In case you missed it, and you’re forgiven if you did, former President Donald Trump isn’t happy with the special master he fought so hard for. “Special master” is a fabulous duet of words that should be reserved exclusively for samurai training, BDSM orgies and chess rankings. Alas, “special master” in today’s context gets lumped in with terms such as “Senate parliamentarian” and “Hatch Act” that I have been reluctantly forced to acquaint myself with over the past six years, all because Trump is an asshole who turned America into the No. 1 asshole country in the universe.

And so we come to said special master, Judge Raymond (British accent) Dearie, whose appointment has not stopped the Department of Justice from poring over some of the most sensitive documents they seized earlier this fall from Mar-a-Lago: documents that Trump definitely accidentally absconded from the White House with after his term as President came to an end.

Dearie has not been kind to Trump’s lawyers and even tried to force Trump to appear in court under oath. These plans were scuttled by a federal judge Thursday, but the special master’s moves are just one of many signs that the walls are closing in around our beloved Don-Don. The Department of Justice is still actively engaged in a criminal investigation of Trump. One of Trump’s most vocal defenders in the past is currently arguing that the former President’s attempts to ward off the probe may in fact be aiding it. I love it, unironically, when Trump hires people who he assumes will protect him and then they’re like, “Actually, fuck this guy.” And there are so many people like this out there! Fantastic.

Meanwhile, the House Jan. 6 Committee is still in the process of conducting hearings on Trump’s role in the failed insurrection attempt on the U.S. Capitol, hearings that have already resulted in onetime Trump ally Cassidy Hutchinson testifying that Trump actively ordered security not to prevent armed rioters from reaching the Capitol. Meanwhile meanwhile, New York’s attorney general just filed a massive civil suit against Trump and his awful family for committing flagrant acts of real estate fraud. Meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis is also jumping onto the hogpile, convening a grand jury that may be looking to charge Trump, or at least associates like Rudy Giuliani, with gross election malfeasance in 2020. Any one of these investigations could result in Trump being supremely fucked, but I’d like to use this space now to demand that the “could” part of this no longer apply.

It is time, both procedurally and metaphorically, to fuck Donald Trump. After all, if the guy who defended Trump against presumed white knight Robert Mueller thinks that Trump is in a highly fuckable position, let’s go ahead and take advantage of that.

It’s well past time, really. If you disdain Trump as much as I do, you’ve been on a six-year-long catharsis hunt in which every victory — even the 2020 election! — has felt hollow. I thought Trump was finished when he fired James Comey. I thought he was finished when Mueller was drafted to investigate him. I thought he was finished when he got COVID-19. You get the idea. It’s been an agonizing stretch in which all of us have had to live through Donald Trump being president, Donald Trump violently refusing to stop being president and then Donald Trump threatening to become president again. All Americans deserve a break from his bullshit. We voted Joe Biden into office for this very reason.

And yet, here Trump remains. Still here. Still not officially fucked. For six years, I’ve been waiting for a cavalry that always arrives unarmed. I’ve been counting on Democrats to put Trump’s head on the chopping block when that party’s leaders all share a bizarre reticence to prosecute him because they believe that indicting Trump is an indictment of the American Idyll or something. It’s possible that Trumpism is a fad and will die out on its own. Perhaps as soon as November, when a red wave that the dreaded polls supposedly once foretold fails to materialize. But given the damage that Trump and his cohorts have wrought, it feels wrong, IS wrong, to hope nature takes its course with this movement. I’ve done the hope thing. I did it in 2008. It only got me here, so you’ll excuse me if hope and I aren’t on the best of terms right now.

What I require, and what is there for the taking at last, is action. All of this due diligence has to be for something, and not just for due diligence’s sake. If Democrats want me to have faith in their precious institutions, then what I need is for those institutions to do what the label on the “Institutions” box promises and indict this man. I’m as sick as you are of the “Today would be a good day to charge Donald Trump with high treason” brand tweets that have polluted the internet since his inauguration, but the receipts are flooding in and the excuses have all sunk to the bottom of the sea in a beautiful, idiot boat. Truly, today WOULD be a good day for the hammer to drop. Don’t wait until after the election, when Republicans will have fucked with an election that they have already pledged to fuck with. Don’t gimme some bullshit about how there’ll be another civil war if we dare to prosecute Trump because I already watched the insurrectionists try to start that war and fail miserably. Most of those people thought they were going to a furry convention or something. And don’t put on your law degree and tell me about dangerous precedents and how fluid the definition of “crimedoing” is. I’ve been watching this shitshow for six years now. I know what I’m looking at. I’m looking at robbery, treason, fraud and awful nutrition habits. Everyone knows what went down, what is going down and what Republicans WANT to go down. And I think I’ve had enough of the down parts. Joe Biden may be an underwhelming replacement, but even he had the stones earlier this month to call all this out for what it is:

“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

That’s accurate as it comes to rhetoric, but it also serves as an implied order … to the DOJ, to the state of New York, to Willis and to Congress: It’s time. Let’s get on with it.

Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.

The unusual move comes at a moment of growing scrutiny for billionaires and corporations, whose rhetoric about making the world a better place is often overshadowed by their contributions to the very problems they claim to want to solve.

“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” Chouinard, 83, said in an exclusive interview. “We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving this planet.”

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week An unjust police killing. Nature reclamation in the fossil fuel era. Surviving a bear attack. The underbelly of the antiquities trade. And for a well-earned dessert, the legacy of the world’s first breakout video game. 1. Police Killed His Son. Prosecutors Charged the Teen’s Friends With His Murder Meg O’Connor | The Appeal & Phoenix […] https://longreads.com/2023/03/17/the-top-5-longreads-of-the-week-457/

Fun article from SFGate about SF's historic Tonga Room at the Fairmont. I've only been once or twice as a kid & remember it being cool AF! This brought back memories & I definitely want to go back now as an adult! Perhaps for my bday in a few weeks? Idk but I hope so! Have you ever been??

christmas eve in the city by the bay

Hell's Gate space station for In Golden Flame. Once a powerhouse of galactic industry, now a home to many people just trying to find refuge in the darkest corner of space

Disappeared.

San Francisco, 2023.

Hello, San Francisco! 💜

@thesoundofsanfranciscorpg Llegué. 21 años desde que tuve este sueño. Nueve años después de tantas historias, llantos y risas en un foro que era y siempre será mi segunda casa. Gracias a mí y a los que me acompañaron en esa maravillosa aventura rolera 💜

With California Gov. Gavin Newsom continuing his foray into national politics by running ads in Florida, it was only a matter of time until he was included in 2024 general election polling.

A recently released Yahoo News/YouGov survey conducted between June 24-27 polled hypothetical 2024 matchups between President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Newsom on the Democratic side against former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the Republican side.

The poll found Biden leading Trump 42% to 40% and DeSantis 41% to 37%. It found Harris tied with Trump 41% to 41%, but matched Biden's margin against DeSantis at 41% to 37%.

Finally, it found Newsom beating Trump 40% to 39% and DeSantis 39% to 36%. In every single matchup polled, there are lots of undecided voters. The smallest number of undecided voters is seen in the Harris-Trump matchup (18%), and the largest number is seen in Newsom vs. DeSantis (25%).

The poll suggests Newsom would be a stronger general election candidate than Harris. When running against Trump, Newsom not only fares better than Harris does (albeit narrowly), but he also has more room to grow (21% of voters said they were undecided in the Newsom-Trump matchup compared to 18% who said the same in the Harris-Trump matchup).

For those who point to Harris beating DeSantis by four percentage points in the poll while Newsom beats him by three, consider the massive number of undecided voters in all of the DeSantis matchups. Because DeSantis is a relatively undefined figure at the national level — especially when compared to Biden, Harris and Trump — all of the hypothetical races involving the Florida Governor have more than 20% of survey respondents unable to choose a candidate. Having so many undecided voters makes it difficult to read too much into the results.

That's especially true when DeSantis runs against Newsom — another relatively undefined national figure — and neither candidate is able to top 40% support in the poll.

In other words, it's best to use matchups vs. Trump to gauge a Democratic candidate's general election strength. And this poll shows Newsom would fare better than Harris would, though not by much.

You can check out the full poll results here.

I've spent too much time reading about California politics recently, so have San Francisco being a bastard.

San Francisco, CA

1980

I initially wrote off A.K.I. As nothing more than “Juri but Chinese and poisonous” but after getting through all her World Tour, stuff I’m happy to report that she’s more than “psycho bitch #2”