"President Trump posted a blatantly racist video clip portraying former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama as apes...."

"The brief clip, set to 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight,' was spliced near the end of a 62-second video that promoted conspiracy theories about anomalies in the 2020 presidential election....In response to questions about the clip, which Mr. Trump posted Thursday during a late-night spree on social media, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said criticism of the video was 'fake outrage.' 'This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,' she said. 'Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.'"

I'm reading "Trump Posts Video Portraying Obamas as Apes/The White House press secretary dismissed criticism of the clip’s racist content, shared by the president’s Truth Social account, as 'fake outrage'" (NYT).

I don't know why Leavitt responded like that. If I hadn't read what she said, I would have assumed Trump shared the video because of the material that took up the first 97% of the video. Look at it here. It's somber technical material about tampering with voting machines in the 2020 election. I would have assumed that he never even saw the discordant image of the Obamas as apes that is spliced in at the very end, in the last 2 seconds.

I would have speculated that some sneaky person spliced that image in to trick Trump supporters into passing the video along unwittingly and becoming targets for accusations of racism.

Who sticks around for the full 62 seconds? Well, maybe some people do, and then when the Obama image pops up, they probably think what is this bullshit? It doesn't belong. Who put this here? Those people probably don't share the video. Those who share probably didn't watch until the end, and I would suspect that the sharers, those dupes, were prominent enough that eventually Trump saw it and shared it, shared it without watching to the very end, just assuming it was more of the usual stolen-election stuff. 

But Leavitt's defense undercuts my assumption. She's just: Ooh, it's a meme. Don't you know memes? As if the existence of the full-scale "Lion King" video — a very stupid video — justifies cutting out one offensive image and pasting it in anywhere.

Leavitt is not Trump, and maybe she tosses off whatever notion she comes up with and she had no idea what went on in Trump's mind. Maybe my assumption is closer to the truth. I don't know. But I do think that if my assumption is wrong it's a better story than what Leavitt came up with.

"this is a wicked man who knows he is being wicked and does it anyway/like, do you see that smirk? that brief 'ain’t i a stinker' grin? beneath contempt."

"i can’t imagine a parent who wouldn’t sell little JD for percocet if they knew he would turn out like this/to be a bit serious one irony of vance’s life is that he is also an addict: addicted to power and clearly willing to sell anything to get it"

Writes NYT columnist Jamelle Bouie, at Blue Sky, commenting on this video showing JD Vance declining to entertain hypotheticals about Alex Pretti.

this is a wicked man who knows he is being wicked and does it anyway

[image or embed]

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) February 4, 2026 at 10:41 AM

You might assume the line "i can’t imagine a parent who wouldn’t sell little JD for percocet" has a factual basis. Where in "Hillbilly Elegy" is the story about Vance's drug-addicted mother resorting to trying to sell him? That's what I asked AI. But I don't think there is any such background to support Bouie's effort at satire.

"After the incident... she abandoned a career as a flight attendant... She moved home... She fears the dark, she said, because it takes her back to the seat of the car in the dark parking lot..."

"... where the rape occurred. She sleeps with the lights on, sometimes in her parents’ bed, she said. Uber’s lawyers said the driver had no criminal history, had received top ratings from passengers, had completed training and had acknowledged that he was aware of Uber’s rule that bans sex between drivers and passengers. They said the company was the industry leader in safety, developing a machine-learning tool to assess the risk of potential rides as well as other safety features and releasing public reports documenting assaults and other safety incidents on the platform. Sachin Kansal, Uber’s chief product officer, pushed back against claims that the company 'dragged its feet' on safety features like dashcams. However, 'I’ll be the first one to say we have not done enough,' he said. 'There’s a lot more that we have to do.'"

From "Uber Found Liable in Rape by Driver, Setting Stage for Thousands of Cases/In a federal bellwether case, the jury ordered the ride-hailing giant to pay $8.5 million to Jaylynn Dean, who said one of its drivers assaulted her in 2023" (NYT).

"You've gotta learn to get more pleasure!"

A Super Bowl ad for a product called...

Ella Emhoff, step-daughter of Kamala Harris, has been on SSRIs for 15 years, and she has some questions.

"I don't know if this is something that I feel like is being talked about enough."

She seems to have been on these drugs since she was about 12, and Kamala Harris has been her stepmother since 2014. I would assume she has had access all her life to the very best medical care, and yet look at her. She seems lost, trapped inside of a drug experience that she never competently chose for herself and unable to test what lies on the other side of a disturbing withdrawal experience. She responds to commenters who push her to give up the drugs with lines like "y'all… I will not be getting off my meds."

Here's the original video, without the doctor's contribution:

"We now know that the things that you eat are driving mental illness in this country.... There are studies right now that I saw two days ago where people lose their bipolar diagnosis by changing their diet."

Said RFK Jr., quoted in "Kennedy Makes Unfounded Claim That Keto Diet Can ‘Cure’ Schizophrenia/The claim vastly overstates preliminary research into whether the high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet might help people with the disorder, experts said" (NYT).

Mr. Kennedy was apparently referring to Dr. Christopher Palmer, who in 2019 wrote about “two patients with longstanding schizophrenia who experienced complete remission of symptoms” with the keto diet. He said both patients “were able to stop antipsychotic medications and have remained in remission for years now.”

More recently, Dr. Palmer and his colleagues described the diet as a “promising therapeutic approach for schizophrenia.” Dr. Palmer did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

"Private equity firms are making vast profits from investing in ADHD clinics which provide assessment and treatment for tens of thousands of NHS patients."

"The NHS has become dependent on privately-run services to diagnose ADHD and autism, leading to an 'exponential' growth in ADHD spending which is 'blowing NHS budgets.' More than half a million people in England are on NHS waiting lists for ADHD assessments. Under an initiative called Right to Choose, they have a legal right to get assessed privately and the NHS will pick up the bill. This has led to a proliferation of private providers, several of which have attracted private equity investors looking to generate quick profit."

From "How ADHD became a multimillion-pound industry for private equity/NHS has become dependent on privately run services to diagnose ADHD and autism as patients given legal right to assessments under Right to Choose initiative" (London Times).

Sunrise.

No, that's yesterday's sunset. Photographed by Meade out in the middle of the frozen lake. Here's this morning's sunrise:

Not so glorious. But we were there, and the photograph commemorates that tiny event.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"There is an easy familiarity between the two men that allows Bannon to call Epstein a 'schmuck' and 'criminal' and even ask if he is 'the devil' fallen from paradise."

"At one point, Bannon comments: 'There’s something deeply fucked up with you.' The interview also becomes an exercise in intellectual peacocking as they invoke Socrates, Isaac Newton and quantum physics but pay little attention to Epstein’s crimes. Epstein reveals himself to be a living museum of racial prejudice...."

From "'Do you think you’re the devil himself?': highlights from the bizarre, newly released Bannon-Epstein interview/The interview,⁠ revealed in the latest tranche of Epstein files, was reportedly intended for a sympathetic documentary" (The Guardian).

Sample clip, with Epstein posing as thoughtful on the topic of gender difference:

Transcript:

Science doesn't describe romance. I don't know why I'm attracted to somebody. I don't know. People are attracted to each other, and everyone has felt the same thing at some point. They've seen someone walk into a room and thought, "Oh, that person gives me a creepy feeling."

He knows, I infer, that the females he is finding attractive are experiencing him as creepy.

"Jim and Rachel Van Eerden had a 'barn raising' for their cabin in Stokesdale, N.C., with friends building historically accurate furniture, a contractor working on the frame..."

"... and even a blacksmith forging nails in the style of the 1850s. Their 'Walden' cabin is the first in a growing series of literature-inspired structures on their homestead property, rented out via Airbnb and VRBO. The listing explicitly warns would-be visitors about the lack of plumbing, electricity and Wi-Fi; showers and toilets are available at nearby 'Narnia cottage,' instead. Their cabin’s interior is nearly true to Thoreau’s model, with even the dents and nicks in the wood desk matching the writer’s own. They made a few additions to the structure though. 'We gave ourselves what we called the "third year liberty" where we said, "OK, if Thoreau would have stayed a third year, he would have wanted a little front porch. He would’ve wanted a garret,"' said Mr. Van Eerden...."

From "They Went to the Woods Because They Wished to Live Deliberately/Paying homage to the long-dead Transcendentalist, some people are building full-scale replicas of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden cabin" (NYT)(gift link, so you can read more and see the pictures, and read the comments, predictably from folks who just have to recite the received idea, his mother did his laundry).

"Even before 'Walden,' critics questioned Thoreau’s motivations for building and moving into his isolated cabin. 'I think he touches a lot of nerves,' said Laura Walls, a scholar of American Transcendentalism. 'What a lazy bum this guy has to be, not pulling his weight in society and isolating himself like that,' she said, paraphrasing his detractors.

"The town's authorities report that tourists were 'opening private home doors without permission to use the restroom,' trespassing, littering and 'defecating in private yards and raising a fuss when residents pointed this out.'"

From "Japan cherry blossom festival cancelled over badly behaved tourists" (BBC).

"It is not the first time Japanese authorities have had to take measures to address photo-keen tourists. In 2024, officials blocked one of Japan's most iconic photo spots in Fujikawaguchiko with a big black barrier in a bid to deter badly behaved tourists."

MEANWHILE: In Venice:

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A post shared by Travel | Venezia | Venice (@venicetravelers)

Meade walked across Lake Mendota today and sent me sunset photos from somewhere near the middle.

It was about 5:05 in the afternoon:

Open thread in the comments. Write about whatever you want.

"Great story. I especially enjoy the moving of the three palm trees."

Texted Meade after I sent him "'It’s not leaving until they pay me': sculptor holds Trump statue hostage/Alan Cottrill created an 18ft bronze capturing the moment the president survived an assassination attempt. He says his patrons aren’t paying up" (London Times).

There's a lot going on in this story, but keep reading, you'll get to the palm trees:

"Walz only seemed like a football coach to voters with no preexisting relationship to football. His image embodied the liberal conception of nontoxic masculinity, a reverse Margaret Thatcher."

Writes Chuck Klosterman in his new book "Football," reviewed in "Is Football Doomed? Chuck Klosterman Thinks So. In his new book, the writer goes deep on a sport that dominates American cultural life — but possibly not for long." The review is by Dwight Garner in the NYT.

Garner says: "I like reading Klosterman. He’s a dorm-room philosopher and, on pop topics, the overthinker’s overthinker." Despite the headline for the review, Garner is less interested in the prediction of doom — which "takes up a relatively small portion of his book, mostly at the beginning and at the end" — and more interested in what else is in there: "The 'football is doomed' material is like a pancake that arrives alongside an order of Peking duck. The tastiest stuff is mostly tucked inside." Like that Walz material.

I've read a few Chuck Klosterman books. Click my Chuck Klosterman tag. I like the writing style. Here's an example from the NYT review: "[Football] will never completely disappear, in the same way you can still hear jazz on NPR and you can still smoke Lucky Strikes inside a casino."

"During lobster season — from June to December — Mrs. Oliver would wake up at 2:45 a.m., put on overalls and drive her four-wheel-drive pickup truck..."

"... to the dock. After loading her boat, the Virginia, with bait and gas, she would head to sea before sunrise, hauling lobster pots until lunchtime.'It’s not hard work for me,' she told The Boston Globe in 2021, when she was 101. 'It might be for somebody else, but not me.'"

From "Virginia Oliver, Maine’s ‘Lobster Lady’ and Folk Hero, Dies at 105/She fished off the New England coast for more than 80 years, and intended to continue until she died. '“It’s not hard work for me,' she said at 101" (NYT).

I wonder what she did January through May. That's a long off season. What's the secret to longevity, based on this one data point? It's not just hard work. It might be seasonal work with a long, predictable rest every year. I think there are other articles about her that she kept busy in the off-season with housework.

"Mr. Routh, a former roofer from Greensboro, N.C., never fired a shot during the thwarted assassination attempt on Sept. 15, 2024..."

"... a fact that his lawyer, Martin L. Roth, emphasized on Wednesday. A Secret Service agent spotted him outside a fence near the sixth hole while Mr. Trump was golfing nearby. The agent fired; Mr. Routh fled in his car and was caught shortly after.... Mr. Roth asked the court to consider setting aside the sentencing guidelines and instead sentence his client to 27 years in prison.... 'Defendant would be in custody into his 80s and would not pose any threat to cause harm to the public,' Mr. Roth wrote. On Wednesday, he described Mr. Routh as 'troubled,' but said he had 'a very good core.'... Mr. Routh told the judge before his sentencing on Wednesday that he was a do-gooder, saying, 'I’ve given every drop of who I am, every day, for the benefit of our nation.'"

From "Man Convicted of Trying to Assassinate Trump Gets Life Sentence/Federal prosecutors told the judge that Ryan Routh had 'plotted painstakingly' to ambush Donald J. Trump in 2024 at his golf course near West Palm Beach" (NYT).

Don't all assassins portray themselves as do-gooders?

I asked Grok. Full answer here. I'll just quote what Charles J. Guiteau, President Garfield's assassin, said after he was condemned to death: "I know where I stand on this business. I am here as God's man and don't you forget it."