"Trump never attended the Kennedy Center’s annual gala event during his first term, as artists protested his administration and threatened to boycott Kennedy Center events at the White House."

"Now Trump is making clear that he will not be sidelined again from the most celebrated cultural institution in Washington. 'The attitude is different this time. The attitude is Go fuck yourself,' said one of the people familiar with the planning. 'It’s ridiculous for four years for Trump and Melania to say, "We’re not going to the Kennedy Center because Robert De Niro doesn’t like us."' (De Niro was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2009 and spoke at the 2024 event.)"

From "Trump Takes Over the Kennedy Center/The president intends to replace members of the institution’s board as he adopts a more aggressive approach toward the arts" (The Atlantic). 

At Truth Social, Trump writes:

"A federal judge early Saturday temporarily restricted access by Elon Musk’s government efficiency program to the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems..."

"... saying there was a risk of 'irreparable harm.' The Trump administration’s new policy of allowing political appointees and 'special government employees' access to these systems, which contain highly sensitive information such as bank details, heightens the risk of leaks and of the systems becoming more vulnerable than before to hacking, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in an emergency order.... The order came in response to a lawsuit filed on Friday by Letitia James of New York along with 18 other Democratic state attorneys general, charging that when Mr. Trump had given Mr. Musk the run of government computer systems, he had breached protections enshrined in the Constitution and 'failed to faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress.'... The Constitution says that a president 'shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.'"

From "Judge Halts Access to Treasury Payment Systems by Elon Musk’s Team/The order came in response to a lawsuit filed by 19 attorneys general accusing the president of failing to faithfully execute the nation’s laws when he let DOGE comb through federal computer systems" (NYT).

Is the federal judge taking the position that in the name of enforcing the Take Care Clause, it is the role of the judiciary to oversee whatever the President does with the executive power that the Constitution vests in him?

Is there some extra-legal notion that the federal judge should seize the power to put on the brakes when a President with questionable judgment is moving too fast? (I'm hearing some lawprofs singing that tune.)

ADDED: Here is the request for a temporary restraining order, and here is the judge's order.

"Crooked Joe’s MANDATE, 'NO PLASTIC STRAWS, ONLY PAPER,' IS DEAD! Enjoy your next drink without a straw that disgustingly dissolves in your mouth!!!"

As you can tell from the all-caps and the triple exclamation points, that's Trump, hating on the straws everyone hates.

I avoid straws myself, and so the now-defunct plastic straw ban had no effect on me, but I do remember paper straws from the 1950s, when I was growing up, and kids just chewed on the straws, and if they dissolved in our mouth, we just ate them, and we liked it.

These days, if a kid eats paper, it's "a concerning behavior that should not be ignored" ("Whether it’s due to sensory issues, stress, or anxiety, nutritional deficiencies, developmental disorders, or curiosity, it’s essential to seek professional help and guidance to ensure your child’s safety and well-being").

By the way, don't miss the song parodies in the comments to yesterday's "Big Balls and Plastic Straws" challenge.

Meanwhile, on TikTok...

... I'm seeing things like this:

"Elon's not shy" and the Japanese Prime Minister is not "trying to suck up."

The event was a meeting between President Trump and the Prime Minister of Japan, Shigeru Ishiba, but a reporter saw fit to exploit the occasion to provoke Trump about Musk: "Do you have a reaction into the new Time Magazine cover that has Elon Musk sitting behind your Resolute Desk?":

Trump says a simple "no" in a way that sounded to me like it meant what a stupid question. 

Then, after the translator conveys the question and short answer to the Japanese Prime Minister, Trump deadpans, "Is Time Magazine still in business? I didn't even know."

The translation ensues, and Trump gets to start again. Reponse #1 was the "no," response #2 was the joke, and response #3, was to praise Musk: "Elon is doing a great job. He's finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste. You see it with the USAID, but you're going to see it even more so with other agencies and other parts of government. He's got a staff that's fantastic... [USAID is] a fraud... very little being put to good use. Every single line that I look at in terms of events and transactions is either corrupt or ridiculous, and we're going to be doing that throughout government and I think we're going to be very close to balancing budgets for the first time in many years...."

There's a follow-up question: "Will you put Elon Musk on the podium for us to ask him some questions?"

Trump: "Oh, sure. He's not shy. Elon's not shy."

As for Shigeru Ishiba... earlier he had appealed to Trump's ego.

At the Friday Night Café...

... you can talk all night.

That's not a sunrise picture. It was 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

"Here’s my view: I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life."

"We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that."

Tweeted JD Vance.

What did this guy write? NBC News has this:

The Wall Street Journal said it reviewed archived posts from a deleted X account used by [25-year-old Marko] Elez in which he posted messages such as “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool” and, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity... Normalize Indian hate.”

ADDED: Do not refer to Elez as "Big Balls"! Big Balls is Edward Coristine, and he's only 19 years old. So maybe you shouldn't be calling him that. You creeps.

"I think [the Democrats'] primary currency was shaming and scolding and talking down to people and telling them 'Hey, I know better than you, or you’re dopes...'"

"'... or you’re a bro, or you’re ignorant or, how can you be this dumb?' I can’t imagine it. And then, by the way, they’re fascists. How can you vote for that?... And you know, when you’re in a state like Pennsylvania, I know and I love people that voted for Trump, and they’re not fascist. They don’t support insurrection and those things. And if you go to an extreme, and you become a boutique kind of proposition, then you’re going to lose the argument. And we have done that.... And in some cases, in the conversations I’ve had, a lot of people, they don’t even want to say it publicly, but they just feel like the other side seems like…the men’s the problem. Men are to blame. Or their masculinity is toxic. Or unless you’re able to conform to our very strict kinds of definition of what we think is appropriate, well then, hey, I’m going to find an alternative. And they’ve done that.... it’s going to be difficult to rebuild and replace that...."

Said John Fetterman, quoted in "Democrat Sen. John Fetterman blasts party brand as ‘toxic’ after years of ‘shaming and scolding’ voters" (NY Post).

I want a song parody that uses the phrases "Big Balls" and "plastic straws" — maybe to the tune of "Popsicles and Icicles."

Try to include a lot of the Trump-related items that are bouncing around the internet today. I can't blog all these things. There are too many. And it's too absurd. I've already asked A.I., but it just doesn't know how to make it interesting and funny. 

Here's the inspiration (and note the straws!):

The order of orders: chronological order.

I found — with kind help — a way to get rid of the reply function in the comments. I hope you, like me, enjoy the return to chronological order. I never liked comments jumping the line, displaying above comments that had gone up earlier. It was especially bad because my browser still displayed the comments in chronological order and therefore had many comments that were replying to who knows what.

Anyway, I've said it before and I like to repeat it: the greatest order of all time is chronological order:

In the previous post, I wrote: "[Chronological order is] the most obvious order, used by lovers of order all over the world and through the grand course of time. There are other orders — alphabetical order, order of importance...."

This made me want to put order... in order.

"Good trouble."

Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner & Chair of @FEC. There’s a legal way to replace FEC commissioners-this isn’t it. I’ve been lucky to serve the American people & stir up some good trouble along the way. That’s not changing anytime soon. pic.twitter.com/7voecN2vpj

— Ellen L. Weintraub (@ellenlweintraub.bsky.social) (@EllenLWeintraub) February 6, 2025

Readers of this tweet need to remember that "good trouble" is a stock phrase, not some impish creation of Weintraub's. It's serious. As Grok tells us: "good trouble" was used by John Lewis, the civil rights leader and Congressman, to describe his experience participating in protests and civil disobedience.

I can see that some people are reading her tweet to mean that she's refusing to leave, but you don't need to read it that way. On the text alone, I would say she might be abiding by his demand that she leave, even though she also wants to say that he did not use the proper method. Is she going to stay where she's been told to leave?  The reference to "good trouble" might suggest that she is, but it's in a sentence written in the past tense: "I’ve been lucky...."

From the NYT article on the subject:

"Under her leadership articles have included 'How Feminism can Guide Climate Change by Action,' 'Denial of Evolution is a Form of White Supremacy,' and a critique of Star Wars..."

"... titled: 'Why the term JEDI is problematic for describing programmes that promote justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.' The author of this last piece called the Jedi 'a religious order of intergalactic police-monks, prone to (white) saviorism and toxically masculine approaches to conflict resolution (violent duels with phallic lightsabers, gaslighting by means of "Jedi mind tricks," etc)'...."

From "How magazine went from publishing Einstein to calling Jedi racist/Scientific American has been accused of abandoning objective rigour for a ‘woke’ agenda" (London Times).

The "her" in "Under her leadership" is Laura Helmuth, who was appointed editor-in-chief of "Scientific American" in 2020. She supposedly had a "deep respect for the brand," but then "broke the magazine’s tradition of impartiality by endorsing Joe Biden for president in 2020."

But: "Helmuth was forced to resign last November after making a series of derogatory comments about supporters of Donald Trump. In since-deleted posts on Bluesky after Trump’s election, she called his voters 'fascists' and the 'meanest, dumbest, most bigoted' group."

Autocrats everywhere.

Here's Samantha Power, writing "I Ran U.S.A.I.D. /Killing It Is a Win for Autocrats Everywhere" (NYT).

Of course, she will defend her reign, but what are her most substantive points and does she accept any blame? That's my attitude as I'm reading this to make some excerpts for you. Power begins by listing some things that will seem good to many or most Americans — health programs, "giving girls a chance to get an education," "growing local economies," "helping communities rebuild after ISIS."

She asserts that these activities have "generated vast stores of political capital" for the United States. They have also, she said, been the subject of attacks by China and Russia. Those attacks she calls "propaganda." And what we did... well, that was in the interest of the United States:

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive...."

Wrote William Wordsworth, in "The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement."

The famous old line came to mind as I was listening to "The Joe Rogan Experience" and Joe, talking about the first days of the new Trump administration, exclaimed: "Wild times! Just wild! Like what a fun time to be alive!"

Bret Weinstein followed on:

"It just feels different. I have to tell you, I don't know what's coming, but it's at least, it's at least delightful not to know what to think."

He's got delight, as Wordsworth's French revolutionaries had bliss, but Weinstein professes to find his delight in not knowing what to think. He's distancing himself and enjoying his distance. I think of the spectators who lined the Place de la Révolution. Did they have reservations about the guillotine? Did they think I don't know what to think and find that unknowingness delightful? 

Weinstein's thoughtfulness continued:

"The cynicism that was required to understand what was going on two months ago is now no longer required. You actually have to think about what you're, what you're told is coming down the pike and think, well, I don't know. Is that a solution? Is it, is that, yeah. Is it a negotiating tactic or is it a solution that's actually being proposed and would it work?"

Withhold judgment. Meanwhile, 10 more heads will have rolled.

At the Ice and Wind Café...

... you can talk all night.

And no, I've got no pictures for you today. I got up at 5 and looked out the window and thought how could it have rained? It's 24°. But the sidewalks had that rained-on look — brown. That has to be ice. I delayed going out, and though it got sunny and the temperature rose above freezing, a ridiculous wind kicked up. I played it safe and stayed inside. Now, it's dark at last. 

Do you realize the entire dark season — darkest 3-month period of the year — is over and we've entered one of the 2 periods of the year when the light and dark are most balanced?

I've explained my thinking before: "I think the seasons are wrongly divided. They shouldn't begin with an equinox/solstice, but should have the equinox/solstice put right in the middle. That would correspond to how I feel about the seasons: It's about light, not temperature. Winter should have the solstice as its center and should end by mid-February and so forth.”

And: "I would call the seasons: 1. Dark Time (with winter solstice in the middle), 2. Dark-Light Time (with spring equinox in the middle), 3. Light Time (summer solstice in middle), and 4. Light-Dark Time (with fall equinox in middle). Don't worry about the temperature. That can vary. The light and dark are absolutely nailed down."

So, despite the ice and wind, we're in Dark-Light Time now.

"I want to tell you that this is not about politics. But foreign aid is the least popular thing government spends money on."

"And I spent a lot of time in my career defending it and explaining it. But it’s harder and harder to do across the board. It really is. But for those of us in charge of doing the work of foreign policy, we understand it is essential. The United States is not walking away from foreign aid. It’s not. But it has to be programs that we can defend. It has to be programs that we can explain. It has to be programs that we can justify. Otherwise, we do endanger foreign aid.... We had a problem with some people in the office.... Does that mean that the actions of 5, 10, 20, 50 people indicted an entire organization? No. But we had people pushing through payments, despite being told not to do so.... [They were] almost inviting themselves to be getting in trouble so they can make a news story out of it. That is not the way we sought to pursue it. And as a result, it required us to do something else in return.... We’re just going to have to do it a little faster than we thought."

Said Marco Rubio, quoted in "Transcript Shows Rubio Asking U.S.A.I.D. Worker for ‘Trust’ and ‘Patience’/Speaking at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City, the secretary of state called foreign aid 'the least popular thing' that government pays for" (NYT).

That happened yesterday. Today, I see this at the NYT: "The Trump administration plans to retain only about 290 of the more than 10,000 employees worldwide at the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to three people with knowledge of the planned cuts to the work force. The cuts were communicated to agency leaders in a call on Thursday."

Joe Rogan and Bret Weinstein talk about the "crazy shit" Elon and his 6 "young wizards" have found over at USAID.

Full 3-hour episode — audio and transcript — here, at Podscribe. Full 3-hour video here, at YouTube.

ROGAN: "It's very strange that the media's ignoring it, especially the left wing media. It's just too big of a win for the right. And so they're just ignoring it. And then they're just highlighting the good things that USAID did, which I'm sure it probably did. Probably had to do some good things to like at least justify its existence."

WEINSTEIN: "As a cover story? I'm not even sure. Maybe. It doesn't change anything. Obviously this was a mechanism used to funnel money to all sorts of things that we didn't vote on, that don't make sense in light of our constitutional structure. And I'm, you know, I obviously have concerns like everybody else about where this train takes us, but seeing that structure broken up is, it's a huge relief."

Wipe that smile off your face.

"Why are you doing your mouth like that? Someone needs to tell you to stop."

"Growing up, Kyle Smith did not like sports. 'I was scared of the boys in sports,' said Mr. Smith, 31, who is gay."

"He described himself as the type of teen who was way more interested in watching 'The September Issue,' the documentary about the inner workings of Vogue.... He was... named the first-ever fashion editor of the National Football League... with a directive to use fashion and style to reach new audiences through the league’s media platforms. Mr. Smith works with athletes to create and share content — photos or videos of them showcasing their off-duty style at events like men’s fashion week — and helps players and teams build relationships with traditional fashion media brands like GQ and Vogue. At Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, he will be part of a team covering what players and other notable attendees wear to the game during a new red-carpet segment...."

From "Did You Know the N.F.L. Has a Fashion Editor? Kyle Smith’s job isn’t quite like any other in professional sports" (NYT).

"THE LEFT WING 'RAG,' KNOWN AS 'POLITICO,' SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000"

Donald Trump is all-caps-ing — at Truth Social — about the biggest scandal of them all:

LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLLEN AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A “PAYOFF” FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS. THE LEFT WING “RAG,” KNOWN AS “POLITICO,” SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000. Did the New York Times receive money??? Who else did??? THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY! THE DEMOCRATS CAN’T HIDE FROM THIS ONE. TOO BIG, TOO DIRTY!

ADDED: I don't know what's been going on lately, but I blogged this on September 6, 2022: 

"We want to prove that being nonpartisan is actually the more successful positioning."

Said Mathias Döpfner, quoted in "Politico’s new German owner has a ‘contrarian’ plan for American media/Mathias Döpfner has global ambitions for what he calls a more ‘nonpartisan’ kind of journalism — even as his own politics are hard to pin down" (Washington Post).

The fact that I'm wondering if the things said to be "a real program" are perhaps not actually real — that says enough.

I found this because it's easy to find things tweeted by Elon Musk in the last 24 hours:

pic.twitter.com/VyFYXCDG9p

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2025

I am reminded of the old "Golden Fleece Award":

The Golden Fleece Award (1975–1988) was a tongue-in-cheek award given to public officials in the United States for squandering public money....

One man controlled this award: Senator William Proxmire. His idea of what sounded stupid ruled. You had to be careful about how your research project looked, at first glance, to a politician who wanted to make a general point about out-of-control federal spending.

"Congratulations to every single person on the left...."

Congratulations to every single person on the left who’s been campaigning to destroy women’s and girls’ rights. Without you, there’d be no images like this. pic.twitter.com/mzR7l5k1OW

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) February 6, 2025

ADDED: "What a nice picture this is":

Donald Trump has done more for women and children in a few weeks than the democrat party has done in the last decade.

The left, under the guise of “feminism” has slowly eroded and erased women’s rights, we are now winning them back. pic.twitter.com/BYykWkBmzR

— World Hall Of Fun (@WorldHallOfFun) February 7, 2025

Sunrise — 7:10.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"Rogan’s descent into far-right politics is instructive for understanding the diminished cultural resistance to Trump."

Writes Brady Brickner-Wood, in "What Happened to the Trump Resistance? If the President’s first term was colored with protests and hashtags, his second has so far been characterized by a lack of dissidence" (The New Yorker).

The comedian and U.F.C. commentator had once come across as an anti-establishment social progressive—he endorsed Sanders for President in 2020—but now he presents himself as having penetrated the lies of the Democratic deep state. His once goofy interest in alien and moon-landing conspiracy theories quickly led to his identifying conspiracies everywhere: immigrants were being bused from blue to red states to swing the electorate in favor of Democrats; eating a beef-only diet could cure arthritis; the care given to transgender children was unethical in a “Dr. Frankenstein sort of way.” His dalliances with the psychedelic drug DMT and his experiments with holistic treatment modalities have mushroomed into anti-vax rhetoric and aggressive scientific skepticism. Establishment Democrats, as he sees it, mask their deceptions with self-righteousness while Trump tells it like it is, exposing the web of lies Rogan suddenly saw in everything....

Was that instructive for understanding the diminished cultural resistance to Trump?

This article caused me to rediscover my old "tired of politics" tag. But I don't know that people are tired of protesting or tired of needing to be upset about one thing or the other out there in the political world every damned day. I think a lot of people who are just keeping quiet actually like what Trump is doing. 

"The train that's being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the worst managed project I think I've ever seen."

Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Trump slams California's over-budget, behind schedule high-speed rail project as 'worst managed project' he's ever seen" (Post Millennial).

PRESIDENT TRUMP: "The train that's being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the worst managed project that I think I've ever seen... Hundreds of billions of dollars over budget... We're going to start an investigation of that." pic.twitter.com/CPEgTdv16w

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 4, 2025

I blogged this issue a lot 10 or so years ago. For example, in 2012: "What a disaster! Remember a year and a half ago, when Wisconsin elected a new governor who said he'd kill the high-speed rail deal? I was a single-issue voter for Scott Walker then, and that was my issue." And I wrote this in 2011:

"The real lesson of DeepSeek is that America’s approach to A.I. safety and regulations — the concerns espoused by both the Biden and Trump administrations..."

"... as well as by many A.I. companies — was largely nonsense. It was never going to be possible to contain the spread of this powerful emergent technology, and certainly not just by placing trade restrictions on components like graphic chips. That was a self-serving fiction, foisted on out-of-touch leaders by an industry that wanted the government to kneecap its competitors. Instead of a futile effort to keep this genie bottled up, the government and the industry should be preparing our society for the sweeping changes that are soon to come...."

Writes Zeynep Tufekci, in "The Dangerous A.I. Nonsense That Trump and Biden Fell For" (NYT)(free-access link).

Is Politico a giant scandal?

I was seeing tweets connecting it to USAID, but I hesitated to blog it. Now, Meade sends me this link to ZeroHedge: "Politico, NY Times Propped Up By Millions Of Dollars From US Government." So, I'm putting that up and I'll excerpt this:

On Tuesday, staffers at Politico were notified that a 'technical error' had prevented paychecks from going out. Many joked that this had something to do with the Trump administration putting a freeze on USAID funding....And while there's no evidence the two are linked, the suggestion prompted internet sleuths to look into Politico's sources of funding. What they found was absolutely shocking. According to government spending tracker website USASPENDING.gov, Politico — which laundered the Hunter Biden '51 intel officials' propaganda during the 2020 election — received up to $27 million (and by some counts $32 million) from various US agencies during the Biden years....

"If... your dress is for internal satisfaction — if it is an expression of your own sense of gender and what it means to you..."

"... simply wearing what makes you feel most like yourself and reminds you of your own belief system is the answer. If the point you want to make is about old gender norms, simply failing to buy into them, literally, may be enough. Maybe that means wearing chunky boots with a big tread rather than stilettos. Maybe it means a concert tee underneath a suit jacket.... If you want it to go further... there is a simple way to turn a fashion choice into a form of protest. Create a uniform for yourself that stands out simply because it is different from the uniform of the majority.... Wear any garment consistently, and at some point everyone else should get the message... "

The NYT style writer Vanessa Friedman writes in "What Should I Wear to Protest an Unspoken Dress Code? A reader asks how to push back against the resurgence of traditional dressing. Our critic discusses the history of rebellion through clothing and how to make a true 'fashion statement.'"

Speaking of a concert tee underneath a suit jacket and creating a uniform for yourself, I'm remembering that NYT article that's been getting a lot of attention —"Inside Musk’s Aggressive Incursion Into the Federal Government" (blogged here by me yesterday). It says:

Some of the young workers on Mr. Musk’s team share a similar uniform: blazers worn over T-shirts. At the G.S.A., some staff members began calling the team “the Bobs,” a reference to management consultant characters from the dark comedy movie “Office Space” who are responsible for layoffs.

I have a feeling Musk's guys look much cooler than the Bobs in "Office Space"... 

... and I bet they cause more anxiety.

What would you say you do here?

A funny answer would be: I protest gender norms.

"I danced 'til a quarter to 3/With the help, last night, of Daddy G/He was swingin' on the sax with a terrible tune/And I was dancin' all over the room."

 

"Daddy G" was Gene Barge, who died at the age of 98 last Sunday. See "Gene Barge, R&B Saxophonist Who Played on Landmark Hits, Dies at 98/Known as Daddy G, he recorded with Jackie Wilson, Chuck Willis and others, but he was best known for the Gary U.S. Bonds smash 'Quarter to Three'" (NYT). 

Barge "played on landmark hits of the rock and soul era, beginning with Chuck Willis’s swinging remake of the blues standard 'C.C. Rider.'... [which]. reached No. 1 on the R&B chart in 1957... In 1963, Mr. Barge was featured on Jimmy Soul’s calypso-derived 'If You Wanna Be Happy,'... Mr. Barge also played the wailing tenor part on Fontella Bass’s 'Rescue Me' (1965) and supplied the rhythmic drive... for Jackie Wilson’s 'Your Love Keeps Lifting Me (Higher and Higher)' (1967)."

Those are all great recordings. I grew up with them, and maybe you did too. Beautiful to listen to them all again this morning. 

ADDED: Here are Daddy G and Gary U.S. Bonds revisiting "Quarter to 3" (with lyrics articulated clearly enough that I think the line is "I danced 'til a quarter to 3/When they had that night with Daddy G"):

"Migrants deported from the US, and even 'dangerous' American citizens convicted of heinous crimes could be headed to a notorious hellhole prison in El Salvador..."

"After a meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in San Salvador on Monday, Rubio announced that the [Terrorism Confinement Center] could begin accepting inmates from the US.... The inmates are... crammed into their cells for 23.5 hours a day, with each cell holding 65 to 70 prisoners. Rival gang members are often kept in the same cells.... The mega-prison is capable of holding 40,000 people, with Bukele offering to fill some of the vacancies with criminal migrants and convicted US citizens, for a fee...."

From "Inside El Salvador’s mega-prison where president has offered to hold ‘dangerous’ US citizens and criminal migrants" (NY Post).

Here's some video of Rubio:

"That's an offer President Bukele made. Obviously, we'll have to study at our end. There are obviously legalities involved. We have a Constitution. We have all sorts of things. But it's a very generous offer. No one's ever made an offer like that, and to outsource at a fraction of the cost, at least some of the most dangerous and violent criminals that we have in the United States...."

"You have a beautiful voice and a beautiful accent. The only problem is I can’t understand a word you’re saying."

“You have a beautiful voice and a beautiful accent. The only problem is I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

Maybe the funniest Trump quote of all time. Instant classic.

pic.twitter.com/OMWCb8s7iI

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 5, 2025

I see that Matt Walsh comments: "Maybe the funniest Trump quote of all time. Instant classic." 

I don't think it's funny at all. It's truly awkward when you are on public display in a position where you are under pressure to respond to a person who speaks in a way that you can't understand. I've been in that situation more than once. It's difficult! I probably said something like "I'm terribly sorry, but I couldn't understand you," which led to a repetition and an embarrassing struggle. Trump avoided the problem of spending time on a repetition, and he was quite gentle and gracious. The female reporter wanted to talk about the plight of women in Afghanistan, and that's not a topic for comedy. It also wasn't the topic of that press briefing, so it was good that he didn't veer into the problems of countries other than Israel and its adversaries.

Joe Rogan says the book — "Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House" — lied about how and why Kamala Harris missed appearing on his podcast.

Here's the video, cued to the right place, and I've got transcript underneath it, but if you want to read an article about it, with lots of quotes from the podcast, here's this, from the Hollywood Reporter: "Joe Rogan Says Harris Campaign Lied About Being Misled by Show: 'We Have the Receipts'/The podcaster details what he says really happened between his podcast team and the Harris campaign during their much-disputed booking effort: 'It's someone trying to cover their ass.'"

I recommend the original source, the video:

Transcript (from Podscribe, with my editing based on listening to the audio):

Truth is the most valuable thing. If you're speaking openly about something. If you're talking about something publicly, truth is the most important thing. As soon as you are willing to violate truth, to preserve something else... now I can't listen to you anymore... And obviously politics is the best example of that. I mean especially today. I guess it's probably a good time to talk about this. There was a thing that came out recently. There was a book, some book about the Kamala Harris campaign where they talked about her getting on this show, and they said a bunch of things that weren't true. They... supposedly talked to like 150 different people about... what happened with her coming on this show.... They didn't talk to us. Which is kind of crazy....

At the Tuesday Night Café…

 … you can talk all night.

"President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed moving Gazans to a 'good, fresh, beautiful piece of land' in another country, offering a vision..."

"... of mass displacement likely to inflame sentiments in the Arab world as he welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House. Trump’s proposal was likely to provoke a furious reaction from many Palestinians as well as their Arab allies in the region, since it suggested permanently removing Gaza’s 2.2 million residents from Palestinian territory and settling them outside of their land. In saying that the Palestinians would not return to Gaza, Trump did not specify who would ultimately control the territory. But an annexation of Gaza has long been a goal of Israel’s far right, which has sought to fully expel Palestinians from Palestinian territory...."

From "Trump proposes permanent displacement of Gazans as he welcomes Netanyahu to White House/The two leaders were set to focus on the tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, relocating Palestinians, rebuilding Gaza and normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia" (WaPo).

"For as long as humans have made towers, some have leaned. The Tower of Pisa started settling unevenly..."

"... on its shallow foundation not long after its third floor was added, in 1178. Despite the increasingly obvious problem, five more floors were built over the next two centuries; the ornate bell chamber was finished in 1372. In 1990, when the angle passed five degrees... [c]rews siphoned earth from underneath the building to mitigate the problem, though by then it was unthinkable to eliminate the lean entirely. Millions of tourists came to see the flawed structure every year.... In the fourteenth century, when the medieval traveller Ibn Battuta visited the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, in Mosul, he wrote that its curving minaret was 'splendid,' and affectionately referred to it as al-Habda, or 'the hunchback.' The mosque was destroyed in 2017, during the Battle of Mosul. UNESCO later surveyed locals about restoring it, and ninety-four per cent of respondents said that they wanted the minaret rebuilt 'exactly as it was.'..."

From "The Leaning Tower of New York/How a luxury condo building in Manhattan went sideways" (The New Yorker).

Proposed museum installation: Loop this clip and project it endlessly onto each of the 4 walls of a darkened room.

I watched it 10 times and felt quite mesmerized:

Defund NPR. It should survive on its own.

pic.twitter.com/dtm5qbbxix

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2025

"The Supreme Court has also embraced the 'unitary executive theory,' as the legal idea is known."

"Legal experts and Trump allies said some of the new administration’s opening moves appear calibrated to tee up cases that rely on the theory, before a friendly Supreme Court that includes three appointees from Trump’s first term. Rulings in favor of the executive branch could cement a vision of the presidency defined by untrammeled authority.... 'It’s very, very dangerous to operate under the unitary executive theory when you have a president with autocratic tendencies,' [said lawprof David M.] Driesen.... Conservatives make a counter argument: The federal bureaucracy has grown so large and independent, they say, that it thwarts the will of democratically elected presidents to enact their agenda. The 'administrative state' or 'deep state' has essentially become a fourth branch of government in their view, unaccountable to the people.... Proponents say the theory rests on a plain reading of Article II of the Constitution, which says executive power 'shall be vested in a President of the United States' and the executive 'shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'..."

Writes Justin Jouvenal, in "Why the Supreme Court may be open to Trump’s push for expanded power/The Trump administration and the high court subscribe to a legal theory that grants extraordinary power to the president" (WaPo).

Nakedness presented as fashion is an old idea: "Robert Altman put an all-nude runway show at the end of 'Pret a Porter' in 1994."

"Anthony Haden-Guest wrote that Grace Jones showed up fully nude at Studio 54 so much that it became a bore. In 2003, Pam Grier said this about her work with the filmmaker Jack Hill in an interview with the AV Club: 'You’re not thinking about some sort of Victorian handicap called, "Don’t show your breasts, it’s considered indecent.'"' Nudity is still a taboo, but people have been challenging that taboo for a long time.... I mean, it looked like a Los Angeles old man/trophy wife couple that had been generated by slightly malfunctioning AI. If she had been wearing underwear, it wouldn’t have even registered as a stunt. It’s not blowing my mind, but it is interesting, if just from a dorm-room stoner 'what even are clothes, man?' point of view."

Said WaPo style reporter Shane O’Neill, in "The controversy over Bianca Censori’s naked Grammys outfit with Kanye West/Unpacking 'naked dressing,' power dynamics and what that red carpet stunt really meant."

I've been avoiding this topic because I like to withhold attention from people who are trying to get attention, but I liked Shane O’Neill's way of addressing the story, which I'm sure you've noticed.

The one thing I'd like to add is that I assume Censori is in on the performance and just as dedicated to it as Yoko Ono was part of "Two Virgins" — way back in 1968:

"Inside Musk’s Aggressive Incursion Into the Federal Government/The billionaire is creating major upheaval as his team sweeps through agencies, in what has been an extraordinary flexing of power by a private individual."

This is an important NYT article — with 6 authors (including Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman) — and I've been trying to force myself to blog it since yesterday evening. I'd read the article and thought of some idea of how to present it. 

"Aggressive Incursion" — was I going meditate on the meaning of "incursion" and the avoidance of its thesaurus roommate "coup"?

Now, I've delayed so long I'm tempted to just drop this and run...

Fraud in the federal government is closer to 10% of disbursements, so more like ~$700 billion per year.

Outright waste is at least 15%, so another trillion+ dollars.

Anyone who works in government knows this. https://t.co/P0622Wr2Y6

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2025

... but I'll go on. I'll find my way back to where I was going. Ah, yes. It was this:

"The Senate Finance Committee voted along party lines, 14-13, to forward the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the full Senate..."

"Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and physician who had been on the fence about Mr. Kennedy, cast the deciding vote...."

The NYT reports.

"There’s this tyranny of beauty, especially among trans women.There’s this feeling that, if we’re not beautiful enough, we’re not really women."

Writes Jennifer Finney Boylan, quoted in "A 'Weary but Fabulous' Poster Girl for Trans Life Opens Up About Aging/In her fifth memoir, 'Cleavage,' Jennifer Finney Boylan writes about her 36-year marriage, her adult children and why she keeps telling her story" (NYT).

Early in her new memoir, “Cleavage,” Jennifer Finney Boylan describes a moment of reckoning in a changing room. A size 12 dress is too snug....

The problem wasn’t that she’d gained almost 50 pounds in 25 years. “The crisis was that it mattered to me now, as a woman,” Boylan, 66, writes. “When I was a man (sic), I can say most definitively that it had not.”

Is that "(sic)" in the memoir or is the NYT inserting it? I'm going to guess, because of the use of parentheses instead of brackets, that it's in the memoir.

Did not looking good enough matter to Boylan because she was a woman — and that's female psychology — or because she was transgender — and had taken on the task of influencing others to perceive her as a woman? Is it about expressing what's inside you or getting the response you want from other people?

"Partner with Trump when he’s right—like on DEI."

That's point #3 on a 4-point list by Ruy Teixeira, in "Trump 2.0: A Survival Guide for Democrats" (Free Press).

DEI is of comparatively recent vintage and the programs are now indelibly associated with racial preferences, oppression hierarchies, ideological indoctrination, and language policing. Those aren’t American values at all.... Racial preferences are very, very unpopular and have been for a long time.... 

Most voters, especially working-class voters, believe, like Martin Luther King Jr., that people should “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” A 2022 University of California Dornsife survey found that more than 90 percent of Americans agree that America should strive for color-blind tolerance. But many Democrats dismiss the idea of color blindness as either hopelessly naive or itself a racist dog-whistle.

And that fits so tightly with the Democrats' 2 favorite arguments: 1. You're dumb, and 2. You're racist. Which reminds me — the #1 item on Teixeira's 4-point list is: "Avoid name-calling."

I'm halfway through quoting all 4 items, so let me continue. #2 is "Moderate — starting with immigration." And #4 is "Embrace energy abundance."

Yeah, the Democrats cannot do these things. Not unless they get their own Trump. Someone extremely daring, charismatic, and powerful who barges in and reshapes the party around him. It could have been RFK Jr., but they used their grubby little ways to keep him off the ballot. And now who is out there?

At the Monday Night Café...

... you can talk all night.

"Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after speaking twice by telephone with Mr. Trump, said the tariffs would be postponed by 30 days as the two countries negotiate a border deal."

"That announcement came hours after Mexico negotiated a similar delay, and agreed to send thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to curb drug smuggling and illegal immigration.... After their call — which Mr. Trump described as 'very good' — Mr. Trudeau announced the delay in a social media post. As part of the agreement, he said, Canada would help form a 'Canada- U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering.' 'I have also signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl and we will be backing it with $200 million,' Mr. Trudeau said...."

The NYT reports.

Another success.

"President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico struck a deal with the Trump administration to delay stiff tariffs, which were set to take effect on Tuesday, for a month..."

"... as the two countries reached a series of agreements on border security. Ms. Sheinbaum agreed to deploy 10,000 troops, who President Trump said would be designated to stop the flow of migrants and illegal drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border... She said it was important for 'humanitarian' reasons for Mexico to help control the flow of fentanyl into the United States, and she said there was a plan to deploy the troops immediately."

From "Live Updates: Mexico Reaches Deal With U.S. to Delay Trump Tariffs/President Trump said he would pause tariffs on Mexico for a month, but levies on Canada and China were still set to take effect on Tuesday. U.S. shares fell at the opening bell, following drops in Asian and European markets, amid fears of a trade war" (NYT).

A success for Trump. I hope this goes well.

"It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm. What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair."

Said Elon Musk, quoted in "USAID staffers told to stay out of DC headquarters after Musk said Trump agreed to shut it down: ‘Just a ball of worms'" (NY Post).

Trump [said]... that USAID, which was founded in 1961 to provide humanitarian, developmental and security assistance, had “been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out.”...  Musk and other critics have accused the agency of funneling money toward left-wing causes in the roughly 120 countries it assists....

"Let's just take Superbowl Sunday. Mmkay? It's gonna affect beer. Mmkay? Most of it — Corona, here — comes from Mexico. It's gonna affect your guac. Because what is guacamole made of? Avocados. Both from Mexico."

Chuck Schumer claims that President Trump's tariffs will raise the price of beer because "most of it comes from Mexico" while holding a can of corona.

This might be the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen a politician do lmfao. pic.twitter.com/z4Z0W22gUe

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 3, 2025

Chuck Schumer is attempting to lure Americans away from Trump by tempting us with the humble indulgences beer and guacamole — drinking and snacking — paired with watching television. But even if Americans were hopelessly addicted to these fattening pleasures, we could still, easily, choose a non-Mexican beer and serve those tortilla chips with melted cheese instead of that avocado paste. That might work out well for Wisconsin — home of beer and cheese — and quite badly for Mexico. What is it going to do with all those avocados if we say we'd rather push for Mexico to help us with the border problem than continue to mindlessly consume that that green goo... that sludge... that guck... 

This is fresh fruit, farmed in vast quantity in Mexico, where it will rot if not sold. What am I missing? We will easily win this trade war. And I'm sure Schumer knows all this and is embarrassed to be smarmily plying us with a beer and an avocado.

By the way, Americans didn't use to care about avocados at all. Here's an 2015 article in The Atlantic — "The Selling of the Avocado/How the 'alligator pear' went from obscure delicacy to America's favorite fruit":

"Play the Beatles music to your kids.... We need this music in the world. We need peace and love. And we need the magic of the 60s to stay alive."

Said Sean Lennon, accepting a Grammy — for "best rock performance" — and uttering an ambiguity (does "to stay alive" refer to the 60s magic or to us (we'll die without it)):

Watch Sean Lennon's acceptance speech as they accept the GRAMMY for BEST ROCK PERFORMANCE for "NOW AND THEN" at the 2025 GRAMMYs. #TheBeatles#NowAndThen#SeanOnoLennon #GRAMMYS2025 #Grammys pic.twitter.com/zWWzpygPkO

— Carlos 🎧 🇦🇷 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@carlosgvizcaino) February 3, 2025

And here's the "performance" that won:

The Beatles have won a GRAMMY Award for “Best Rock Performance” for their song “Now and Then”pic.twitter.com/W6fYGSZjbL

— The Beatles Earth (@BeatlesEarth) February 3, 2025

"During remarks to employees at the American Embassy in Panama City, Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban migrants, joked..."

"... that he’d told aides that he wanted to pay his first visit 'to a place where they speak Spanish, because I’m bilingual,' proceeding to show off his fluency in the language. Mr. Rubio acknowledged America’s complicated history with Panama, a former Colombian territory that was founded after President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration, eyeing the potential for a shortcut between America’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts, backed breakaway separatists who declared independence in 1903. Mr. Rubio noted that the country 'was born in many ways here as a result of the interests of the United States,' and said the relationship had had its 'ups and downs.' The downs include a 1989 U.S. invasion of the country to arrest the country’s de facto ruler, Gen. Manuel Noriega, on charges of drug trafficking and racketeering.... [Panama's President José Raúl] Mulino also said on Sunday that Panama, which in 2017 became the first country in the region to sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a far-reaching infrastructure program, would not renew the agreement...."

I'm reading the NYT coverage of Marco Rubio's trip to Panama, "In Panama, Rubio Says China Threatens Canal, Demanding ‘Immediate’ Action/The secretary of state said the United States could take steps to 'protect its rights.' Panama’s leader said he was sure that President Trump wouldn’t seize the canal."

The NYT says Rubio "showed off" his fluency in Spanish and "joked" about it, as if it were an amusing side line. But it is important and tremendously useful to his role as Secretary of State. Perhaps to recognize its high value would be to impugn all the many Secretaries of State who were not fluent in Spanish.

If my research — hastily done on Grok — is correct, there was only one other Secretary of State who was fluent in Spanish. That was Henry Clay, back in the time of John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829. What about Thomas Jefferson? — you may be wondering. Jefferson, the first Secretary of State, was fluent in French, Latin, and Italian, but had only a minimal knowledge of Spanish.

Sunrise — 7:20.

At the Lunchtime Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

Photo (of me) by Meade. It was 7:20 a.m. — a light snow had fallen. All melted now. It's 36° — going up to 47.

"We pay hundreds of Billions of Dollars to SUBSIDIZE Canada. Why? There is no reason. We don’t need anything they have."

"We have unlimited Energy, should make our own Cars, and have more Lumber than we can ever use. Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Harsh but true! Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada — AND NO TARIFFS!"

Writes President Trump, at Truth Social.

I like how he capitalized all the C words — Canada, Cars, Country, Cherished.

AND: There's one question — and I've raised it before — which is why would Canada be only one state? Why not 2... or 10... or more? The answer is:

"I used to love feeling her body, her big body, next to me in bed, the softness of it. The extra tummy and..."

"... extra booty was comforting and reassuring. I miss that. The voluptuousness, being able to lean up next to her and feel her, for lack of a better word, draping over me or onto me. That’s no longer an option.... I’ve told her: 'I don’t recognize you. I need a road map.' I think she’s become a different person."

Said one husband, quoted in "How Weight-Loss Drugs Can Upend a Marriage/Doctors warn about their physical side effects, but they can also have unexpected effects on intimacy" (NYT).

When I clicked to read this article, I assumed it was going to be about the loss of sexual desire as a side effect of the drug. I was surprised to see that it was about the loss of desire in the partner who was not the one taking the drug.

But wait, the drug-taking partner is part of the problem (which is that they haven't had sex since she started the drug). She's finding it "easier to say no" to what she doesn't want, but purports to "want to want to have sex." 

If the drug removes the desire for food, why wouldn't it also affect that other physical desire? How closely related are these desires?

"We have no coherent message. This guy is psychotic, and there’s so much, but everything that underlines it is white supremacy and hate."

"There needs to be a message that is clear on at least the underlying thing that comes with all of this."

Said Representative Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas, quoted in "'We Have No Coherent Message': Democrats Struggle to Oppose Trump/More than 50 interviews with Democratic leaders revealed a party struggling to decide what it believes in, what issues to prioritize and how to confront an aggressive right-wing administration" (NYT).

It was crafty of Trump to cause incoherence by seeming "psychotic." Or... it was inept of Democrats to allow their idea that Trump is mentally disordered to justify their own mental disorder. Crockett seems to think that coherence can be restored by simply and forthrightly centering the message on the other side's "white supremacy and hate."

"At the request of and in coordination with the family, the Army is releasing the name of the third Soldier who died while performing a training mission near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 29."

"Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, served as an aviation officer (15A) in the regular Army from July 2019 to January 2025. She has no deployments. She was assigned to the 12th Aviation Battalion, Ft Belvoir, Va. Her awards include the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon. Our deepest condolences go out to her family, and all the families who are mourning the loss of their loved ones impacted by this devastating accident...."

Reads the statement from the Army.

"An honour to have my IQ questioned by you Mr VP. But your attempts to speak for Christ are false and dangerous."

"Nowhere does Jesus suggest that love is to be prioritised in concentric circles. His love is universal."

Said Rory Stewart, a podcaster, quoted in "JD Vance says Rory Stewart has ‘low IQ’ in Christian values clash/The US vice-president copies Trump’s playbook with response to the former minister’s claims that his rhetoric was ‘false and dangerous'" (London Times).

Vance's original statement was: "There’s this old school — and I think it’s a very Christian concept by the way — that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritise the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that."

When Stewart disagreed, Vance came at him with: "Does Rory really think his moral duties to his own children are the same as his duties to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away? Does anyone? This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years. Rory Stewart thinks he has an IQ of 130 when it’s really 110.'"

It's not a question of what Rory really thinks but what Jesus really said. What IQ does Vance ascribe to Jesus?

"Finding a studio that made her 'feel comfortable enough to be creative' took time, she said, and eventually, she found Pot, a studio in Los Angeles that seeks to empower people of color in ceramics."

"'In that studio, I met a lot of people that help me feel safe and feel able to create whatever I want without thinking: Am I going to sell this or is this going to be something that people are going to want in their stores?' said Ms. Muñoz, who now lives in El Paso and has a studio in Guadalajara, Mexico."

From "That Art Piece on Your Coffee Table? It’ll Get You High. Cannabis paraphernalia is joining the world of home décor. Here are some of the most interesting new designs and designers" (NYT)(free-access link).

I'm expending one of my 10 gift links on this one because I want you to see some of the godawful pottery the NYT is promoting for artists and empowerers of people of color. I found this article at the top of the NYT home page, right next to "Trump Favors Blunt Force in Dealing With Foreign Allies and Enemies Alike." No pun intended, I'm sure.

I'm old enough to remember the kind of gigantic atrocious ashtray that was regarded as an "art piece on your coffee table," back in the heyday of tobacco smoking. 

Smoking paraphernalia "joined the world of home decor" a long time ago.  

By the way, did you ever look and look and finally find a place where people helped you feel safe and feel able to create whatever you want without thinking and then you relocated to Mexico?

Now, get out there and be creative. Creative for the people. Of color. Perhaps orange. Or avocado....

At the Sunrise 6:52 Café...

... you can talk all night.

"Mr. Musk, who has been given wide latitude by President Trump to find ways to slash government spending, has recently fixated..."

"... on Treasury’s payment processes, criticizing the department in a social media post on Saturday for not rejecting more payments as fraudulent or improper. It is not clear whether the team led by Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has blocked any payments since gaining access to the system."

From "Elon Musk’s team has gotten access to the Treasury Department’s payments system" (NYT).

This continues the story discussed earlier today in "What the DOGE team discovered."

"Whereas the prince you married could not be forgiven for his traditionalist entitlement/The man on the rock in the fog might be kind."

I'm reading a long cartoon in the NYT by Liana Finck, "I Quit the Patriarchy and Rescued My Marriage."

Today's the first day of the month, so I got a new infusion of gift links to hand out. That's the first one, an interesting read with charming drawings. You probably already know the things Finck seems to have realized, but she's under 40 and you're old, aren't you?

"This morning I ordered precision Military air strikes on the Senior ISIS Attack Planner and other terrorists he recruited and led in Somalia."

"These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies. The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians. Our Military has targeted this ISIS Attack Planner for years, but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did! The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that 'WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!'"

Writes President Trump, at X, just now. 

The Democrats have elected their party chair.

Introducing the new Chair of the DNC: @KenMartin73. pic.twitter.com/PIC6zBO6u7

— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) February 1, 2025

See my discussion of the race for the chair, earlier today, here.

ADDED: Here's the NYT article on the subject, "Democrats Elect Ken Martin, a Party Insider, to Lead the D.N.C./The Democratic National Committee chose Mr. Martin, the leader of the Minnesota Democrats, to help oversee a demoralized national party split over its future and its response to President Trump."

"I mean, when you talk to these Republican lawmakers privately, they all understand a vote against something that Donald Trump really cares about is a vote to end your career."

"I mean, there's not that many people who are willing to end their career. So even though I know for a fact there are a whole bunch of Republicans who if it was a private secret vote, would vote against — en masse — many of these nominees that he's put up, they won't dare do it in a public setting under the gaze of Donald Trump. And there's actually something deeper that's happened in American politics that Trump has changed. A generation ago, if you were a member of Congress, you could kind of protect yourself and defend yourself by raising money and having coalitions and whatever. All of that has been obliterated by Donald Trump's monopoly on the attention landscape. And If you get in their cross hairs, it doesn't matter what kind of a war chest you have that will be squirted away in two days, you are finished, your career's done."

Said Jonathan Swan, on yesterday's episode of the NYT's "Daily" podcast, "Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force."

ADDED: I figure he said "squirted away" because it's the NYT and "pissed away" is considered dirty, but "squirted away" sounds dirtier. I had to laugh.

"'I was so distraught when I heard this news last night,' said Senator Tim Kaine... who for years has opposed adding flights at Reagan..."

"... and warned of the dangers posed by overcrowding the D.C. airspace. 'I will not be able to rewatch the speech I gave on the Senate floor about it because it would make me too upset,' he added. Last year, as the Senate debated the latest round of additional flights, Mr. Kaine said he feared the prospect of people sticking a microphone in lawmakers’ faces after a tragedy and saying 'you were warned and you voted for it anyway.'"

From "Congress Approved More Flights at Reagan Despite Warnings of Danger/Lawmakers repeatedly added flights despite fears of delays and accidents" (NYT)(Congress has repeatedly voted to increase the number of daily flights at Reagan National Airport, adding departures that made life more convenient for lawmakers...).

"What’s needed is a Democratic Party where grassroots activists and their allies in labor, environmental, and civil rights organizations sweep the pablum of past messaging aside..."

"... and replace it with an absolute commitment to economic and social and racial justice that gives frustrated Americans something to vote for. That means that the next DNC chair cannot be simply a competent manager—or, worse yet, a mere fund-raising complement to the party’s plodding congressional leadership.... But what the party needs just now is a new Fred Harris—a 21st-century version of the fierce Oklahoma populist who shook up the DNC during his brief tenure in the late 1960s and early 1970s.... When he was DNC chair and later as a presidential candidate, Fred Harris sought to create a Democratic Party that was recognized for its opposition to privilege. 'The fundamental problem is that too few people have all the money and power, and everybody else has too little of either,' he argued. 'The widespread diffusion of economic and political power ought to be the express goal—the stated goal—of government.'  And of a Democratic Party...."

Writes John Nichols in "What the Next DNC Chair Must Do to Save the Party/Yes, pushing back against Donald Trump is essential. But to do that, the Democrats must turn themselves into a fighting force for economic justice" (The Nation).

The Dems need to be something substantial, not just opposition to Trump, and yet I think that Trump won by opposing the things the Democrats had been doing while he was taking a term off and regenerating. Is Nichols urging Democrats to go back to those substantive positions? Actually, no. He wants someone like Harris — Fred Harris — and "Harris wanted to identify the Democrats as the vehicle for raising people of all races out of poverty and to make the party the political wing of the working class." People of all races.

The vote is today, and, as WaPo puts it, "The top two candidates in Saturday’s election are Ken Martin, the head of Minnesota Democrats, and Ben Wikler, the chairman of Wisconsin Democrats":

"And he went, ‘It’s the water. What do you want me to do, swim there?’ And I was like, exactly. F*ck right. You’re exactly right. It’s a stupid question. And you got just the answer you deserve."

NEW: Bill Maher says Trump was “exactly right” to mock reporter over “stupid question” about the plane crash site.

This impression is actually pretty good.

“They asked him a question about the crash, and they said, ‘Will you visit the crash site now?’ Every other politician… pic.twitter.com/NfyLTnMh1p

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) February 1, 2025

"President Trump will carry out his threat of 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10 per cent on Chinese goods..."

"..., and said he 'absolutely' intends to impose tariffs on the European Union. Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday evening there was 'nothing' the three countries could do to avoid the tariffs, which in the US neighbours’ case are aimed at forcing them to curb the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs into America. The president made no mention of plans to target the UK, but added: 'We’ll be doing something very substantial with the European Union,' and said that the bloc had 'treated us so terribly.'..."

From "Trump to impose high tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China/The levies are intended to force countries to cut the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs into America. The president said he has plans to include the EU" (London Times).

"Trump is a long-standing admirer of the era, more than a century ago, when high tariffs were the cornerstone of US trade policy and Treasury revenue. 'We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country,' he said.... Chrystia Freeland, the former finance minister who is running to replace Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party, said... that she was calling for a 100 per cent tariff on American wine, beer and spirits, as well as Tesla vehicles.... 'We need to be very targeted, very surgical, very precise,' Freeland said. 'We need to look through and say who is supporting Trump and how can we make them pay a price for a tariff attack on Canada.'"

What's "surgical" about going after "wine, beer and spirits"? Is it just that it always seems relatively palatable to make drinking more expensive — the idea of "sin taxes"?

By the way, when and where did the term "sin tax" arrive? Grok couldn't pin it down for me for me, so I checked the NYT archive. The second appearance of the term, on December 24, 1928, was as the name of a play:

What the DOGE team discovered.

The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.

They literally never denied a payment in their entire career.

Not even once. https://t.co/kInoGWdw4C

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 1, 2025

Here's how The Washington Post processes that: "Senior U.S. official exits after rift with Musk allies over payment system/A top Treasury career staffer, David A. Lebryk, announced his retirement. Surrogates of Musk’s DOGE effort had sought access to sensitive payment systems":

"The issue of the female aviator’s identity is particularly sensitive as Mr. Trump has also blamed diversity, without evidence, for the crash."

"In addition, Pete Hegseth, the newly confirmed defense secretary, has said that the military has diminished its standards by welcoming women and racial minorities into its ranks. He has echoed Mr. Trump’s comments on rooting out diversity programs in the government.... Mr. Hegseth said on Thursday that the Black Hawk helicopter was 'doing a required annual night evaluation' flight and was being flown by 'a fairly experienced crew.'..."

From "Army Withholds Identity of Helicopter Pilot Killed in Crash/The names of two male crew members were released, but the family of the third aviator requested privacy" (NYT).

The reason the Army gave for withholding the name, we're told, was "her family’s request for privacy." And "It is unclear what specifically motivated the aviator’s family to make the request."

If we had the name, everyone would be able to research her, to read anything she may have written on social media, to look at photographs of her, and to express all sorts of opinions about her, including — taking a cue from Trump — theories about how she was promoted beyond her merit. Her death — and the death of everyone else in the disaster — would merge with the discussion of DEI and Trump's dramatic effort to snuff it out nationwide.

Sunrise, western view — 7:11, 7:16.

You can talk all night.

AND: Here's the picture Meade took of me (at 7:17):

"Glib, opinionated and extemporaneously eloquent, Mr. Button explained the sport in a way never before seen on television..."

"... as if he were a critic covering the opera or ballet. He saw figure skating as a rare blend of athleticism and artistry. 'It has music, it has choreography, it has personality,' he said. 'You watch it not to see only who wins, but to see how they win.' Over time, he acquired a reputation for sometimes withering remarks about skaters, their costumes and program. 'That was an angry tango,' he said of one less-than-sublime Olympic ice dancing routine. He described another performance as 'slapped together without very much thought or intelligence.' Mr. Button had 'a candor and critical objectivity that make the gee-whiz, smiling-toothed reportage of video’s full-time sportscasters seem hopelessly out of date,' New York Times television critic Jack Gould wrote of Mr. Button at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France."

From "Dick Button, Olympic skating champion and TV analyst, dies at 95/The two-time gold medalist later became the voice of figure skating, known for his sometimes acerbic critiques" (WaPo)(free-access link).

I loved watching Olympic figure skating when Dick Button was the announcer. It was never the same without him. For me, personally, he was the most important sports commentator.

"[T]he FAA under Trump in 2019 launched a program to hire controllers using the very criteria he decried at his news conference."

"'FAA Provides Aviation Careers to People with Disabilities,' the agency announced on April 11, 2019.... The link under 'targeted disabilities' is now dead, but the Wayback Machine retains links from June 2017 and January 2021 that show the page was unchanged during Trump’s tenure. The list included: Hearing (total deafness in both ears), Vision (Blind), Missing Extremities, Partial Paralysis, Complete Paralysis, Epilepsy, Severe intellectual disability, Psychiatric disability, Dwarfism...."

Writes Glenn Kessler, awarding 4 Pinocchios, in "Trump launched air controller diversity program that he now decries/At news conference, Trump read a list of disabilities he calls disqualifying, but his administration started such hiring in 2019" (WaPo)(free-access link).

"In technofeudalism, you’re just a digital serf. Your value as a human being, as someone built and made in the image and likeness of God..."

"... and endowed with the life spirit of the Holy Spirit — they don’t consider that. Everything is digital to them. They are, at the end of the day, transhumanist. And what is transhumanist? Transhumanist is somebody who sees Homo sapien here and Homo sapien plus on the other side of what they call the singularity. And that’s why they’re all rushing — whether it’s artificial intelligence, regenerative robotics, quantum computing, advanced chip design, CRISPR, biotech, all of it — to come to this point of which the oligarchs are going to lead that revolution. And why are they going to do it? No. 1, when you get to know them and see where they’re spending the money, it’s because they want eternal life. You know why? Because they’re complete atheistic 11-year-old boys that are kind of science fiction 'Dungeons & Dragons' guys, and we’ve turned the nation over to that. And yes, I’m going to fight it every fucking step of the way. This is taking us back a millennium to feudalism.... They’re all superprogressive liberals, they’re all technofeudalists, they don’t give a flying fuck about the human being.... And they have to be stopped. If we don’t stop it, and we don’t stop it now, it’s going to destroy not just this country, it’s going to destroy the world...."

Said Steve Bannon, in "Steve Bannon on ‘Broligarchs’ vs. Populism/The fight for Donald Trump’s ear" (NYT)(listen and read the transcript without a pay wall here, at Podscribe).

"[I]f you’re a college graduate with a humanities degree and want to make a salary while still vaguely doing something that deals with reducing racism in America..."

"... D.E.I. is one of the few possible career paths. The problem, at a grand scale, is that D.E.I.’s malleability and its ability to survive in pretty much every setting, whether it’s a nearby public school or the C.I.A., means that it has to be generic and ultimately inoffensive, which means that, in the end, D.E.I. didn’t really satisfy anyone.... Both the inspired and the terrified built out a D.E.I. infrastructure in their workplaces.... Trump... is taking a relatively powerless program, vilifying it, and using its dissolution as proof that he has single-handedly ended the woke era.... [T]he war on D.E.I. is almost certainly a catchall scapegoat meant to distract from Trump’s larger plans to gut the federal government, but I also can’t imagine it will hold the public’s attention.... Trump is going to need a better distraction, but one thing we know about him is that he stubbornly sticks to a theme. He might not be able to credibly blame diversity for everything from plane crashes to children’s reading scores, but I imagine he will try."

Writes Jay Caspian Kang, in "What’s the Point of Trump’s War on D.E.I.? To distract from his larger plan to gut the federal government, the President has taken a relatively powerless program and turned it into an excuse for everything that goes wrong in the country" (The New Yorker).

"But she upended expectations once more, surviving and soon returning to a passion project she had been working on..."

"... a spoken-word album of recitations of classic Romantic poems. For one last time, she allowed a glimpse of the other side to inform her art, and the uncompromising tone of her voice: 'I sound more vulnerable,' she told me in an interview at the time, reflecting on her performance of Alfred Tennyson’s 'Lady of Shalott,' 'which is kind of nice, for the Romantics.'"

From "Marianne Faithfull Made an Art of Upending Expectations/The singer, who died on Thursday at 78, spent decades in the spotlight exercising a very specific and subversive power" (NYT).

You can, like me, download the entire album — "She Walks in Beauty" — here, on Spotify.

By the way, my favorite episode of Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast is the one about "Lady of Shalott."

Do you listen to poetry on Spotify? Any recommendations? I was just enjoying "The Best Cigarette" yesterday. Check out "Nostalgia."

"When Donald J. Trump sued CBS for $10 billion days before the 2024 election, accusing the company of deceptively editing a '60 Minutes' interview with Vice President Kamala Harris..."

"... many legal experts dismissed the litigation as a far-fetched attempt to punish an out-of-favor news outlet.... In a preview of the interview that aired on 'Face the Nation,' CBS’s Sunday morning show, Ms. Harris was shown giving a different answer than the one she gave in the version of the interview that was broadcast the next evening on '60 Minutes.'... CBS News said that Ms. Harris had given one lengthy answer to Mr. Whitaker’s question, and that the network followed standard journalistic practice by airing a different portion of her answer in prime-time because of time constraints.... Mr. Trump’s legal complaint relied on a largely untested interpretation of a Texas law that prohibits deceptive trade practices in things like marketing products to consumers.... Regardless of the lawsuit’s merit... Paramount owns broadcasting licenses, [and] it needs the blessing of the Federal Communications Commission to complete its planned merger with Skydance...."

From "Paramount in Settlement Talks With Trump Over ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit/A settlement, if reached, would be an extraordinary concession by a major U.S. media company to a sitting president" (NYT).

That makes it sound like an attempt at bribery. Perhaps Trump needs to avoid settling this case.

Hollywood gets a wokeness wake-up call.

They gave 13 Oscar nominations to what, I've heard, is a terrible movie, and the over-honoring seems to have to do with the transgender theme and the transgender star.

But now "'Emilia Pérez' Star Karla Sofía Gascón Under Fire Over Tweets About Muslims, George Floyd, Oscars Diversity" (Variety).

A tweet from Nov. 22, 2020: "I’m Sorry, Is it just my impression or is there more muslims in Spain? Every time I go to pick up my daughter from school there are more women with their hair covered and their skirts down to their heels. Next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic."

And from Sept. 2, 2020: "Islam is marvelous, without any machismo. Women are respected, and when they are so respected they are left with a little squared hole on their faces for their eyes to be visible and their mouths, but only if she behaves. Although they dress this way for their own enjoyment. How DEEPLY DISGUSTING OF HUMANITY."

"On Tuesday, federal employees got an email with the subject line 'Fork in the Road,' inviting them to resign..."

"... in exchange for getting to work from home — probably on administrative leave — until Sept. 30. It was very similar to an email Twitter employees got shortly after Musk took over, down to the same subject line. But while the Twitter email saw employees resign in 'droves,' the current round is unlikely to have the same effect. The Trump administration is about to discover why reforming the government is so different from — and so much harder than — reforming the private sector.... Federal workplaces... select people who are risk-averse and willing to trade higher pay and autonomy for a job that offers excellent benefits and a low likelihood of getting fired.... These are not mercurial young tech workers, ready to flounce off to the next start-up if management isn’t to their liking. These workers are older... with an average tenure... three times longer than that of a typical private-sector employee. And their jobs often have no equivalent in the private sector. I will be surprised if many of them resign.... [T]hese kinds of buyouts often see star performers leave while the laggards cling to jobs they can’t easily replace...."

Writes Megan McArdle, in "Trump, Musk are about to learn why reforming the government is so hard/Musk’s cutbacks at Twitter might have worked. The federal government is a different beast" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Star performers and laggards — are those the 2 groups? Just because you're not a highly energized risk-taker doesn't mean you're a slow-moving loser. What sort of person belongs in this bureaucracy?