Without violating his privacy with Too Much Information, I’ll just say that eight days ago I took my ex-husband to the ER and he was diagnosed with two dangerous but not-likely-to-be-lethal conditions. At least one of them would absolutely be needing surgery, so they sent him home with instructions to call a surgeon and make an appointment. The ER was full with a long wait. And the surgeon couldn’t see him for almost two weeks.
Meanwhile, at home, he wasn’t feeling well. He didn’t want to go back to the ER and be sent home again, and it didn’t seem worthwhile to me either. But over the next five days he seemed to be deteriorating, and he wasn’t eating much at all. On Monday he was so ill that I called 911. They took him back to the ER, where they repeated the tests and decided this time to admit him, and that he had to have surgery – pronto. So instead of having a scheduled surgery with the preferred surgeon, it was pot-luck surgery at midnight the very day he came back to the hospital.
Fortunately, the team repaired the problem. But my ex developed a few complications and is still in the hospital. I’m the designated helper, and I’ve been going over there for quite a few hours every day. The staff has been pretty good, but they seem overworked because the place is very full.
However, there was one incident that really angered me – although it has nothing to do with the medical aspect of things. There was a middle-aged lady who came around to officially inform him of his Medicare rights – things like ye olde Patients’ Bill of Rights and the fact that if the hospital tries to kick you out prematurely, you can protest. That sort of thing. When she finished her spiel she said that we needed to vote in November, and not to vote for “that person” (she clearly meant Trump even though he’s not on the ballot) because he was going to end Medicare.
Extremely unprofessional and inappropriate, not to mention incorrect. I surprised her by snapping at her, and I’m contemplating reporting her but not while he’s still in the hospital.
A military judge ruled Wednesday that the man accused of being the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks will stand trial starting in June 2028.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be prosecuted alongside others suspected of conspiring in the attacks: Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. …
The trial date was announced after a split federal appeals court last summer threw out a potential agreement that would have allowed Mohammed to plead guilty in exchange for sparing him the risk of execution. …
The road to prosecute Mohammed and other conspirators has dragged on for years, with the Obama-era military commissions system being tested for the first time — at times leading to lengthy challenges to its rules.
Defense lawyers have also argued that the holdup comes from what they say are the government’s efforts to hide details of torture used against detainees at secret CIA prisons before they were transferred to Guantánamo Bay.
We’ve heard plenty about that, actually.
Mohammed should have been tried in military court long ago. It’s not at all certain he will be tried in 2028, either. He is now 61 years old, so he could end up living out his years on Guantanamo.
Past trial dates have come and gone several times, and Schrama is the fifth judge to oversee the case.
Victims’ families have been outraged that they’ve yet to see justice done, with some relatives telling The Post Wednesday they hope the latest trial date will stand.
“We have been asking for a trial date for 20 years. Hopefully, this time it is for real,” said retired NYPD officer Jim Smith, whose wife Moira Smith died responding to the attacks.
“It’s all going to depend on the judge. We’ve been through so many, some good, but mostly officers who wanted nothing to do with this case,” Smith said. “Someone has to man up and take charge.”
Agreed.
But in Canada at the CBC, don’t call Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a terrorist. Word has come down:
“This week, I received a memo — presumably confidential — addressed to CBC News staff. It is authored by one Basem Boshra, who is the “Senior Director of Journalistic Standards and Public Trust at CBC News.” In Boshra’s memo, reporters are editors are told this:
“Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.”
Boshra states that all in bold letters, italicized, as if to emphasize the point. To make clear it is a directive, not a suggestion.
I can’t find much more about Basem Boshra, but the name is considered of Arab or North African Muslim descent. Oh, Canada!
(2) The New Hampshire Senate race is described here as “flying under the radar.” It’s not flying under my radar, as a New Englander. It’s a close race and the probable Republican nominee and ex-senator John Sununu has a chance of victory, but the state of New Hampshire has gotten much bluer in recent years. If Sununu’s brother, the former NH governor, had been running, I think he’d win. I’m less sanguine about John’s chances, but I’m hoping.
(3) There’s a drive to name the Nashville airport after Dolly Parton. Hey, why not?
(5) El-Sayed of Michigan wants to know whether Fox’s Jesse Watters is circumcised. And no; despite being a medical school graduate, El-Sayed is not Watters’ doctor – or any kind of doctor at all. He also seems to be analogizing circumcision with orchiectomy and penectomy trans surgery. Watters seemed stunned by the question, but I think he might have asked El-Sayed how much a manicure resembles an arm amputation.
In a 6-3 ruling, the high court granted a request for emergency relief sought by the Trump administration late last month in a case involving 23 Democratic-led states. The Justice Department had asked the Supreme Court to lift a lower court’s injunction that stopped agencies from carrying out parts of Mr. Trump’s directive, which involves the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Postal Service, in those states and the District of Columbia.
The high court said in its unsigned decision that the states filed their lawsuit too soon.
“The Court’s disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful,” the Supreme Court said in an unsigned decision. “On that score, time will tell. But the Order itself does not harm the States, so the District Court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Government from trying to implement it.”
The move from the high court clears the way for the Department of Homeland Security to move forward with a proposal to create lists of residents in each state who are eligible to vote.
But it’s getting awfully close to election time. For Democrats, that’s a feature and not a bug.
Lindsey Graham’s sister Darlene won the South Carolina GOP primary and will be the nominee for Senate in that state. South Carolina is a red state, but she is an unknown quantity. Trump endorsed her – I’m not sure why; perhaps out of loyalty to his friend Lindsey Graham? I’m not at all sure she was the stronger candidate. But hopefully she’ll be strong enough.
In Oklahoma, the Democrat primary for the Senate was won by – you guessed it, another socialist. N’Kiyla Jasmine Thomas is the name, and if this story sounds familiar it’s because it is familiar:
Thomas, a 31-year-old member of the Chickasaw Nation, defeated attorney and minister Jim Priest, 70, in the contest, despite being drastically outspent. …
Thomas is “a self-proclaimed democratic socialist,” she told NBC News in an interview Tuesday morning, though she said she is “not yet” a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. She described democratic socialists as “the next generation” that is “looking to change the system.”
Oklahoma is a red state, and so the Democrat nominee is generally just going through the motions. But these DSA and DSA-adjacent wins remain shocking although not surprising.
The Republican primary winner in the Oklahoma governor’s race was Trump-backed Mike Massei, but the results were close.
I’m already weary of the 2026 elections. And I’m most definitely anxious about them.
One of the hallmarks of the Clancy case is that she made lengthy and repeated efforts to seek help. In case you haven’t seen much about that, and would like a summary, this is pretty thorough and relatively easy to understand:
Beloved country music star, composer, and actress Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80. She lost her husband of 60 years in March of 2025. Her nephew stated:
“My family and I have shared a lifetime of beautiful memories with Dolly, but so have you. She has always been on your television, your record player, your CD and on your phone playlist, becoming an extended part of your family whether you liked it or not. Our family and the team she has entrusted with her legacy will work diligently to ensure her spirit will live with us forever. Dolly was a farmer, just like her daddy; he farmed the soil, she farmed songs and happiness. Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life of wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.”
Seaver ended his statement, saying, “Rest in peace, Aunt Dolly — Aunt, Granny, Gigi. May God bless Dolly Parton, and may God bless you all. She will always love you.”
That last sentence is a reference to a song Parton wrote, the theme from the movie The Bodyguard.
This next song about her family was reportedly one of Parton’s favorites:
Until a day or two ago I had tried to mostly ignore this case because it was so extremely upsetting and deeply disturbing. But finally the din was so loud that I took a long look.
This post isn’t going to be an in-depth definitive analysis of the details. But it is my overall impression and summary after digesting quite a bit of the evidence. I expect that many of you may differ from my conclusions.
Clancy’s defense rests on a claim that she had post-partum psychosis, exacerbated by a cocktail of drugs she was given over time by a series of health practitioners. Her previous behavior as a mother seems to have been exemplary (this was her third child, and she had been a labor and delivery nurse). She kept a diary that documented her decline after the birth of her third child. She claims that voices directed her to kill her children, and the actual act was committed when she had sent her husband out for various errands.
Post-partum mental problems are very real and poorly understood although there are many theories. For most women who have them they amount to a short period of “the baby blues,” and even that can be quite serious for the person experiencing the problem although it is quite common. There are also a smaller number of women who experience a more profound post-partum depression. Then there is a much smaller but real number who experience post-partum psychosis, a break with reality. The second group (post-partum depression) is somewhat at risk, like any depressed person would be, for suicide. The third group (psychosis) is somewhat at risk for suicide and even homicide, often directed at the children. Fortunately, this type of aggression is rare.
The questions in this trial are basically twofold: (1) Was Clancy suffering from post-partum psychosis? (2) Does it matter in terms of her criminal responsibility? I think that the answer to the first question is “yes.” I’m not sure about the answer to the second, but it depends on one’s general attitude towards psychosis and criminal responsibility, which varies from those who think it never matters and that all people should be held equally responsible to those who think it absolves a person of all responsibility. I’ve written and thought about these questions for a long long time and I cannot answer them except to say I don’t fall into either of the extremes of opinion. In this case, I simply don’t know and am glad I’m not on the jury.
When I look at commentary online about the case, there’s an incredible range of opinion. There are, for example, people (usually women) who blame Clancy’s husband. I think that’s preposterous and to be condemned. There are those who completely absolve Clancy herself, which I don’t think is correct although I do believe that – as I said – she was truly depressed and then went into a psychotic state in part because of a bad reaction to the many drugs she was given in rapid succession. I think that her health practitioners did not do right by her. I think her suicide attempt was real and that her resultant paraplegic state is evidence of that. I believe that those who say she is a cold-blooded monster who deeply desired to murder her children and that her psychosis was a feigned excuse are also wrong; the evidence is very strong that this was not the case, and her planning was not inconsistent with a very real post-partum psychosis. And I think it’s a very sad and awful case, almost unbearable in its pathos.
Here’s a discussion of the drug aspect:
I don’t know what the verdict will be. But if Clancy is found not guilty by reason of insanity, it doesn’t mean she goes free. It means she is confined to a mental hospital, probably for many years. That does not satisfy those who consider her guilty, of course. Different states have very different laws for this sort of thing – some, for example, have a possible verdict of guilty with mitigating factors; they confine the killer to a mental hospital, but then when the perp is released there is also a prison term (not necessarily for murder, but a substantial sentence) to be served. As far as I can tell, Massachusetts is not one of those states and she probably would not be going to prison at all if found not guilty by reason of insanity.
(1) Hasan Piker celebrates and mocks Charlie Kirk’s death with a crowd of happy haters:
We have seen protesters on the left around the country mocking the assassination of Charlie Kirk, even reenacting his murder. Hate traffickers like Jennifer Welch have even justified his assassination. It is all shocking and depressing, but none reached the level of Hasan Piker leading a huge crowd in mocking Kirk and his faith. Before he was murdered, Kirk debated Piker and called him a “socialist hypocrite.” What is shocking is not the utter depravity and cruelty of Piker, but the ecstasy of the crowd in relishing the death of someone with opposing views. It is part of the conditioning in an “age of rage.”
In the video, Piker leads the crowd in the meme song “We Are Charlie Kirk” at a stop of his “Fear& LIVE” tour, including such lines as “We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame. We’ll fight for the Gospel, we’ll honor his name.” His co-hosts and the crowd seem to be laughing with joy.
(2) I guess it’s okay to be a “journalist” and not only celebrate Kirk’s death but make up fake quotes from him. The WaPois forced to reinstate an employee who did just that.
