This month marks one year since the presidency of Joe Biden was drawing to its effective close.
The 46th U.S. president and 47th U.S. vice president and six-term U.S. senator from Delaware had a low job approval consistently in the 30s percentile range.
This clearly pointed to a Republican pickup year and a non-consecutive second-term re-election for 45th and, now, 47th U.S. president Donald Trump.
What eventually undid Biden is that the party support ended.
For numerous reasons.
Among them:
• Polls showed there were self-identified Democrats who would not vote to re-elect Biden
• More states, beyond the 31 carried by Trump, were emerging as potential GOP pickups
This was also a problem with donors letting the Democratic Party Establishment know, given this and other considerations (like Biden’s condition), they would not contribute to Team Blue.
Add to this that Trump, who could have gone on to win not 31 but more like 41 states, meant that approximately ten more states would become vulnerable to Democrats not only at the presidential level…but also for U.S. House and, for those on the schedule, U.S. Senate. Devastating downballot impact.
On July 21, 2024, Biden dropped out.
(I know there is no need to write more in depth about this. We are well-aware. But it ended up, for me, one more reason why I reject the Democratic Party.)
Upcoming Schedule for Progressives Chat
Blog topics for next month will publish on Fridays, August 1 and 15, 2025.
Summer has long been embraced as a time away from school, from work, and from the usual routine.
I will do some of this as I give Progressives Chat some rest.
Rather than a weekly schedule, Progressives Chat will have July and August 2025 topics scheduled for the 1st and 15th of each month. Four topics.
In July, these dates will fall on a Tuesday. In August, they will be on a Friday. This is to give me, frankly, some break. I am honestly needing it. (I have some personal matters but will still post in Comments.)
Progressive Chat will return to Mondays beginning on September 1, 2025.
I have expanded Comments to allow up to 30 days from a blog topic’s publishing date.
For this first entry in July 2025…
Fifty years ago, in 1975, saw the releases of two acclaimed motion pictures.
Wednesday, June 11, 1975 was the date director Robert Altman’s groundbreaking film, Nashville, was released.
Friday, June 20, 1975 was the date director Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was released in movie theatres.
Jaws is better known, to most people, and it is the ultimate thriller. The enemy being a shark who goes on the hunt at a New England beach. Roy Scheider plays the police chief. Richard Dreyfuss as the marine biologist. Robert Shaw is the shark hunter.
Jaws was adapted to the screen by Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley. It is based on the latter’s 1974 novel. It was of the early-enough blockbuster films which changed the course of Hollywood standards in movie-making. It is genius work by Spielberg.
Nashville was my favorite film of 1975, the 1970s, and of what I have seen in motion pictures during the second half of the 20th century. It is an all-American look at 24 different and complicated individuals who are gathering for a presidential candidate. The music is, mostly, Country.
Jaws and Nashville are masterpieces for directors Spielberg and Altman. But, I must apply that old adage, “Behind every great man [there] is a great woman.” They are Verna Fields and Joan Tewkesbury. Fields won the 1975 Oscar for Film Editing and is key to why Jaws grips and scares the hell out of people. Tewkesbury wielded magic in her written-directly-for-the-screen Nashville with convincingly integrating and circulating those 24 characters in the same orbit.
Jaws was Oscar nominated for Best Picture of 1975 but, amazingly, Steven Spielberg was not nominated for Best Director nor were Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley for Adapted Screenplay nor Robert Shaw for Supporting Actor.
Nashville won the 1975 Original Song Oscar, for “I’m Easy,” for its songwriter and performer and actor Keith Carradine. It was nominated for Best Picture, Director for Robert Altman, and Supporting Actress for each of Ronee Blakley and Lily Tomlin. Strangely, Joan Tewkesbury was not nominated for Original Screenplay nor was Henry Gibson for Supporting Actor.
Much more could be written of both films. But, I will post more in the Comments.
The following two clips include something having to do with a boat and an astonishing opener…
As reported by USA Today, on Saturday, June 21, 2025, “President Donald Trump on Saturday night announced American warplanes dropped bombs on three nuclear sites in Iran, with the U.S. officially entering the war more than a week after Israel’s initial attack.”
• Israel struck Iran and Iran struck Israel. Naturally, there are tweets on X weighing in. And there are defenders of Israel who want U.S. involvement and its soldiers to fight. It is, and this is putting it kindly, supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump—MAGA World—who are there for wherever is Trump. Those not in support get to clash with those in support of Israel. The nation’s leaders, and their administrations, have talked for years about going to war against Iran. Of course, that is what this country does—wars—and we will find out what more may come.
• Minnesota politicians targeted for assassination. Two state legislature figures were targeted for assassination. Melissa Hortman, age 55 and DFL leader in the Minnesota House of Representatives, along with her husband Mark, was assassinated in her home. Also targeted for assassination, but having survived, was John Hoffman, DFL, a state senator and age 60, along with his wife Yvette. Their adult daughter, shielded by her mother, was not shot. The suspect, following a weekend manhunt, has been apprehended. He is Vance Luther Boelter, 57.
There likely will be more up-to-date details during the week.
Fallout from last week between U.S. president Donald Trump and Tesla and X owner Elon Musk sparked the above tweet (which has since been deleted but, thankfully, I took a screenshot).
Numerous of the regularly recommended content creators have already commented. I will include videos linked in Comments. But, there should be a response from me with this topic.
I would not surprised if this is true.
I suspect that there is an easier question to ask: “Who isn’t in the Epstein files?”
In 2022, I wrote and posted “Remembering the Children” which was about the “Oakland County Child Killer” case in Oakland County, Michigan.
On the historic timeline, this occurred between February 1976 to March 1977. Some of it coincided with the “Son of Sam” [David Berkowitz] case in New York, New York.
The “Oakland Child Killer” is a serial murder case which has never been solved. Well, not officially. But what also occurred in Michigan, on the west side of these state, at North Fox Island, was the sexual violations of children. Boys. (For “OCCK.” it was two boys and two girls.”)
The person who headed this was Francis Shelden (1928–1996) . He bought North Fox Island.
Shelden was a pedophile. He had a network of other adult men who exploited—and even raped—many of these boys. Joining in this crime, although not named, were other men with wealth and influence.
I do not want to go into much with that case. Shelden was descended from the 20th governor of Michigan Russell Alger (1836–1907). He fled Michigan, apparently, and the United States—and he avoided arrest—for the remainder of this life. He died in Amsterdam.
The Jeffrey Epstein case reminds me of this. Many in his circle also have wealth, power, and influence. And whether or not that list ever becomes revealed—and it is intended that that will never happen—I cannot be genuinely surprised.
Last week, Glenn Greenwald revealed that he received video which shows him being intimate with another person. Without my knowing anything more specific, and not really wanting to know, I have a couple notes to make which will serve as my response to the very nature of this would-be scandal:
• I do not want to know about anyone’s private life. Meaning: Anything anyone wants to share…that is a willingness of that person to share, say, one thing about himself/herself. But, in general, I do not want to ask anyone private information about himself/herself.
• If someone is being confronted with pictures and/or videos of himself/herself having an intimate connection to someone else, there is one reason why that should be acceptable: That person is cheating on his/her significant other with another person. (That, say, a private investigator has the proof.) Other than that…this says more about the person (or persons) invading the privacy of the one who is/was targeted.
Greenwald’s husband, David Miranda, who was a Brazilian politician and activist, died at age 37 in 2023. Greenwald, 58, is raising their children. That general information, to that extent, is appropriate and satisfying enough. Greenwald’s journalism, and his criticism, is his work.
I respect Glenn Greenwald and wish well for him and his family.
This Saturday, May 31, 2025 marks the 25-year anniversary of the premiere of CBS’s Survivor.
This series changed the United States broadcast networks—and other forms of television—with what has been identified by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which administers the primetime Emmys, as Reality–Competition Programming.
Created by Mark Burnett, the series is hosted by Jeff Probst, and casts at least 16 “Castaways” who live on an island, in a real location (filmed on location), in efforts to “Outwit. Outplay. Outlast.”
The first edition of Survivor, which premiered on May 31, 2000, was titled Borneo. (Below picture is of its participating castaways.)
I was late to the series. I started with the second edition, which was broadcast in Spring 2001, titled The Austrian Outback.
Survivor won a top Emmy in 2001. Probst won four Emmys for Outstanding Reality-Competition Host.
I stopped watching Survivor after the Fall 2019 edition included a participant who inappropriately touched at least one woman, and wasn’t timely pulled from the game, but was finally taken out late in the game. That did it for me.
During the time I regularly followed, it was an intriguing concept to have people from different areas of the U.S. live together on an island, struggle, participate in competitions, and strategize to stay in the game to go all the way to the end. And win. That is Survivor.
