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?

"Stop trying to sane-wash, RFK Jr. Just. Stop. It."

That's the top-rated comment at The Washington Post's "Did RFK Jr. or Michelle Obama say it about food? Take our quiz" (free-access link).

All that's going on there — the supposed "sane-washing" — is that you are confronted with how much RFK Jr. and Michelle Obama sound like each other.

I closely followed this issue on a daily basis for the entire relevant time period, and I scored 3 out of 7 — worse than the average of random guessing!

And did you listen to the NYT "Daily" yesterday? Here's "How R.F.K. Jr. and ‘Health Freedom’ Rose to Power" (audio and transcript at Podscribe).

Sunrise — 7:17, 7:19.

Write about anything you want in the comments.

And please use the Althouse Amazon link when you do your shopping.

Goodbye to Marianne Faithfull.

She had 2 such distinct stages in her singing — the sweet 60s ideal of youth and then the scarred, raspy fully mature woman.

"Marianne Faithfull, a Pop Star Turned Survivor, Is Dead at 78/A fresh-voiced singer and Mick Jagger’s muse in the 1960s, she went on to experience more than her share of hard times before emerging triumphant" (NYT): "What I’ve been trying to do, and I think I’ve done it rather well, is bring the persona — or what was a false persona in the beginning — and me together.... I’ve got the right voice for me.... It gives an edge to everything. I don’t have to act out. I just have to open my mouth and there it is."

"After being pressed by senators from both parties to call Edward Snowden a traitor, Tulsi Gabbard repeatedly refused during her confirmation hearing on Thursday morning...."

"'This is a big deal to everybody here, because its a big deal to everybody you'll also oversee,' said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who has publicly said he supports her nomination. 'So, was Edward Snowden a traitor?'Gabbard would not give a yes or no answer, saying only that she is 'committed if confirmed as Director of National Intelligence to join you in making sure that there is no future Snowden-type leak.' Lankford asked a second time if Snowden was a traitor, to which Gabbard responded,'I am focused on the future and how we can prevent something like this from happening again.'... Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) pounced on the moment, pressing her in a heated back and forth immediately after to say that Snowden is a traitor.... When she began answering without a yes or no, he interrupted, 'This is when the rubber hits the road. This is not a moment for social media.'..."

From "Tulsi Gabbard refuses to call Edward Snowden a 'traitor'" (Axios).

. @SenatorBennet starts yelling at Tulsi Gabbard after she refuses to dance the jig he requested.

You’re right Mike, that isn’t a difficult question to answer; Ed Snowden is not only NOT a traitor, Ed Snowden is an American hero.

Something you Senate swine know nothing about. pic.twitter.com/KYpusWdeC4

— Mel (@Villgecrazylady) January 30, 2025

Trump press briefing, just now, on the air disaster.

 

Much of this was an attack on the FAA's diversity and inclusion hiring plan, "which says diversity is integral to achieving FAA's mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel":

"I have a lot of humility about having only moved to Michigan a few years ago. Although, of course, I did grow up in the neighborhood."

Said Pete Buttigieg, quoted in "Buttigieg Says Maybe, Whitmer Says No Way to Michigan Senate Race/The suddenly open seat in a top-tier battleground has several Michigan politicians taking a serious look" (NYT).

"In the neighborhood" = Indiana. But his husband, Chasten, was born in Traverse City and raised in its suburbs.

"Ben Wikler's rise to Democratic stardom has a very Madison backstory."

A nice article in the local paper, The Cap Times.

I especially liked the part about The Yellow Press, which was sometimes edited right here in the house we now call Meadhouse:

[In high school,] Wikler and his friends had founded a satirical publication called The Yellow Press.... The newspaper... dovetailed with the rise of another Madison-area satirical publication, The Onion, where he later worked part-time as a headline writer. But while The Yellow Press included [silly topics] and occasionally rankled an administrator or two — an article titled “Prom Night Is Such a Romantic Night to Get F-----” landed the kids in hot water — the paper included serious subject matters. ...

"Are you supportive of these onesies?"

Bernie Sanders prying damaging admissions from RFK Jr.:

The highlight of the day!!!😂 pic.twitter.com/JtFPOlOD0z

— Patrick Metzgar (@patmetzgar) January 30, 2025

Context (video):

"Today, over 100 members of Congress support a bill to fund Ozempic with Medicare at $1,500 a month."

"Most of these members have taken money from the manufacturer of that product, a European company called Novo Nordisk. As everyone knows, once a drug is approved for Medicare, it goes to Medicaid. And there is a push to recommend Ozempic for Americans as young as six over a condition, obesity, that is completely preventable and barely even existed 100 years ago.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: "Today, over 100 members of Congress support a bill to fund Ozempic with Medicare at $1,500 a month. Most of these members have taken money from the manufacturer of that product, a European company called Novo Nordisk. As everyone knows, once a drug is… pic.twitter.com/NGaK6pMjbj

— Camus (@newstart_2024) January 29, 2025

"The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane..."

"... for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!"

Wrote President Trump on Truth Social last night.

According to The Washington Post: "According to flight surveillance data, the downed Army Black Hawk helicopter was heading south, roughly along the District side of the river, before the collision with the American Airlines regional jet. [Jeff Guzzetti, a former crash investigator with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board] said it appeared the helicopter had been traveling in that corridor, but that he could not be certain...."

It was an Army helicopter (WaPo): "The Army helicopter involved in the collision was a UH-60 Black Hawk on a training flight, military officials said late Wednesday.... Three service members were on board, according to two defense officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the incident. Flight tracker information identified the helicopter as 'PAT25,' the typical call sign for helicopters used for 'priority air transport” missions...."

Russia connection:

Sunrise — 6:52, 6:59, 7:19, 7:25.

Write about anything you want in the comments. And please use the Althouse Amazon link if you've got some shopping to do.

"He re-jiggers the facts, or makes them up, and rushes to tell as many people as he can so that is the version of reality that gets distributed in people’s minds...."

That sounds like humanity in general, but it's RFK Jr., described in writing by his ex-wife, who killed herself in 2012. The writing was a draft of an affidavit, to be filed in divorce proceedings.

The quote appears in this New York Post article (with an idiotic misplaced modifier in the headline): "Mary Kennedy accuses ex-husband RFK Jr. of being ‘sexual deviant’ and ‘gaslighting’ from beyond the grave."

"A lawyer from one of Manhattan’s most prominent law firms will lead the appeal of President Trump’s criminal conviction...."

"The participation of the lawyer, Robert Giuffra Jr., a co-chair of Sullivan & Cromwell and one of New York’s better-known appellate lawyers.... underscores how New York’s legal power players have warmed to the president. Mr. Trump was spurned by lawyers from major firms when he left office four years ago, but his second victory has brought about a sea change.... 'President Donald J. Trump’s appeal is important for the rule of law, New York’s reputation as a global business, financial and legal center, as well as for the presidency and all public officials,' Mr. Giuffra said in a statement. 'The misuse of the criminal law by the Manhattan D.A. to target President Trump sets a dangerous precedent.'"

From "As Establishment Warms to Trump, Elite Law Firm Takes On His Appeal/The involvement of Sullivan & Cromwell in the appeal of President Trump’s criminal conviction underscored how New York’s legal power players have moved toward Mr. Trump" (NYT). Side note: I worked there, long ago.

Meanwhile: "Justice Dept. Is Said to Discuss Dropping Case Against Eric Adams/Senior officials under President Trump have talked with prosecutors in Manhattan about the possibility of abandoning the corruption case against New York City’s mayor" (NYT).

"[Reddit] has quietly started beta-testing Reddit Answers, what it calls an 'AI-powered conversational interface'..."

"... basically an AI chatbot. On a new search screen accessible from the homepage, Reddit Answers takes anyone’s queries, trawls the site for relevant discussions and debates, and composes them into a response. In other words, a site that sells itself as a home for 'authentic human connection' is now giving humans the option to interact with an algorithm instead.... Consider, for example, requesting tips for traveling with a baby on an airplane. Reddit Answers generates a list of ideas—perhaps 'Pack Essentials' or 'Board Early'—decontextualized from the parents who gathered this wisdom, the horrifying and hilarious anecdotes in their original posts, and the heartwarming support and tips in additional responses.... [S]hould the feature really take off and Redditors stop engaging with one another, the chatbot will be drained of biological intelligence, and soul as well. It’s the same with any AI tool seeking to synthesize, summarize, and boil portions of the web to their essence: Eventually, the pot will burn dry."

Writes Matteo Wong, in "Is This How Reddit Ends? The site has become a reservoir of humanity on the web. Now it, too, is turning to AI" (The Atlantic).

"Because of collapsing fertility elsewhere, Africa will make up an increasing share of the world’s population."

"Africa accounted for less than 10 percent of the world’s population until the early 1970s, but a demographic forecast in The Lancet suggests that by 2100, 54 percent of the world’s babies will be born in sub-Saharan Africa. Include North Africa, and the share is even higher. If that forecast is right (and always be skeptical of long-term demographic forecasts), at some point in the 22nd century a majority of the world’s population will be African.... In an aging and perhaps enfeebled world, Africa will also be a continent of youth — arguably making it comparatively vigorous and more of a hotbed for entrepreneurship and for music and popular culture...."

Writes Nicholas Kristof, in "In an Aging World, a Youthful Africa Steps Up" (NYT).

"It's an astonishing reversal by the Trump administration, a day after top officials defended the funding freeze...."

"'This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X.' Why? To end any confusion created by the court's injunction. The President's EO's on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented,' she added. It's unclear what exactly Leavitt meant, as it was the now-rescinded memo — not the executive orders Trump signed previously — that outlined the 'temporary pause.'... [Some] Democrats argued the memo rescission was simply a sleight of hand, and that the Trump administration is seeking to circumvent lawsuits while keeping certain funding frozen.'..."

I'm reading "White House rescinds Trump's funding freeze memo after huge backlash" (Axios).

"Trump has been adamant that the United States should exert control over [Greenland], given both its strategic position in a melting Arctic region..."

"... where China and Russia also have growing interests, as well as the wealth of natural resources that are thought to lie beneath Greenland’s seabeds and frozen wastes.... Trump and his allies do not envision an invasion of Greenland.... Instead, Trump is hoping for Copenhagen’s acquiescence in some sort of deal, framing a U.S. acquisition of the territory as an act of generosity to relieve Denmark of the burden of administering it. There is plenty of historical precedent. U.S. politicians have eyed Greenland for more than a century and a half. William Seward, the U.S. secretary of state who purchased Alaska in 1867, was close to a similar deal for Greenland, but was foiled by political rivals in Congress. With both northern territories folded into the United States, Seward suggested this continental nation 'will flank British America for thousands of miles … and greatly increase her inducements, peacefully and cheerfully, to become a part of the American Union.' That is, he thought buying Greenland would be a precursor to absorbing Canada — a vision Trump hasn’t quite relinquished, either...."

From "The curious momentum behind Trump’s quest for Greenland/In 2019, Trump’s bid for the Arctic territory was laughed off as a joke. Now, it’s gaining traction and provoking jitters in Europe" (free-access link).

"Karoline Leavitt, the new White House press secretary — at 27, the youngest person ever to hold the job — kicked off her first briefing on Tuesday afternoon..."

"... by reminding all the veteran reporters in assembly that they had become more irrelevant than ever. 'Americans’ trust in mass media has fallen to a record low,' she said right off the top. Twisting the knife, she added: 'Millions of Americans — especially young people — have turned from traditional television outlets and newspapers.' The place was packed with network television anchors and rumpled newspaper reporters who had been slinging questions around that cramped room since before Ms. Leavitt learned to walk or talk.... Smiling, ever-so-sweetly, she told the old-timers they’d have to make room for all the flashy new bloggers, influencers, 'content creators' and podcasters she planned to invite to her briefings on a regular basis. It was, she said, high time that the White House 'adapt' to the 'new media landscape.'... Mr. Trump’s top flack wasted no time throwing down the gauntlet in her first performance behind the lectern. She was steely.... She betrayed no fear and little ambivalence and she seemed quite confident speaking on her boss’s behalf...."

NYT White House correspondent Shawn McCreesh gives credit where credit is due, in "White House Press Secretary Makes Steely and Unflinching Debut/Karoline Leavitt used her first briefing in the role to warn veteran reporters that they were increasingly irrelevant" (NYT).

I like the phrase "all the flashy new bloggers."

Watch the live-stream of the RFK Jr. confirmation hearing.

It's about to start, at the top of the hour:

ADDED: "And all these Democrats are opposed to me for partisan issues. They used to be my friends — agreed with me on all the environmental issues that I've been working on for my whole career. Now, they're against me because anything that President Trump does — any decision he makes — has to be lampooned, derided, discredited, marginalized, vilified."

Jake Tapper vs. Stephen Miller.

Hi. Want to see a murder on live TV?

I give you White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vs. Jake Tapper on CNN.

Tapper said we need illegals here to pick our crops.

Then, Fatality…

pic.twitter.com/W10tfKT2Od

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 28, 2025

"The major issue is that for many, many years, we’ve been utilizing an extractive model of tourism that says 'numbers at any cost.'"

"Now we are in a situation where all these kinds of things are being implemented, like restricting numbers and tourist taxes as reactive strategies.... I’m not sure there is a solution.... Unless it’s people taking responsibility and saying, 'You know what? I don’t need to see Venice. I’m not going to go.'"

Said Marina Novelli, the director of the Sustainable Travel and Tourism Advanced Research Center at the University of Nottingham, quoted in "Bans, Fees, Taxes. Can Anything Stop Overtourism? Efforts to limit visitors in tourist hot spots have had mixed results, at best. Competing interests have a way of impeding attempts to stem the tide" (NYT).

My idea is to work toward the old Yogi-ism: "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

From the comments over there: "The first times I visited Venice was 1963. The last time I visited Venice was in 2010. In 1963 It was possible to have your companion take a picture of you in front of Saint Marks feeding the pigeons with the cathedral in the background. In 2010 the pigeons had been replaced by people and I don't [think] it was possible to take a picture of anything."

The people-as-pigeons are people you won't want to rub elbows with. They are, as one says, nobodies.

Do birds have elbows?

"Like the ouroboros, I believe Big Tech is eating itself alive with its component companies throwing more and more cash at investments in each other that are most likely to generate less and less of a return...."

"[T]hese companies... will one day disappoint those who view them as safe assets. And the self-cannibalization will not just reveal itself to be a mediocre investment but a shaky bet on an illusion propagated by a mythical and messianic belief in technology and these companies.... One need not look at ancient folklore to find depictions of the ouroboros. The economist Joseph Schumpeter...wrote of a cycle of industrial mutation' that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.'"

Writes Harvard law and business professor Mihir A. Desai, in "The Future of A.I. May Not Be as Revolutionary as We Thought" (NYT).

Sunrise — 6:59, 7:09, 7:15, 7:20.

Write about anything you want in the comments.

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"His basement, his garage, and his dorm room were the centers of the action where drugs were available..."

"... and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.... Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children — vaccinating his own children while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs.... Bobby continues to grandstand off my father’s assassination, and that of his own father...."

Wrote Caroline Kennedy, about RFK Jr., quoted in "Caroline Kennedy Urges Senators to Reject Her Cousin’s Nomination/In a harsh letter to lawmakers considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for health secretary, Ms. Kennedy called her cousin unfit for the job and a 'predator' who led family members to addiction" (NYT).

"During my first 24 years at the Times, from 2000 to 2024, I faced very few editorial constraints on how and what I wrote...."

"[T]he editing was very light... even when I took positions that made Times leadership very nervous.... [T]he columns themselves were published as I wrote them.... Then, step by step, all the things that made writing at the Times worthwhile for me were taken away.... [I]n 2024, the editing of my regular columns went from light touch to extremely intrusive... toning down, introducing unnecessary qualifiers, and, as I saw it, false equivalence. I would rewrite the rewrites to restore the essence of my original argument.... ... I was putting more effort—especially emotional energy—into fixing editorial damage than I was into writing the original articles. And the end result of the back and forth often felt flat and colorless....  [W]hat I felt during my final year at the Times was a push toward blandness, toward avoiding saying anything too directly in a way that might get some people (particularly on the right) riled up. I guess my question is, if those are the ground rules, why even bother having an opinion section?"

Writes Paul Krugman, in "Departing the New York Times/I left to stay true to my byline" (The Contrarian).

What's going on there? Who wants blandly written columns? That doesn't solve any problem I'm aware of.

"A picture of young successful happy people at a trendy cocktail party reads as right wing. A picture of a dad in flannel drinking a beer at Texas Roadhouse..."

"... also reads as right wing. Right wing is both cool, hip and metropolitan, and down to earth, older, mature, and working class. This is how you know that conservatism is culturally ascendant. We run the gamut. The only pictures that read as left wing are those of ugly, fat, mentally ill, dysfunctional, friend-less weirdos."

So says Matt Walsh, on X, looking at the "Cruel Kids" New York Magazine cover. 

 

That's one take. The other take is that the photo is cropped to make the event look all white. If you scroll down from that link above, you'll many tweets that should the wider view (and call attention to the text, "Have you noticed that the entire room is white?):

"Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false 'gender identity' divergent from an individual’s sex ..."

"... cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."

Said Trump's executive order "Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness."

I'm reading about it in "Trump Moves Toward Pushing Openly Transgender People Out of Military/The president also ordered the Pentagon to end diversity programs, reinstate many service members dismissed for refusing the coronavirus vaccine and create a new missile defense system" (NYT). That article refers to Trump and Hegseth's intent "to return the military to an unapologetically masculine professional culture."

Is the military inherently masculine? Does the order really speak in such terms? I would assume that Trump and Hegseth have a strong commitment to the role of women in the military (though not necessarily in the front line of combat). The order that speaks frankly — unapologetically — of the "warrior ethos" of the military (boldface mine):

Jon Stewart mocks anti-Trumpers for overdoing their accusations of fascism.

"The constant drumbeat of encroaching fascism will erode the credibility we will need if — hopefully if and not when — it hits. But the truth is that for now, his most objectionable actions have taken place almost entirely within our designed Democratic system.... Look, I really hope that Democrats figure out a way to contain this guy.... How would you use this power?... Tell people what you would do with the power that Trump is wielding and then convince us to give that power to you...  Enough with the 'He's Hitler'...  What would you fucking do?"

Exactly. I love Stewart's reset for the new Trump era. 

What gets the deep six at DeepSeek?

DeepSeek seems great. pic.twitter.com/WFDFBri2an

— Kyle Glen (@KyleJGlen) January 27, 2025

"The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond."

"The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!"

Writes Trump, at Truth Social.

"The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve."

Writes Matthew J. Vaeth, Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, in a memo titled "Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Programs."

I'm reading about this in a Washington Post piece, "White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion/Trillions of dollars could be on hold, according to an Office of Management and Budget memo" (free-access link). Excerpt:

Donald Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, said... [t]here will be widespread panic, Kettl said, as state and local governments as well as the people most reliant on federal-funded grants scramble to figure out if and when their cash flow will stop.

Re "people most reliant on federal-funded grants" — the memo is explicit that it does not apply to Medicare or Social Security and "does not include assistance provided directly to individuals." But clearly there are "people" who have reason to panic. These would be "people" overseeing matters entangled with left-wing ideology who must "complete a comprehensive analysis" of whether their activities align with Trump's "executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal."

Trump has gone big. It's the shock-and-awe approach. But do you remember "Obama's Big Bang" ("rapid, once-in-a-generation overhauls of energy, financial regulation and health care")?

I like getting a chance to use my "Trump is like Obama" tag. That's where the cruel neutrality really hurts.

Sunrise — 7:01, 7:21.

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.

"It’s based on my life as a farmer in Hawaii. They save America with guns, the Bible, petty crime and alcoholism. It’s kind of like the Coen brothers thing...."

"If Hollywood doesn’t buy it, then I’m just gonna make it myself.... Does anybody in [Hollywood] like America or the people who watch TV? Because the people who watch TV would really like to see a show where working-class people win against the enemies of America.... I don’t give a fuck either way.... I’d like to get paid handsomely to bring another shit fucking network back from doom as I’ve done twice for ABC. But I just don’t see how they would keep their nose out of my business. We’ll see. If not, I’ll just go somewhere else and put it on my own website...."

Says Roseanne Barr, quoted in "Roseanne Barr Plots Comeback With New Comedy Series, About a Family Who 'Saves America With Guns, the Bible, Petty Crime and Alcoholism'" (Variety).

"Birthright citizenship obviously doesn’t apply in case of war or invasion. No one to my knowledge has ever argued that the children of invading aliens..."

"... are entitled to birthright citizenship. And I can’t imagine what the legal argument for that would be.”

Said 5th Circuit Judge James C.  Ho, quoted in "Is Trump’s Plan to End Birthright Citizenship ‘Dred Scott II’?/The 14th Amendment overturned the 1857 decision that denied citizenship to Black people. Scholars say President Trump’s proposal betrays that history" by Adam Liptak (NYT).

The 14th amendment language, written in the context of acknowledging that the freed slaves are citizens, is "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."

The textualist debate focuses on "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." What did that mean to exclude?

“It excludes those persons who, for some reason, are immune from, and thus not required to obey, U.S. law,” [Ho] wrote. “Most notably, foreign diplomats and enemy soldiers — as agents of a foreign sovereign — are not subject to U.S. law, notwithstanding their presence within U.S. territory.” 

As you can tell from the headline, Liptak uses the importance of the citizenship of the freed slaves as a reason to read the phrase in the spirit of inclusiveness. Apparently, the Trump administration will group those entering the country illegally with enemy soldiers. It's an "invasion." We'll see the legal and political effects of this debate about what the Constitution means and what people wish it would mean.

"Although today’s critics rue our inability to get through long novels, such books were once widely regarded as the intellectual equivalent of junk food."

"'They fix attention so deeply, and afford so lively a pleasure, that the mind, once accustomed to them, cannot submit to the painful task of serious study,' the Anglican priest Vicesimus Knox complained. Thomas Jefferson warned that once readers fell under the spell of novels—'this mass of trash'—they would lose patience for 'wholsome reading.' They’d suffer from 'bloated imagination, sickly judgement, and disgust toward all the real business of life.'"

Writes Daniel Immerwahr, in "What if the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction? From the pianoforte to the smartphone, each wave of tech has sparked fears of brain rot. But the problem isn’t our ability to focus—it’s what we’re focussing on" (The New Yorker).

Who decides what's the right or wrong thing to pay attention to? Freedom of thought jumps to mind as the best answer to that question.

"[Stephen Miller] had these big thoughts of execution... what I'll just call flood the zone."

"His idea of flood the zone is you do so many things at once, so many aggressive, controversial actions at once, at speed, that your opposition is scattered and almost defenseless when it's one of 50 or a hundred actions that are extremely controversial. There's only so much bandwidth for the opposition to muster resistance, muster resources, muster outrage, muster legal action. So you just flood the zone. You do so many things at once that your opposition, they might stop some of them that they can't stop all of them.... Overwhelm. Overwhelm...."

Says Jonathan Swan, on the new episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Stephen Miller’s Return to Power" (transcript and audio at link).

"But, if the new tariff regime has been hyper-publicized, it has also been somewhat undertheorized."

"If the plan is to disrupt the existing regime, in the conviction that global free trade has undermined American interests and workers, what is meant to replace it?... Ever since Trump was first elected, in 2016, his main guru and interpreter on trade, the man largely charged with converting the President’s protectionist instincts into theory and practice, has been a voluble, savvy seventy-seven-year-old Washington lawyer named Robert Lighthizer.... The view Lighthizer has come to after nearly half a century working on the issue is that free trade is a fiction, believed only by Americans and economists (and, intermittently, by the British). 'Free trade doesn’t exist anywhere in the world,' he told me. 'It just doesn’t. And it doesn’t largely because of details.' Even in the absence of tariffs, countries do all sorts of things to protect domestic manufacturing.... What Lighthizer would like to see, as he explained to me, is 'a new trade system,' in which the U.S. walked away from the disadvantageous trade agreements of the nineties and negotiated a new series of agreements with other democracies, wealthy and not, that fixed those mistakes.... 'We have the momentum politically to do it,' Lighthizer said. 'We have the benefit of a trillion-dollar trade deficit, which gives us enormous leverage. We take unilateral action, we disrupt the system, we build over not too long a period toward what I suggest.'..."

From "Why Is the Mastermind of Trump’s Tariff Plan Still Sitting at Home in Florida? Robert Lighthizer, the former U.S. Trade Representative, lost his bid to rejoin the White House, but he still believes the President’s protectionist instincts can jump-start American manufacturing," by Benjamin Wallace-Wells" (The New Yorker).

"China’s DeepSeek AI app sends U.S. tech stocks reeling/The tech-heavy Nasdaq index lost nearly 4 percent in early trading Monday, with chipmaker Nvidia down nearly 12 percent.."

WaPo reports (free-access link).

Analysts said the Monday sell-off underscores anxieties about whether the massive spending on artificial intelligence ― and the specialized chips, data centers and related power infrastructure ― are justified....

DeepSeek is a China-based start-up that last week launched a free AI assistant that it says can operate at a lower cost than American AI models like ChatGPT....  DeepSeek has shaken the market because it purports to need fewer and less advanced chips than other AI models, while still performing as well as U.S. rivals — challenging the premise that only big, well-capitalized companies can make breakthroughs in the sector.

Trump's tariff threat worked.

"Under threats from President Trump that included steep tariffs, President Gustavo Petro of Colombia has relented and will allow U.S. military planes to fly deportees into the country, after turning two transports back in response to what he called inhumane treatment.... 'Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again,' [said a statement from the White House]."

The NYT reports.

The accusation of "inhumane treatment" referred to our use of military planes rather than passenger planes. 

According to a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, "Colombian President Petro had authorized flights and provided all needed authorizations and then canceled his authorization when the planes were in the air."

Petro's reversal followed on a complaint from Brazil’s foreign ministry about the "'degrading treatment' of its citizens after 88 migrants arrived in the country handcuffed on Friday and some complained of mistreatment after not being given water or allowed to use the bathroom during the flight."

AND: Here's something Trump posted on Truth Social while this faceoff was under way:

"Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians were walking toward their homes in northern Gaza on Monday, nearly 16 months after they were forced to flee..."

"... at the start of Israel’s military offensive. A column of people that stretched for miles marched north along Gaza’s coastal road, many carrying their few possessions on their heads, on makeshift carts and in plastic bags slung over their backs.... As they began arriving in Gaza City, in the north of the territory, they confronted a wasteland of rubble after the Israeli military destroyed whole neighborhoods and Hamas booby-trapped many buildings. Many of those returning had spent the war sheltering in tents.... On Monday, some used bikes, wheelchairs and trolleys to carry their belongings. One man attached wheels to a plastic box, turning it into a makeshift stroller for a baby...."

The NYT reports.

At the Ice Bike Café...

... you can talk all night.

You have to look closely to see the 2 cyclists out on the lake ice. This isn't a sunrise picture. It was a bit too cold for us again. This is Lake Mendota at 2 in the afternoon.

J.D. Vance on "Face the Nation."

Transcript here.

ADDED: Margaret Brennan seemed keyed up from the start. Her desire to get Vance was ludicrously obvious. Meanwhile, Vance was perfectly even-tempered and articulate, prepared for everything she had hoped to flummox him with. Brennan's style of constant interruption failed to throw him off. It backfired, making him look steady and rational and her look afraid of what he might have to say.

For example, here's the exchange on birthright citizenship:

"Ms. Tilevitz, the sex therapist, said that a certain confidence can be gained by wearing generously sized sweaters."

"'There is a sexiness women can feel internally when they wear something that allows them to disappear from anyone else,' she said, comparing the garments to a security blanket. At a time when women in America have lost rights to their bodily autonomy, sweaters that 'obfuscate the body' can also serve as a sort of armor, said Kat Henning, 37, a senior footwear designer.... 'You feel a little under attack and being swaddled in a beautiful knit that completely covers you, not being available as a sex object, makes women feel better,' said Ms. Henning, whose has knits from Lauren Manoogian and Wol Hide, a brand in Philadelphia. Kelsey Keith, 40, a creative director in Berkeley, Calif., ... described their appeal this way: 'It’s about dressing on your own terms. The male gaze is not even a consideration.'"

From "Hefty Sweaters for Heavy Times/Thick, woolly and oversize knitwear has for some become a form of soft armor" (NYT).

Sweaters! This time, they're political.

Last time around, the political knitwear was the pussy hat, and you had to go to a big protest. This time, the knitwear is much larger, and you don't have to go anyplace... other than deeply inside it.

Additional reading: "Goodbye, 'Resistance.' The Era of Hyperpolitics Is Over. Where has the anti-Trump energy gone?" (NYT).

"It was kind of sad because she was lonesome. Judy would come out wearing her one little black cocktail dress and a pair of little earrings with pearls..."

"... and she would make shepherd’s pie because she liked it. It was comforting. We would have dinner and then we would watch 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' which was on before her show. And if she didn’t like the way someone performed, she didn’t mind telling you!"

Said Bob Mackie about Judy Garland, quoted in "Bob Mackie notoriously created Cher’s look— but he didn’t always like it: 'Don’t tell anyone'" (NY Post).

Mackie also designed for Tina Turner "She was just amazing and funny and if she hated something she told you immediately."

Is this typical of great singers, that they blurt it right out what they don't like? Judy "didn’t mind telling you" and Tina "told you immediately."

"If they ever invent a pill where they could say, 'OK, your social skills will be normal, but your ability to concentrate would also be normal,' I wouldn’t take the pill."

"Maybe I am forgetting how painful it was, but I needed my neuro diversity to write that software; I could do all that stuff in my head. That takes a lot of concentration."

Said Bill Gates, quoted in "Bill Gates: 'I would be diagnosed with autism if I were a kid today'" (Yahoo News).

Just because there's a treatment doesn't mean you need to take it. There's a balance between eradicating symptoms and unleashing side effects, and we should be careful not to pathologize human behavior.

Where the treatment doesn't yet exist — like Gates's anti-autism pill — it's easier to decide I wouldn't want it anyway. The unreachable grapes looked sour to the fox in the old fable. It's harder to think critically when the pill is right there — the pill or the surgery. Is effeminacy in a young boy a condition that ought to be treated, or can we embrace human diversity and discourage medical treatment? There might be something parallel to "I needed my neuro diversity to write that software." I needed my effeminate maleness to.... What? What is lost in the pathologizing? What sort of highly valuable person are we medicalizing out of existence?

This made me think of that classic of Critical Race Theory, "The Michael Jackson Pill: Equality, Race, and Culture" by Jerome McCristal Culp, Jr. (Michigan Law Review, 1994). I tried to get Grok to talk about it, and it engaged in blatant censorship: "There is no well-known or credible critical race theory article that discusses or imagines a pill to turn black people white...."

"How's everything going? Good? Everybody happy? You're getting a little bit more access to your President than you did the last time. Slightly. Like by about 5,000 percent."

Our tireless President, on Air Force One last night:

 

It's hard to listen through the plane noise, but let me pick out a few things. Responding to a comment that he'd been "so nice" to Governor Newsom ("you know, 'Governor Newscum,'" he said:

I decided to be nice. It was nice that he came to the plane, honestly... and in the end you know we have the same goal. We want to take that catastrophe and make it as good as possible. We disagree on some things I guess he's not so set on water. I like water for putting out fires. I find it to be extremely good. A little old fashioned, but about the best thing that God has ever created for putting out fires....

Asked about the First Lady, who "seems to be taking a more public facing role," he said:

She felt badly about North Carolina. She felt very badly about California. Los Angeles. Got a lot of friends. I have a lot of friends in North Carolina and both, and she has a lot of friends in California, so she wanted to be with me.

 About TikTok:

As you know, I have the right to sell it or close it depending on what I think is best for the country....

Pushed on "a report... that you are putting together a deal with Oracle and outside investors to help them buy TikTok," he said:

"Don't ask me nothin' about nothin' – I just might tell you the truth."

Sang Timothée Chalamet, on "SNL" last night, where he was the host, in a bunch of skits, and also performed, in his Bob Dylan persona, as the musical guest.

There were 3 songs — "Outlaw Blues" and, surprisingly "Three Angels"...

... and "Tomorrow Is a Long Time"...

What did you think? It's very hard for me to judge... other than that I was delighted that "Three Angels" was chosen and disappointed that the sound wasn't balanced properly in the end of the song and we lost Timmy's voice. But does anyone hear the music they play, does anyone even try?

I'm interested in the fashion interpretation of Bob's famous polka dots. Bob's were a shirt. Timmy's — same size and color — were a hoodie. The shift from shirt to hoodie sheds light on the choice to do "Three Angels." It's a rap song.

ADDED: I haven't been able to force myself to go see Chalamet's movie yet, so I don't know how close these performances last night are to his embodiment of Bob in the movie. In a Reddit discussion, the top comment is: "Actually credit for Timmy for not doing Bob, I much more appreciate a Dylan cover that's not trying to be Bob and that rendition of Three Angels sounded fresh." 

"From now on, there will be two genders... And we're done with LGBT. No more drag. No more guys and wigs. No more whatever these guys were wearing."

"What a weird way to dress, right? A little zesty darling. I'm off to start America. Hand me my wig and my tights and my big blousy shirts."

That was the cold open on "SNL" last night. Nice job, and I appreciate that the players — who had to freeze into a tableau at one point and remain frozen — quite professionally held the pose and resisted cracking up. James Austin Johnson, as Trump, had some funny lines — like the one I quoted above — and the players did not devolve into the old "Not Ready For Prime Time" raggedness — which was great in its day. 

Lin-Manuel Miranda showed up — to play Hamilton — and he froze into the tableau along with all the others and committed to holding the pose. I think it was planned that he — and he alone — would crack up at a specific point — but that point does not arrive until the players have held the pose for 4 whole minutes, with "Trump" cracking jokes the whole time.

Trumpers and anti-Trumpers — did anyone not like that?