At the Saturday Night Café...

 ... you can talk all night.

"To Trump's team, it was three strikes — and now officially out of favor — for Zelensky. "

"In their eyes, Zelensky already had two strikes against him when he sat down with Trump and Vance.... Strike 3 against Zelensky: He disagreed publicly with Vance, who accused Zelensky of trying to 'litigate' his case before the media.... Strike 2 came just before Friday's meeting, when Zelensky arrived at the White House without a suit or jacket, as requested.... Strike 1... came Feb. 15, when Zelensky publicly trashed a proposed mineral rights deal with Ukraine that he privately had discussed the day before in Munich with Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The plan Friday was for Zelensky to sign a new version of the deal as part of a plan to end the war. That didn't happen.... The meeting was largely uneventful until Zelensky addressed Vance directly and asked how diplomacy would work with a lying killer like Putin. 'No one expected Zelensky to walk in there and act like such a petulant child, constantly frowning and shaking his head and DJT and JD had had enough,' one Republican close to the administration told Axios via text...."

From "'Three strikes': Inside the Trump-Vance fury with Zelensky" (Axios).

"Body-language and behavioral expert Darren Stanton said he thought Zelensky appeared 'quite angry from the outset' and got 'caught up in his own ego.'"

"At one point while Vance is talking, Zelensky moves from leaning forward to leaning back with his arms crossed, showing a 'dramatic change in inner emotion' that Stanton believed was the moment Zelensky realized 'he was going to leave.' 'He felt he wasn’t getting his points across or wasn’t allowed to,' Stanton said, adding that he also thought Trump was greatly frustrated by Zelensky, despite remaining stone-faced."

From "Body-language experts break down the dramatic Trump-Zelensky meeting/The row between Trump and Zelensky was heightened by the lack of an interpreter, the power imbalance, and the men’s TV backgrounds, body-language experts say" (WaPo).

"Until this week, government officials had resisted answering inquiries as to who was formally in charge of [DOGE], except to say that it was not Mr. Musk."

"(Nor is Mr. Musk among its employees, the government said.) On Tuesday, a White House official said that Amy Gleason, a former health care investment executive, was serving as the acting administrator. On Friday, Joshua E. Gardner, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s civil division, denied that Mr. Musk had any role with the Department of Government Efficiency. This despite Mr. Musk’s clearly driving its initiatives, including an email blasted out last weekend that attempted to require all federal employees to respond with a list of five accomplishments from the previous week. Although the email was sent by the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources arm, Mr. Musk said on Wednesday that he had suggested it and that the president had approved...."

"Judge Appears Skeptical of Claims That Musk Isn’t Driving DOGE/The judge prodded government lawyers for additional clarity on Elon Musk’s role in a case that directly challenges the constitutionality of his operation and his part in the rapid reshaping of government" (NYT).

The argument is that the Appointments Clause applies and Senate confirmation is required because Musk is a "principal officer" and not an "inferior officer." I'll just give you this quote from the 1988 Supreme Court case, Morrison v. Olson:

Space tourism is idiotic... as is the use of the word "historic" to describe non-achievements by women.

But The Daily Mail tells us: "Lauren Sanchez, Katy Perry and CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King have left fans shocked after it was announced they are heading to space. It was revealed on Thursday that the Jeff Bezos's partner, 55, the pop star, 40, and the news anchor, 70, are part of the Blue Origin's historic all-women crew, which will blast off in the spring."

The fan "shock" is only over the sheer randomness. Katy Perry in space! I wasn't thinking about that.

As for "historic"... I'm reminded of the old Samuel Johnson quote: "Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." That is, calling this non-achievement "historic" is actually a sexist putdown.

To wallow in the idiocy, watch Lauren Sanchez do TikTok:

"I'm going to start referring to Donald Trump as the thinking man's President."

Overheard at Meadehouse.

I'd asked Meade (and Grok) about the adjectival phrase "thinking man's," which came up this morning in the comments on the post about Donald Trump's pardoning of Pete Rose, baseball being, some say, "the thinking man's sport."

Googling jogged my memory: "The Thinking Man's" is a Playboy phrase (apparently, you need to think to deal with women):

The Zs and what they wore.

Yes, there was Zelensky, in his traditional wartime outfit, taunted by Trump and Vance for not wearing a suit, but there was also Zuckerberg, more forcibly eschewing the suit:

NEW: Mark Zuckerberg rips off his suit and starts performing in a blue jumpsuit at his wife's 40th birthday party.

What

The billionaire surprised his wife at her birthday party by wearing singer Benson Boone’s jumpsuit that he used during his 2025 Grammy performance of… pic.twitter.com/ompbHIW8mp

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 1, 2025

ADDED: Did Trump taunt Zelensky about his clothes? I was thinking about what he said when Zelensky first arrived — "Hey, you're all dressed up" — but I see that after Vance went hard on the clothing issue, Trump said: "And I do like your clothing, by the way":

"Baseball, which is dying all over the place, should get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!"

Writes Donald Trump (on Truth Social):

Major League Baseball didn’t have the courage or decency to put the late, great, Pete Rose, also known as “Charlie Hustle,” into the Baseball Hall of fame. Now he is dead, will never experience the thrill of being selected, even though he was a FAR BETTER PLAYER than most of those who made it, and can only be named posthumously. WHAT A SHAME! Anyway, over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete PARDON of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING. He never betted against himself, or the other team. He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in sports history. Baseball, which is dying all over the place, should get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!

I'm disconcerted that the President of the United States wrote "betted," but I'm amused at the metaphorical flourish of "dying all over the place" and "fat, lazy ass." 

To me, "betted" is embarrassingly wrong, but I see Shakespeare used it. From the OED:

1600 Iohn a Gaunt loued him well, and betted much money on his head. W. Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2 iii. ii. 44

If you use "fat, lazy ass" metaphorically — baseball doesn't even have an ass — you do flout the niceties of the body acceptance movement, but Trump is well aware that his own ass is fat and thus presents a big target for his antagonists. He doesn't care. It's a fat ass, but emphatically not a lazy ass.

Sunrise — 6:34.

Write about anything you want in the comments.

3+ hours of Joe Rogan and Elon Musk.

I'm listening, but so far it's mostly Joe and Elon enthusing about sex robots. They're only listening to a "female" A.I. voice that keeps insulting them, and they keep saying she sounds "hot."

Joe: "See, she could get away with this if she's really hot, like this kind of behavior. You can totally get through life as a hot woman and be super successful with that kind of behavior. But you gotta be really hot to pull off that attitude."

Podscribe has a transcript. That's helpful in figuring out where to jump ahead.

Trump and Vance get remarkably intense with Zelensky.

ADDED: The scene is described by Peter Baker for the NYT: "Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance castigated Mr. Zelensky for not being grateful enough for U.S. support in its war with Russia and sought to strong-arm him into making a peace deal on whatever terms the Americans dictate. With voices raised and tempers flaring, Mr. Trump threatened to abandon Ukraine altogether if Mr. Zelensky did not go along. Talking over the Ukrainian leader, Mr. Vance told Mr. Zelensky that it was 'disrespectful' for him to come to the Oval Office and make his case in front of the American news media and demanded that he thank Mr. Trump for his leadership. Mr. Trump jumped in and told the Ukrainian leader, 'You’re not really in a good position right now” and that “you’re gambling with World War III.' 'You’re either going make a deal or we’re out,” Mr. Trump added. “And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out and I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.' The exchange in front of television cameras was one of the most dramatic moments ever to play out in public in the Oval Office...."

AND: "This is gonna be great television — I'll tell you that."

Things that explain a lot.

This image, for example:

Here's a free-access link to the column, which is by William Shoki, a journalist in Cape Town. So read for the content if you want, on your own.

What I want is to talk about the image. He's green. The little green man from Mars. But more importantly, his head is cut off, the top of his head, and it is cut off by a shape that is not a rectangle. It is angled....

And note the angled shadow across his neck.

Inciting a peaceful and patriotic riot.

Mmm. First time I'm noticing that the word "riot" is present in "patriotic."

On January 6th, 2021, Trump famously said "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

Today, I'm reading: "Why Aren’t We in the Streets? On Trump the Almighty and his so-far quiescent capital," by Susan Glasser, in The New Yorker.

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: Rewrite "Takin’ It to the Streets" with words that express the feelings of someone who would write an article titled "Why Aren’t We in the Streets? On Trump the Almighty and his so-far quiescent capital."

Inspiration for parodists:

"There is a deep irony here. If there is an operating philosophy driving the Trump White House, it is that of the unitary executive..."

"... the idea that the president is the sole and exclusive wielder of a broad and expansive executive power. This includes the power to dismiss federal employees at will as well as the power to resist congressional statutes or judicial decisions that encroach on executive authority.... Trump may be working from an expansive theory of executive power, but in delegating so much of his authority to Musk... he is both undermining that power and demonstrating [Alexander] Hamilton’s real insights about the importance of a singular executive. Hamilton wrote that 'plurality in the executive' tends to 'conceal faults and destroy responsibility.'... Hamilton says that 'the multiplication of the executive adds to the difficulty of detection…. It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author.' It is hard to imagine a better description of our current situation, in which the presence of what are essentially two presidents has blurred lines of accountability for 'pernicious measures.'... If and when disaster strikes, Musk can walk away. After all, he isn’t really the president. The buck will stop with Trump and the Republican Party, because if Musk cannot be held politically liable, they will be."

Writes Jamelle Bouie, in "The Bewildering Irony Behind the Trump-Musk Partnership" (NYT)(free-access link).

But Trump himself says "The buck stops here":

And isn't it rich — isn't it ironic — to hear Trump antagonists rail about concealment and lack of clear lines of responsibility when they did not seem to care much about the radical opacity of the "Biden" administration? We're supposed to worry now about the "multiplication of the executive" when you didn't worry about the absence of any true executive and nothing but a multiplicity of executive substitutes?

"The diagnosis of online irony poisoning tends to understate the extent to which social media’s rightward drift regulates so much else in life..."

"... establishing the terms and the tenor by which we enter that bustling intersection called discourse. The comedification of America has become the memeification of America.... The puerile hasn’t confabbed with the establishment so much as replaced it, with the latter’s permission. Jokes mingle with cruel and lethal austerity measures. At the podium during a rally held after the Presidential Inauguration, Musk raised a stiff right arm in what looked like a Nazi salute yet it was laughed off by the Anti-Defamation League as just an 'awkward gesture.' This month, Musk briefly changed his profile name on X, the social platform he owns, to Harry Bōlz, a brilliant display of homophonic potty humor that prompted a surge in an obscure cryptocurrency by the same name. This is where America lives and what America does. Nothing is funny, but everything is. And therein lies a sense of impotence, because our ability to discern the consequential ghoulishness of this nation’s policies–LOL that’s crazy!–doesn’t in and of itself constitute resistance.... Laughter does not speak for itself. We must ask after it.... We ask the universe, as one memesmith did, 'does anyone know if we have to maintain our senses of kindness and empathy despite the world constantly trying to destroy the individual and destroy feelings in impersonal society tomorrow.'"

Writes Lauren Michele Jackson, in "The End of Seriousness/Our unfunny times are rife with laughter that seldom offers relief" (The New Yorker).

I get to use my "Era of That's Not Funny" tag again.

How are you doing in the bustling intersection called discourse?

"The male reproductive system, in particular, seems to be under plastic assault."

"Men with severe erectile dysfunction were found to have up to seven types of plastic in their penises. (That study, published in 2024 by researchers in Miami, was the first to detect microplastics in human penile tissue, which was extracted from six individuals who were undergoing surgery to get an inflatable prosthesis.) Microplastics have also been found in human semen samples. One experiment conducted in China, from October, found that all the semen and urine samples from 113 men contained microplastics. The samples that contained Teflon (the chemical PTFE), which coats cooking utensils, cutting boards, and nonstick pans, had reduced sperm quality, lower total sperm numbers, and reduced motility...."

From "There’s a Spoon’s Worth of Plastic in Our Brains. Now What? An investigation into what microplastics are doing to our bodies" (NY Magazine).

ADDED: Ironically, the inflatable prosthesis is plastic. 

AND:

Sunrise — 6:43, 6:44, 6:45.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

"Openly transgender service members will be disqualified from serving in the U.S. military and will soon be removed from the ranks..."

"... according to a Pentagon memo that marks a significant shift from previous Defense Department policy that prohibited discrimination based on gender identity. The memo was made public Wednesday as part of a lawsuit filed by LGBTQ+ rights groups against an executive order signed last month by President Donald Trump, which stated that the 'medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria' were 'inconsistent' with the high standards expected of U.S. troops."

From "Transgender troops will be removed from U.S. military, Pentagon says/The previous Trump administration effectively banned transgender people from joining, but the new memo says currently serving transgender troops will be discharged" (WaPo).

"The Village People song, a Trump rally staple, has become a symbol of the vexing incongruities of MAGA."

"While liberals have attempted to point out the irony of Trump’s use of what is historically considered a gay anthem... [but] the men in this room observed no such irony in the first place. To them Trump is not only pro-gay but a gay icon unto himself, a champion of masculinity in both its traditional and campy forms, as lovable for his flamboyant excess as for his red-meat invective against the left. 'The makeup, the hair, the sharp tongue, the cattiness,' [said Adam Ewer, copresident of the New York City chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans]. 'He’s the gayest president we’ve ever had.'... A gay publicist who only agreed to speak to me anonymously suggested that one reason some gays are drawn to the right wing is that it’s simply more fun. Democrats are the 'most killjoy people on earth,' he said, whereas there’s something 'actually quite gay' about MAGA. 'It’s masculine, but it’s also campy and bitchy.' And in its embrace of trash entertainment and penchant for offense it may have more in common with gay culture than the liberal mainstream, which in the publicist’s view has become 'painfully' middle-class. 'I’ve always liked opera and Jerry Springer, and I feel like Trump—that’s kind of his taste. It’s very high-low.'"

From "My Afternoon With the ‘Normal Gay Guys’ Who Voted for Trump/Gay MAGA is hypermasculine and anti-woke—and it wants a break from the LGBTQ+ movement" by Daniel Lefferts (GQ).

Trump posts a mindbending video — "Trump Gaza."

I know A.I. can easily make video like this, it's just amazing that the President of the United States is passing it along:

ADDED: NPR is making a big play for the Althouse link with this headline: "Trump's social media video garners pushback from Arabs and Muslims in U.S. and Gaza."

Garner is a silly word, but "garners pushback" is a particularly bad combination. The idea of "garner" should be more about collecting and storing something that you want. The original meaning is a place to store grain. So it ought to be something that you want to amass for your benefit. Politicians are always "garnering" votes and endorsements. It shouldn't be something you don't want, like "pushback."

Let's read a WaPo columnist who hasn't quit in disgust after Jeff Bezos announced he was taking the opinion pages in a right-wing direction..

Here's Bezos's ballsy statement (on X).

Who has quit? You can read "Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads editor to quit" (NPR).

I'm most interested in who is staying, and how they might be changing. In that light, I'm reading this, from Philip Bump, published this morning: "The shift in the politics of young voters isn’t quite what it seems/The idea that MAGA-enthused bros swung the young male vote doesn’t really capture what happened."

That's a free-access link and it's very heavy on poll data. I won't attempt to summarize that other than to quote Bump's bottom line: "The problem for Democrats, then, was probably fewer White dudes listening to Joe Rogan than it was Black and Hispanic voters not voting like their parents."

Bezos should hire some good word editors, because that sentence is miswritten, probably by someone bamboozled by the "less"/"fewer" distinction. I think it needs to be something more like: "The problem for Democrats, then, was probably less about White dudes listening to Joe Rogan and more about Black and Hispanic voters not voting like their parents." 

I'm not saying I've turned that into a well-written sentence, only that I've made it comprehensible (and I hope it means what Bump meant to say).

"Is that about everything? Anyone else want to be arrested or killed before we wrap this fucker? Let's do the shot!"

The shot that is life is wrapped. It is about everything.

"Gene Hackman, actor who dazzled in spectrum of Everyman roles, dies at 95/He twice won Oscars for bringing humanizing depth to corrupt lawmen, from the raging cop in 'The French Connection' to the ruthless sheriff in 'Unforgiven'" (WaPo)(free-access link).

"The city’s sheriff’s department said there was no immediate indication of foul play in the deaths of Mr. Hackman and Betsy Arakawa. The exact cause of death had not been determined," and I think we can respectfully turn away. You don't need more information. But I see in other newspapers that their dog was also dead. You didn't need that to understand the cause of death.

Let's talk about the Gene Hackman movies you love. That clip is from one that I love, "Postcards From the Edge."

UPDATE: I wanted to close the door on the death scene, but now I am seeing: "Gene Hackman and wife’s death investigated as ‘suspicious’ after door was open, pills were found" (NY Post). I'm seeing that the wife was in one room with the dog and with "an open pill bottle and pills scattered around." Hackman was in another room.

UPDATE 2: Additional facts reported by the NYT: Arakawa's body was on the floor of a bathroom, and the dead dog was in a nearby closet. There were 2 other dogs that did not die. There was no gas or carbon monoxide leak. The bodies were discovered "after a maintenance worker made an emergency call." Hackman's body was in the mud room, and in the same stage of decomposition as Arakawa's. Both Hackman and Arakawa looked as though they had fallen. There was no sign of "trauma" (which I take to mean no sign that an intruder had fought with either of them).

"Then one day, damp and desperate, I furiously unscrewed the showerhead, found a sharp object and extracted the flow-choking gasket-and-screen device."

"I swear I wouldn’t have done it if I lived in the parched Southwest, but an invigorating blast from the Catskill/Delaware watersheds was irresistible. Little did I know then that I was speaking truth to shower. Meanwhile, nobody is throttling the cataracts of water needed to cool servers at the gargantuan data centers firing up our artificial intelligence future. In 2023, according to the Financial Times, data centers in Northern Virginia alone used nearly 2 billion gallons of water. University of California at Riverside researchers estimate that, in 2027, thirsty AI will slurp up between 1.1 trillion and 1.7 trillion gallons of water globally. Don’t blame China’s DeepSeek; its energy demands are much lower than competitors,’ and it uses no water at all to answer questions about Tiananmen Square, the Uyghurs or a democratic Taiwan."

From "Your showerhead is lying to you/Higher pressure is a blessing in more ways than one" (WaPo)(free-flowing-access link, so you can finally rinse that metaphorical shampoo out of your lusterless headhair).

Why was the author "speaking truth to shower"? Because studies show that people use less water when they're not struggling with low water pressure.

And here, listen to Trump talk about his "beautiful luxuriant hair" in "this crazy shower" that just goes "drip, drip."

Me, I take a bath. It takes me 15 minutes to fill the bathtub. I doubt I'd ever take anything close to a 15-minute shower. 

"Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Wednesday night handed the Trump administration a victory for now..."

"... in saying that the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department did not need to immediately pay for more than $1.5 billion in already completed aid work. A federal judge had set a midnight deadline for the agencies to release funds for the foreign aid work.... The Trump administration [made] an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court just hours before the deadline.... Chief Justice Roberts issued an 'administrative stay,' an interim measure meant to preserve the status quo while the justices consider the matter in a more deliberate fashion.... However tentative, the stay was nonetheless the first victory for the administration in a deluge of cases that the justices could hear over President Trump’s blitz of executive actions...."

The NYT reports.

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: Do you think this is a mixed metaphor: "a deluge of cases about a blitz of executive actions"? And: Would George Orwell have a problem with this dead metaphor?

Anyway, Trump's victory in the Supreme Court isn't much... just preserving the status quo (as Trump disrupts the status quo), but it may feel awfully auspicious.

"I simply made myself available for a chat, should anybody like to approach me and speak about any matter on their mind."

"I didn’t breach the rules of the buffer zone – I didn’t harass, intimidate, or even seek to influence anyone. I simply stood there, available to speak with love and compassion. It isn’t right to deprive anyone of the right to take up my offer to talk. And it isn’t right to censor zones within our country from thoughts, beliefs and conversations that authorities may simply disapprove of. Buffer zones aren’t 'pro-choice' – they deprive women of the choice to have a chat outside the clinic. That isn’t right."

Said Rose Docherty, quoted in "Grandmother arrested for holding sign offering conversation outside Scottish hospital performing abortions/'Buffer zones aren’t ‘pro-choice’ – they deprive women of the choice to have a chat outside the clinic,' Rose Docherty said" (Fox News).

Scotland's The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act purports to forbid any "acts" that  "Intentionally or recklessly influence someone’s decision to access, provide, or facilitate abortion services," expressly including "acts" that we Americans would consider speech: "attempts to persuade or dissuade someone through verbal communication, handing out leaflets with anti-abortion messages, or displaying signs intended to affect choices." It also forbids "acts" that "Cause Harassment, Alarm, or Distress," including "shouting, religious preaching directed at individuals, or silent vigils that target and emotionally affect those entering or leaving the facility."

Docherty's sign read "Coercion is a crime, here to talk if you want."

At the Wednesday Night Café...

... you can talk all night.

"I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom..."

"... in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical; it drives creativity, invention and prosperity." 

Said Jeff Bezos, quoted in "Washington Post Opinion Editor Exits as Bezos Steers Pages in New Direction/Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Post, said that the newspaper’s opinion section would focus on 'personal liberties and free markets'" (NYT).

"I suggested to him [David Shipley, the opinion editor] if the answer wasn’t 'hell yes,' then it had to be 'no.'"

He's cool — he's podcasting.

I'm launching a NEW PODCAST. We need to change the conversation.

I'm talking directly with people I disagree with, people I look up to, and you -- the listeners.

Egg prices? Tariffs? DOGE? We're tackling all your big questions.

This is Gavin Newsom. Subscribe now ➡️… pic.twitter.com/WdzGeqdvZ4

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) February 26, 2025

Grogging.

It's a portmanteau word.

Discovered as I listened to myself stumbling over pronunciation while blabbing — in real life — about the challenges of blogging while also using Grok.

"Musk is notorious for sharing edgelord memes on X, the kinds of things that might be passed around by teenage boys."

"He also has a remarkably juvenile sense of humor. For example, he edited the X bio of the Canadian Broadcast Corporation to say it is 69 percent government-funded (69, get it?). He recently changed his name on the same platform to 'Harry Bolz.' His Department of Government Efficiency is itself named after an internet meme about a shiba inu. He proposed 'a literal dick-measuring contest' with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He bought Twitter and turned it into X after being annoyed by its moderation policies, which he compared to censorship, but once in charge, he experienced serial emotional meltdowns over content he didn’t like, some of which he then censored. He has gone on sprees of banning accounts that offended him in some way, while allowing white supremacists and Nazis to proliferate on the site. He often communicates on X using video-game jargon, the lingua franca of teenage boys...."

Writes Jill Filipovic, in "The Adolescent Style in American Politics/The version of manhood placed on display by Trump and his aides is the one imagined by teenage boys" (The Atlantic).

"Baltimore’s top prosecutor is no longer seeking to vacate the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, the man whose case garnered national attention in the 'Serial' podcast..."

"...over a decade ago. In a new filing Tuesday evening, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates withdrew a motion to vacate Syed’s conviction filed in 2022 by previous state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby, saying the original motion contains 'false and misleading statements.'... Syed was convicted in 2000 for the 1999 murder of his then-high school classmate and ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee... Last August, the Maryland Supreme Court upheld a lower appellate court’s decision to reinstate Syed’s conviction, ruling that the rights of Lee’s family were violated because her official representative, her brother Young Lee, was not properly notified of the 2022 hearing to vacate the conviction...."

From "Baltimore prosecutors give up fight to vacate Adnan Syed’s murder conviction ahead of hearing to reduce his prison sentence" (CNN).

Who's in the worst position to write a book about the coverup of Biden's cognitive decline?

Tapper then: It's a conspiracy theory to say Biden has cognitive decline. It's a stutter.

Tapper now: A book on the cover up pic.twitter.com/UjnQXgkzFF

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 26, 2025

Here's Jake Tapper incensed over Joe Biden's "stutter" and outraged over claims of Biden's cognitive decline.

Now he's cashing in on a book about Biden's cognitive decline and media cover up. There is no bottom for these people.
pic.twitter.com/rdNdqh4YKQ

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) February 26, 2025

"Is there any sense to the longtime claim that Trump won the 2020 election?"

"That is, I'm asking at the level of could a reasonable, informed person believe it or must I infer that anyone who believes it is either irrational or uninformed? I'm not asking is it true."

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok.

ADDED: I also asked ChatGPT the same question, cut and pasted, verbatim. I got a very different answer!

"I was the target of corrupt politicians for 4 years and then 4 years after that. So don't talk to me about targeting."

"If she wins, the flood of reverse discrimination claims will be like nothing we’ve ever seen. Straight, White people everywhere could be filing."

Said Johnny C. Taylor Jr., chief executive of the human resources association SHRM.

Quoted in "Her claim of anti-straight bias could upend discrimination law/The Supreme Court will hear a case that could unleash a wave of workplace bias claims by Whites, men and people who are straight" (WaPo).

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in [Marlean] Ames’s bid to revive her case, which was stymied in the lower courts because of past rulings that set a higher legal bar for men, straight people and Whites to prove bias in the workplace than for groups that have historically faced discrimination. That higher standard is unconstitutional, her suit says.... 

Some worry a ruling for Ames could chill workplace diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at a moment when President Donald Trump has made it a priority to roll back such initiatives across the country and squash “anti-White feeling.”

I went to that internal link and didn't see the phrase "anti-White feeling." Why is that in quotes? I can only infer that Trump said it, but it's odd to put it in quotes — and odd to capitalize "White" and to use the verb "squash" here. You know, I stick closely to mainstream news reports, especially The NYT and The Washington Post, and I believe I'm seeing an abrupt decline in quality, and it feels like an effort to get Trump.

Sunrise — 6:44.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

"With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver..."

"... in the history of our party: roll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight, and make the American people miss us. Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular. Until then, I’m calling for a strategic political retreat. The Army has a term for this: 'tactical pause.' It’s a vision move — get out of the hour-to-hour, day-to-day combat where one side (ours) is largely playing defense and struggling to defend politically charged positions (like explaining D.E.I. or persuading voters to care about foreign aid).... I don’t think a lot of Americans are waiting around for us to use the same old arguments and same old language to pile on Donald Trump — they’re tired of it...."

Writes James Carville, in "The Best Thing Democrats Can Do in This Moment" (NYT).

"Apple has acknowledged an issue with the iPhone's voice-to-text feature where it briefly displays 'Trump' when the user says 'racist.'"

"This glitch has sparked discussions across social media platforms, with some users interpreting it as intentional bias. Apple is reportedly addressing the issue to ensure accurate dictation."

X reports.

Major Scandal Breaking! Apple iPhones now replace the word racist with Trump! pic.twitter.com/buaqR3AxY1

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) February 25, 2025

"The liberal democracy most of us grew up taking for granted is brittle and teetering, but its fall still feels unthinkable..."

"... even if it also seems increasingly inevitable. Perhaps this is one reason Democrats, with a few admirable exceptions, seem so frozen. People who’ve spent their lives working within a system of laws and civic institutions may be particularly unsuited to respond to that system’s failure. But an F.B.I. run by Patel and Bongino is a sign that the system — which for all its manifold flaws has provided Americans a level of stability uncommon in history — is falling apart."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "Trump’s New Deputy F.B.I. Director Has It Out for the 'Scumbag Commie Libs'" (NYT).

If only that "system of laws and civic institutions" had been taken care of by those who purport to care so much now. 

The phrase "Scumbag Commie Libs" comes from this Dan Bongino tweet from May 30, 2024, the day Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts. This is the full tweet:

Trump is good at explaining the "5 bullet points" email.

pic.twitter.com/3IuSGe3WoK

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2025

I've been critical of what looked too harsh and unnecessarily scary, but Trump made it sound better to me in that clip (which is part of a press conference yesterday with Macron). 

As Trump put it: "A lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist." The email is a test that at least separates everyone into 2 groups, those who answered and those who did not answer. Among those who did not answer is some number of employees who are simply not there at all. "That's how badly" the government is run, Trump asserts.

Some who don't answer could still exist, but at least the nonexistent workers would be concentrated among the nonanswerers. (An answer could come "from" a nonexistent worker could answer by fraud.) 

"Mr. Lange sees what he does as 'recontextualizing' garments that are perceived to be at the end of their life."

"'... [T]here is a dark reality where it’s like, OK, I’m buying this in this place where it doesn’t have value, and I’ll bring it to the Lower East Side where some kid in all black will want it.'... In the competitive world of vintage hunting, some of the biggest fanatics don’t covet the perfect pair of 501s but rather a 1930s jacket found in an abandoned mine shaft and tinged with chemicals (also for sale in Mr. Lange’s shop). Where some cringe at the prospect of decades of dirt and grime on their clothes, others relish it. 'There is something cool about feeling someone else’s skin on you,' Ms. Trufelman said. 'People want to see signs of wear and tear. It’s a way of valuing someone else’s life and livelihood.' But even those who embrace thrashed clothing as the apotheosis of a certain gritty authenticity might sometimes pause to wonder.... 'There is a whole stolen valor side to this: You didn’t earn those rips. You didn’t paint anything'.... 'I’m not a laborer... I just want the look.'"

From "Oh, This Old, Tattered, Moth-Eaten Thing? So-called thrashed clothes — garments resembling something closer to rags — are coveted by vintage fanatics" (NYT)(free access link, so you can see photos of this stuff).

Hard to believe people are still beating themselves up for appropriating the workwear of manual laborers. The shopkeeper who selects distinctly interesting pre-worn clothes that would have been thrown away and sells them for a good price deserves his money. It's not a "dark reality." But presenting your work as "dark" — or the "skin" of others — is pitching the sale. 

Here's the Instagram page for Lange's store, sumshitifound.

Sunrise — 6:26, 6:26, 6:44, 6:47

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"They have been drinking live fish from goblets of wine in the Belgian town of Geraardsbergen for more than 600 years."

"But a ban on animal welfare grounds drew protests over the weekend from traditionalists who wish to defend the custom. The Flemish town’s Krakelingen carnival celebrations were first recorded in 1413 and revolve around the throwing of ring-shaped bread crackers, or 'Mastellenworp,' by town worthies dressed as druids on the Oudenberg hill. Before the throwing of the breads, after a costumed procession from the town, the local church priest, the mayor and aldermen drink a sip of wine with a live fish from a 400-year-old silver cup...."

From "Animal welfare laws stop tradition of drinking live fishThe ban on the 600-year-old practice, which sipping wine from a goblet at Geraardsbergen’s carnival in Belgium, has prompted protests from locals" (London Times).

Here's some older video that demonstrates respect for the tradition:

Goodbye to Roberta Flack.

"Roberta Flack... one of the most popular artists of the 1970s, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 88. She died en route to a hospital...." (NYT).

Greeted.

President Donald J. Trump welcomes French President @EmmanuelMacron to the White House. 🇺🇸🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/puvyxx3Kmk

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 24, 2025

PREVIOUSLY: I had this:

"At some point, presumably, the justices will draw the line...."

"In any consequential ruling, Chief Justice Roberts will likely be tempted to narrow his reasoning, soften his tone.... For Chief Justice Roberts, unanimity will be hard — even impossible — to achieve in most cases concerning Mr. Trump’s actions as president... Of course, Mr. Trump might defy the court.... Without the support of federal marshals, who answer to Mr. Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, the court cannot enforce its order.... The court will stand alone, abandoned; and Chief Justice Roberts, it is safe to assume, will not escalate a conflict his institution has already lost. He will, however, have one last tool in his arsenal: his voice.... If Mr. Trump flouts a court ruling, the nation will need its chief justice to explain what is happening — and why the executive branch, for all its prerogatives, must be bound by the Constitution...."

Writes Jeff Shesol, in "John Roberts Is on a Collision Course With Trump" (NYT).

Make acting great again: "Greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that."

"I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I’m inspired by the greats. I’m inspired by the greats here tonight...."

Humility is the go-to tone for awards accepting, and Timmy eschewed it. He came right out and said he's aiming for greatness. "I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to be, but... I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Mr. Bob Dylan, a true American hero...."

I hear Timmy's speech as part of the new masculine pride, which I associate with Trump and those in his vicinity, which is not Hollywood. But it belongs in Hollywood, and Timmy's a good exemplar of hard work and aspiration to greatness. It's okay again — isn't it? — to strive to achieve.

"The email said appointees running U.S.A.I.D. were firing 2,000 employees based in the United States...."

"The mass firings are part of a series of layoffs of agency employees by the Trump administration during a broad effort to halt almost all U.S. foreign aid using a blanket freeze. The moves came after a judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration could proceed with plans to lay off or put on paid leave many agency employees and close down operations overseas...."

From "Trump Appointees Fire 2,000 U.S.A.I.D. Employees and Put Others Worldwide on Leave/The announcement, by email, came two days after a judge said the Trump administration could proceed with plans that amount to dismantling the aid agency" (NYT).

"My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA."

"I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program. But after Donald Trump's statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe."

Said Friedrich Merz* quoted in "Germany’s Merz vows ‘independence’ from Trump’s America, warning NATO may soon be dead/Election winner likens the Trump administration to Putin’s Russia as he bids to take Europe in a new direction" (Politico).

_____________________

* Suggested sobriquet: "The Landlord."

"'Dark MAGA' spreads as conservatives embrace Musk’s influence on Trump."

A headline at AP (AP, which, by the way, is suing Donald Trump for excluding it from White House access because it won't use the new sobriquet for the southward Gulf).

The AP writer, Adriana Gomez Licon, saw a lot of the black MAGA hats at CPAC. Does wearing the black version of the MAGA hat represent affiliation with Musk? 

Also: "Speakers at CPAC frequently brought up DOGE, playfully named after a meme coin with the face of a Shiba Inu dog popularized by Musk in 2021. They variously referred to him as a 'white knight,' a 'hero of free speech,' and according to one of his harshest critics, Steve Bannon, 'Superman.'"

"Occasionally [Balzac] took a boiled egg at about nine o’clock in the morning or sardines mashed with butter if he was hungry; then a chicken wing or a slice of roast lamb..."

"... in the evening, and he ended his meal with a cup or two of excellent black coffee without sugar."

That was while writing a book. When he was done, “he sped to a restaurant, downed a hundred oysters as a starter, washing them down with four bottles of white wine, then ordered the rest of the meal: twelve salt meadow lamb cutlets with no sauce, a duckling with turnips, a brace of roast partridge, a Normandy sole, not to mention extravagances like dessert and special fruit such as Comice pears, which he ate by the dozen. Once sated, he usually sent the bill to his publishers.”

From "A Hungry Little Boy/Pears had a special appeal for Balzac; he often kept bushels of them at home and could eat as many as forty or fifty in a day (one February he had 1,500 pears in his cellar)" (NYRB).

Sunrise — 6:44.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Let Musk justify his method in 5 bullet points.

I'm reading "Musk Says Government Workers Must Detail Their Workweek or Lose Their Jobs/Elon Musk has drawn inspiration from his 2022 takeover of Twitter with the tactic. His threat on social media of termination did not appear in an email to federal workers requesting the work summaries" (NYT).

Ugh. My draft of this post has been sitting in an open tab for 6 hours!

Let's move on to a more recent article on the subject: "Government agencies give conflicting guidance on Musk email/An email sent to 2.3 million workers asking them to outline their work last week is leading to confusion and differing instructions across the government" (WaPo).

"Wealthy residents of the Hamptons demand perfection"... and live in fear of Trump's deportation agenda.

The NYT drums up sympathy for completely unsympathetic rich people who've been relying on illegal immigration to serve their various needs!

The rich are not the "They" in the headline, "They Help Make the Hamptons the Hamptons, and Now They’re Living in Fear/Latino immigrants care for some of America’s most lavish beachside mansions. Their disappearance would affect the wealthy, too."

Heavens! Affecting the wealthy too. Oh, my!

Maybe the NYT is mocking these people? Nope! The article is well larded with empathy for the migrants who face deportation, but the travails of the rich are presented soberly:

"Do you hear the people sing/Lost in the valley of the night? It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light."

A military rendition of "Do you hear the people sing?"/"One Day More" (from "Les Misérables") as President Trump and the First Lady hosted a dinner for the Governors last night:

It was a great honor to attend this evenings Governors Ball at the @WhiteHouse, hosted by @FLOTUS Melania and @POTUS @realDonaldTrump—thank you! pic.twitter.com/NPHHz6jDfA

— Dan Scavino (@Scavino47) February 23, 2025

"Is there a world you long to see?... Say, do you hear the distant drums? It is the future that we bring/When tomorrow comes!"

I would expect Trump haters to connect that to "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," from "Cabaret."

"[Trump] is fighting for the fundamental idea that this country belongs... not to the radical left Communists...."

"We are going to have to be on top of it every single day focused every single day, driving forward every single day with unrelenting focus and passion because God gave us this country our founding fathers fought and died for this country, generations of Americans have sacrificed and bled for this country and we are not going to let the radical left — the Communists — and the American haters take our country. It's not going to happen. Not now. Not ever. So I ask you all to send a message right now to all the bureaucrats, to all the radical left commies, to the criminal aliens... to everyone who threatens the future of this country...."

Stephen Miller — at CPAC yesterday — called America's left wing "communists" and even "commies."

I think this is the only serious current use of the word "commie" that I've recorded in this blog. I've quoted a couple comic deployments of the word — here and here.

And I quoted Rush Limbaugh describing the "Dr. Strangelove" character Buck Turgidson: He just loves war and hates the Russians, hates the commies."

And I've got John Wayne in a Playboy interview — back in 1971: 

Tim Dillon — the comedian who says Trump is a great comedian — does not appreciate Elon Musk as a prop comic in sunglasses.

From the new episode of his podcast (transcript): "So we have Elon Musk, who is up at CPAC, bombing with a chainsaw and doing weird bits.... Americans, by and large do not love Elon Musk.... He is not Donald Trump. Donald Trump kills. Elon Musk does not. Donald Trump's jabs land. Hard. He's a political genius.... You might think he's an idiot. You might hate him.... He's great at what he does. Elon — it doesn't land all the time. It looks like you have sort of... like a weird billionaire talent show.... Where is Trump? Where is the one who got elected, who communicates effectively?...So here is Elon Musk with a prop. He's so high. I do respect how high he is. I do miss and love drugs. I really do miss and love drugs. Oh man, he's high.... 'Chainsaw for bureaucracy.'... "

"Can you play the meme thing where he goes, 'I've become meme' and it just doesn't land... I don't think this is good. This is not good.... I know that he's having fun with it, but there's gotta be a way to present this that where... he seems less high.... I'm just saying walking out on stage with sunglasses and a chainsaw is a little bit of a tell.... Whether they're high on ideas or actual drugs, I don't know. But we need sobriety in this country.... We need a dad... to just go, Hey man, here's the reality. You are outta control right now. You are absolutely out of control.... But this, this is a dad who himself is a little out of control, I think. I think you come home and you see dad with sunglasses and a chainsaw, and you go, my dad's going through something...."