At the Midday Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

2 words I didn't expect to read in a biography of John Quincy Adams.

It took me literally a year to read James Traub's "John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit" (commission earned), but I have finally come to the end. Speaking of the end, JQA's famous last words were "This is the end of earth."

JQA:MS is not the only book I read in the past year, but it is the one I spaced out the most.

Anyway, here are 2 passages each with a surprising word that I will render in boldface:

"He wields a replica of a prehistoric club as he rages against enemies of the revolution..."

"...on his weekly television programme. He is rumoured to be one of the richest men in Venezuela, but insists he is but a 'humble soldier.' At night he tours Caracas in his bulletproof Toyota, rifle at the ready, reassuring his millions of TikTok viewers that all is calm in the homeland. This is the mad, bad and dangerous-to-know world of Diosdado Cabello: interior minister, head honcho of the security forces and possible roadblock to the Trump administration’s vision of a vassal-state Venezuela."

The London Times reports.

And look at that club! "Prehistoric," indeed. It's Flintstonesque:

(What is the origin of the phrase "mad, bad and dangerous-to-know"? It's something Lady Caroline Lamb wrote about her lover Lord Byron in 1812.)

"Hessy Levinsons Taft, who as an infant appeared on the cover of a Nazi magazine in Germany promoting her as the ideal Aryan baby..."

"... a distinction complicated by the fact that she was Jewish and had been exploited as part of a dangerous hoax, died on Jan. 1 at her home in San Francisco. She was 91.... As Latvians, her parents were protected from laws targeting Jews of German descent. Still, they were terrified that the Nazis would discover what had happened and execute them. They kept Hessy inside, rarely taking her out, even for walks...."

From "Hessy Levinsons Taft, Jewish Baby on Cover of Nazi Magazine, Dies at 91/Without her parents’ knowledge, her portrait was entered as a prank in a contest in 1935 to represent the ideal Aryan infant — and she won" (NYT).

"During the Enlightenment, close attention emerged as a virtue essential to knowledge and disciplined investigation, as demonstrated in 1740, when the naturalist Charles Bonnet..."

"... conducted a vigil of 21 days, daybreak to nearly midnight, to study the life cycle of a single aphid. At the dawn of the 20th century, the American philosopher William James insisted that voluntary human attention was the linchpin of free will. By that time, some laboratory researchers had begun to turn their attention to attention as a subject of explicit scientific inquiry. One of the first to undertake such investigations was James McKeen Cattell, a German-trained American at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Cattell, the first professor of psychology in the United States, used a fast-snap shutter to flash a few letters for a tiny fraction of a second. The test subjects then repeated back to him as many letters as they could remember. Observing a range of results, Dr. Cattell concluded that they reflected a significant feature of cognitive ability: what he called the 'span' of attention. Subsequent researchers used the attention span metric to identify children’s mental 'deficiency.'"

Write D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh, and Peter Schmidt, in "The Century-Old Lie at the Heart of the Attention Economy" (NYT).

Burnett, Loh, and Schmidt have a book, "Attensity!" (commission earned). The word "attensity" appears in the column like this:

"Defeating the forces that frack human beings in order to extract the financial value of their attention is going to require... attention activism... a new politics of 'attensity.'"

"Rock was the greatest single social changing force of the 20th century..."

"And here we are 25 years into the 21st century, and rock couldn't be less of an influence on the social political order. Does anybody think that that's kind of strange?"

Asks Billy Corgan.

👀 Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan Finds It ‘Strange’ That Rock Music Has Fizzled Out

“There are forces in the world that go out of their way to marginalize particular voices … because they refuse to accept the given narrative … Rock was the greatest single social changing… pic.twitter.com/OPD0pxIEQ4

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 10, 2026

"Don't worry about, like, squirreling away money for retirement. In, like, 10 or 20 years, it won't matter."

"If any of the things we've said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant."

Elon's advice for near-retirees: Don't save money for retirement. https://t.co/cD54K9OLIJ pic.twitter.com/BHseG7hpn2

— Peter H. Diamandis, MD (@PeterDiamandis) January 9, 2026

That's not a big "if," is it? "If any of the things we've said are true"? He must have said many things, and only one of them needs to be true before his prediction clicks in. Seems like a sure bet. If we assume Elon Musk always tells the truth. And knows the future. But he doesn't know the future, but he confidently asserts his prediction. So we know he doesn't always tell the truth. And yet, in his world, he only needs to be right about ONE thing, for his advice to pan out... if he's right about that only one thing needs to be true concept. 

"Now the senator came down here/Showing ev’ryone his gun/Handing out free tickets/To the wedding of his son."

"An’ me, I nearly got busted/An’ wouldn’t it be my luck/To get caught without a ticket/And be discovered beneath a truck...."

Sang Bob Dylan, in his most-Bob-Dylan song, "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again."

I'm just trying to read The New York Times* and the headline is "Handing Out Free Tickets, Mamdani Says Theater Should Not Be 'a Luxury.'"

What's with these politicians handing out free tickets? I'm suspicious, but maybe the mayor's just flaky, pie-in-the-sky.

“The shared laughter in a crowded theater, the eager debrief after a musical, the heavy silence that hangs over all of us in a drama — these are moments that every New Yorker deserves,” Mamdani said later, explaining the initiative during a news conference at one of the festival’s venues, Brooklyn College’s Leonard and Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts.

That quote is wild. What man of the people would say "the eager debrief after a musical"? He seems like more of a poet... an abstruse poet. 

There was once a country ruled by a poet. It was Václav Havel, the last president of Czechoslovakia. 

_________________________________

* If you're with me in Bob Dylandom, you just thought "shoot a few holes, blow their minds." But I don't like seeing those words today, in the shadow of the killing of Renee Good, and there they are along with "showing ev’ryone his gun" and "discovered beneath a truck" — truck ≈ SUV.

Trump wore a lapel pin depicting himself.

Questioned about it, he said "Somebody gave me this. Do you know what that is? That's called a 'Happy Trump.' And considering the fact that I'm never happy—I'm never satisfied. I will never be satisfied until we make America great again. But we're getting pretty close, I'll tell you what. This is called a Happy Trump. Somebody gave it to me. I put it on."

 

And that's that. Somebody gave it to him and he put it on. Wore it on camera. I wonder what other things people could get him to pin onto himself just by giving it to him. He could be pranked so easily. But I suspect that he exercises some judgment about what to pin on himself. 

And who attaches an image of himself to himself/herself?

It happens, mostly entertainment celebrities in T-shirts.

"When they start killing white women, the devil not only leaves the station, but he moves to the suburbs and puts on a badge."

"When they start killing white women, they see a minivan and call it a tank.... When they start killing white women, and I have to say it...."

"Look at these terrible people who are interfering with law enforcement. Don’t they deserve to get executed in the middle of the street in the United States of America?"

Said State Representative Aisha Gomez, a Minneapolis Democrat, sarcastically characterizing the motive behind the release of new video, which you can see at "New Cellphone Video Shows ICE Agent’s Perspective Before Minneapolis Shooting/The Department of Homeland Security posted a clip of the video on social media and said it was taken by the agent, who killed a 37-year-old woman in the shooting" (NYT)(gift link).

And consider this:

At the Midday Café...

... you can talk until dawn.

"Erika Kirk is walking a fine line...."

Here, that's a gift link to The Washington Post.

I was puzzling over that headline at 4 a.m., but I'm only getting to blogging it now, and I don't want to go on too long at this point. So I'll just give you a numbered list and leave it to you.

The RNC posted yesterday that "Democrats were told to be 'willing to get shot' to obstruct President Trump."

I do think this posting should say that this interview took place last July. Posting it relates to the shooting of Renee Good, but when Blitzer and Jeffries spoke, the incident had not yet occurred:

Democrats were told to be "willing to get shot" to obstruct President Trump, and instead of condemning it, they incited it further.

Democrats are held hostage by their violent and deranged far-left base.pic.twitter.com/Y3DQw2UG4z

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 8, 2026

Here's the Axios article Blitzer cites, "Democrats told to 'get shot' for the anti-Trump resistance" (published July 7, 2025). Excerpt:

A lynch mob? A crowd chants "Kristi Noem will Hang!" in New York City.

NOW: "Kristi Noem will Hang!" Huge crowd chants in Foley Square NYC, also "Save a life, kill an ICE" as they gather to protest the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Some in the crowd condemn the talk of killing. pic.twitter.com/ifrXNZB0dz

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) January 8, 2026

Democrats who hope to win back power need to act now to reconnect with peace and good order. They seem to have encouraged the chaos yesterday, and they need something quite different today lest they be seen as they wanted us to see Trump after January 6th, as having incited insurrection.

Trump would like to be even more effusive in his female impersonation.

Strip away the context and it's fun for all:

Impeachment is trending on X, but I'm not sure why.

It could be this:

Jesse Watters: “If Democrats do win the midterms is Trump getting impeached again?”

Vice President JD Vance: “I’m sure he’ll get impeached. Look, they have nothing to actually run on or govern on. Their entire obsessive focus is that they hate Donald Trump.”

“If they ever get… pic.twitter.com/xtiL4xlthA

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) January 8, 2026

But it could be this:

Impeach Judge Boasberg and Judge Boardman now. pic.twitter.com/LLNF6rmNnk

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 8, 2026

Impeachment cuts both ways. Both sides can try to do it (and indulge in rhetoric about how the other side is trying to do it).

"So I feel like white tears are not always something that's helpful or necessary when black and brown people have been experiencing this for a long time."

A woman at the makeshift memorial for Renee Good told me it felt wrong for her to be there.

Because she’s a white woman with a lot of “privilege”

“I feel like white tears are not always helpful or necessary.” pic.twitter.com/B6ZASuWLEZ

— Brecca Stoll (@breccastoll) January 9, 2026

What is this person really saying? At first, you might think the idea is that she is a white lady and so perhaps she should minimize herself and not put herself forward as the crier of tears. That's self-dramatizing, privileged, and performative. But if you listen again and pay attention to the last part — "black and brown people have been experiencing this for a long time" — it sounds as though she is minimizing Renee Good! It seems that she is imagining persons of color who have suffered from violent law enforcement for many decades and who might be hurt to see extreme grief over the death of a white woman. It's confusing and she seems to understand herself as a good person in need of instruction in a complex situation.

"You have to have a federal government that can enforce laws."

Resurfaced video of Joe Biden being asked about sanctuary citiespic.twitter.com/e2SrFohLJD

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) January 8, 2026

Sunrise — 7:01, 7:08, 7:45.

Write about anything you want in the comments.

"For those unfamiliar with the acronym, the first letter stands for a certain curse word, followed by 'around and find out.'"

"It amounts to something like 'Don’t mess with me or you’ll regret it.' The implication, in this context, is that Nicolás Maduro unwisely did the former and now must do the latter.... Superficially, it may seem jarring that people entrusted to run our nation, suit-wearing people who take themselves very seriously, would throw around a term like this. But I actually think it’s a positive development. The normalization of that word — the one Hegseth abbreviated as 'eff' — is a sign of maturity in American English...."

Writes John McWhorter, in "The Trump Administration’s Coarseness Is a Sign That English Has Grown Up" (NYT).

Did he just call the New York Times immature?

"The country should not seek a mere boost in the number of children born or in the monetary support that parents receive."

"Yes, the country needs more children. But it matters how and to whom children are born. Society depends on men and women who want to form families, that is, who freely want to marry, and then freely bear and nurture children."

Said a report from the Heritage Foundation called "Saving America by Saving the Family," quoted in "Heritage paper on families calls for ‘marriage bootcamp,’ more babies/The conservative think tank aims to boost U.S. marriage and birth rates through recommendations to discourage online dating, restrict pornography, create tax credits for bigger families and more" (WaPo).

From the article: "A previous draft obtained by The Post, dated in October, also included an appendix of ideas that Heritage did not endorse but said were offered ‘in the spirit of furthering debate and innovative thinking on family policy.'...

"In a wide-ranging conversation with four Times reporters, President Trump talked about the Minneapolis ICE shooting, immigration, Venezuela and even his plans for further White House renovations."

I see "Trump Sits Down With Times Reporters for Two-Hour Interview," the headline in the NYT.

There's no substance, just an announcement:

The Times’s coverage of the president’s remarks will include stories, newsletters and videos over the coming days, as well as an episode of The Daily on Friday. A transcript of the interview will be published.

Very bold of Trump to give all that access — and right in the middle of a week packed with quickly unfolding action and with only the full transcript to protect him. I like that the Times is breaking out the material in separate bits.

The first bit is: "We Pressed Trump on His Conclusion About the ICE Shooting. Here’s What He Said. The exchange was a glimpse into the president’s reflexive defense of his federal crackdown on immigration." It could have been a much more reflexive defense of the ICE agents. His first take was balanced: "I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen either." And later, he says: "She behaved horribly. And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over" — I would say that's a reflexive defense of the woman. How does he know she didn't try to run the agent over? 

Also, the NYT writes "When we pressed Mr. Trump on his conclusion that the victim, Renee Nicole Good, tried to run over the agent," but technically, the first quote is not a statement that she tried to run anyone over. It's a distanced, abstract statement: "I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen either." I'm not seeing the follow-up question quoted, but I think it shouldn't have been "Why are you concluding that Good tried to run over the agent?" but "Are you saying you've determined that Good tried to run over the agent?" [Or better, to avoid ambiguity: "Are you saying you've determined that Good intended to run over the agent?"]

The second article based on the interview is "Trump Says U.S. Oversight of Venezuela Could Last for Years/In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, President Trump said 'only time will tell' when it comes to how long the United States aims to control the country" (NYT).

"Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said the National Guard is ready to deploy if riots break out, something he was too slow to do after George Floyd’s murder in 2020."

"But he pleaded with protesters to remain peaceful. 'They want a show,' he said. 'We can’t give it to them.' Walz is right that Trump could use unrest to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy U.S. troops to Minnesota. (A recent defeat at the Supreme Court otherwise limited his authority to commandeer the National Guard.) The president posted on social media: 'We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!'... Before the shooting, Walz described the federal enforcement surge as 'a war that’s being waged against Minnesota.' After the incident, MAGA allies quickly sought to blame Walz’s rhetoric, including his previous comparison of ICE to the Gestapo, for raising tensions...."

 
Writes the Editorial Board of The Washington Post, in "The woman fatally shot by ICE in Minneapolis did not deserve to die/Rioting in response to fatal shooting plays into Trump’s hands."

Fog at. sunrise, 7:07, sun at 1:14.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

On turning 75.

I am about to turn 75, so I was struck to arrive at this passage in James Traub's "John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit" (commission earned) — a book I've been reading on and off since my last birthday:

IN JULY 1842, ADAMS TURNED SEVENTY-FIVE. ALREADY HE HAD outlived the biblical span of threescore and ten, which Adams viewed as the age beyond which no one could reasonably expect to live. Life, he understood, was a “pilgrimage” from which he could at any moment be recalled. He had been admonishing himself for years, often on the occasion of his birthday, to prepare his soul for death. Two years earlier, on his seventy-third birthday, he had written in his diary, “I am deeply sensible of the duty of beginning in earnest to wean myself from the interests and afflictions of this world, and of preparing myself for the departure to that which is to come.” Then, almost in the next sentence, Adams made a stark admission to himself: “The truth is, I adhere to the world and all its vanities, from an impulse not altogether voluntary, and cannot, by any exercise of my will, realize that I can have but very few days left to live.”

SEVENTY-FIVE... the age beyond which no one could reasonably expect to live...

Minnesota in rapid decline.

🚨 BREAKING: Minneapolis Police has now PULLED OUT as hundreds of protestors begin pushing police officers

Antifa is going to be allowed to take over the city AGAIN.

The National Guard may need to be deployed VERY soon, as Democrats will let this place BURN! pic.twitter.com/ntr0OmK4xh

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 7, 2026

ADDED: The rowdy mob is throwing snowballs. Reminiscent of the Boston Massacre.

AND: From David McCullough's "John Adams" (commission earned):

Bobby flips the food pyramid.

From "Welcome to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030."

The message is simple: eat real food.... American households must prioritize diets built on whole, nutrient-dense foods—protein, dairy, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, and whole grains.... For decades, federal incentives have promoted low-quality, highly processed foods and pharmaceutical intervention instead of prevention.... Under President Trump’s leadership, we are restoring common sense, scientific integrity, and accountability to federal food and health policy—and we are reclaiming the food pyramid and returning it to its true purpose of educating and nourishing all...

"When [Justin] McDaniel began teaching Existential Despair a decade ago, he came up with a set of ground rules...."

"Students would read only literature — no biographies or self-help books. He forbade them from taking notes so as not to distract from the act of reading.... He feels that great novels can be read as religious texts, too. Part of the point of most religious stories, he believes, is that other people have endured ordeal after ordeal — and somehow carried on. McDaniel gravitates toward books that deal with bleak subjects: torture, genocide, hopelessness, pain and sickness, guilt and shame.... As one student at the reading group... described him to me as the 'least human and the most human person I know,' meaning that his affect alternates between empathetic and robotic. He keeps a 'crying chair' in his office and allows students to sit in it and cry for 15 minutes at a time, no questions asked (he leaves the room). But now and then, he told me, some students 'needed a little smackdown.' During one reading session last spring, he lost his temper. The class was reading The Sheltering Sky, by Paul Bowles. About halfway through, a few students finished and started chatting. 'It was five or six people who could not stop their self-satisfaction, how clever and interesting they were. Finally, I had to unleash on them. I was actually cruel to them, but they deserved it.' He shouted 'Shut the fuck up!' over and over until the room fell silent...."

From "Gluttons for Punishment Justin McDaniel has developed a cult following for getting his students to read — as long as they follow his rules" (NY Magazine).

"The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants. I have a very hard time seeing that the U.S. couldn’t get pretty much everything it wanted if it just asked nicely."

Said Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, quoted in "Trump Administration Live Updates: Rubio Says President Wants to Buy Greenland" (NYT).

Under a little-known Cold War agreement, the United States already enjoys sweeping military access in Greenland... allow[ing] it to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland, “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.” It was signed in 1951 by the United States and Denmark, which colonized Greenland more than 300 years ago and still controls some of its affairs.... 

So it's essentially already ours? But Rubio told Congress yesterday that Trump wants to buy Greenland.  Olesen told the NYT that "Greenland does not want to be bought by anyone — especially not the United States." Presuming that this Olesen knows what Greenland wants, I'd still regard that as a bargaining position. And they are bargaining with Trump. We'll see what happens.

Ponderous performance.

A fake candlelight vigil for a made-up holy day. And then they sang...this is the modern Democrat party. pic.twitter.com/jvbzutnRqn

— Kira (@Kiradavis) January 7, 2026

Mickey Rourke doesn't want your charity.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MICKEY ROURKE (@mickey_rourke_)

Background: "Mickey Rourke Declines $100,000 in Donations After His Eviction/Rourke’s landlord said in court documents that the actor owed nearly $60,000 in rent. Rourke said he had opted not to pay rent after the home became uninhabitable" (NYT).

At the Roast Pig Café...

...  you can talk all night. Talk about whatever you want, but here's the pig...

"'The Bed' consisted of two handsome young men in white boxers sitting on a bed about the size of Cino’s small theater and discussing their feelings of aimlessness."

"The script was less than 15 pages, but the play lasted for more than half an hour because of many extended pauses. The same upbeat rock song, Dave Clark Five’s 'Anyway You Want It,' played twice all the way through, with the actors onstage incongruously silent. The Village Voice wrote wonderingly that the play 'achieves its most alive moments in complete stasis.'"

From "Robert Heide, Daring Playwright and Warhol Collaborator, Dies at 91/He helped create the Off Off Broadway theater scene, wrote and acted in Andy Warhol’s films, and turned his fascination with collectible Americana into books" (NYT).

That production of "The Bed" took place in 1965.

"Some of the rules, some of the unthinkables, some of the things that we wouldn't have previously imagined being part of the operation are now on the table as options."

"What I think is clear is that we're entering a new phase of great power competition."

Said Ryan C. Berg, the director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, quoted in "How could Trump's move against Venezuela impact China, Russia, Iran and Cuba?" (CBS News).

Enough of that "and his wife" business.

This is too little too late:

They're playing catch up now, after the arraignment, but decent journalism should have required referring to her by name all along. She was arrested for a reason, so there should be some specificity in the charges against her. Without that, we got the false impression that she was swept in as an appendage of the man.

Every time I heard "and his wife," I thought of the "Gilligan's Island" theme song. The subordination of the female character even in those lyrics has always bugged me.

Now, if you're charged with a crime, you'll prefer to be downplayed, but Cilia Flores doesn't deserve that benefit. 

"All warfare is based on deception and the American people have had war declared on them."

Said Jake Angeli — AKA Jacob Chansley AKA the QAnon Shaman — to the London Times, which, like other news outlets, is looking for a way to commemorate January 6th — AKA today.

From the home page of the London Times:

Who cares what this guy thinks? But:  "What I’ve come to understand more than anything, dude, is that the Trump administration just lies, bro, because they’re Israel First, just like the Biden administration just lied because they were Israel First. We don’t have our own government."

"María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, repeatedly praised President Trump on Monday during a prime-time appearance on Fox News...."

"Ms. Machado... even offered him the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in October, a prize Mr. Trump has coveted for years..... 'She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country,' Mr. Trump said of Ms. Machado on Saturday. 'She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.' Senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, had persuaded Mr. Trump that Venezuela could be further destabilized if the United States tried to back the opposition. A classified C.I.A. intelligence analysis reflected that view, according to a person familiar with the document.... Mr. Trump has not indicated if new elections will be held in Venezuela, saying only that the United States was 'in charge' of the country. Ms. Machado said on Monday that the opposition would win 'over 90 percent of the vote in free and fair elections.'..."

The New York Times reports, in "Venezuela’s Machado Praises Trump in Fox News Interview/María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, offered to share her Nobel Peace Prize with President Trump. He has refused to back her."

Here's the interview:

ADDED: There's some good background in this other NYT article, published before that Fox News interview, "Why Trump Refused to Back Venezuela’s Machado: Fears of Chaos, and Fraying Ties/U.S. intelligence suggested María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s opposition leader, would struggle to lead the government. But her relationship with Trump officials had been souring for months" (NYT)(gift link). Excerpt:

Sunrise — 7:23.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"Today, the Trump Administration is proud to announce the United States of America’s updated Childhood Vaccination Schedule."

"This Schedule is rooted in the Gold Standard of Science, and widely agreed upon by Scientists and Experts all over the World. Effective today, America will no longer require 72 'jabs' for our beautiful, healthy children. We are moving to a far more reasonable Schedule, where all children will only be recommended to receive Vaccinations for 11 of the most serious and dangerous diseases. Parents can still choose to give their children all of the Vaccinations, if they wish, and they will still be covered by insurance. However, this updated Schedule finally aligns the United States with other Developed Nations around the World.... Many Americans, especially the 'MAHA Moms,' have been praying for these COMMON SENSE reforms for many years...."

Writes Trump, on Truth Social.

"Did you and your team of lawyers miss important information about [Tim Walz] during the vetting process."

Oct 2024. Eric Holder explains that his vetting of Tim Walz for Kamala’s VP didn’t miss “anything of substance."

"Authentic guy with a great record."

They knew about Walz.

Everything they said about this guy in the 2024 campaign was a lie. pic.twitter.com/mRrOMBfSri

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 5, 2026

What's more likely?

They didn't vet him adequately.

They saw the problems, but went ahead anyway.

They saw and wanted what they saw.

 

pollcode.com free polls

"For us, this is a very happy day when we see a dictator who has been part of oppressing and abusing the Venezuelan people for 25 years, when we see him in handcuffs..."

"... and held to some sort of accountability, it brought me to tears. It brought me great joy.... I think you can still celebrate that this murderous, corrupt, sadistic son of a bitch is out of Venezuela....”

SHOCKING: The View’s Ana Navarro: “For us, this is a very happy day when we see a dictator who has been part of oppressing and abusing the Venezuelan people for 25 years, when we see him in handcuffs and held to some sort of accountability, it brought me to tears. It brought me… pic.twitter.com/chyUkZ22DP

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) January 5, 2026

There's also this from Navarro:

“Did Hell Freeze Over?”… @ananavarro Praises President Trump for Getting Rid of Maduro… pic.twitter.com/dJ3iw24yKG

— 𝕰𝖒𝕲 (@Emilio2763) January 4, 2026

"It would be better to describe reading not as a public duty but as a private pleasure, sometimes even a vice."

"This would be a more effective way to attract young people, and it also happens to be true. When literature was considered transgressive, moralists couldn’t get people to stop buying and reading dangerous books. Now that books are considered virtuous and edifying, moralists can’t persuade anyone to pick one up.... [But reading] is an antisocial activity in the most concrete sense: To do it you have to be alone, or else pretend you’re alone by tuning out other people. Reading teaches you to be more interested in what’s going on inside your head than in the real world...."

Writes Adam Kirsch, in "Reading Is a Vice/Being a reader means cultivating a relationship with the world that, by most standards, can seem pointless and counterproductive" (The Atlantic).

"They head out, we say, Guess what? There's pirates. Bing! That's the end of the pirates."

President Trump perfectly explains the sudden disappearance of Somali pirates:

"Do you notice that ships aren't being taken anymore? It's actually very easy. They head out, we say, 'Guess what? There's pirates’ *bing* thats the end of the pirates.” 🤣
pic.twitter.com/v0LogOlFvk

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 5, 2026

"Six weeks ago, Senator Mark Kelly — and five other members of Congress — released a reckless and seditious video that was clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline...."

"[T]he Department of War... has initiated retirement grade determination proceedings under 10 U.S.C. § 1370(f), with reduction in his retired grade resulting in a corresponding reduction in retired pay."

Six weeks ago, Senator Mark Kelly — and five other members of Congress — released a reckless and seditious video that was clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline. As a retired Navy Captain who is still receiving a military pension, Captain Kelly knows he…

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) January 5, 2026

"Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson — he of the 'don’t die' motto — is particularly obsessed with the ways his penis might help him live forever."

"The data Johnson collects on his johnson includes ejaculate volume (just over a half teaspoon, apparently double the norm), sperm count and motility, and nighttime erection quality, which he then compares with his teenage son. His regimen to keep his penis in tip-top shape includes shockwave therapy and Botox injections. He’s not alone. Dave Asprey, the self-proclaimed father of the biohacking movement and the founder of Bulletproof Coffee, plans to live to 180. He treats his penis to injections of stem cells and acoustic wave therapy. For the latter, he helpfully suggests a DIY version: 'Grab the cock and slap it against your leg on the left 67 times,' he said on his podcast, The Human Upgrade. 'And then on the right… And you lightly slap the balls…The shock waves stimulate the cells. All of those are good for testosterone and good for enhancing what’s called male energy.'"

From "Longevity Science’s Penis Fixation Has an Extensive, Strange History/Biohackers like Bryan Johnson and Dave Asprey can’t stop talking about their genitalia—and neither could these 20th-century pseudoscientists" (Vanity Fair).

"It’s a painful reality to comes to terms with but as a woman hell really can be other women sometimes."

"The experience of being obviously left out and then when pointing it out being met with feigned ignorance is definitely infuriating. I am very happily child-free by choice (a decision that I only take more joy in the older I get) and I can’t deny that being able to altogether avoid these kinds of dynamics with other women is a huge relief to me. I am very sorry for the author. This has to be a very sad experience. To become a mother is such a huge shift, psychologically and spiritually and in terms of identity. Admittedly any dreams I might have about finding a peaceful tribe of women to hang with have evaporated as I’ve gotten older. I enjoy my own company and the company of a few very dear, compassionate and wise friends, one-on-one. Letting go of illusions is liberating and I recommend it."

Writes "eggspoached" in the comments to "Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group/I thought I found my village. Instead, I was back in high school." That's the most-read article at New York Magazine at the moment, and there are lots more comments along the lines of "This exact thing happened to me!"

The President of Mexico and the President of Colombia react quite differently to Trump's posturing.

The NYT reports on Colombia President Gustavo Petro:

After Mr. Trump said that U.S. military forces in the Caribbean could be used against Colombia and other countries, and accused Mr. Petro of being involved in cocaine production, Mr. Petro said: “If you detain a president whom much of my people want and respect, you will unleash the people’s jaguar.”... 

He added that Colombia has deployed more than 30,000 troops along its border with Venezuela to prepare for potential destabilization, a surge of migrants or confrontations with drug cartels that he said would “very likely feel increased pressure and attempt to harm the Colombian people.”

The NYT reports the Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum:

President Claudia Sheinbaum brushed aside President Trump’s warning that Mexico must get its “act together” on drug trafficking or face possible U.S. action. 

“This is just President Trump’s manner of speaking,” Sheinbaum said at a news conference on Monday. She acknowledged that the White House had pushed for military action on Mexican soil, but said that the problem of organized crime could not be solved with foreign intervention.

Whose rhetoric is likely to be more effective with Trump? I see that Petro hotly deployed vivid language — "the people's jaguar" — and Sheinbaum coolly observed that Trump deploys vivid language. To Sheinbaum, Trump is a blustery beast, but she can handle him. To Petro, the people are a fierce powerful beast and they will rise up and defend him against Trump. 

"Democratic Gov. Tim Walz announced Monday he is dropping his bid for reelection in Minnesota, a dramatic turn for the two-term governor who gained national prominence..."

"... as his party’s 2024 vice-presidential nominee but now faces intense scrutiny over welfare fraud investigations in his state.... Democrats had grown increasingly worried about Walz’s choice to seek a third term as Republicans, including President Donald Trump, put a spotlight on the fraud issue, which federal prosecutors have been investigating for several years. GOP influencers, a viral video and new information from authorities — who say the scams could be far bigger than previously known and reach into the billions of dollars — have drawn more attention to allegations that scammers stole brazenly from Minnesota safety net programs for services they never provided.... 'We’ve got the President of the United States demonizing our Somali neighbors and wrongly confiscating child care funding that Minnesotans rely on,' Walz said, referencing a federal freeze on some child care funding in response to the fraud issue. 'It is disgusting. And it is dangerous.'"

From "Walz drops bid for reelection as Minn. governor while Klobuchar considers run/The former Democratic vice presidential nominee stepped aside amid a growing fraud inquiry" (WaPo reports).

It was dangerous. To Walz.

"Let's go after the drug lords where they LIVE!"

FLASHBACK: 1989 JOE BIDEN would love what President Trump just did:

"Let's go after the drug lords where they LIVE! With an international strike force. NO safe haven for narco-terrorists."
pic.twitter.com/XlrSGiHnoZ

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 5, 2026

"I think the reality is that for centuries we really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good and..."

"... in transitioning into treating it as a collective good and towards the model of shared equity will require that we think about it differently, and it will mean that families — especially white families, but some POC families as well — are going to have a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have.”

NYC Mayor Mamdani's Tenant Director, Cea Weaver:

"We'll transition from treating property as an individual good to a collective good. Whites especially will be impacted." pic.twitter.com/RZSdCs8oEa

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 5, 2026

See also "Zohran Mamdani’s new NYC tenant advocate called to ‘seize private property,’ blasted home ownership as ‘white supremacy’" (NY Post). Excerpt: "Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s new director of the city Office to Protect Tenants, made the statements and urged her followers to elect more communists in several lecturing posts on her now-deleted X account that were unearthed by internet sleuths. 'Seize private property!' she said on June 13, 2018.... 'Private property including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy,' she said [in August 2019]."

Sunrise — 7:00, 7:10, 7:11, 7:12, 7:25, 7:27.

We walked out onto the ice today. I like to be able to do that, because you get a continual view of an unobstructed sunrise. I ran out ahead while Meade was holding still to do videos, seen here, and that's Meade in the distance in photo #3, with the waning gibbous moon. That's another moon view in photo #5.

 

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

I was listening to a "daylist" Spotify had made for me, and this line struck me: "When you get up in the mornin' and you see that crazy sun...."

Elon Musk laughs at a prison rape joke.

Shameful.

Time only seems to go faster when you’re older because of the way your memory works. Does that mean you should seek out novelty?

Interesting: Here is the reason that as you get older, entire years feel like a week: 🙇‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/V6spUNMrFT

— AlphaFox (@alphafox) January 4, 2026

Assuming he's right about that, I don't jump to agree that one ought to seek out novelty. I'm thinking:

1. There is no problem to be solved. You experience your life in the present in real time. It only looks compressed in your memory. You're not being deprived of time in which to live. You're just freed from detailed memory.

2. Even though novelties would cause your memory to seem to contain more time spent doing the things you have done, you can always find more detail within your familiar activities.

Doesn't AI stop you from making basic grammar errors like "grabbing he and his wife in their pajamas"?

CBS Evening News in its supposedly new, better form:

Here is the soft launch of the @CBSEveningNews with @TonyDokoupil, not official until Monday, but kicking off two days early in light of the U.S. military strikes in Venezuela and capture of Nicolas Maduro pic.twitter.com/gFlviKfkqh

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 3, 2026

Give I a break!

You seem to think you can amuse us by painting a picture of a man and his wife caught in their pajamas, but I'm not amused. Their capture is serious matter, not a prank. It wasn't about humiliating them. And you humiliate yourself with that glaring, grating grammar mistake.

Get proper editing. How is this mainstream, professional journalism? I'd be embarrassed, on my little 1-person blog, to have written something as bad as "grabbing he and his wife in their pajamas." 

"You can't turn Venezuela into the operating hub for Iran, for Russia, for Hezbollah, for China, for the Cuban intelligence agents that control that country."

"That cannot continue. Those things cannot continue to be in place. You cannot continue to have the largest oil reserves in the world under the control of adversaries of the United States, not benefiting the people of Venezuela, and stolen by a handful of oligarchs around the world including inside of Venezuela, but not benefiting the people of that country. You know, we've seen how our adversaries all over the world are exploiting and extracting resources from Africa, from every other country. They're not going to do it in the Western Hemisphere."

Said Marco Rubio, on "Meet the Press" this morning.

"'Gossip shows talk about her every day, about her outfits, about her stylist, about her appearances,' he said, a reference to Ms. Guilfoyle’s embrace of the Trump style for women..."

"... Rapunzel hair, false eyelashes, plumped lips, figure-hugging sheath dresses and high heels. 'In terms of public relations, she has done an excellent job,” [the Greek commenter said]. But the 'submissiveness' of so many Greeks lining up to meet her, he said, 'makes us look like a Third World country.' Mr. Georgiadis, the health minister, shrugged off the buzz. 'When she was first named, the people were, "What’s that?"' he said. But the early energy deals, he said, have proved that she has substance. 'If she delivers,' he said, 'who cares if she has a see-through dress?'..."

From "Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Talk of Athens/The former fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., and the former wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom, is working hard and pushing deals with American business interests. She’s also up late at parties" (NYT).

"'The task in front of him is stupefying,' said a senior U.S. official, noting the dizzying array of policy decisions related to energy, elections, sanctions and security that await."

"This person, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to respond freely. The moment marks the realization of a long-held goal for Rubio, who has voiced his criticisms of Maduro and desire for change in Venezuela for well over a decade. Those who have worked closely with Rubio, whose parents left Cuba before the Communist takeover in 1959, say the issues of the region are close to his heart. 'Marco’s parents’ experience … is hardwired in him,' said Cesar Conda, a Republican strategist who worked as the former senator’s chief of staff between 2011 and 2014.... His Spanish proficiency, familiarity with Latin American leaders and the Venezuelan opposition make him a natural point man for Trump, said another senior U.S. official...."

From "Rubio takes on most challenging role yet: Viceroy of Venezuela/The top U.S. diplomat has pushed for regime change for over a decade. Now the hard part begins" (WaPo).

WaPo's use of the word "viceroy" expresses its own opinion — though few readers will have any idea what that opinion is and many will mistake it for an official title that has been given to Rubio. It's not.

Wikipedia says: "A viceroy is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning 'in the place of' and the Anglo-Norman roy (Old French roi, roy), meaning "king.' This denotes the position as one who acts on behalf of a king or monarch. A viceroy's territory may be called a viceroyalty...."

I guess this is raw meat for the "no kings" crowd. But then again, maybe it's just a tidbit for those of us who enjoy alliteration: Viceroy of Venezuela. Maybe "governor" is a more appropriate word, but save that for the Washington Post headline when we take over Greenland. Just an alliteration joke. I think the right answer is that no title at all is appropriate for what Rubio is doing and a descriptive phrase like "who is taking the lead role" is best.

Meade catches Althouse catching the moon and the sun.

ADDED: One more:

Things I found when I created a new tag — "Trump and Venezuela" — and went back into the archive to add it to old posts.

From the Althouse archive:

August 2017: Trump said: "I’m not going to rule out a military option.... Venezuela is a mess. We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option if necessary."

March 2018: When anti-Trumpers were interpreting Trump's handshake with baseball hero Jose Altuve, I wrote: "I don't know if Altuve talks about politics, but I don't think he's even an American citizen. He's Venezuelan. If I were Venzuelan, I'd be most worried about Venezuela, and looking at Trump, I'd be thinking, is there some way he can help Venezuela?, or, if I was inclined to the hostility anti-Trumpers are seeing in his face — Why hasn't President Trump done something yet about Venezuela?"

February 2019: When Trump was pleading with the Venezuelan military to support Juan Guaido, I wrote: "I was surprised that on the channel I was watching — Fox News — the analysis after the speech was about the 2020 presidential campaign.... People in Venezuela are suffering. They're starving. We need to help. I thought Trump was trying to get something done, but the news folk rush to talk about the damned campaign, as if that's what sophisticated, savvy people do. I found it offensive."

April 2019: Quoting a Swedish journalist in Venezuela: "Two months have passed since I got here and in that time, the possibility of an American intervention in Venezuela has been on everyone’s mind.

I hope James Carville is doing satire.

About 24 hours ago, I said out loud, here at Meadhouse, "I'm waiting for Trump haters to say this was done to distract us from Epstein."

I'd like to think anyone saying that is doing satire, but James Carville really commits:

🚨NEW: James Carville goes on *UNHINGED* rant claiming Trump Admin Venezuela Operation was "ALL ABOUT EPSTEIN"🤦‍♂️

"Come on, people! Wake up! ... Never ever underestimate what Trump will do to try to survive and draw attention away from Jeffrey Epstein."@DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/jRa52gwDwD

— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) January 3, 2026