. As Dolly might have said, people will be “Departin’ from Parton.”
–Dolly’s Imagination Library has sent out over 300,000,000 books to children. It also sends Braille books to blind kids, and parents can request bilingual Spanish books for their kids.
–Her Imagination Library isn’t just limited to the US. She also gave out 7 million books to kids in the UK. There are also Imagination Libraries in Canada and Australia.
–When Dolly made the movie STRAIGHT TALK, one of the producers said Dolly made it a point to know everyone on set, their name, their kids’ names, their spouses’ name, their pets’ names. The producer said, “It never came off as performative. She just really gave a fuck about everybody.”
–She wrote songs for a movie about a trans girl.
–Not-ur-gilf: “The trans community right now is grieving her loss within our own channels specifically, because she used to talk about her (trans) chauffeur and how she always felt like a drag queen when nobody was talking about us in any context but sex work or being the fringes of society.”
–Dolly was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but she said she didn’t really feel like she deserved to be. She initially declined the induction, saying she didn’t have a body of rock and roll music that would make her worthy. Then after reflecting on it, she did accept, as she felt refusing would insult the people who nominated her. But she still didn’t feel like she really deserved it. So she wrote and released a rock album.
–And finally this anecdote from someone who met her: “I ran into her in a staff elevator at Vanderbilt (Hospital.) She was on her way to surprise the children’s cancer ward. She said she was in Nashville and just called over to see if they would have her.”
In Trump’s press ban news:
–The judge ordered Trump to restore the press passes to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico immediately and keep them restored while the case progresses. Instead, Trump refused to let them onto White House grounds yesterday morning, then later did let them in, but then changed his mind again and refused to let them into the state dinner with President Xi, so it’s not clear what the judge will do next.
–Raw America: “A White House source told Raw America that the united actions of the press were a bellwether for Trump and signaled his weakness.”
–Kaitlin Collins (of CNN): “Right now, ‘The Chinese communist state media is allowed onto the White House grounds…but we are not.”
–Bradley P. Moss: “Possibly the best example of American democracy and governance in the era of Trump.”
In Xi’s visit news;
–There were a large number of very loud protesters outside the White House as guests arrived for the state dinner and throughout it. They could be clearly heard over Trump’s and Xi’s attempts to speak.
–The guest list for the dinner was exactly what you’d expect it to be–the Trump crime family (Eric, Ivanka, Tiffany, but interestingly not Don Jr.), Trump’s criminal staff (Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller), the craziest members of his cabinet (Pete Hegseth, RFK, Jr., Scott Bessent, Doug Burgum, etc.) t, but interestingly, not Natalie), some Fox hosts (Bret Baier, Laura Ingraham), 3 Supreme Court Justices (Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Coney-Barrett), and then pretty much every oligarch in the country (Bezos, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and the heads of every corporation–Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Google, GE Aerospace, JP Morgan Chase, Dell, Citigroup, ExxonMobil–you name it.)
–Dartagnan: “There wasn’t a single decent human being on the guest list for Trump’s state dinner last night. Nor was there a single person with even a pretense of representing the interests of ordinary Americans. It was a gathering of oligarchs and their enablers, for the sole purpose of celebrating and expanding their obscene wealth, period.”
–William Shakespeare: “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
–After the dinner, Trump invited Xi and all his people to tour the currently-under-construction ballroom and top-secret national-security bunker, which doesn’t really seem like a good idea if in fact it’s supposed to be a secret from our enemies.
–Trump refused entry to the dinner to CNN and MS NOW and then was angry there wasn’t press coverage of the event. (The press pool is boycotting until Trump lifts the ban, which he clearly hasn’t.
–One photo that did come out of the dinner, though, was a truly striking one. It shows Trump turned away from Xi and looking like a thundercloud, Melania looking daggers at Trump, and Xi trying to look like he doesn’t know these people. I would KILL to know what was said just before that picture was taken. You can see it here: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/international/trump-xi-photo-goes-viral-as-expert-spots-controlled-anger-in-u-s-presidents-expression/videoshow/134489520.cms
–When Trump was asked about what the China visit accomplished (besides making it look like he is sucking up to dictators), Trump said: “Very productive meeting with President Xi for both the US and China. Tremendous things will be happening. Like almost everyone else, he seemed to like calling the poorly and inaccurately named Artificial Intelligence to a far more accurate and important name, Super Intelligence. That would be ‘SUPER!’ Everyone last night agreed also.”
–Oh, and one last thing. What on earth was Melania wearing? She had on black toreador pants and a white blouse with an enormous bow–not even remotely what’s considered formal wear–and she’s taking a lot of flack for it online.
In other Trump news:
–Lately Trump and his administration have had an unerring instinct for embracing ideas guaranteed to make the Republicans EVEN MORE unpopular than they already are:
–He’s come out as being pro-AI and pro-data centers, which are two of the most unpopular ideas around for both parties, and said he was importing foreign beef, which enraged all the ranchers, MAGA included. And of course there are his tariffs.
–Now Trump’s decided to raise the retirement age for Social Security to save the program from insolvency. (He can’t do this without Congress, but don’t be surprised if he signs an executive order on it.)
–Patric Reynolds: “I think ‘we’re gonna make you work longer for less money and less benefits’ is a fabulous message for Republicans to send less than two months before the midterms.”
–Green Hombre: “He really is trying to kill the GOP in November, isn’t he? It’s more than a trend now.”
–And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the Department of Health and Human Services is talking about throwing 750,000 people off Obamacare because they’re frauds. Why are they frauds, you might ask? Because, according to Dr. Oz, “They’ve never even filed a single claim.”
–Clearly they do not understand the whole concept of health insurance. The people who are healthy and don’t need to file claims help pay for the ones who are sick. It’s called a risk pool, and it’s the way all insurance works–car insurance, home insurance, health insurance.
–And what exactly is the fraud if you sign up for the health insurance, pay the monthly premiums, and never use it? It can’t be fraud unless they’re getting money.
In Irony is Not Dead news:
–I absolutely LOVE this story: Trump’s Kash Patel fired all the DOJ and FBI agents who were involved in raiding Mar-a-lago looking for classified documents Trump had stolen and now he is attempting to prosecute them for perpetrating some Grand Conspiracy against him, even though they were assigned to the case and did not choose to be part of the investigation. (To say nothing of the fact that Trump DID steal all those documents and showed them to people and talked about classified information and may have even sold some of the documents to foreign entities.)
–The case has gone before Judge Cannon, who protected Trump in this case, ruling that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith had been wrongly appointed and refusing to release Volume II of his Special Report. She ruled that no one is EVER supposed to know what evidence they found against Trump, which effectively killed the case and let Trump off the hook.
–BUT now the problem is that she is demanding that all of these fired agents testify in the case, and to do so, they will have to reveal the evidence in Volume II, an act which she has ruled is illegal, so it may kill the case and prevent Trump from getting his revenge.
–MuellerSheWrote: “TODAY: Judge Aileen Cannon will have to let Trump down by either blocking testimony by agents involved in the Mar-a-lago search, or by inadvertently releasing Volume II of Jack Smith’s report.”
–soundgood2: “Hoisted on her own petard…”
–muellershewrote: “However she decides to roll, it will set up a fight in the 11th Circuit over Volume II–where one case is already pending with oral arguments this fall.”
In oil and gas prices news:
–On Friday the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $4.48 and for a gallon of diesel was $6.50.
–Trump’s new plan to ban exports of oil is going over like a lead balloon with practically everybody. The Editorial Board of the Houston Chronicle: “Trump doesn’t understand how energy markets work.” They said an oil export ban would make global prices skyrocket and the price at the pumps in the East Coast states would skyrocket, too. They said there was lots of oil in Houston, but no way to get it to where it needs to go.
–An oil export ban would also be a de facto breach of multiple contracts with oil companies that invested in refining capacity–and a betrayal of trust with our allies.
–One of the problems Trump has with the whole price of diesel thing is that 90% of personal diesel truck buyers (not semis) are men and 84% are white men, with Republicans buying 8 out of 9 heavy-duty trucks, and they are NOT HAPPY!
–Some comments from them: “Six-dollar diesel is killing truck drivers!” and “Hey, Donald Trump, man, it just cost me $97 to fill up my diesel!”
–Curtis Namba: “Hey, Truckers! Remember when diesel was so cheap under Biden you would caravan to DC waving your stupid Trump banners?”
–Evvie: “Saudi Aramco told at least two European refining customers would be allocated no crude oil next month because of the damage to the pipeline.
In It’s a Cult news:
–The White House’s official account posted a story about Wendy’s fast food restaurants which had the caption, The White House added, “Thank you, President Trump!”
–The Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau has stopped a US international exhibit featuring a bull statue because he was worried it might look like Baal, a pagan God associated with human sacrifice.
–Trump’s US Pardon Attorney, Ed Martin, works from an office which he has dubbed the Freedom Suite, which is covered with over-sized photos of Trump and has a small cup of holy water on the wall.
In promising news:
–Tucker Carlson did an interview on NPR and said Trump should be removed from office using the 25h Amendment. “He should have been removed by his own Cabinet secretaries the moment he threatened a nuclear attack…He should have been bundled up and taken out. There’s no greater crime than that.” (Now, Tucker Carlson is a snake and obviously did this because he’s planning to run for president in 2028, but I’ll take it.)
–Tucker’s not alone. The right wing podcaster Theo Von said Trump’s Iran messaging is “diabolical and insane.”
–The Iowa Farmers Union endorsed Democrats in all the federal elections this midterm.
–Trump’s approval rating with independent voters is currently at minus 77.
–Virginia, Colorado, Hawaii, and Georgia all moved 14 points to the left in the period from 2004-2024. (And that’s not counting these last two years.) Utah moved 23 points to the left.
–In a sign of that, the president of the Church of Latter Day Saints spoke out against the culture wars and encouraged conciliation among all groups.
–When GOP Senator John Thune was asked about GOP candidate Mike Collins’ chances in Georgia against Jon Ossoff, Thune said, “At this point, it’s about making the patient comfortable.”
–Maru: “Yesterday I drove through part of Douglas County, Nevada. It is south of Carson City. It is maga red. I did not see any signs for the felon! There used to be huge signs on fences for the mango menace.”
–Fox News’s chief political analyst Brit Hume: “Bleak outlook for GOP and getting bleaker.”
In They’re All Crooks news:
–Derek Utley, the co-founder and former CFO of X Strategies, the firm that owns Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, has been sued by the company for embezzling at least $5 million dollars.
–Utley maintains the Trump War Room and Team Trump accounts on Twitter and helps manage Trump’s TikTok presence. (Or did.) He resigned as CFO, but still remained employed by X Strategies until these most recent revelations.
–Utley is accused of siphoning millions from 2021 to 2026 to fund a lavish lifestyle including luxury sports cars, designer clothes, and jewelry.
–He is also accused of spending 200 days at a Hard Rock casino and losing millions, using company cash. He reportedly lost $3 million dollars gambling on the slot machines. (Which is not all that easy to do. Blackjack, yes. The slot machines, no.)
–He and his girlfriend are also accused of forging signatures, creating fake medical records, and laundering money from the firm.
In Not Everyone’s a Jerk news:
–Not only are we celebrating Dolly today, but all the other celebrities who devote their time to charities, including Christian Bale, who has been working hard to provide a place where siblings in foster care can remain together.
–His group, Together California, has just opened a new facility which makes it possible for brothers and sisters, who often provide the only love and stability these kids have ever known, to stay together.
In scientific news:
–New Zealand’s black robin, which looks just like its name, was at point nearly extinct–down to five known birds. Thanks to an intensive breeding program, the numbers are now up to 270. It was just named New Zealand’s Bird of the Year.
–You can see the darling little thing here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/21/nz-bird-of-the-year-2026-black-robin-wins-new-zealand
In other news:
–A large number of UN delegates walked out when Netanyahu spoke to the General Assembly. (They should have all walked out when Trump spoke, but I’ll take it.)
–The US Army is preparing for military action against Cuba.
–The DOJ and the FBI both bought forensics software from the same company, which turns out to have been run by Russian operatives and the same software used by the FSB (KGB.)
In good news:
–A judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and their pollster. Trump had charged defamation against him when they published a poll that showed Kamala Harris winning.
–Scientists have developed a simple way to turn polyethylene (the stuff in plastic bags) into gas and diesel-like products.
–Stem-cell transplants helped regenerate stroke-damaged brain tissue in mice, producing new neurons and restoring lost motor function, a very good omen for use in humans.
And, just in time for the weekend, a new Randy Rainbow video, based on the song, “Surrey With the Fringe on Top” from the musical OKLAHOMA. It’s called “Dummy with the Wig on Top,” and you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv7CvZn2dZc
Best quote of the day, from (who else?) Dolly Parton: “When this world is so dark and dirty everybody just can’t be mean enough, I just want to get out there and shine a little bit if I can.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
