#donald levine

[graceandfamily]

Princess Grace of Monaco watching the Rowing Eight competition at the 17th Olympic Games in Rome (1960)

[gracie-bird]

Philadelphia, PA., USA: Mr. and Mrs. Donald Levine, sister, and brother-in-law to Grace Kelly, show 10-month-old Anne Kelly, daughter of John B. Kelly Jr., a United Press Radiotelephoto of her aunt Grace and her grandfather entering the Monaco Cathedral on April 19, 1956. The Levines, who are expecting their first child soon, are getting a little parental experience with Anne.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Melissa Gira Grant at TNR:

Late Sunday, a reported 20,000 people joined an organizing call quickly convened by Indivisible, a group founded to push back on Trump’s first administration, in response to actions largely undertaken by one of his unelected lackeys, the chaotic tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. As the call maxed out its capacity, tens of thousands more watched via YouTube. Meanwhile, outside an otherwise unexciting federal building in Washington, federal workers and D.C. residents assembled. Inside, under orders from Musk (who apparently paid his way into the president’s good graces), a small group of young men, whose only professional experience was working for one of Musk’s or Musk’s cronies’ companies, were wreaking havoc on federal payment systems. “Musk is inside the Treasury right now with his cadre of flying monkeys, and we don’t know what they’re doing,” said Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin on the organizing call. No one seemed to know how to stop them.

But the accounts from that small protest outside the federal building, with just a few people blocking the doors—backed up by chants of “There’s a robbery in progress”—put a spotlight on the scene and gave it a story. On Monday morning, as federal workers reported lockouts from their offices, more people joined. Some protesters took to the street outside the Office of Management and Budget and blocked traffic. And the next day, Indivisible demonstrators and Democratic members of Congress gathered at the Treasury Building in opposition to Musk’s ongoing takeover, which some lawmakers were by then plainly calling an “illegal raid,” in which he “illegally seized power.” When they tried to get into Treasury on Tuesday, they were turned away. “We’re not going to allow them to steal from our people, from working-class people!” Representative Maxwell Frost said at the rally assembled outside.

In the wake of the November election, multiple news outlets ran stories suggesting that, this time, the president’s opposition were exhausted and inclined to sit this one out. But the fact that the National Mall isn’t packed with pussy-hat-wearing women does not mean that everyone has moved on. Some may have, of course, like the group of Pennsylvania women profiled in The New York Times ahead of the 2025 inauguration, whose first experience organizing was protesting Trump’s first term. (But, to be fair, we don’t know how many people in that particular demographic have really tuned out.) The story those particular protests were telling—a man who sexually assaulted women was in the White House, and himself was a threat to democracy—has only gotten more grim, more all-encompassing, in the last eight years. If anything, there is too much to protest and there are too many villains, an overwhelming number of stories competing for attention and action. But protests are, in fact, happening—and this week, more people are starting to show up.

At the same time as some lesser-known federal office buildings became sites of protest on Sunday, thousands of people across the country were turning out in opposition to Trump’s promised mass deportations and the already-escalating ICE raids: In Los Angeles (blocking the 101 Freeway), Phoenix, Las Vegas (over several days, including hundreds outside Trump’s hotel), Dallas, and Atlanta, among others. On Sunday and Monday, a few thousand people in Washington, D.C. and New York protested Trump’s attempted bans on gender-affirming care for young trans people. On Tuesday, as Trump contemplated shutting down the Department of Education by executive order, students walked out of schools in Los Angeles, and members of the Chicago Teachers Union held “walk-ins” at 100 schools, calling for protections for immigrant students, parents, and educators.

What do we know about these protests? It’s too early to make any data-based generalizations. But based on the rapid-fire research I did for this story, including going to some of these protests (both now and in the first Trump administration), they are not primarily organized under a banner of “Resist Trump.” Protests have mobilized around Trump’s orders, but they are also targeting those who are carrying out his orders, whether that’s responding to an ICE raid in their own neighborhood or to a hospital that is preemptively banning gender-affirming care. Many of these same protesters, not coincidentally, remained active no matter who was in the White House.

Their communities did not see the Biden years as a victory but as a possible reprieve. That reprieve didn’t materialize: Biden didn’t brand his deportations as Trump did, and they weren’t media spectacles, but by the numbers available, he removed as many people from the United States as Trump did in his first term. For trans people, who Biden did at least mention in some speeches and whose rights he backed in a number of executive orders, almost all of that has been undone by two weeks of Trump. The Biden years also saw a constant onslaught of attacks on trans people at the state and local level. There was nothing to sit out. Maybe, to those who deemed protesters “tired,” this resistance doesn’t look like what they expected. Perhaps they don’t see protests led by immigrants and trans people as part of the resistance, or see these as side issues—even though those are the communities Trump is specifically targeting.

The resistance to Tyrant 47 feels and looks different from Autocrat-in-Chief Trump’s first term. #Resist47 #ResistTrump

[trexalicious]

Trump loves our country...

[chicinsilk]

US Vogue July 1973

Lauren Hutton wears a black wool gabardine suit. By Bill Blass. Silver fox boa, by Blassport, chains, Donald Stannard, bracelets, Michael Danyon. Black tights, Round-theClock. Herbert Levine sandals. Ara Gallant. Editor, Polly Mellen.

Lauren Hutton porte un tailleur en gabardine de laine noire. Par Bill Blass. Boa en renard argenté, par Blassport, chaînes, Donald Stannard, bracelets, Michael Danyon. Colllants noirs, Round-theClock. Sandales Herbert Levine. Ara Gallant. Èditrice, Polly Mellen.

Photo Richard Avedon vogue archive

[gwydionmisha]

Please contact your senators and ask them to reject dangerous and unqualified cabinet picks. There is still a chance to stop RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel.

Usually they just log for or against. If they want a reason, I've listed some below. Use reason for Democrats. For Republicans: national security, law and order, etc..

If you can't safely contact them in person, here are some other options:

Five Calls to your critters: https://5calls.org/

Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resist.bot/

"Congress. gov:" https://www.congress.gov/

ACLU advice for writing to your Critters: https://www.aclu.org/writing-your-elected-representatives

[biblioklept]

Augusto Monterroso's The Rest Is Silence (Book acquired, some time early Nov. 2024)

So I finally made some time to dig into Augusto Monterroso’s lone novel, 1978’s The Rest Is Silence (trans. Aaron Kerner). It’s hardly a conventional novel (and seems very much of a piece with the other novel I’m reading right now, Cuban author Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s 1967 novel Tres tristes tigres (in its 1971 translation as Three Trapped Tigers by Donald Gardner and Suzanne Jill Levine).…

[itaviv]

Jurassic Park Novels Birdification

Do you recognize characters and scenes? 🤭

[salakmaral]

Gennaro's info cards in an exhibition for children:

[graceandfamily]

Princess Grace of Monaco (her brother John Kelly, Jr., sister Lizanne Levine and brother-in-law Donald Levine) leaves the Olympic village in Rome, 1960.

[gracie-bird]

Mr. and Mrs. Donald Levine, Princess Grace's sister and brother-in-law in the 1990s.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lauren Gambino at The Guardian:

When organizers announced a “Nobody Elected Elon” protest at the treasury department’s headquarters in Washington – in response to the revelation that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) had accessed sensitive taxpayer data – not a single Democratic lawmaker had agreed to attend. But as public outrage mounted over Donald Trump’s brazen assault on the federal government, the speaking list grew. In the end, more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress including Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, spoke at the event, which drew hundreds of protesters outside on a frigid Tuesday last week. In speech after speech, they pledged to do everything in their power to block Trump from carrying out his right-wing agenda. “We might have a few less seats in Congress,” Maxwell Frost, a Representative from Florida, thundered into the microphone. “But we’re not going to be the minority. We’re going to be the opposition.” In the weeks since Trump took office, Democrats in Washington have been under increasing pressure from the left to get tougher as the president, with Musk at his side, defies Congress and possibly the constitution. Their phone lines have been inundated with angry callers imploring the opposition party to “do something”. And on Wednesday, progressive activists staged protests outside of their Congressional offices, demanding Democrats in Washington “treat this as the constitutional crisis it is”.

“Nobody is going to hear your boring message about the price of tomatoes when a coup is going on,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the activist group Indivisible, which helped organized the treasury department action. “You’ve got to fight back.” Relegated to the minority in both chambers of Congress, Democrats have limited powers to stop Trump. But Levin said there is more they could be doing to stand in the way, especially in the Senate. He has urged Democrats to channel Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader who built a reputation as a ruthless tactician by stonewalling much of Barack Obama’s agenda. “Mitch McConnell was the leader of a much smaller minority than Chuck Schumer leads today. And you know what, he never said, ‘I’m in the minority. I’m powerless. What do you want me to do?’” he noted, challenging Democrats to “pretend you’re Mitch McConnell … and use the powers that he would use.”

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats held the floor in an all-night protest against Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee to lead the White House budget office and the architect of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term. The office was behind a now-rescinded Trump administration order freezing all federal loans and grants, which drew legal challenges and united Democrats in opposition. Vought was ultimately confirmed along party lines, but activists were pleased to see Democrats jolted into action. “What we are seeing from members is a very strong desire for Democrats to show some resolve and meet the moment,” said Britt Jacovich, spokesperson for MoveOn, a progressive group that helped organize Tuesday’s protest. “They want Senate leadership and House leadership to use every tool at their disposal to fight back.”

Some Democratic senators – Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware – have said they will vote against all of Trump’s nominees, citing the president’s “unacceptable and dangerous” actions. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii said he will put a “blanket hold” on all of Trump’s state department nominees until the administration restores funding to USAid, which Musk moved to eliminate. “We should not be complicit in approving Trump’s nominees or Trump’s legislation,” Murphy told the Guardian, arguing that doing so sends the wrong message to Americans whom Democrats are asking to rise up against the Trump administration’s “dangerous slide towards corruption”. In the House Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, has vowed to use Democrats’ leverage in the narrowly divided chamber to protect federal programs that Trump has tried to defund. On Thursday, he introduced legislation that would shield taxpayers’ personal data from the Doge team, denouncing Musk as an “unelected, unaccountable, out-of-control billionaire puppet master”.

Democrats are also attempting to seize the spotlight. Last week, groups of House and Senate Democrats turned up at government agencies targeted by Doge. On Monday, they protested outside of USAid’s headquarters in solidarity with fired and furloughed workers, after being denied entry from the agency’s building. Similar standoffs unfolded at the treasury department and the education department. Trump, with Musk’s help, has acted with astonishing speed. The president’s blitz of executive actions is part of a deliberate effort to “flood the zone” – a tactic that former Trump administration strategist Stephen Bannon said was designed to overwhelm the opposition and the media. “It’s important for you to understand that the paralysis and shock that you feel right now is the point,” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told followers during an Instagram live last week. “They are trying to induce a state of passivity among the general public.” But she said Democrats could flood the zone as well, and encouraged supporters to keep making calls to members of Congress, including to Republicans in vulnerable districts who may be persuaded to vote against the president’s agenda if they fear a political backlash in their district.

Democrats across America are calling for more aggressive resistance against the Trump-Musk-Vance axis of evil. #Resist47

[simply-ivanka]

[rodgermalcolmmitchell]

Consciousness is not "conscious." It's sensing, and everything senses.

In December, we published “What is consciousness? The hard problem. And the “sensingness” solution.” The conclusion was that consciousness is hard to define because we make false assumptions about it. One assumption is that consciousness is a mystical reality concerning a brain’s self-awareness. Or, we assume consciousness is a state occupied only by living creatures, animals only, “higher”…