Sunrise — 7:18, 7:24.

Write about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"Herman Melville captured, without endorsing, the nationalist fervor in his novel 'White Jacket': 'We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people...'"

"'... the Israel of our time. God has predestinated, mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel in our souls.' Walt Whitman joined the chorus: 'Have the elder races halted? / Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas? / We take up the task eternal.' There’s no confidence like adolescent confidence, for a person or a country."

Writes David Brooks, in "How Trump Will Fail" (NYT).

I can see why this image of a wild, raw, aspiring America appeals to Trump....

Do you see why a tame, cooked, demoralized America appeals to his antagonists? 

Not for delectations sweet/Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious/Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment....

"The initial vote was 50-50, with three Republicans — Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — joining all 47 Democrats in voting no."

From "VP Vance breaks tie in the Senate to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary/Three Republicans voted with every Democrat against Trump’s controversial pick to lead the Pentagon, forcing Vance to step in and put Hegseth over the top" (NBC News).

We're told "McConnell's vote was a stunning rebuke of Hegseth and Trump, whom the former Senate Republican leader has clashed with repeatedly over the years."

"It’s like daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off."

This is a big topic on X this morning:

MEL GIBSON on Trump heading to California today: “It’s like daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off.”

pic.twitter.com/8mFU55JP7N

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 25, 2025

Scanning the posts over there, I'm mostly seeing the sharing of the video, in a manner that seems to approve of Trump's style and Gibson's rhetoric. The articulated criticism seems to have more to do with a purported weirdness to calling Trump "daddy" than any outrage about using the corporal punishment of children as a simile. I'd say "he’s taking his belt off" is much milder than "he's kicking ass" (which is a very common and accepted metaphor), so the focus on "daddy" seems apt. What I'd say about that is there's a longstanding practice of analyzing Democrats and Republicans as the "mommy party" and the "daddy party," and — as we can see in the video with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Trump, blogged below — the mommy/daddy contrast was very much on display in California yesterday. 

I'll make a more refined criticism of Gibson's simile. Mayor Bass represented the maternal tendency of the Democratic Party. She's in the mother position, not the child. Trump represented the role of the father, but if "daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off," he should be going after his children, because they've misbehaved. With respect to the children's mother, his wife, he should be helping her solve problems with the children, not going after her. I think — as you can see by my earlier post — that Trump was trying to encourage her to step up and to use her executive powers, to be an effective co-parent. Mommy and Daddy can work together. 

"I love you, Mittens... so very much."

Haters will say this is edited pic.twitter.com/fQqNOE9DaY

— Joel Fischer 🇺🇸 (@realJoelFischer) January 24, 2025

"If people are willing to get a dumpster and do it themselves and clean it out.... It'll look perfect within 24 hours and that's what he wants to do."

"He doesn't want to wait around for 7 months till the city hires some demolition contract... $25,000 to do his lot.... You have emergency powers just like I do, and I'm exercising my emergency powers. You have to exercise them.... You have a very powerful emergency power and you can do everything within 24 hours. Yes. And if individuals want to clear out their property, they can."

Said President Trump to L.A. Mayor Karen Bass:

 

Bass, struggling to keep up with Trump's time pressure, ventured: "Well, yes, but you know that you will be able to go back soon.... we think within a week."

7 months wasn't good enough for Trump and neither was a week. He said: "That's a long time away — I'll be honest — to me..... And — the most important thing — a week is a long [time to people who want to go in and clean out their own house]."

Bass interrupted to say that she wanted people to be safe, and Trump cut her off and overpowered her: "They're safe. They're safe. You know what? They're not safe. They're not safe now. They're going to be much safer. A week is actually a long time.... I watched hundreds of people. standing in front of their lots and they're not allowed to go in. It's all burned. It's gone. It's done.... It's not going to burn any more. There's nothing to burn. There's almost nothing to burn. And they want to go in there...."

Bass embodied caution. She articulated the interest in safety, but perhaps she wants to save the work for the contractors who — Trump says — will charge $25,000 for each lot cleared. Trump pictures the homeowners rushing in grabbing armloads of debris and heaving it into dumpsters overnight. But don't you need contractors to deliver and pick up those dumpsters? And won't some of those homeowners — are they the homeowners — injure themselves jumping about in the wreckage? What is the big hurry? But Bass comes across as weak and afraid to take action, while Trump seems commanding and sanguine, ready to unleash the power of the individual citizens who are raring to get in there and transform the landscape overnight. You can do everything within 24 hours. 

At the Friday Night Café...

... you can talk all night.

Trump with hurricane victims — today, in North Carolina.

"He Was Pushed in Front of a Subway Train. How Did He Survive?"

I'm using my last free-access link of the month on this very well-written NYT article by Katherine Rosman.

Suddenly he found himself in midair above the tracks. He saw the lights of an oncoming train, so close that he could make out the shape of the train’s operator. He did not expect to survive.

“My life did not flash before my eyes,” he said. “My thought was ‘I’ve been pushed, and I’m going to get hit by the train.’”

"Attorneys for the defendants called them peaceful demonstrators emulating sit-ins from the civil rights era."

"Federal prosecutors in court documents described their efforts as 'organized invasions' carried out with physical force, chains, ropes and locks — all of it carefully planned and live-streamed.... In a letter lobbying Trump for the pardons this month, the antiabortion Thomas More Society called them a group of 'peaceful pro-life Americans' that included 'grandparents, pastors, a Holocaust survivor, and a Catholic priest.' They argued to Trump that the [Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances] Act was unconstitutional and that part of prosecutors’ reasoning for bringing the charges was to protect the right to abortion, which no longer existed in 2023 because of the Supreme Court’s ruling the year before overturning Roe v. Wade."

From "Trump pardons antiabortion activists who blocked access to clinics/The pardons came the evening before thousands of activists are expected to march to the U.S. Capitol in the 52nd annual March for Life" (WaPo)(free-access link).

I have gone 60+ years without viewing the crucial seconds of the Zapruder film.

And this morning, I cannot scroll through X without it popping up in my feed over and over. I am still managing to avert my eyes, and yet I feel that I have now seen it... in the vertical realm of my peripheral vision. 

In any case, I'm glad to see that Trump has kept his promise and signed an order to release the rest of the files on the assassination of JFK, MLK Jr., and RFK. Here's RFK Jr. reacting:

RFK Jr. is thrilled that President Trump declassified all JFK, RFK, and MLK assassination files.

“I think it's a great move because we need to have more transparency in our government.”

“He is keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people… pic.twitter.com/R17PLW3rX7

— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) January 24, 2025

"I was doing life without parole."

pic.twitter.com/pbqRh9spnk

— Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU) January 24, 2025

"What drinkers often don’t realize is that alcohol contributes almost nothing to the final price of a drink."

I'm reading "Who Can Make a Mocktail That Makes Money? Drinking is down. That’s a problem for bars that depend on high-margin booze to pay the bills" (NY Magazine).

At Mister Paradise, the N/A Cosmo — a mix of cranberry and orange juices, simple syrup, and nonalcoholic Seedlip Grove — costs $1.59 to make. (The Seedlip alone costs $1.09 to add to the drink.) He sells it for $12. A full-strength Cosmo costs just 30 cents more: One ounce of Cointreau costs $1; an ounce and a half of Skyy vodka costs just 57 cents. The perceived value of alcohol among the public means Pornel can sell that drink for $17.

Trying to explain all this at the bar is impossible, of course. “It’s a losing battle — condescending. What am I going to do, break out a P&L statement at the table when they complain?” says Nick Padilla, an owner of El Pingüino....

""For his part, Libeskind has no patience with housing advocates’ frequently articulated belief that, in an extreme crisis, developers should churn out affordable homes as quickly as possible..."

"... without worrying too much about design. 'That’s propaganda!' he protests. 'It says that poorer people should live in lower-quality environments: "Don’t waste your time on innovation." But it’s the other way around! I would love all my colleagues to concentrate on this kind of housing because it needs the same kind of passion as an iconic skyscraper.'"

From "Daniel Libeskind Tries His Hand at Affordable Housing/The Atrium, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, is a fine proof-of-concept, but does it scale?" (NY Magazine).

Meanwhile, in North Carolina... how architectually interesting does housing need to be to inspire someone?

At the Thursday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"Bob wrote 'Mr. Tambourine Man' one night in my house in Berkeley Heights, N.J., sitting with my portable typewriter at my white Formica breakfast bar..."

"... in a swirl of chain-lit Camels cigarette smoke, his bony, long-nailed fingers tapping the words out on my stolen canary-colored Saturday Evening Post copy paper... Marvin Gaye sang 'Can I Get A Witness'’ from the six-foot speakers of my hi-fi in the room next to where he was, with Bob getting up from the typewriter each time the record finished in order to put the needle back at the start.”

Said Al Aronowitz, quoted in "Bob Dylan’s Draft of Lyrics, Once Tossed in Trash, Sells for $500,000/Two pages of lyrics, written in the kitchen of a pioneering rock ‘n’ roll journalist, offer glimpses into the Nobel Prize-winning musician’s writing process" (NYT).

Imagine writing one song while listening to another song — quite intentionally and through 6-foot speakers.

Alexinomia.

"People who feel it most severely might avoid addressing anyone by their name under any circumstance. For others, alexinomia is strongest around those they are closest to. For example, I don’t have trouble with most names, but when my sister and I are alone together, saying her name can feel odd and embarrassing, as if I’m spilling a secret, even though I’ve been saying her name for nearly 25 years. Some people can’t bring themselves to say the name of their wife or boyfriend or best friend—it can feel too vulnerable, too formal, or too plain awkward."

From "Please Don’t Make Me Say My Boyfriend’s Name/Why calling loved ones by their name is strangely awkward" (The Atlantic).

I feel this, though not severely. I'm glad to know, speaking of names, that there's a name for it — alexinomia.

I think part of the problem here comes from having been exposed to those people who excessively say the name of the person they're talking with — e.g., parents, teachers, and readers of "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

Headline for another unread column.

"Donald Trump's war on DEI is not about 'merit.'"

That's a piece in Salon by Amanda Marcotte.

I didn't read the column. The headline made me feel as though I'd already read it 100 times. But I did prompt Grok:"Make the argument that the dismantling of DEI is racist" and "Make the argument that the real racists are those who make the argument that the dismantling of DEI is racist."

There's an authenticity to getting robotic things from a real robot. If it's going to be automatic, I'd like a crisp 7- or 8-point list.

Maybe it's not automatic. Maybe I'm being unfair to Amanda Marcotte. But how many chances to surprise do you get in this world?

"From the way I’ve set this up, you might assume there are two possibilities: either we are indeed at the start of a new conservative era — the Conservative Golden Age — or

"... we’re still within the New Liberal Era, and Trump’s win in 2024 won’t be enough to terminate it once we look back a few decades from now. It’s still an open question. If two consecutive Eisenhower terms weren’t enough to interrupt the Long Liberal Era, and likewise for Clinton and the Long Conservative Era, then in principle, liberalism could survive two non-consecutive terms for Trump.I actually think there are four possibilities.... Scenario 1 — Conservative Golden Age.... The easiest route to Scenario 2 — The New Liberal Era is Still Alive, Baby! — would be if Trump mismanages some sort of crisis.... Scenario 3 — Stalemate.... Finally, Scenario 4 — Off the Charts — means that the liberal/conservative axis, as I’ve depicted it in the chart, will cease to represent American politics well. Maybe it’s centrist oligarchs and technocrats against a horseshoe theory coalition of the populist left and right.... Then, there are some darker scenarios...."

I'm reading Nate Silver's "Are we entering a Conservative Golden Age? Or will the vibe soon shift back to the left?"

Headline for an unread column.

"What It Means That No Republican Is Acting on the Pete Hegseth Allegations."

The piece is by Bret Stephens, and I did not read it. I think the answer is obvious, I'm pretty sure Stephens will not give the obvious answer, and I am not bound by protocol to sit through this sermon.

Jacques Audiard, Sean Baker, Brady Corbet, Coralie Fargeat, and James Mangold.

I'm reading the list of movie directors nominated for an Academy Award — the nominations were announced a few minutes ago — and I don't recognize any of the names.

I even care about one of the movies — the one about Bob Dylan — though I haven't gone out to see it, not yet at least. But I have to recognize that I don't care about present-day movie directors. They're not these giants of the culture like they were in past decades, not to me anyway. I cared when David Lynch died, and I never even particularly liked his movies. But he was an important cultural figure, and I felt interested and reverent about that. Maybe it's me, and I'm getting not just old but very old. 

What do you think? Have we lost something? Is there any way back? Or should we not even want to go back — back to that era of giants. I know Francis Ford Coppola had a movie this year. He's one of the giants, one of the names that used to come up time and again in the nomination lists. But he's not there this year, nor was he expected. Nobody liked his magnum opus. Hollywood is not growing giants anymore, and it has no use for magna opera.

Show Redditors finding a happy place to escape from Trump.

 

Link. Who would have thought, back when GWB was the hated devil, that he would one day provide solace to those who were agonizing over a far more hateful devil?

I like this picture someone put up. Do you see who it is? At first, I thought: LBJ??!? But he's too short:

"[T]hese criminal networks have extended their operations far beyond drug trafficking and human smuggling. They are now embedded in a wide swath of the legal economy..."

"... from avocado farming to the country’s billion-dollar tourism industry, making it hard to be absolutely sure that American companies are isolated from cartel activities. 'This has come up in previous administrations across the political spectrum and from members of Congress who have wanted to do it,' said Samantha Sultoon, a senior adviser on sanctions policy and threat finance in the Trump and Biden administrations. 'But no one has done it because they have looked at what the implications would be on trade, economic and financial relationships between Mexico and the United States.'..."

From "How Labeling Cartels ‘Terrorists’ Could Hurt the U.S. Economy Isolating U.S. companies from cartel activities could be almost impossible given that the criminal groups operate in sectors like agriculture and tourism, leaving some American businesses vulnerable to sanctions" (NYT).

"But no one has done it"... until Trump. I wonder how many of Trump's innovations are things the others have thought of but rejected. 

"Almost impossible" — that makes me think of this part of Trump's inaugural speech:

Lake Mendota — 3:26 p.m.

It was still too cold (and windy) to go out for the sunrise, but it had warmed up nicely by mid-afternoon. Just look at that. Toasty! Mid-20s — the same supposedly bone-chilling cold that drove the inauguration ceremony indoors. 

"They said, 'Sir, would you like to pardon everybody including yourself?' I said, 'I'm not going to pardon anybody. We didn't do anything wrong!'"

"And we had people that suffered, they're incredible patriots. We had people that suffered. We had Bannon put in jail, we had Peter Navarro put in jail. You had people that suffered, and far worse than that, they have lost their fortunes and whatever their nest egg — paying it to lawyers. People have said they wouldn't have even taken a pardon. This guy went around giving everyone pardons. And, you know, the funny thing (maybe the sad thing) is he didn't give himself a pardon — and if you look at it, it all had to do with him."

Said Trump, in a clip from an interview with Sean Hannity that will air tonight. Video at link.

"I’m not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin..."

"... and this despite the Radical Left’s Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX. We must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War, losing almost 60,000,000 lives in the process. All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a 'deal,' and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better. It’s time to 'MAKE A DEAL.' NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!"

Writes President Trump, at Truth Social.

That made me want to quote this passage from Trump's inaugural address:

JD Vance enters the Oval Office for the first time.

As we gathered for our meeting at the White House yesterday, JD Vance mentioned to us that he had never before visited the Oval Office. I told him and President Trump that I HAD to capture the moment on video. Only in America can a hardworking young man from Appalachia rise from… pic.twitter.com/H4aHOyyfVt

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) January 22, 2025

"I tend to think the search for authenticity in a new country is rooted in a desire for something we find missing at home."

"To live almost anywhere in the United States is to be surrounded by brand names. The supposedly authentic foreign experience is perhaps a sense of life untainted by the influence of global brands. Traveling abroad, we may find it only natural to dismiss anything else as less than the 'real' version of whichever country we’re visiting. Yet brands like KFC or McDonald’s are just as ingrained in the fabric of everyday life in Dublin, Paris or Tokyo as a given pub, bistro or noodle shop.... Fast food is indigenous to a world made by capitalism, you could say.... But step inside. Order something. Try speaking with the customers. You might even leave with a better understanding of how they live, what they struggle with and what they hope for themselves. In other words, by going to the most generic restaurant, you can learn what makes a place unique."

Writes Alex C. Park, in "Want an Authentic Travel Experience? Try McDonald’s. It’s a much realer version of the supposed authenticity we so often seek" (NYT).

"She was spotted carrying books including The Iliad, a classic saga of male rage and refusal to accept defeat, on the campaign trail."

From "Who Is JD Vance’s Wife? Second Lady Usha Vance, Former Democrat, Steals the Inauguration Spotlight/Just after his swearing-in, Donald Trump joked that he 'would have chosen' Usha as VP—'the only one smarter than' JD Vance" (Vanity Fair).

A classic saga of male rage and refusal to accept defeat — that amused me. The boundaries of the manosphere are vast.

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but apparently it's fine to judge a person by the visible cover of any book they happen to be carrying. Remember back in May 2008 when candidate Barack Obama was photographed carrying "The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria? The NYT had just reviewed the book and said:

Zakaria’s is not another exercise in declinism. His point is not the demise of Gulliver, but the "rise of the rest.”...  The real problem, Zakaria argues, is the rise of China.... Authoritarian modernization just hums along. The Party’s message reads "Enrich yourselves, but leave the driving to us,” and most of 1.3 billion Chinese seem happy to comply — and to consume. With power safely lodged in the Politburo, China does not conform to the historical pattern of "first rich, then rowdy,” which led to Tokyo’s and Berlin’s imperialist careers.....

How did we read his reading? 

"Society doesn’t allow women of color to be vulnerable at work. When you’re a first, you don’t get the benefit of the doubt."

"I want to be clear: I do not regret my decision to keep my life private while in office. This piece is no apology, it’s an explanation. An explanation of who I am, what I’ve been through, and what it’s like to come from where I come from and sit in the public eye.... From the beginning of my time as press secretary, I navigated the typically choppy waters of American politics.... And I have also trudged through thick, thick grief... For more than 18 months, I drove up to New York every weekend I could to see my mom.... As present as I was in organizing my mom’s [cancer] care, I still tried to maintain a sense of privacy when I visited her. I’d wear big sunglasses, a mask, and no makeup. Unable to help herself, my mom had already bragged about me to anyone who would listen. Yet the weight of it all felt like too much. I am used to heaviness.... But I was losing my grip. I told my mom I wanted to move to New York so I could help her full-time. 'You are not quitting your job,' she said.... Quitting the administration would hurt her more than my full-time caretaking would help....."

Writes Karine Jean-Pierre, in "Karine Jean-Pierre, President Biden’s Barrier-Breaking Press Secretary, Reveals Some Truths About Her Job/'I have kept details about my private life under lock and key,' she writes for Vanity Fair. 'Society doesn’t allow women of color to be vulnerable at work'" (Vanity Fair)(the mother's cancer was cured).

AND: Here's the new press secretary, who also faces the challenge of convincing you that her selection was merit-based:

That's Garth at 1:39 (and Ed Sullivan at 0:01).

Safe travels, Garth Hudson. The last man standing from a, genuine, band of all-stars.

RIP

pic.twitter.com/ad6f6fd6tk

— 𝙱𝚘𝚋𝚋𝚢’𝚜 𝙷𝚎𝚎𝚕 (@SalvadorDafti) January 21, 2025

ADDED (prompted by Leslie Graves):

When I get off of this mountain
You know where I wanna go?
Straight down the Mississippi River
To the Gulf of America

AND: I like this description of Hudson's part in that song: "The bullfrog-like syncopations that tease and cackle as Levon Helm sings the verses are from Hudson’s clavinet. He unfurls organ lines like bunting atop the choruses, but the cackling cheerfully persists." That's Jon Pareles, writing in the NYT, in "Garth Hudson: 11 Essential Songs?The last surviving original member of the Band died on Tuesday. He was a master on keys and saxophones who could conjure a panoply of scenes and eras."

Here's that 11-song playlist:

The New York Times has its Trumpiest headline ever.

Here's the article: "Trump Asserts a Muscular Vision of Presidential Power on First Day Back/In a flurry of unilateral executive actions, Mr. Trump revived disputed claims of broad presidential authority from his first term — and made some new ones. Court battles seem likely."

That's by Charlie Savage. Excerpt:

"Several billion? That's peanuts for these guys."

Reporter: Do you intend to continue selling crypto products that benefit yourself while President?

Trump: I don’t know if it benefited. Where is it today?

Reporter: You made several billion dollars

Trump: That’s peanuts for these guys pic.twitter.com/eimGxhAZeA

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 21, 2025

ADDED: I asked Grok, "How is a politician's selling of meme coin different from selling tangible items like branded hats and coffee mugs?" and then "How is it the same?"

At the Tuesday Night Café...

... you can write about whatever you want.

No sunrise photo today. It was -13° out there this morning. But here's something to look at:

"In October 1956, Mr. Feiffer strolled into the office of The Village Voice, which had been founded the previous year, and offered to draw a regular strip for nothing."

"First titled 'Sick, Sick, Sick,' it eventually became 'Feiffer.' (He was not paid, he later wrote, until 1964.) With his signature sketchy, scribbly lines, Mr. Feiffer sought to bring to a six- or nine-panel format a level of visual simplicity and intellectual sophistication akin to what William Steig and Saul Steinberg had done with their cartoons in The New Yorker. Often devoid of backgrounds and panel borders, Mr. Feiffer’s strip focused almost exclusively on dialogue, gestures and facial expressions.... He would present a couple bickering with each other in profile, or someone in therapy, often with the speaker facing the reader.... Complacent, self-satisfied white liberals were a frequent target, and he upbraided them mercilessly.... The leotard-clad Dancer, who first appeared in 1957, was inspired by a girlfriend. She was... Mr. Feiffer wrote, 'abused and exploited by men.... but where [her male counterpart, based on himself] grew defensive and angry over the years, the Dancer retained her faith. She danced, fell, got to her feet, tripped, sailed aloft, came crashing to earth, rose stubbornly and kept dancing.'"

From "Jules Feiffer, Acerbic Cartoonist, Writer and Much Else, Dies at 95/In his long-running Village Voice comic strip and in his many plays and screenplays, he took delight in skewering politics, relationships and human nature" (NYT).

Feiffer also wrote the screenplay for "Carnal Knowledge" and the Robert Altman version of "Popeye," and his play "Little Murders" became one of my favorite movies from 1971:

What could Barron have said to Biden?

What did Barron Trump say to Joe Biden?

Wrong answers only ...

🔊pic.twitter.com/oPzWdgYeO1

— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) January 21, 2025

"Beyond the effect the pardons and commutations will have on the lives of those who received them, they also served Mr. Trump’s mission of rewriting the history of Jan. 6."

"Throughout his presidential campaign and after he won the election, he has tried repeatedly to play down the violent nature of the Capitol attack and reframe it, falsely, as a 'day of love.'... As a legal matter, the pardons and commutations effectively unwound the largest single criminal inquiry the Justice Department has undertaken in its 155-year history. They wiped away all of the charges that had already been brought and the sentences already handed down while also stopping any new cases from moving forward. Starting virtually from the moment the Capitol was breached, investigators spent more than four years obtaining warrants for thousands of cellphones and Google accounts, scrolling through tens of thousands of hours of police body-camera and surveillance camera footage, and running down hundreds of thousands of tips from ordinary citizens.... Mr. Trump appears to have decided to grant an expansive form of clemency relatively recently and after a debate among his advisers.... A few weeks ago, Vice President JD Vance said... 'If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned,' Mr. Vance said, but... Mr. Vance’s comments elicited almost immediate outrage among many of the rioters... ... Philip Anderson, who was accused of taking part in a violent scrum in a tunnel outside the Capitol, wrote on social media. 'All J6 defendants need to be saved.'..."

From "Trump Grants Sweeping Clemency to All Jan. 6 Rioters/The extraordinary pardons and commutations extended to those who committed both violent and nonviolent crimes on Jan. 6, including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy" (NYT).

The Biden administration went big and then Trump went big. Biden could have shown mercy and aimed to bring Americans together, but he chose to be as punitive as possible. And this is after so much tolerance and forgiveness was shown to the Black Lives Matter rioters, to those crossing the border illegally, and to his political cronies and family matters. In that light, I have nothing negative to say about Trump's sweeping magnanimity.

Goodbye to Garth Hudson.

Rest in peace, Garth Hudson.

Our neighbor and friend; a musical genius who lived and listened on another plane.

Love to everyone here who feels like I do about The Band.

Portrait by Garth's old friend John Scheele, last year.https://t.co/eo130jtJGJ pic.twitter.com/xfRCtTqNUl

— Anne Margaret Daniel 🌻 (@venetianblonde) January 21, 2025

ADDED:

Mount McKinley.

I'm reading "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness," one of the executive orders Trump signed yesterday. Excerpt:

President William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, heroically led our Nation to victory in the Spanish-American War. Under his leadership, the United States enjoyed rapid economic growth and prosperity, including an expansion of territorial gains for the Nation. President McKinley championed tariffs to protect U.S. manufacturing, boost domestic production, and drive U.S. industrialization and global reach to new heights. He was tragically assassinated in an attack on our Nation’s values and our success, and he should be honored for his steadfast commitment to American greatness.

In 1917, the country officially honored President McKinley through the naming of North America’s highest peak. Yet after nearly a century, President Obama’s administration, in 2015, stripped the McKinley name from federal nomenclature, an affront to President McKinley’s life, his achievements, and his sacrifice....

Obama changed the name to Denali, and Trump opposed the change at the time — "Great insult to Ohio. I will change back!" With this order, he's done what he said he would do — though now it's about recognizing a man as a hero and not about a particular state that supposedly cares a lot about that man. Note that "Denali" was not a person's name, so Trump isn't elevating one state's hero over another.

I saw Musk's "Nazi salute" in real time, but failed to jump up and blog it.

Now, it's so old, I'd have to add something of value. I've been thinking of saying about what I'd have said if I'd jumped up right away: He's doing something like blowing a kiss. He's slapping his heart, then throwing it toward the audience, to say my heart goes out to you.

Or what I felt like saying earlier this morning: This is such a social-media meme — so easy to see and comment on that it's working incredibly well as a distraction. Therefore, the Musk/Trump haters are getting conned. And: I wonder if Musk did all this on purpose — to divert critics from the main highway of policy substance into a cultural cul de sac.

But I worked on other things, as you can see below, and even more time passed. I was about to let it go entirely, but then 2 things I saw on X made me laugh, so I'll give you this:

The performance of power in the arena and in the Oval Office.

Trump had a busy day yesterday, but let's focus on the showmanship in the signing of all those orders. First, on a little red-carpeted stage in the Capitol One Arena, he is literally The Man in the Arena (as Theodore Roosevelt put it):

 

He's got the people surrounding him, watching him sign papers at a tiny table, and they're fully engaged in the show he's putting on, as if it's a big boxing match going on there in that little square in the center of the arena. Whoever thought of dramatizing order-signing like that and getting a rowdy crowd to cheer as if it's a sport? 

Later, in the Oval Office, he signed more orders, this time in front of the press elite, and when they ventured questions, he answered — calmly, chattily, seriously, and easily. Joe Biden couldn't even answer one question from the press or get to the end of a single sentence without stumbling, and here's Trump, signing orders — take that, Paris Agreement — and holding a press conference at the same time... and showing no strain, even at the end of a long day of events, and with the Inaugural Ball yet to come:

Is it dangerous — reprehensible? — this showmanship in the exercise of power? Those who hate him and who hate the substance of those orders will, I presume, denounce the theatricality. It's cruel! But he's out there in the open, letting the people see him do his work, using the power he asked them to give him, and doing what he said he would do. What a contrast to Biden who campaigned hidden away in 2020 and who occupied the position of President without ever letting us see that — if! — he was the one doing the work.

After 4 years of The Man in the Basement, we have, once again, The Man in the Arena.

ADDED: Here's how Biden looked, signing his first executive orders — yay, Paris Agreement! — in the Oval Office in 2021. Scroll to 2:30 to hear — muffled behind masks — the first questions from the press. Biden answers one question as we hear aides hustling the reporters out of the room:

"Immigrants’ rights advocates today sued the Trump administration over its executive order that seeks to strip certain babies born in the United States of their U.S. citizenship...."

"The lawsuit charges the Trump administration with flouting the Constitution’s dictates, congressional intent, and longstanding Supreme Court precedent."

The Legal Defense Fund announced last night.

“... This order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans...” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. ...

The Constitution’s 14th Amendment... states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”... In 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that children born in the United States to immigrant parents were entitled to U.S. citizenship.... 

At the Inauguration Ball...

... you can talk about anything you like.

"Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents — something I know something about."

"We will not allow that to happen. It will not happen again. Under my leadership, we will restore a fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law."

Said President Trump, in his inaugural address today.

Man in shorts.

This is what it’s like bringing your engineers to a client meeting pic.twitter.com/J0y7TkUbao

— Alex Cohen (@anothercohen) January 20, 2025

I don't think I've ever watched an inauguration so closely. The indoor setting brings the focus to the individual faces...

Share your observations of the swearing in and the inaugural address.

ADDED: "I was saved by God to make American great again."

AND: Here's the whole ceremony:

The 60th Presidential Inauguration Ceremony https://t.co/kTB4w2VCdI

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2025

45 minutes and 47 seconds...

Screenshot by Meade, who vigilantly waited for this moment to honor President 45 and 47.

Biden and Trump are now riding together in the same limo — unaccompanied by wives or VPs.

What do you imagine they're saying to each other? 

In another limo, Jill and Melania ride together. Care to guess what they are saying?

And then there's the limo with Kamala and JD... and the least important limo — but not necessarily the least interesting conversation — the one with Usha and Doug.

Famous faces at the inauguration church service: Joe Rogan, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos...

 

Joe's expression:

I look forward to hearing him talk about how he felt.

Posing on the front steps... ready to fight... or dance.

We're told that when Trump stepped out of the SUV, President Biden said, "Welcome home." Nice.

And nice hat on Melania and purple tie on Trump. Jill leaves in brilliant blue.

That's my photo, from my remote outpost in Madison, Wisconsin, where it is 29 degrees colder than it is in Washington, where the inauguration solemnities and festivities have been moved indoors. 

"The Executive Order establishes Government-wide the biological reality of two sexes and clearly defines male and female."

"All radical gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms are removed. Agencies will cease pretending that men can be women and women can be men when enforcing laws that protect against sex discrimination. 'Woman' means an 'adult human female.' The Executive Order directs that Government identification like passports and personnel records will reflect biological reality and not self-assessed gender identity. The Executive Order ends the practice of housing men in women’s prisons and taxpayer funded 'transition' for male prisoners. The Executive Order ends the forced recitation of 'preferred pronouns' and protects Americans’ First Amendment and statutory rights to recognize the biological and binary nature of sex. This includes protection in the workplace and in federal funded entities like schools.... This order is one of nearly 200 executive actions the White House is rolling out today. Among them: orders to declare a national emergency at the border; end all DEI programs across the federal government; withdrawal from the Paris climate accord; and a return-to-office directive for federal workers."

From "EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Day One Executive Order on ‘Male and Female’/The White House strikes out at gender ideology and pronouns. Also: ends housing of biological men in women’s prisons; self-ID on passports; and more" (Free Press).

"Such an uneven swap is not unusual. Israeli governments have long been determined to bring back captured civilians and soldiers..."

"... including dead ones, even at steep costs.... The exchange of civilian hostages for prisoners, including some whom Israel has accused of terrorism, has also raised the ire of some Israelis. In a statement celebrating the release of the three Israeli hostages on Sunday, an Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, hinted at some of that underlying frustration, saying the latest trade was not 'a true like-for-like exchange.' Two of the women were abducted from their homes and one from a music festival, and 'then brutally held since,' he said. 'This is a huge difference when compared to the terrorists who are being released.'"

From "What’s behind the uneven exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners?" (NYT).

"No, Trump Did Not Hold the Bible Upside Down at Lafayette Square."

That's a NYT headline from September 18, 2020.

Video and photographs clearly show that the Bible wasn’t upside down, as fact checkers at PolitiFact and Snopes have noted. But that hasn’t stopped the claim from spreading on social media, an example of how speculation on the internet can morph into a zombie claim that refuses to die.

But just now on CNN, as Trump entered the church, the historian chosen to provide depth and context— Timothy Naftali — repeated the longstanding and long-discredited misinformation.

"Trump to call for a 'revolution' in common sense."

Says the crawl at CNN, which I'm watching with the sound off. Lots of reporters in heavy jackets and scarves standing in front of various inauguration scenes — the Episcopal church, the line for humble citizens to get into the outdoor space for witnessing the indoor swearing in, etc. 

That "'revolution' in common sense" language refers to the inaugural address, and it sounds like an interesting mix of order and disorder... and also like a reference to the Revolutionary War pamphlet titled "Common Sense." 

"Biden pardons Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley and the Jan. 6 committee in an extraordinary use of presidential power against potential Trump 'revenge.'"

AP reports.

“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a statement. “Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”

It’s customary for a president to grant clemency at the end of his term, but those acts of mercy are usually offered to everyday Americans who have been convicted of crimes. But Biden has used the power in the broadest and most untested way possible: to pardon those who have not even been investigated yet.... 

Among the pardoned is Liz Cheney.

ADDED: Here's Biden's statement.

Today's the big day.

Trump inauguration

Let me take your temperature:

How are you feeling?

Wary

I'm in despair

Happy and hopeful

Ravenous for the revenge that begins today

 

pollcode.com free polls

"What was poetry? That’s the question John Koethe asked in 'Beyond Belief,' his 2022 collection of verse."

"He was speaking about how poems come and go but none seem to make an impression. Lucy Sante framed this somewhat differently when she asked, 'Was "Howl" the last poem to hit the world with the impact of news and grip it with the tenacity of a pop song?'"

Writes Dwight Garner in the first paragraph of a NYT review of a new poetry book... which I, tellingly, failed to become interested in. The first sentence of the last paragraph of the review is: "This is a young person’s book." Well, then. Who was "Howl" for?

"Calling themselves 'TikTok refugees,' [American] users paid the 'cat tax' to join RedNote by posting cat photos and videos."

"They answered so many questions from their new Chinese friends: Is it true that in rural America every family has a large farm, a huge house, at least three children and several big dogs? That Americans have to work two jobs to support themselves? That Americans are terrible at geography and many believe that Africa is a country? That most Americans have two days off every week? Americans also posed questions to their new friends. 'I heard that every Chinese has a giant panda,'” an American RedNote user wrote. 'Can you tell me how can I get it?' An answer came from someone in the eastern province of Jiangsu: 'Believe me, it’s true,' the person deadpanned, posting a photo of a panda doing the laundry. I spent hours scrolling those so-called cat tax photos and chuckled at the cute and earnest responses. This is what the internet is supposed to do: connect people...."

From "TikTok, RedNote and the Crushed Promise of the Chinese Internet/China’s internet companies and their hard-working, resourceful professionals make world-class products, in spite of censorship and malign neglect by Beijing" (NYT).