Sunrise — 7:14.

... another wintry day. Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"Trump never attended the Kennedy Center’s annual gala event during his first term, as artists protested his administration and threatened to boycott Kennedy Center events at the White House."

"Now Trump is making clear that he will not be sidelined again from the most celebrated cultural institution in Washington. 'The attitude is different this time. The attitude is Go fuck yourself,' said one of the people familiar with the planning. 'It’s ridiculous for four years for Trump and Melania to say, "We’re not going to the Kennedy Center because Robert De Niro doesn’t like us."' (De Niro was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2009 and spoke at the 2024 event.)"

From "Trump Takes Over the Kennedy Center/The president intends to replace members of the institution’s board as he adopts a more aggressive approach toward the arts" (The Atlantic). 

At Truth Social, Trump writes:

"A federal judge early Saturday temporarily restricted access by Elon Musk’s government efficiency program to the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems..."

"... saying there was a risk of 'irreparable harm.' The Trump administration’s new policy of allowing political appointees and 'special government employees' access to these systems, which contain highly sensitive information such as bank details, heightens the risk of leaks and of the systems becoming more vulnerable than before to hacking, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in an emergency order.... The order came in response to a lawsuit filed on Friday by Letitia James of New York along with 18 other Democratic state attorneys general, charging that when Mr. Trump had given Mr. Musk the run of government computer systems, he had breached protections enshrined in the Constitution and 'failed to faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress.'... The Constitution says that a president 'shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.'"

From "Judge Halts Access to Treasury Payment Systems by Elon Musk’s Team/The order came in response to a lawsuit filed by 19 attorneys general accusing the president of failing to faithfully execute the nation’s laws when he let DOGE comb through federal computer systems" (NYT).

Is the federal judge taking the position that in the name of enforcing the Take Care Clause, it is the role of the judiciary to oversee whatever the President does with the executive power that the Constitution vests in him?

Is there some extra-legal notion that the federal judge should seize the power to put on the brakes when a President with questionable judgment is moving too fast? (I'm hearing some lawprofs singing that tune.)

ADDED: Here is the request for a temporary restraining order, and here is the judge's order.

"Crooked Joe’s MANDATE, 'NO PLASTIC STRAWS, ONLY PAPER,' IS DEAD! Enjoy your next drink without a straw that disgustingly dissolves in your mouth!!!"

As you can tell from the all-caps and the triple exclamation points, that's Trump, hating on the straws everyone hates.

I avoid straws myself, and so the now-defunct plastic straw ban had no effect on me, but I do remember paper straws from the 1950s, when I was growing up, and kids just chewed on the straws, and if they dissolved in our mouth, we just ate them, and we liked it.

These days, if a kid eats paper, it's "a concerning behavior that should not be ignored" ("Whether it’s due to sensory issues, stress, or anxiety, nutritional deficiencies, developmental disorders, or curiosity, it’s essential to seek professional help and guidance to ensure your child’s safety and well-being").

By the way, don't miss the song parodies in the comments to yesterday's "Big Balls and Plastic Straws" challenge.

Meanwhile, on TikTok...

... I'm seeing things like this:

"Elon's not shy" and the Japanese Prime Minister is not "trying to suck up."

The event was a meeting between President Trump and the Prime Minister of Japan, Shigeru Ishiba, but a reporter saw fit to exploit the occasion to provoke Trump about Musk: "Do you have a reaction into the new Time Magazine cover that has Elon Musk sitting behind your Resolute Desk?":

Trump says a simple "no" in a way that sounded to me like it meant what a stupid question. 

Then, after the translator conveys the question and short answer to the Japanese Prime Minister, Trump deadpans, "Is Time Magazine still in business? I didn't even know."

The translation ensues, and Trump gets to start again. Reponse #1 was the "no," response #2 was the joke, and response #3, was to praise Musk: "Elon is doing a great job. He's finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste. You see it with the USAID, but you're going to see it even more so with other agencies and other parts of government. He's got a staff that's fantastic... [USAID is] a fraud... very little being put to good use. Every single line that I look at in terms of events and transactions is either corrupt or ridiculous, and we're going to be doing that throughout government and I think we're going to be very close to balancing budgets for the first time in many years...."

There's a follow-up question: "Will you put Elon Musk on the podium for us to ask him some questions?"

Trump: "Oh, sure. He's not shy. Elon's not shy."

As for Shigeru Ishiba... earlier he had appealed to Trump's ego.

At the Friday Night Café...

... you can talk all night.

That's not a sunrise picture. It was 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

"Here’s my view: I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life."

"We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that."

Tweeted JD Vance.

What did this guy write? NBC News has this:

The Wall Street Journal said it reviewed archived posts from a deleted X account used by [25-year-old Marko] Elez in which he posted messages such as “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool” and, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity... Normalize Indian hate.”

ADDED: Do not refer to Elez as "Big Balls"! Big Balls is Edward Coristine, and he's only 19 years old. So maybe you shouldn't be calling him that. You creeps.

"I think [the Democrats'] primary currency was shaming and scolding and talking down to people and telling them 'Hey, I know better than you, or you’re dopes...'"

"'... or you’re a bro, or you’re ignorant or, how can you be this dumb?' I can’t imagine it. And then, by the way, they’re fascists. How can you vote for that?... And you know, when you’re in a state like Pennsylvania, I know and I love people that voted for Trump, and they’re not fascist. They don’t support insurrection and those things. And if you go to an extreme, and you become a boutique kind of proposition, then you’re going to lose the argument. And we have done that.... And in some cases, in the conversations I’ve had, a lot of people, they don’t even want to say it publicly, but they just feel like the other side seems like…the men’s the problem. Men are to blame. Or their masculinity is toxic. Or unless you’re able to conform to our very strict kinds of definition of what we think is appropriate, well then, hey, I’m going to find an alternative. And they’ve done that.... it’s going to be difficult to rebuild and replace that...."

Said John Fetterman, quoted in "Democrat Sen. John Fetterman blasts party brand as ‘toxic’ after years of ‘shaming and scolding’ voters" (NY Post).

I want a song parody that uses the phrases "Big Balls" and "plastic straws" — maybe to the tune of "Popsicles and Icicles."

Try to include a lot of the Trump-related items that are bouncing around the internet today. I can't blog all these things. There are too many. And it's too absurd. I've already asked A.I., but it just doesn't know how to make it interesting and funny. 

Here's the inspiration (and note the straws!):

The order of orders: chronological order.

I found — with kind help — a way to get rid of the reply function in the comments. I hope you, like me, enjoy the return to chronological order. I never liked comments jumping the line, displaying above comments that had gone up earlier. It was especially bad because my browser still displayed the comments in chronological order and therefore had many comments that were replying to who knows what.

Anyway, I've said it before and I like to repeat it: the greatest order of all time is chronological order:

In the previous post, I wrote: "[Chronological order is] the most obvious order, used by lovers of order all over the world and through the grand course of time. There are other orders — alphabetical order, order of importance...."

This made me want to put order... in order.

"Good trouble."

Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner & Chair of @FEC. There’s a legal way to replace FEC commissioners-this isn’t it. I’ve been lucky to serve the American people & stir up some good trouble along the way. That’s not changing anytime soon. pic.twitter.com/7voecN2vpj

— Ellen L. Weintraub (@ellenlweintraub.bsky.social) (@EllenLWeintraub) February 6, 2025

Readers of this tweet need to remember that "good trouble" is a stock phrase, not some impish creation of Weintraub's. It's serious. As Grok tells us: "good trouble" was used by John Lewis, the civil rights leader and Congressman, to describe his experience participating in protests and civil disobedience.

I can see that some people are reading her tweet to mean that she's refusing to leave, but you don't need to read it that way. On the text alone, I would say she might be abiding by his demand that she leave, even though she also wants to say that he did not use the proper method. Is she going to stay where she's been told to leave?  The reference to "good trouble" might suggest that she is, but it's in a sentence written in the past tense: "I’ve been lucky...."

From the NYT article on the subject:

"Under her leadership articles have included 'How Feminism can Guide Climate Change by Action,' 'Denial of Evolution is a Form of White Supremacy,' and a critique of Star Wars..."

"... titled: 'Why the term JEDI is problematic for describing programmes that promote justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.' The author of this last piece called the Jedi 'a religious order of intergalactic police-monks, prone to (white) saviorism and toxically masculine approaches to conflict resolution (violent duels with phallic lightsabers, gaslighting by means of "Jedi mind tricks," etc)'...."

From "How magazine went from publishing Einstein to calling Jedi racist/Scientific American has been accused of abandoning objective rigour for a ‘woke’ agenda" (London Times).

The "her" in "Under her leadership" is Laura Helmuth, who was appointed editor-in-chief of "Scientific American" in 2020. She supposedly had a "deep respect for the brand," but then "broke the magazine’s tradition of impartiality by endorsing Joe Biden for president in 2020."

But: "Helmuth was forced to resign last November after making a series of derogatory comments about supporters of Donald Trump. In since-deleted posts on Bluesky after Trump’s election, she called his voters 'fascists' and the 'meanest, dumbest, most bigoted' group."

Autocrats everywhere.

Here's Samantha Power, writing "I Ran U.S.A.I.D. /Killing It Is a Win for Autocrats Everywhere" (NYT).

Of course, she will defend her reign, but what are her most substantive points and does she accept any blame? That's my attitude as I'm reading this to make some excerpts for you. Power begins by listing some things that will seem good to many or most Americans — health programs, "giving girls a chance to get an education," "growing local economies," "helping communities rebuild after ISIS."

She asserts that these activities have "generated vast stores of political capital" for the United States. They have also, she said, been the subject of attacks by China and Russia. Those attacks she calls "propaganda." And what we did... well, that was in the interest of the United States:

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive...."

Wrote William Wordsworth, in "The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement."

The famous old line came to mind as I was listening to "The Joe Rogan Experience" and Joe, talking about the first days of the new Trump administration, exclaimed: "Wild times! Just wild! Like what a fun time to be alive!"

Bret Weinstein followed on:

"It just feels different. I have to tell you, I don't know what's coming, but it's at least, it's at least delightful not to know what to think."

He's got delight, as Wordsworth's French revolutionaries had bliss, but Weinstein professes to find his delight in not knowing what to think. He's distancing himself and enjoying his distance. I think of the spectators who lined the Place de la Révolution. Did they have reservations about the guillotine? Did they think I don't know what to think and find that unknowingness delightful? 

Weinstein's thoughtfulness continued:

"The cynicism that was required to understand what was going on two months ago is now no longer required. You actually have to think about what you're, what you're told is coming down the pike and think, well, I don't know. Is that a solution? Is it, is that, yeah. Is it a negotiating tactic or is it a solution that's actually being proposed and would it work?"

Withhold judgment. Meanwhile, 10 more heads will have rolled.

At the Ice and Wind Café...

... you can talk all night.

And no, I've got no pictures for you today. I got up at 5 and looked out the window and thought how could it have rained? It's 24°. But the sidewalks had that rained-on look — brown. That has to be ice. I delayed going out, and though it got sunny and the temperature rose above freezing, a ridiculous wind kicked up. I played it safe and stayed inside. Now, it's dark at last. 

Do you realize the entire dark season — darkest 3-month period of the year — is over and we've entered one of the 2 periods of the year when the light and dark are most balanced?

I've explained my thinking before: "I think the seasons are wrongly divided. They shouldn't begin with an equinox/solstice, but should have the equinox/solstice put right in the middle. That would correspond to how I feel about the seasons: It's about light, not temperature. Winter should have the solstice as its center and should end by mid-February and so forth.”

And: "I would call the seasons: 1. Dark Time (with winter solstice in the middle), 2. Dark-Light Time (with spring equinox in the middle), 3. Light Time (summer solstice in middle), and 4. Light-Dark Time (with fall equinox in middle). Don't worry about the temperature. That can vary. The light and dark are absolutely nailed down."

So, despite the ice and wind, we're in Dark-Light Time now.