Jimmy Kimmel finds it "unsettling" that "our first trillionaire, the richest man in the world, is also one of the weirdest people we've ever seen on this planet."

"This obscenely wealthy weirdo has the ability and means to blow up the moon if he chooses and also to put a lot of other people's money in his pockets. You know, SpaceX, it will enter the stock market so highly valued a lot of 401ks will get triggered to invest in it automatically.... Wasn't he supposed to be going to Mars? Can't we chip in to help speed that up? It's a trillion dollars. It's hard for our brains to conceptualize that. I mean, we know trillion is a number, but it's so large... we can't fathom it. The same way we know like Elon has a lot of kids, but we can't fathom him getting laid, right?"

Expressing contempt for Musk because you see him as weird — and unfuckable — reads as a careless cruelty against people who are on the autism spectrum.

Musk came out very openly — 5 years ago — as a person with Asperger's syndrome:

ADDED: Remember when the Democrats' chose their candidate for Vice President based on his use of "weird" as an insult against Trump? They seemed to really think that could win the election.

"The weekly gatherings of knitters at Needle & Skein, a yarn store in Minneapolis, are typically filled with giggles and storytelling."

"But, earlier this month, a heaviness hung in the air. 'It was just collective exhaustion,' said Paul Neary, a shop employee. 'Minnesotans — we're not going to say the big thing, but we often know what the big thing is just by looking at each other.'... They pulled out their knitting needles and got to work. Neary created the pattern that has now become the well-known 'Melt the ICE' hat, a red beanie-shaped cap topped with a braided tassel.... As a history buff, Neary chose the pattern based on a Norwegian hat used to protest the Nazi occupation of Norway in the 1940s. The hats were called 'nisselue,' which roughly translates to Santa hat...."

From "A red hat, inspired by a symbol of resistance to Nazi occupation, gains traction in Minnesota" (NPR).

"Peter Fritzsche, a history professor at the University of Illinois, said the Nazis were operating on 'obviously a very, very different scale,' but with ICE's presence in Minnesota, people can still feel 'occupied.'... Wendy Woloson, a history professor at Rutgers University at Camden and fellow knitter, said the red hats are a classic response of the crafting world. When knitters want to help in their community, they put their hands to work, she said.... She recalled the pink 'pussy hats' from the 2017 Women's March...."

It's poignant, this urge to do something that finds its release in knitting. It's something very calm indoor people can do when they want to feel they too are engaging in activism. 

ADDED: Speaking of hats in Minnesota, I just ran across this fascinating passage in a NYT article from April 2025:

"We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody's going to write that children's story about Minnesota."

Said Tim Walz, quoted in "Tim Walz condemned for comparing Minnesota children to Anne Frank" (USA Today).

I suppose the condemnation is about equating what happened to Anne Frank to what is happening to the deportees, but I'd like to throw in a little additional condemnation for not knowing enough about Anne Frank's writing. She wasn't a person with a story to tell. It was "The Diary of a Young Girl." Very little of the book is about the larger political drama that forced her to hide indoors. It's about her life as a young girl, and we, the readers, bring the larger context of the Nazis and how she was captured and died. That story is not in her book, which is about the inward life of a young girl. Anne Frank was an excellent writer, and the world lost her. I hope there's a similarly excellent writer enduring the present-day ordeal, but literary art is something beyond having a good story to tell.

Does Tim Walz even know the book he calls a "children's story"? Anne Frank was 13 to 15 years old when she wrote her diary, and much of it is about emerging sexual feelings — especially the "Definitive Edition." It’s quite striking: "Until I was eleven or twelve, I didn't realize there was a second set of labia on the inside, since you couldn't see them. Moreover, I thought the little tube you use to urinate out of was uninteresting.... When you're standing up, all you see from the front is hair. Between the outer labia are the inner ones... The entrance to the vagina is hidden between them.... The clitoris.... is particularly sensitive."

See "Which Version of The Diary of Anne Frank Is Best?" (Redeemed Reader): "The Definitive Edition includes a section in which she decides 'losing your virtue doesn’t matter' under the right circumstances (Thursday, March 2, 1944). Both editions imply that she is chafing under their circumstances and that both sets of parents disapprove of the time she and Peter spend together in Peter’s room; the diary implies that not much more than kissing is happening.... Obviously, there’s nowhere in public for Anne and Peter to go on dates; just as obvious, though, is that two young people in love are playing with fire to spend lots of unchaperoned time in a person’s bedroom."

"Governor Tim Walz called me with the request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call..."

"... and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength. I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I! We have had such tremendous SUCCESS in Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and virtually every other place that we have 'touched' and, even in Minnesota, Crime is way down, but both Governor Walz and I want to make it better!"

That's from PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP at Truth Social.

That's nice. I can think of a couple cynical things to say, but I'll leave them unsaid.

Person shot.

 

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times say that a "person" has been shot. Is there some question whether this was a woman or a man? If not, it's oddly dehumanizing.

From WaPo: "Federal agents shot another person in Minnesota on Saturday morning, Gov. Tim Walz said in a social media post. Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the incident, and Walz provided few details. It was not immediately clear which federal agency was involved, and the condition of the apparent victim was unknown."

Checking Walz's X post, I see it doesn't even say "person," just "another horrific shooting" (along with the demand, "The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now").

"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."

"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

"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.

The NYT puzzles over the Nick Shirley video.

I'm reading "An Intense White House Response From a Single Viral Video/A video purporting to expose extensive fraud at child care centers in Minnesota shows the relationship between the Trump administration and self-described citizen journalists" (NYT).

A 43-minute video posted online in the past week, purporting to expose extensive fraud at Somali-run child care centers in Minnesota, has been viewed by millions of people. It has also set off a series of events that show the symbiotic relationship between the Trump administration and self-described citizen journalists.

"Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was warned about massive fraud in a pandemic food-aid program for children, yet he failed to act."

"Instead, whistleblowers who raised concerns faced retaliation. Because of Governor Walz’s negligence, criminals — including Somali terrorists — stole nearly $1 billion from the program while children suffered.”

Said House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), quoted in "
Treasury, House panel launch probes into Tim Walz’s handling of $1B food aid fraud — and they could make criminal referrals" (NY Post).

"Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes..."

"... by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.... Outrage has swelled among Minnesotans.... Gov. Tim Walz and fellow Democrats are being asked to explain how so much money was stolen on their watch.... Many Somali Americans in Minnesota say the fraud has damaged the reputation of their entire community, around 80,000 people, at a moment when their political and economic standing was on the rise.... Critics of the Walz administration say that the fraud persisted partly because state officials were fearful of alienating the Somali community in Minnesota.... The episode has raised broader questions for some residents about the sustainability of Minnesota’s Scandinavian-modeled system of robust safety net programs bankrolled by high taxes...."

I'm reading "How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch/Prosecutors say members of the Somali diaspora, a group with growing political power, were largely responsible. President Trump has drawn national attention to the scandal amid his crackdown on immigration" (NYT).

"Minnesota, under Governor Waltz [sic], is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity. I am, as President of the United States, hereby terminating, effective immediately..."

"... the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota. Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!"

Writes President Trump, at Truth Social.

Here's the Washington Post article on the subject, "Trump says he will cancel temporary protected status of Somalis in Minnesota/The Trump administration has previously sought to terminate TPS safeguards for multiple countries. The designation shields particular nationalities from deportation" (gift link). Excerpt:

"We do not have the luxury to fight amongst ourselves while that thing sits in the White House."

Said Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Minneapolis last week, quoted in "Democrats let it all out at their party meeting" (Semafor)[SEE UPDATE BELOW].

But oddly enough, "that thing" is sitting in the White House after Republicans fought amongst themselves and Walz badly lost the election to him after Democrats went out of their way to avoid fighting amongst themselves. It would make more sense to use the epithet "that thing" to refer to the unwholesome agglomeration that is the Democratic Party.

The three-day meeting of the Democratic National Committee, held to welcome new members and start building the 2028 primary calendar, was the first under new chair Ken Martin.... The party, Martin vowed, was now bringing “a bazooka to a knife fight,” and would no longer “play by the rules” if Republicans broke them.

I'm guessing Martin deployed his "a bazooka to a knife fight" metaphor — in Minneapolis — before the the shooting of children that took place nearby. 

***

Bazooka (Wikipedia):

The name "bazooka" comes from an extension of the word bazoo, which is slang for "mouth" or "boastful talk"... 

That's fitting, for politicians.

During World War II, "bazooka" became the universally applied nickname of the new American anti-tank weapon, due to its vague resemblance to the musical instrument invented and popularized by 1930s American comedian Bob Burns.

Video of Burns playing the bazooka here.

UPDATE: In the comments below, Olson Johnson is right! observes that Semafor has taken Walz's words out of context:

"In a rambling, conspiratorial letter addressed to the FBI, alleged assassin Vance Boelter claimed Gov. Tim Walz instructed him to kill U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar so that Walz could run for the U.S. Senate..."

"... according to two people familiar with the contents of the letter. The letter... is incoherent, one and a half pages long, confusing and hard to read, according to two people familiar with the letter’s contents.... Federal prosecutors allege the letter was left behind in a Buick that Boelter deserted near his home in Green Isle, Minn. It also allegedly contained Boelter’s confession that he carried out the shootings that killed state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and injured Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette...."

From "Letter to FBI from shooting suspect made wild claims about Klobuchar and Walz, sources say/People with direct knowledge of a letter Vance Boelter addressed to the FBI say it is rambling and conspiratorial" (Minnesota Star Tribune).

Show us the letter. I'd like to form my own opinion and not just hear an assertion that it's "incoherent." The other day, I wasted time reading a prominent column with the headline stating that a new Supreme Court opinion was "incoherent." I almost blogged about it just to critique the deceptive use of the concept of incoherence.

"This dude’s the last guy I want to tell us about 'we lost our way.' You’re the guy who lost.'"

Said Tim Walz, talking about himself, in "'I Didn’t Get It Done': A Reflective Tim Walz Wants to Make Good/Last year’s Democratic vice-presidential nominee has thrown himself into a robust atonement-and-explanation tour, though aides insist there is no grand strategy" (NYT).

"If you say 'Keep Austin Weird' to somebody under the age of 40, they would think of that as an antique-y slogan, like Ye Old Shoppe."

"It doesn’t have any resonance for their lived experience of Austin."

Said H.W. Brands, a University of Texas historian, quoted in "Austin Welcomed Musk. Now It’s Weird (in a New Way). The famously liberal bastion of Austin is grappling uneasily with Elon Musk’s rightward turn, which has begun transforming his adopted home into an unlikely hub of right-of-center thinkers" (NYT).

Tie-dyed T-shirts still urge residents to “Keep Austin Weird,” mostly in hotels and tourist shops. But a different kind of counterculture has taken root amid an influx of decidedly right-of-center figures (including Mr. Musk), self-described freethinkers (like the podcasters Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman), and conservative entrepreneurs (like Joe Lonsdale). Already in town was Austin’s resident conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, and his far-right Infowars. There’s even a new, contrarian institution of higher learning looking to compete with the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Austin. Weird, perhaps, but not in the way of the old bumper-sticker mantra....

Can weirdness fans complain when weirdness gets weirder? Yes, they can and they do. They may prefer a softer, quirkier form of weird. And they may think weirdness is inherently left-wing. But the left got so censorious and repressive... and yet, the left is often weird... in specific, prescribed ways. 

Hey, remember when "weird" was the dominant insult deployed by the Democratic Party? It seemed that they chose their Vice Presidential candidate because he said it just so at the perfect time.

Chris Cuomo — bulging out of his T-shirt — says Democrats should find "a message" and "then you find the messenger."

And Bill Maher — possibly still digesting that dinner he had with Trump — tells him how wrong he is.

"The Democrats always say message. Who hears a message?"

 

Trump's "message," according to Maher is "I'm me, I'm strong and I'm daddy." To Maher, the people are "like an animal, they're instinctive, like, I smell fear, or I smell alpha... and Democrats have to come up with an alpha, and it's not Tim Walz, and it's not Tim, the other Tim who ran... You know that you gotta appeal to people at a sort of post-civilization stage where we're kind of on a primal level. You just do. And Trump does it better than anybody."

Cuomo takes the cue. But he doesn't go with the idea that Trump is who he is. He says Trump figured out who the people hate and essentially said: "I know who you hate, and I know what you hate...  and I hate them too, and I will make them pay." And Democrats hate Trump: "They just hate him. They do. So he can't even get shot and get compassion."

If Maher is right and Cuomo is wrong and Trump just is who he is and what he is is daddy, alpha, and the people respond by instinct, then what are the Democrats to do? Wait to be taken over and rearranged by some left-wing father figure? Or maybe a true Mother? If Cuomo is right, Democrats need only absorb something of the people's emotions and reflect them back convincingly enough. Neither man believes the people can become educated and rational. We're out here stewing in the "sort of post-civilization stage."

"Ambitious Democrats Have a New Game Plan: Yak It Up About Sports/Prominent leaders are flocking to sports radio shows and podcasts, an early sign of how the party is trying to reach apolitical young men...."

A NYT article that begins:

“I hate the Packers,” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said of his state’s rival football team from Wisconsin....

He's trying to show his aptitude for national politics by insulting the people of a swing state. Genius! The "coach" has a "game plan."

“The Sixers suck right now,” declared Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, lamenting the decline of Philadelphia’s basketball team.

Yeah, at least insult your own team. 

The hot takes are flowing as a parade of ambitious Democrats talk sports, trying to accentuate their salt-of-the-earth credentials and forge stronger bonds with voters.

Count the metaphors:

"In a world of steel eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm/Come in, Walz said, I'll give you shelter from the storm."

A Redditor gives the right answer to the question:

 

"But I’m beginning to think students who don’t read are responding rationally to the vision of professional life our society sells them."

"In that vision, productivity does not depend on labor, and a paycheck has little to do with talent or effort. For decades, students have been told that college is about career readiness and little else. And the task of puzzling out an author’s argument will not prepare students to thrive in an economy that seems to run on vibes. Recent ads for Apple Intelligence, an A.I. feature, make the vision plain. In one, the actor Bella Ramsey uses artificial intelligence to cover for the fact they haven’t read the pitch their agent emailed. It works, and the project seems like a go. Is the project actually any good? It doesn’t matter. The vibes will provide...."

Writes Jonathan Malesic, in "There’s a Very Good Reason College Students Don’t Read Anymore" (NYT).

I remember "vibes" as a hippie word, so I have trouble seeing how it functions these days in the speech of the young, and so, it annoys me. I wish I'd made a tag for it long ago, so I could could keep track of how it annoys me — at least in its usage by mainstream media. Do non-media young people go around saying it? I don't know. It just irks me when I see it in media.

For example...