At the Saturday Night Café...

... you can talk all night.

"Trump Might Have a Case on Birthright Citizenship."

So say lawprofs Randy E. Barnett and Ilan Wurman (in the NYT).

That's a free-access link so you can read the whole thing, which is very tightly written and hard to excerpt. A lot depends on the idea, expressed by Lincoln’s first attorney general, that "The Constitution uses the word ‘citizen’ only to express the political quality of the individual in his relations to the nation; to declare that he is a member of the body politic, and bound to it by the reciprocal obligation of allegiance on the one side and protection on the other."

Then Barnett and Wurman ask: "Has a citizen of another country who violated the laws of this country to gain entry and unlawfully remain here pledged obedience to the laws in exchange for the protection and benefit of those laws?"

ADDED: Ilya Somin responds with "Birthright Citizenship - A Response to Barnett and Wurman/Their argument for denying birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants born in the US has multiple weaknesses, including that it would also have denied it to former slaves" (Reason).

Do the American people feel outraged when federal workers lose their job?

Or are we happy to see all this vigorous economizing? 

I keep seeing articles that seem to assume that it's a good issue for Democrats: How terrible that humble workers are getting fired! 

Is that the public opinion, or do people think the federal government is over-inflated and not terribly beneficial? Trump got elected for a reason. What's the evidence that people want to see a preservation of the status quo?

The latest article I'm reading is "Records show how DOGE planned Trump’s DEI purge — and who gets fired next/A DOGE team plans to fire federal workers who are not in DEI roles and employees in offices that protect equal rights, internal documents show" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Here's a pretty obtuse New Republic article: "It’s Time for Democrats to Woo the Man Vote."

That's by Susan Milligan. Subheadline: "The post-Dobbs emphasis on the women’s vote didn’t help the party among women—and it may have affirmatively alienated millions of men. It's time to treat men as an interest group."

Sample obtuseness:

Trump ridiculed trans rights, feeding a young male fear that young women were not just surpassing them, but perhaps trying to become them (a strategy that had the ancillary effect of appealing to mothers and fathers worried about their daughters’ bathrooms and locker rooms being invaded by trans women).

I don’t believe young men are worried that female-bodied persons are going to horn in on maleness and outdo them. No one's been talking about trans men. The focus — as the parenthetical concedes — has always been on trans women and how they might infringe on the interests of non-trans women. 

"Across the country, there is no clear guidance for young people on how to have healthy relationships and hookups..."

"... no collective understanding of what consent means. They need this desperately, especially now, with a president who was found liable for sexually abusing one woman and who has bragged about assaulting others. This essential education cannot come just from squeamish gym teachers. One idea would be to put more of this work into the hands of teenagers themselves. This is not without precedent. In 1973 a group called the Student Committee for Rational Sex Education conducted workshops in a dozen New York City public schools. Peer educators ran learning centers that they called 'rap rooms,' where students could stop by during free periods. Unlike their adult counterparts, the teenage educators made sex ed fun and playful, motivating their peers to voluntarily seek answers to their questions or to watch a demonstration of a contraceptive device."

Writes Hillary Frank, in "Our Kids Cannot Learn About Sex Just From Squeamish Gym Teachers" (NYT).

I don't like "how to have healthy relationships and hookups." Does "healthy" modify "hookups" as well as "relationships"? "Healthy hookups"? I'm sorry, I have no "collective understanding" of what that might be.

I enjoyed seeing the old term "rap rooms." There was a time when "rapping" just meant talking. 

As for "squeamish" teachers... I can think of worse problems. Just do your job and teach the material. It's a science topic. Skip the dogma.

10 things I've asked Grok in the last 2 or 3 days.

1. Is it honest for me to say: I have no idea whether Trump has any idea whether Mitch McConnell had polio?

2. What poet had a beard, round glasses and wore a "poet’s hat"?

3. What is the origin of the phrase "take up the mantle"?

4. What have smart people had to say about the tendency to see images in words, including things that are not really relevant to the etymology of the word? For example, one might imagine that "ostracize" is connected to "ostrich" or "marginalize" relates to "margarine."

5. What is the argument that the crows in "Dumbo" are not a racist stereotype?

6. Does RFK Jr. speak of himself in terms of "Camelot"?

7. What is that famous saying about remaining silent because I was not X, Y, etc.?

8. Why do some people say you shouldn't use "impact" as a verb?

9. What is the episode of "Leave it to Beaver" where June and Ward Cleaver are turning over a mattress and Ward asks if it's mattress-turning day?

10. What if you had to argue that "The fog comes /on little cat feet" is actually very depressing and pessimistic?

"The vice president singled out his German hosts, telling them to drop their objections to working with a party that has often reveled in banned Nazi slogans...."

"He did not mention the party, the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, by name, but directly referred to the longstanding agreement by mainstream German politicians to freeze out the group, parts of which have been formally classified as extremist by German intelligence. 'There is no room for firewalls,' Mr. Vance said, bringing some gasps in the hall.... The billionaire Elon Musk, a top adviser to Mr. Trump, endorsed the AfD late last year... [and] publicly interviewed [Alice Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for chancellor in this month’s election].... Mr. Vance’s remarks drew a furious response from German leaders across most party lines. They immediately rejected Mr. Vance’s suggestion that they should drop their firewall against the AfD, pointing to past comments by the party’s members in support of the National Socialists, or Nazis.... The AfD and its members have a history of use of Nazi language and antisemitic and racist comments, along with plots to overthrow the federal government. The party has surged to second in the polls with its call to crack down on immigration. Mr. Vance did not note that baggage...."

From "Vance Tells Europeans to Stop Shunning Parties Deemed Extreme/His comments shocked attendees at the Munich Security Conference and seemed to target efforts to sideline the hard-right party the Alternative for Germany" (NYT).

What is that "history of use of Nazi language"? The link on that phrase goes to another NYT article, from last May, "German Court Fines Far-Right Leader for Using Nazi Phrase/Björn Höcke, a state leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, used the phrase 'Everything for Germany,' a slogan of the Nazi paramilitary wing, during a campaign stop." Excerpt:

"Alongside Romania, Germany and Sweden, Vance singled out the UK for some of the most scathing passages of his tirade."

"He complained that the British authorities had been jailing journalists.... Vance also railed against the 'crazy' conviction last year of Adam Smith-Connor, a physiotherapist and army reserve veteran, who was fined £9,000 for conducting a brief 'silent prayer' protest in the legal 'buffer zone' around an abortion clinic in Bournemouth. He then turned to the Scottish government, which he said had been distributing letters to households near abortion clinics that warned residents they would be committing a crime if they prayed against abortion in the privacy of their own homes. 'Actually, the government urged the readers to report any fellow citizens suspected to be guilty of thoughtcrime,' Vance told the Munich Security Conference. 'In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.'"

From "JD Vance attacks UK and EU over 'retreat of free speech'/Addressing the Munich Security Conference, the US vice-president avoided mentioning Ukraine but said censorship was more dangerous to the West than Russia" (London Times).

The full speech:

They weren't really saying babies are racist, but they made it easy to say that's what they're saying, and they were taking taxpayer money to propagate something the people don't want.

Funding for racist baby training is canceled https://t.co/M7H1ks4Vbr

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2025

When Bill Clinton was King.

Sounds familiar https://t.co/umL0MKczTa

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2025

ADDED: There was a budget surplus when Bill Clinton left office, and we now have a deficit counted in trillions, and the national debt is in the tens of trillions. Those who don't like the service Elon Musk is giving to his country — what is their alternative? 

"Musk and his goofily-named, wow-that-really-exists Department of Government Efficiency have been intent on the government budget slash-and-burn mission..."

"... since Donald Trump took office. They say that evil never sleeps, but apparently tech kajillionaires who have pretty bananapants power over federal infrastructure do, hence Musk’s alleged lil DOGE naps in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Stripping vulnerable and minority groups of their protections and advocates can really take it out of a guy, not to mention flipping science the fiscal bird! The EEOB is right across from the West Wing, and Musk is said to get comfy at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago when he’s down in Florida, so maybe it’s a matter of proximity and comfort. Ssshhh, he’s right there, he might whisper to himself, gazing out at the windows of Casa Trump, the TV’s soft blue light flickering in the night, his palm pressed to the glass of his own office. It’s okay."

I'm reading "Goodnight, Goon. Elon Musk Is Whispering 'Cuts,' Sleeping on the Floor Near the White House/He really is in the DOGEhouse, huh?" That's Kase Wickman, writing in Vanity Fair.

Does she hate Musk? Is she just in the company of people who can't openly love him? I don't know, but — whatever her condition — she's having fun with it. 

She's only calling him a "goon" to make a play on the going-to-sleep children's book "Goodnight, Moon."

Here's a history of the word "goon." In 1934, we get Alice the Goon, the character in E.C. Segar's "Thimble Theatre" comic strip:

At the Friday Night Café...

 ... you can talk all night.

Friday night... and Valentine's Day!

What should Democrats do? Defend "the system — of checks and balances, democratic norms, and institutions — and defend the virtues of foreign aid, federal spending, and the bureaucracy?..."

"A focus on saving democracy and protecting institutions might be more conducive to those who already believe in the system — an audience that overlaps significantly with their college-educated, liberal base. But a personal appeal — making the case that taxpayers’ personal information, money, and benefits are at risk — could attract less tuned-in, less educated, or less partisan Americans. It’s a fork in the road for Democrats, and they need to make a choice soon. For the last month, the Democrats’ resistance has appeared sporadic, slow, and splintered, enraging the party base.... A focus on Trump’s threats to democracy and anti-establishment tendencies does not appear to have been successful.... [P]erhaps Democrats will be more inclined toward a new strategy: an individualistic, populist appeal...."

From "The key question for Democrats hoping to take down Trump" (Vox).

Sad!

"[John F.] Kennedy concluded that, if outright confrontation failed, then circumvention of the process must be relied on..."

"... executive orders instead of legislation, extensions of authority for the team players, isolation of the less responsive parts of government. Let the uncooperative agencies atrophy, while a few vigorous men took on more and more general tasks…. More important is the extent to which he viewed his own administration as a raid of mobile 'outsiders' on the settled government of America. He had assembled a hit-and-run team to cut through enemy resistance, go outside channels, forgo meetings, subvert committees, dismantle structures. Democracies need such strong (and often secret) leadership by an enlightened few pitted against the many dullards of the bureaucracy."

So wrote the historian Garry Wills, in his 1982 book "The Kennedy Imprisonment," quoted at The Nation by Jeet Heer in "Donald Trump Is Stealing the Kennedy Brand." 

Heer says Wills "rightly emphasizes that JFK’s brand of politics was deeply personal, based not on ideology but on charisma, with policies executed by a band of loyalists (including family members).... [T]he commonality with Trump is inescapable."

"What immediately stood out... just the fact of [Elon Musk] holding court next to a sitting President Trump for 30 minutes in [the Oval Office]."

"That is the very definition of American presidential power. It was the stature that it conferred on Musk, and you all know this, but there's been this running motif that Musk is a kind of co-president and Time Magazine went so far over the past couple days as to put Musk on the cover of its latest issue, sitting behind the resolute desk with a coffee mug in his hand.... So to see this scene of the richest man in the world standing in front of cameras. And this scene didn't seem to combat that, or did it?"

Asks Michael Barbaro, quite hilariously, at the beginning of today's episode of the NYT podcast, "The Daily," "Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval..." (audio and transcript at Podscribe).

I say hilariously, because there has been all this effort to portray Trump as a huge narcissist who must be losing his mind over the ascension of Musk into a "co-President."

Trump has his framed mug-shot on the wall next to the door to the Oval Office.

Everyone who walks into the Oval office has to see Trump’s epic mugshot.

It’s a reminder of what they did to him and why he won. pic.twitter.com/22qJKDSgqC

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 14, 2025

"South Korea’s likely next leader would support President Donald Trump’s efforts to restart dialogue with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un..."

"... and would even consider nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize if there was a significant breakthrough, signaling a sharp change from Seoul’s current hard-line approach toward Pyongyang...."

From "South Korea’s likely next leader wants warmer ties with China, North Korea/Lee Jae-myung says he would support President Donald Trump’s efforts to restart talks with North Korea — and even consider nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize" (WaPo)(free-access link).

"I hope there will be a situation within this year under which we as a party officially nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize,” [Lee Jae-myung] said.... 

When Japan’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, nominated him for the same award in 2019, he called it “most beautiful.”...

Last year, Lee survived an assassination attempt after a man stabbed him in the neck during an event. “I collapsed and looked at the blue sky and thought, ‘Oh, that sky will soon disappear from my sight. This must be death,’” Lee said. “Now, the time I have left feels like a bonus. It made me a freer person, less worried about the preciousness of my life.”

"My first time in this Oval Office was in... 1962... I came here... and I had a meeting with my uncle who was President... He was involved deeply, as we all know..."

"... in restoring physical fitness in this country.... At one point during his administration, he challenged Americans to do a 50-mile walk, which I ultimately did. But I remember the day that my father completed his walk. We were staying at Camp David, and my father came in after 18 hours walking on this towpath with his feet bleeding and blisters on them...."

Said RFK Jr. at the beginning of the short speech he made after his swearing in yesterday. I wrote quite a bit about that speech, here, but I did not include that part, and this morning I'm seeing an important reason why I should have. 

RFK Jr. began his remarks with JFK's physical fitness program, and then he extends beyond his uncle to his father, who took the uncle's challenge very seriously, and we hear of his father's wounds — his wounded feet. I think of Christ's wounds, so often detailed in art, and here, we are given grisly details — "bleeding and blisters." RFK Jr. began with a family story — father, son, and holy President — and a grand mission — physical health. 

From that beginning RFK Jr. spoke of how his father came to run for President in 1968.

"On her first day in office, [Attorney General Pam Bondi] announced the creation of a 'Weaponization Working Group,' purportedly intended to root out 'abuses of the criminal justice process'..."

"... by local and federal law enforcement officers, including those who had investigated Mr. Trump. Current and former Justice Department officials view those claims as merely an excuse to justify the brazen politicization of the department under Mr. Trump and his team. It has left many employees angry and worried for the department’s future. The [Eric] Adams case brought those concerns to a head. One veteran prosecutor told a friend late Thursday that he was not answering phone calls, in hopes of avoiding a demand to take an action that would force his resignation...."

From "Trump Official’s Demand in Adams Case Forces Justice Dept. Showdown/A crisis at the department over the Eric Adams case is an early test of the criminal justice system’s resilience against a retribution-minded president and his appointees" (NYT).

Jen Psaki locates Joe Rogan and Theo Von in the "right-wing ecosystem," but Jon Stewart isn't having it.

Jen Psaki says @joerogan and @TheoVon are in a “right-wing ecosystem” which is “supportive of the Trump enterprise” pic.twitter.com/X4HFhByX6m

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) February 14, 2025

"The whole point of this bill wasn't to get it passed. The whole point of this bill was to call out the hypocrisy."

BREAKING: Ohio lawmakers have proposed a new law that bans men from ejaculating without intent of conception, would fine men up to $10,000 per ejaculation. pic.twitter.com/eOtMUatSPt

— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) February 14, 2025

If there's an exception for LGBTQ people, it seems you could avoid the $10,000 fine, by identifying as bisexual or "queer." Who could challenge you? You are what you say... among the kind of people who would institute an exception like this.

Not that anyone would ever really get charged. And obviously and admittedly, the bill will not get passed. Republicans control the Ohio legislature.

These Democrats are introducing The Conception Begins at Erection Act for rhetorical purposes. They want to expose hypocrisy within the anti-abortion group, which tends to say to women, if you don't want to get pregnant, don't have sex. 

ADDED: These Democrats present the idea of leveling. Since sexual intercourse only risks pregnancy for the women, the law should impose an equivalent burden on men. Equity = $10,000. This reminds me of the much-loved Kurt Vonnegut story, "Harrison Bergeron," which begins:

RFK Jr. advocated banning prescription drug advertising on TV. Would that destroy mainstream TV news?

I asked Grok: What has RFK Jr. said about prescription drug advertising on TV? Answer: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been vocal about his opposition to prescription drug advertising on television."

I'm sure he's been "vocal... on television," but Grok is clearly trying to say that he strongly opposes "prescription drug advertising on television." I'm not going to spend my time teaching Grok grammar.

Now, I'm thinking about this topic this morning because I heard Joe Rogan — here — talking about prescription drug advertising on television. It was very interesting. But the guest, Adam Curry falls prey to what I believe is a misreading of a statistic. Curry says: 

Although we have stopped tobacco advertisements and there's all kinds of things that have been done throughout the years, but what happened with television is all the money. I mean, really 60, 70, maybe 80% of all the advertising income is from pharmaceutical companies. That's why there's also no reporting. Like, we're not gonna bite the hand that feeds us. 

Would RFK's plan to ban this advertising wreck mainstream television news?

But going back and forth with Grok, I think I figured out how the numbers got twisted. I, not Grok. But Grok gave me what I needed to see the problem. There was a report from Statista that showed "the pharmaceutical industry spent 4.58 billion U.S. dollars on advertising on national TV in the United States, which accounted for 75% of the total ad spend for that year." But people in social media have been "suggesting that 75% of cable TV advertising revenue comes from the pharmaceutical industry."

Does your human brain see the problem?

Austin Nasso does Elon and Trump — with little X — in the Oval Office.

I hesitate to put this after the jump, because it's so good. But I don't want to hear complaints from readers who tell me they — or their device — doesn't play well with TikTok. I've got to disempower the naysayers, because this is just too much fun:

At the Thursday Night Café…

 … you can talk all night.

"I've told you before I genuinely believe that you are a pivotal historical figure, and you are going to transform this country.... We need a man on a white horse now."

"We need somebody who... has the spine and the guts and the strength to challenge orthodoxies, to stand in the way of vested interests, and to break institutions that have turned against our democracy. President Trump has shown again and again that he is that hero.... My uncle started USAID in 1961 for humanitarian purposes... It has become a sinister propagator of totalitarianism and war.... And President Trump saw that and he stood up to it... and we want to do the same thing with the institutions that are stealing the health of our children. We need a revolutionary figure, and you are that figure."

Said RFK Jr., in the Oval Office, after his swearing in as the new Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Longer version of the quote:

"The Democrats... they're just yelling wolf... they're yelling wolf... they're screaming and yelling that there's a constitutional crisis..."

"Let me be very clear as a historian of the Constitution there has been one — one! — O-N-E — one! — count it:  one — one constitutional crisis in our history that our Constitution was incapable of solving and that, of course, was slavery...  The Constitution was not capable of resolving that issue without a war so we had indeed a constitutional crisis.... Compare that to what's going on today. If you listen to... Chuck Schumer you think we're going have a civil war. No! Listen to Donald Trump.... He said I will comply with every court order and then I will appeal it. And he didn't say this but obviously his lawyers... will seek a stay.... You can't allow hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of federal judges sitting in obscure parts of the country somewhere... in Rhode Island or somewhere in the south of  California to issue an injunction that covers everybody in the United States.... Democrats! Democrats! Don't yell wolf!... Don't tell us that there is no political recourse..... We have  three independent branches of the government — not a fourth. The bureaucracy is not in the Constitution.... It's very complicated. And president Trump for the first time has said let's look hard at these bureaucracies.... If you want to complain about what the administration is doing, that's your right...  but don't exaggerate...."

Says Alan Dershowitz in his excellent new podcast.

And Dershowitz thinks Trump is not necessarily wrong on the birthright citizenship question. He said "I'd love to argue it in front of the United States Supreme Court. I don't know how it would come out." That willingness has a limitation:

RFK Jr. confirmed!

🚨RFK has been confirmed as Secretary of Health & Human Services by the Senate

He has dedicated his life to giving children safer foods and medicines

He was censored, banned, ridiculed, and attacked

But now he’s in charge of America’s healthcare
pic.twitter.com/H5UIupjiUG

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) February 13, 2025

Elon Musk passes along this satire featuring the phrase "Grow a Pair."

pic.twitter.com/UttRIsbq7S

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2025

The balls-focused discourse is undignified... quite intentionally.

In the workplace, I think this would be considered evidence of sexual harassment. 

"DOGE: Looks like Radical Left Reuters was paid $9,000,000 by the Department of Defense to study 'large scale social deception.' GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!"

Writes Trump on Truth Social, here.

This is also Trump on Truth Social: "DOGE: Why was Politico paid Millions of Dollars for NOTHING. Buying the press??? PAY BACK THE MONEY TO THE TAXPAYERS! How much has the Failing New York Times paid? Is this the money that is keeping it open??? THEY ARE BUYING THE PRESS!"

Is he saying there's an obligation to give back the money, that it was fraudulently obtained? Perhaps it's more of an appeal to give the money back as a gift, now that the taxpayers are seeing what happened and disapproving.

Trump doesn't take much care with these "truths" — that's what the press secretary calls them, "truths." He wrote "How much has the Failing New York Times paid?" when he must mean "How much has the Failing New York Times been paid?" He took the trouble to add "Failing" (idiosyncratically capitalized), but he omitted a word and left the meaning reversed.

Is insisting that people say "Gulf of America" similar to insisting that people use "they/them" and other "preferred pronouns"?

I see that "On Tuesday the White House broke with decades of precedent and blocked Associated Press reporters from attending two of President Trump’s media availabilities. The AP said it was blocked because it hasn’t changed its stylebook entry for Gulf of Mexico to 'Gulf of America'" (CNN).

Say it my way or face consequences.

The consequence here is the loss of a great privilege, the access given to the small group of reporters who speak directly to the President. But it made me think of the pressure that has been applied to ordinary people to say things in a way that is dictated by their political antagonists.

"In short, change needs to happen through the established channels of litigation in, and obedience to, the courts."

That's a vision of judicial supremacy seen in the NYT Editorial Board's "Trump Dares the Courts to Stop Him" (which I think was originally titled, using yesterday's phrase du jour, "Trump's Constitutional Crisis").

Did I rip that sentence out of context? Yes, but I gave you a gift link, so you can put it back.

The role of the judiciary is not to determine the meaning of every provision of law that is opined upon by someone in another branch of government, but only to say what the law is when that is needed to resolve a real dispute between adverse parties and only if the court has jurisdiction. The President is independently obliged to follow the law and must figure out what it is as he goes along. The courts don't answer questions of law as they happen to arise as the President does his work. This is basic separation of powers.

I note that the judge in the "Fork in the Road" case just found that the plaintiffs lacked standing and dissolved the temporary restraining order. He gave no advice on the legality of Trump's "fork" offer, because he lacked the power to do so. 

As the NYT tells us — in "Trump’s Federal Resignation Program Moves Ahead After Court Win/With a judge’s assent, the Trump administration moved to take next steps in the program and close it to new entrants" — Trump has now closed the offer.

At the Wednesday Night Café...

... you can talk all night.

"There’s almost nothing I like more than a laughing fit. It is a non-brain response, like an orgasm or a sneeze."

"I wish I could say that only the comedies of Aristophanes make me laugh, but then my pants would catch on fire. I have cracked up at bons mots, but also at dirty jokes, dumb pets, and all sorts of things I 'shouldn’t' laugh at. Someone recently told me a joke that involved the pun 'a frayed knot,' and I laughed like a lunatic. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. Laughing is laughing."

Writes Roz Chast in "Roz Chast on George Booth’s Cartoons/Every object is lovingly drawn, in a way that only Booth could draw them. Every detail enhances the scene" (The New Yorker).

That reminds me, I recently laughed hysterically — way way too much — at the tiniest little non-joke on the old TV show that Meade puts on sometimes, "Leave It to Beaver." Somehow, the father (Ward) saw fit to ask his wife (June), "What is it, mattress-turning day?" It is a non-brain response, like an orgasm....

"She selected four of her favorite poems and mailed them to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an essayist and minor poet...."

"In her cover note dated April 15 [1862]... one of the most famous letters in all of American literature, [Emily] Dickinson asked Higginson if he was 'too deeply occupied, to say if my Verse is alive'.... Higginson, who was bold in politics—an outspoken abolitionist and a secret supporter of John Brown...—but timid in literature, was evidently not encouraging. (His answer has not survived.) 'Thank you for the surgery,' she wrote in a follow-up letter, and, in another, 'I smile when you suggest that I delay "to publish"–that being foreign to my thought, as Firmament to Fin.' She continued to send Higginson poems, and he continued to find fault with them. 'You think my gait "spasmodic,"' she wrote in her third letter. 'You think me "uncontrolled."'... But over a long correspondence with Higginson... Dickinson discovered that letters themselves could be an art form rivaling poetry. Asked for personal details by Higginson... she answered... 'You ask of my Companions. Hills–Sir–and the Sundown–and a Dog–large as myself, that my Father bought me–They are better than Beings, because they know–but do not tell–and the noise in the Pool, at noon–excels my Piano.'"

From "'A Loving Caw from a Nameless Friend'/A new collection of Emily Dickinson’s letters reveals them to be a major literary achievement, related to her poems and perhaps exceeding them in experimental energy" (NYRB).

Here's the book under discussion: "The Letters of Emily Dickinson" (commission earned).

"As [Janet] Malcolm moves through drafty kitchens, Indian restaurants and train rides through the damp English countryside, she turns each biographer and figure in [Sylvia] Plath’s life into a character."

"She exposes the motives and agendas and prejudices at the heart of the Plath industry. She brilliantly indicts the whole enterprise of biography itself, comparing biographers to burglars rifling through people’s drawers.... She emphasizes the total impossibility of ever knowing the truth of another person’s life.... At one point, she gave the unfinished manuscript of 'The Silent Woman' to Philip Roth. He gave it a slashing edit, with often nasty comments in the margins. He violently disapproved of her putting herself in as a character. He hated her metaphors and accused her of intellectual shallowness. Another writer might have been crushed or paralyzed, but Malcolm simply addressed what she thought were the few useful parts of his criticism and put aside the rest. She scribbled playful and defiant responses to his edits in the margins: 'What’s bugging you, Philip? she said, with a sad shake of her head.' Later, in an unpublished interview, she said, 'I didn’t accept his dislike of the book.' Some of his crankiness, she thought, arose from being a man of the 1950s reading about the female experience.... To take this incident with equanimity, to not let it undermine either her friendship or her manuscript, requires a very expansive and shockingly healthy sense of self...."

Writes Katie Roiphe, in "Janet Malcolm Understood the Power of Not Being 'Nice'/The writer is remembered, above all, for her ruthlessness. But when I went looking for it, I found something much more complicated" (NYT).

"The Silent Woman" — commission earned — came out in 1995.

Have you ever endured a serious edit from someone you had to respect? Some writers fear even putting themselves in the position of needing to see one. Have you ever given one or offered to give one and had the writer miss what you thought was the chance to step up to a higher level? It's a painful process, editing. So says the blogger.

"Judges often invoke the separation of powers to limit their own authority, to put certain classes of executive action off-limits from judicial review, or..."

"... to shape and constrain the remedies they provide. That has been true for as long as we have had courts and judicial review.... As a matter of separation of powers, the courts may themselves decide that courts ought not to be the ones to decide a given issue.... To date, all the Trump administration’s responses in court have embodied appeals to these principles. In response to a recent temporary restraining order that seemingly barred all political appointees at the Treasury Department from access to certain internal information, the administration argued in a filing that the work of executive agencies is overseen by the president, and 'a federal court, consistent with the separation of powers, cannot insulate any portion of this work from the specter of political accountability.' That was a straightforward legal appeal to the limits of judicial authority, made within a judicial proceeding as an argument under applicable law. Even where courts have jurisdiction to decide, it is always legally valid to argue that their decisions ought to respect the separation of powers...."

Writes lawprof Adrian Vermeule, in "JD Vance’s Tweet Is No Crisis/Judges also have an obligation to respect the separation of powers. Usually they do so" (Wall Street Journal, no paywall).

"I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia."

"We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects. We both reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering, that Russia lost tens of millions of people, and we, likewise, lost so many! We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together. But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, 'COMMON SENSE.'"

Writes President Trump, on Truth Social.

"Elon Musk Gives Rambling Explanation of DOGE’s Work In Oval Office Address."

I'm laughing at that Mediaite headline. Musk speaks at length, extemporaneously, answering all the questions, managing his little son, keeping up good cheer, and making a lot of us viewers feel energized and optimistic, and Mediaite needs to stress that he rambled.

Remember when we had a President who was tightly scripted and couldn't find his way through the script without repeated stumbling? There was little sense that he knew what he was saying and we were utterly deprived of transparency about who was actually wielding the executive power. 

I ran across that Mediaite article because I'd googled "the woman that walked away with about 30 million," which is something Trump said to Musk as he prompted him to tell us about some "things that your team has found."

Musk said: "Right. Well, we often do find it sort of rather odd that, you know, there are quite a few people in actually here who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars, but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position."

He didn't name the woman, but, as even Mediaite admits, it's Samantha Power.

More Musk rambling:

Everyone's saying it, so it must (not) be true: "Constitutional Crisis."

Their authenticity is overwhelming
pic.twitter.com/3qoTwyjbmv

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 12, 2025

>

We're told law professors are saying we're in a "constitutional crisis," but at what point would they switch to the term "constitutional moment."

One could avoid either term. Even though both terms include the word "constitutional," neither term appears in the Constitution, and I cannot imagine how a real case could hinge on the perception that we are in a "constitutional crisis" or a "constitutional moment." 

But I'm thinking about these 2 terms together because I just listened to today's NYT "Daily" podcast: "A Constitutional Crisis." The phrase was used 23 times, as if we could be convinced by repetition. But convinced of what? 

Michael Barbaro: The phrase du jour, Adam, right now, in Washington, is "Constitutional Crisis." And we come to you as our resident scholar of the law and the courts to understand what A Constitutional Crisis actually is and how you know when you are in the middle of one....

Adam Liptak: I've been talking to a lot of law professors and what emerges from those conversations is that there's no fixed, agreed-upon definition of A Constitutional Crisis. It has characteristics, notably, when one of the three branches tries to get out of its lane, asserts too much power. It often involves a president flouting statutes, flouting the constitution, flouting judicial orders. And it can be a single instance, but it's more typically cumulative. But it's not a binary thing, it's not a switch.

Liptak's been "talking to a lot of law professors," but apparently not to Alan Dershowitz. I highly recommend his "Trump versus the courts: who will win? My legal analysis" (from February 10th):

Alan Dershowitz: I want to be very clear the New York Times had a front page story major story.... All the law professors in the world the entire academy,  all the law professors think there's a horrible constitutional crisis going on. Of course, they interviewed 3 or 4 left-wing anti-Trump law professors. They didn't introduce anybody who would have a neutral view of the Constitution, and they didn't give their readers an honest assessment of the issue. There is no constitutional crisis! Take it from me! I've been study studying the Constitution for close to 70 years now. I know a thing about the Constitution. The United States has a system of checks and balances. That system is designed to prevent constitutional crisis. The Democrats are crying wolf. Schumer screaming out there like a like a mad person about about the Constitutional crisis. People talking about going to the streets and war. No no no no.....

The NYT article he was talking about, published February 10th, was written by Adam Liptak — "Trump’s Actions Have Created a Constitutional Crisis, Scholars Say."

Sunset — 4:28.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

Little X and Big T listen as Elon Musk — AKA Harry Bōlz — expounds on the first few days of DOGE.

 

"If the bureaucracy’s in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?... It does not match the will of the people."

ADDED: "We're told the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000. We're like well, why why why is that? Well, because all the retirement paperwork is manual — on paper — it's manually calculated, then written down a piece of paper, then it goes down a mine. I'm like what do you mean a mine. Like, yeah, there's a limestone mine where we store all the retirement paperwork... and this this mine looks like something out of the 50s because it was started in 1955 so it looks like it's like a time warp and then... the limiting factor is the speed at which the mine shaft elevator can move determines how many people can retire... and the elevator breaks down and then sometimes and then you can't — nobody can — retire doesn't that sound crazy? Like, a thousand people that work on this... working in in a mineshaft, uh, carrying manila envelopes to, you know, boxes in a mineshaft..."

Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!

"Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth engaged in physical training with the elite 1/10 Special Forces Group in Germany..."

"... an action seen as a significant shift from traditional interactions between defense leaders and troops. This event was widely recognized as a morale booster, showcasing leadership through direct participation in military exercises. Hegseth's involvement was praised for promoting a culture of engagement, unity, and a mission-first mindset, potentially enhancing recruitment and troop morale...."

Grok summarizes the debate on X.

 

.@SecDef @PeteHegseth on doing PT with the troops: "When I can get down, do pushups and deadlifts with the troops, and just hear from them — What's working? What isn't? How do you see your mission set? — I love that." pic.twitter.com/UAt4NZLiPP

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 11, 2025

"You need a lawyer or an agent."

The pithiness of Senator Kennedy stuns me:

Senator Kennedy: You make a-lot of money, do you ?

Sam Altman: No I’m paid enough for health insurance. I have no equity in open AI.

Kennedy: That’s interesting, you need a lawyer or an agent.

Sam: I’m doing this because I love it.
pic.twitter.com/BIB7dwY75B

— Awais Aziz (@awaisaziz21) January 23, 2025

"There has been like wave after wave after wave of people leaving the Democratic Party.... They're gonna keep shedding people. They're not gonna correct course. This is a buffalo drop."

"One of the ways to hunt buffalo was to get them to the edge of a cliff and just run at them and they'd just fall off the edge of the cliff. And then people would be waiting on the bottom and they'd butcher 'em and eat 'em.... They're not course correcting at all.... Their understanding of social media and the dynamics that you set up by having completely state-controlled mainstream media where they only said the narratives that you guys wanted —  they all said it in step. So you could watch different programs repeat the exact same words, exact same phrases. We know they got talking points. We don't trust you anymore. We don't trust the New York Times. We don't trust the Washington Post. We don't trust CNN or any of the MSNBC... They're all full with propaganda.  And so that's why the internet rose. It's not because there was some sort of a fucking right wing conspiracy.... No, you guys suck. You guys fucking suck. And you're not real people and you're not like, nobody wants to hang out with Brian Stelter. You know what I'm saying? There's the, none of these fucking people are people that people can actually relate to and like...."

💯
pic.twitter.com/u6x37VJlGA

— Harry Bōlz (@elonmusk) February 11, 2025

"[T]he American Academy of Pediatrics has so far continued to endorse the treatments as effective in relieving the psychological distress many transgender youths experience..."

"... as a result of the incongruence between their sex and their gender identity. The Trump administration’s order calls the practice of medical transition for youths 'a stain on our nation’s history' and the medical guidelines 'junk science.' It directs federal agencies to withhold funding for hospitals and medical schools that carry out transgender medical care for patients under the age of 19, referring to it as 'maiming.' In a lawsuit filed last week challenging the order’s constitutionality, the attorneys general of Washington, Oregon and Minnesota noted the title, 'Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,' saying it was 'false and repugnant.'"

From "How Trump Uses Language to Attack the Idea of Transgender Identity/Using words like 'maiming' and 'junk science,' the directives try to portray trans people as lacking honesty and integrity, and thus unworthy of legal rights" (NYT).

Here's a free-access link to a Washington Post article about that lawsuit — "Three states sue Trump for attack on gender-affirming care for minors/The lawsuit represents the strongest rebuke at the state level of Trump’s executive order targeting transgender healthcare."

"King Abdullah cannot go along with it. He cannot survive the idea that he’s colluding on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. It’s existential for him and his government."

Said Paul Salem, vice president for international engagement at the Middle East Institute, quoted in "Jordan’s King Faces a Bind as He Meets With Trump/King Abdullah II, a close U.S. ally dependent on aid from Washington, is confronting the president’s demands that he take in Palestinians from Gaza, a step the king’s domestic politics will not allow" (NYT).

Mr. Trump has reiterated his intention to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as part of his plan for the United States to “own” the territory, and on Monday he suggested he could consider slashing aid to Jordan and Egypt if their governments refused to take in an estimated 1.9 million Palestinians from Gaza.

"If I’m writing fiction and I get deep enough into it, all of a sudden it feels like I’m telling the truth. If I’m writing nonfiction, I write down something I absolutely believe, and it’ll look like a lie."

Said Anne Tyler, quoted in "At 83, Anne Tyler Has a New Novel. She’d Rather Talk About Anything Else. While many of her contemporaries are playing canasta, she’s releasing her 25th book. There’s no mystery to it, Tyler says: Start on Page 1, then keep writing" (NYT).

The trouble with nonfiction is that you're claiming it's truth, and any slanting or glossing over or selectivity undercuts you. With fiction, anything at all true counts as truth.

"What’s unspoken in Vance’s tweet is the well-established power of courts to police the limits of that discretion, i.e., to decide which exercises of power by the executive branch are, in fact, 'legitimate.'"

"Thus, there are examples of courts interfering in military operations—granting habeas petitions to individuals in military custody; blocking military commission prosecutions; and even, during the Biden administration, blocking the military’s COVID vaccination mandate as applied to certain active-duty troops. There’s even a single example of a federal judge blocking an active military operation—Judge Judd’s July 1973 injunction against President Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia.... That ruling might have been wrong; it certainly wasn’t 'illegal.'... calling a judicial decision 'illegal' certainly sounds like a basis for refusing to abide by it—especially if one believes... that such rulings are 'a violation of the separation of powers.' The proper remedy, of course, is to appeal a decision you believe is wrong. And if the Supreme Court, the federal court of last resort, reaches the 'wrong' decision, there are legal ways to seek to overturn it; refusing to follow it isn’t one of them. But the reality is that there is no history or tradition in this country of presidents ignoring judicial rulings on the ground that they are 'illegal.'..."

Writes lawprof Steve Vladek in "What Vice President Vance Did—and Didn't—Say About Judicial Power" (Substack).

Here's the JD Vance tweet under discussion:

If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.

If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal.

Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.

At the Monday Night Café...

... you can talk all night.

Does the average American sense that Lawrence Summers or Elon Musk is motivated by the public good?

Listen Larry, we need to stop government spending like a drunken sailor on fraud & waste or America is gonna go bankrupt.

That does mean a lot of grifters will lose their grift and complain loudly about it.

Too bad. Deal with it. https://t.co/7mrwqDxyIc

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025

ADDED: The Summers tweet links to a guest essay in the NYT: "Five Former Treasury Secretaries: Our Democracy Is Under Siege." Excerpt:

"This is a remarkable intrusion on the Executive Branch that is in direct conflict with Article II of the Constitution, and the unitary structure it provides."

"There is not and cannot be a basis for distinguishing between 'civil servants' and 'political appointees.' Basic democratic accountability requires that every executive agency’s work be supervised by politically accountable leadership, who ultimately answer to the President. A federal court, consistent with the separation of powers, cannot insulate any portion of that work from the specter of political accountability. No court can issue an injunction that directly severs the clear line of supervision Article II requires. Because the Order on its face draws an impermissible and anti-constitutional distinction, it should be dissolved immediately...."

It's the "MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN SUPPORT OF EMERGENCY MOTION TO DISSOLVE, CLARIFY, OR MODIFY EX PARTE TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER" filed in State of New York v. U.S. Department of Treasury.

I assume videos like this are scripted by someone other than the person on camera. Are these not commercials?

pic.twitter.com/4M5uNd6U0l

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025

I watched the Super Bowl last night because I fell prey to the rumor that Elon Musk had spent $40 million of his own money on several pro-DOGE commercials that would air. That didn't happen, and I spent the evening viewing the actual commercials, which, by the way, were terrible.

They weren't funny. And since any damned thing you can think of — such as the singer Seal as an actual seal — you can make look "real," there's no wow factor in showing anything. And how many times was the narrative arc simply: 1. Wonder what this is an ad for? 2. Oh, yeah, that.

Anyway, propaganda for DOGE, yeah, why not? Let the anti-DOGE folk propagandize back. I'm sure there's some clever way to express the old anti-transparency idea. Maybe a glossy CGI take on the old metaphor of government as a sausage factory. You like the sausage well enough, so don't be looking inside.

I couldn’t understand Kendrick Lamar’s words but it seemed like a statement of anger against America — not really the "meaning" of the Super Bowl, whatever that's supposed to be.

Kendrick literally protested, and taunted America in front of the president during America’s biggest sports event. Chefs kiss. pic.twitter.com/5xmcQsIuuu

— Joy De’Angela (@joydeangela) February 10, 2025

Was this a metaphor? Divide the nation with rap music or something? I don’t get it. What was the assignment?

— 😵‍💫 (@Joshdr) February 10, 2025

I say get rid of nickels too. Let the dime be the smallest coin — not just physically but denominationally.

I saw Trump's Truth Social post: "For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let's rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it's a penny at a time."

Then I read the hand-wringing in the NYT — "Trump Orders Treasury Secretary to Stop Minting Pennies/Can he do that? It’s not clear. But President Trump is right when he says that pennies 'literally cost us more than 2 cents'" — because they can't just say Thanks, Trump, thanks for doing what we've known for 40 years we needed to do but we couldn't do because some people whine about the nostalgic and symbolic value of the Lincoln-stamped copper-plated disc.

The NYT article says: "[T]he elimination of the penny will increase the demand for nickels, which are even more expensive to produce and distribute at 13.78 cents per coin, the organization said. (The dime is the smallest coin whose face value is greater than what it costs to produce.)"

To that I say, get rid of the nickel too! It's always been absurdly oversized, especially compared to the dime. With the penny and the nickel gone, the size and the value of the dime will finally merge. So aesthetically pleasing.

I feel a little sorry for the sector of America that feels that whatever Trump does must be bad. Can't they at least celebrate his action eliminating the penny? 

Last September, the NYT published the column "Abolish the Penny? Inside an intractable problem inside America’s change purses."

Sunrise — 7:05, 7:10, 7:15, 7:17.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

"With most describing him as 'tough,' 'energetic,' 'focused' and 'effective' — and as doing what he'd promised during his campaign — President Trump has started his term with net positive marks from Americans overall."

"Many say he's doing more than they expected — and of those who say this, most like what they see. Very few think he's doing less. His partisans and his voters, in particular, say he's got the right amount of focus on matters like ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs and deporting those who are in the country illegally...."

From "CBS News poll — Trump has positive approval amid 'energetic' opening weeks; seen as doing what he promised."

That was just so good for Trump that there was no way to spin it negative and CBS tells it straight.

"Success will bring the country together."

Said President Trump in his Super Bowl interview.

ADDED: Comment on all things Super Bowl. 

VIDEO:

pic.twitter.com/esjBwCjKOU

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 9, 2025

AND: About that half-time show:

Who's couping who?

I'm trying to read Raw Story, "'The feel of a coup': Elon Musk said to be poised to 'defy' major judicial order":

ADDED: More "coup" talk:

Swisher & Galloway are threatening talented, young software engineers who are gave up high compensation for death threats in order to help the American people.

Shame on Swisher & Galloway, cruel, mean & deceitful human beings that they are! https://t.co/50MdPfsOQl

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2025

Galloway envisions the legislative branch physically attacking the executive branch:

"I'd like to see all — whatever it is — 48 or 49 U.S. Senators and any Republicans who want to join, I'd like to see 100 members of Congress go to the fucking building where this is and demand to go in and physically stop this, and let them arrest you."

It's so January 6th. 

"Emilia Pérez & The New Gaza."

I tried to quote something from this, but it's impossible, and that's how it should be. Live inside it — inhabit it — or skip it altogether. You know which is right for you.

"Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number."

"If accurate, this is extremely suspicious. When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!! This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately."

Tweeted Elon Musk.

Grok or ChatGPT — here's the one question that made the choice clear to me.

Here's ChatGPT:

And here's Grok:

Sunrise with ATV and UFO.

 

At 7:16 this morning, video'd from the shore of Lake Mendota.

"How horrifying it is on the regular."

I'm listening "Resistance, Where Art Thou?," the new episode of the NYT "Matter of Opinion" podcast. At 5:28 in the linked audio/transcript, Ross Douthat says:

From 2016 to 2020, there was a sense that there was a fundamental liberal, or at least center left majority in America that had been unfairly denied its rightful position of power and influence. And so it just made sense to say, we just need to mobilize.... [I]n the early days of 2017, and indeed throughout his presidency, [the White House] was filled with people who were not at all loyal to Donald Trump. Some of whom were just total opportunists, some of whom were sort of, you know, respectable Republican figures who felt like they were there to manage the weird, bizarre phenomenon of the Trump presidency. But those people played a very important role, a kind of feedback loop in driving the energy of the resistance by basically leaking constantly about how crazy things were inside the Trump White House.... [T]he teams that exist in the Trump White House this time have esprit de corps. They have internal loyalty and cohesion. And so whatever is going on... in the kind of Trumpian attempt to remake the executive branch, you know, people aren't interested in just telling Politico and The New York Times all about how horrifying it is on the regular.

By the way, I had a long conversation with Grok about the idiom "on the regular." I won't link to it. Have your own conversation with your own robot. 

I also wanted to quote this from Michelle Cottle: "There was a big piece in Politico saying, oh, you know, the Democrats are, are taking the bait by defending USAID, Americans hate USAID. They think that, you know, we give way too much money to people abroad and things like that. And... I, personally... I am much more familiar with the left critiques of USAID and the work that it's done around the world."

The left critiques of USAID. Where's the NYT article about that? When are we going to hear that side of the story? When — if — Elon Musk releases it into the public domain? Who wants to see that and who is desperately afraid?

"... Riley Gaines Barker, a 24-year-old former college swimmer whose sole issue is fighting trans people in women’s sports..."

I'm noticing this line in that much discussed New York Magazine article — "The Cruel Kids’ TableAmong the young, confident, and casually cruel Trumpers who, after conquering Washington, have their sights set on America."

Context:

“There would be no celebration tonight if it weren’t for the commitment of our keyboard warriors,” Alex Bruesewitz, who advised Trump on his social-media strategy, announced to the room. The honorees represented a hodgepodge of special interests. The list featured long-familiar pundits, including Ben Shapiro, as well as people nobody had heard of even three years ago, such as Riley Gaines Barker, a 24-year-old former college swimmer whose sole issue is fighting trans people in women’s sports. Bryce Hall, the 25-year-old boxer with 23 million TikTok followers who once dated Addison Rae, was at the bar, downing shot after shot of tequila. He wondered how many would be too many in the case that, as he had been told might be possible, he got a few minutes with Trump later in the night...."

The article came out on January 27th. Riley Gaines got what she'd fought for on February 5th. Is she a "sole issue" character who now fades from view? I see she framed it this way (on February 4th, on X): 

Things could've been so different. Gender insanity was the final straw that brought a lot of moderates to the side of common sense. Specifically, I believe it was the issue of men in women's sports.

If your "sole issue" is a wedge issue, you're not as obscure as New York Magazine would like to paint you.

"Barker" refers to her husband Louis Barker. He was born in England, and they met at the University of Kentucky, where he was also a swimmer.