Can the week be over already? Indeed it is, at least what they call the “work week”, for it’s Friday, February 7, 2025, and it’s National Fettuccine Alfredo Day, one of my favorite pastas, though I make it with hollow bucatini noodles instead of fettuccine. I add peas to mine to pump up the vegetable content. It’s good!
It’s also “e” Day, since the first two digits of that nunber are 2 and 7, Ballet Day, Rose Day, National Patty Melt Day (it’s just a cheeseburger on rye), and Bubble Gum Day.
Reader Rick submitted a quote of the day:
“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.” -Emo Phillips, comedian, actor (b. 7 Feb 1956)
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 7 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Trump’s EOs, as predicted, are getting stalled right and left by lawsuits, which is the proper way to oppose them. The latest one is his plan, implemented via Musk, to get rid of federal workers:
A federal judge in Massachusetts barred the government on Thursday from imposing a midnight deadline on federal workers who were offered a deferred resignation plan, freezing the government from implementing the deadline until a hearing on Monday afternoon.
The offer, which had been set to expire at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, is part of President Trump’s campaign to drastically cut the size of the federal government.
U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. enjoined the Office of Personnel Management from carrying out the buyout offers that have been emailed to federal workers until a hearing scheduled for Monday afternoon.
The administration has said tens of thousands of workers have already accepted offers to stop working and resign effective in September, but still collect pay until then.
More than 40,000 federal workers have accepted the deferred resignation program, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Thursday. She said the number was expected to increase.
“We encourage federal workers in this city to accept the very generous offer,” she said, adding: “We’ll find highly competent individuals who want to fill these roles.”
What??? I thought the program was meant to reduce the size of the government, not simply to replace people with more competent people (the implication is that those who resign are not so competent).
*As for Trump’s madness on Gaza (he apparently didn’t consult anybody before offering this plan), he now foresees Israel handing the Strip over to the U.S.!
US President Donald Trump on Thursday expanded on his plan to push out Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, pledging that the Strip “would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” and rejecting American boots on the ground as a precondition for the reconstruction of the devastated enclave.
Given that there is currently a ceasefire, his use of the phrase “at the conclusion of the fighting,” appeared to at least leave the door open for the possibility that the war will resume, per the demand of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing flank.
Writing on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump specified: “The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting.”
Gazans “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region,” he continued, apparently repeating his suggestion that the Strip’s population would be permanently displaced, despite a statement to the contrary by the top US diplomat on Wednesday. “They would actually have a chance to be happy, safe and free.”
“The US, working with great development teams from all over the world, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth,” Trump continued, adding that “no soldiers by the US would be needed.” Trump’s Mideast envoy was said to have offered similar assurances to Republican lawmakers amid their concerns about foreign entanglements.
. . . Trump reportedly did not hold consultations on his new plan, and his announcement Tuesday was said to have even caught Netanyahu by surprise. The premier later applauded Trump’s “totally different” thinking, and Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday ordered the IDF to prepare for Gazans to voluntarily emigrate.
Posing with Senate leaders on Thursday, Netanyahu was asked whether “US troops are needed in Gaza to make Trump’s plan feasible?”
Notice that Netanyahu did not answer. Of course they would need U.S. troops–if anybody is left in Gaza. And the world isn’t buying the idea of resettling Gazans in other countries like Jordan and Egypt (the latter country said that such an attempt would scupper Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel). I wish the UAE could run Gaza, but that ain’t gonna happen, either. The fact is that Trump is a loose cannon and you can’t trust his musings like this one.
*The WaPo lists all the Oscar nominations, and I’ll just give them for the top eight categories (one includes a cat movie!) Sadly, I’ve seen only one of the ten “Best Film” pictures.
The only movie I’ve seen of these was “Anora,” which was very good but not a classic, or even great:
Emilia Pérez gets a 73% critics’ rating and a dismal 17% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I don’t think I’ll see it. . .
I want to see the Dylan movie but–I kid you not–what puts me off is that the star is named Timothée (pronounced “Timothy”), apparently his French birth name since he’s French-American.. UPDATE: I watched half of “A complete unknown yesterday, just to check, and though the plot is good, I simply could not suspend my disbelief that Timothée was Dylan and Monica Barbaro was Joan Baez. Rarely have I had this problem, but I suppose the figures and behaviors of Dylan and Baez are embedded so deeply in my being that nobody could convincingly play them in a movie. I have to hand it to Chalamet, though: who spent years learning to play guitar and sing like Dylan, starting from nothing. Here’s an interview of Timothée on the Late Show:
And I’ve put a box around the animated feature I want to win, which I WILL see!
If you want to tout or criticize any of these movies or nominees, or let us know which ones you’ve seen and recommend, please do so in the comments.
*The best actress nominee, the trans-identified man Karla Sofia Gascón, suddenly turned from a heroine to. . . well, not a villain, but almost an apostate, when they uncovered some of his/her tweets, which once again puts progressives in a battle among themselves.
. . . . until last Thursday this year’s front-runner for the awards was “Emilia Pérez,” the operatic tale of a Mexican drug lord who becomes a better person by undergoing “transition” surgery. The Spanish transgender actor Karla Sofía Gascón (born Juan Carlos Gascón), who plays the title role, was nominated for best actress, and the French-made film led all others with 13 nominations. The opportunity to celebrate transgenderism at this cultural moment, with the winners invited to say or imply “Take that, Donald Trump!” from the stage, appeared to be too tempting to pass up.
That was last week. This week, however, all Hollywood can talk about is the shocking past remarks of the nominee—who, far from being embraced as a spokesperson for tolerance, is being denounced as “racist,” “hateful” and even “misogynistic.” The contretemps began when a black Muslim journalist, Sarah Hagi, began to suspect that Ms. Gascón, who before “Emilia Pérez” was little-known in the U.S., had a less than welcoming attitude toward Islam.
A search on X.com (formerly Twitter) turned up such eyebrow-raising comments as this one, from 2020, originally written in Spanish: “I’m sorry, is it just my impression or are there more Muslims in Spain? Every time I go to pick up my daughter from school there are more women with their hair covered and their skirts down to their heels. Next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic.” Shortly after the death of George Floyd, Ms. Gascón wrote, “I really think that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict swindler, but his death has served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider black people to be monkeys Without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They’re all wrong.”
Ms. Gascón was even accused of liking Hitler, based on this (seemingly ironic) comment from 2019: “This is the same old story, ‘black slaves and women in the kitchen.’ But it is my opinion and it must be respected. I do not understand so much world war against Hitler, he simply had his opinion of the Jews. Well, that’s how the world goes.”
Perhaps most ill-advisedly, Ms. Gascón made fun of the Oscars ceremony itself, writing of the notoriously dull 2021 broadcast, “More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.” (“The 8M” refers to March 8, International Women’s Day.)
Overnight, a walking symbol of Hollywood’s love, tolerance, empathy and inclusivity was rebranded as the opposite of all these things. Hollywood was skipping merrily toward rewarding the wokest movie of the year when it stepped on an antiwoke land mine.
Nellie Bowles reprises some of Gascón’s tweets in today’s TGIF:
→ ¡Oh no, Karla Sofía Gascón! Karla Sofía is the trans actress who starred in the critically acclaimed film Emilia Pérez, and now she’s in trouble for the bad tweets of her past. Like: “More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M [a Spanish way of referring to International Women’s Day]. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”
Or this one about Covid: “The Chinese vaccine, apart from the mandatory chip, comes with two spring rolls, a cat that moves its hand, 2 plastic flowers, a pop-up lantern, 3 telephone lines and one euro for your first controlled purchase.”
What to do? If we can’t trust the divinity of a trans woman, what can we ever trust? Solution: Ignore the things celebrities say. I don’t want to know if the action star in the movie is homophobic. Or if he hates America. I’m going to just assume one or the other. Don’t ask, don’t tell. If you stumble on a celebrity’s opinion accidentally, try to ignore it. If a celebrity is spouting their political opinions, gently encourage them to stop. Remind them they are there to look pretty and talk nice. Which is all to say: Justice for Karla.
Gascón says that no withdrawal is in the offing, which is okay because it’s free speech, which shouldn’t affect an acting job (though the acting category is debatable).
*Here’s a 12½-minute clip from the Glenn Show in which Loury and McWhorter discuss Ibram Kendi’s move from Boston University (BU) to Howard University. (The discussion starts at 26 seconds in.) McWhorter wonders, as I do, why Howard hired Kendi to do the same managerial job he did at BU. He guesses that “Howard is trying to assemble a lineup of superstars” (they also have Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nikole Hannah-Jones), though none of these people are academics; though why a university wants non-academic superstars baffles him.
Loury guesses that black academic superstars wouldn’t go to Howard, having outside options like Harvard or Princeton. McWhorter takes issue with Kendi’s (and perhaps Howard’s) obsession with racism as opposed to all the other problems that plague this world. Loury does have some praise for Coates and Hannah-Jones, but not so much for Kendi, but insists that any “center” like Kendi must engage with the rest of a university, “integrated into the larger intellectual life of the institution”. That wasn’t the case for Kendi’s center at BU.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is engaged in an Internet squabble:
Hili: You’ve answered somebody again.Andrzej: And again I don’t know whether I did the right thing.
Hili: Znowu komuś odpowiedziałeś.Ja: Znowu nie wiem, czy zrobiłem słusznie.
*******************
From the 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails!!:
From Cat’s Diary:
From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy:
Masih calls for action against iran:
“For my part, I’d say that whenever I get the opportunity, I will not hesitate for a moment to kill you, Donald Trump!”
Yesterday, President #Trump said he’s open to negotiate with the Islamic Republic president, and today Mojtaba Zarei a member of the Iranian Parliament’s… pic.twitter.com/aRwDZ13lQd
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 5, 2025
From Luana; Trump gets a victory that really belongs to Democrats:
How could the Left – my side, the clever side, the critical side, the informed side, the anti-sexist side – be so deeply, obstinately, stupid as to hand this victory to someone who is none of these things? https://t.co/O2CphL789c
— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) February 5, 2025
From Jez, a rescue story involving both horrible perps and wonderful humans:
“So I’m driving down the road this morning and the cars in front of me are driving over a black thing in the road. It’s going between their tires so I’m guessing it’s a box. It’s a kitten just sitting upright shaking like a leaf. And some asshole had spread glue on its paws and… pic.twitter.com/b4bJXkHSbY
— 𝕏 Dogs (@_XDogs) January 14, 2025
From Malcolm: a cat who sounds like a d*g (sound up)
Woof woof! pic.twitter.com/MAU3KrS5a0
— No Context Cats (@nocontextscats) January 10, 2025
Baby goats are the best!
Baby Goats Jumping On Sleeping Great Pyrenees pic.twitter.com/ZEARgxnw5O
— B&S (@_B___S) February 6, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I posted:
Gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz, this French Jewish girl was four years old.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T11:11:43.552Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, lovely and very old sculpture:
Around 4,300 years ago, an Egyptian artisan carved a little frog, a grasshopper, and a dragonfly.Lovely details from nature depicted on a wall relief in the Tomb of Kagemni at Saqqara, Egypt. Old Kingdom, Dynasty 6, c. 2345-2323 BC. Photo by me#ReliefWednesday#Archaeology
— Alison Fisk (@alisonfisk.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T11:24:36.025Z
And a glum-looking bee:
Plus the upper part of the labrum makes it look glum. Mind you, it probably is if it’s been paying any attention.
That thumbnail of Loury and McWhorter- imagine defending your thesis and they look at you like that.
The Perdita is exquisite – I love the detail… and the bokeh.
Agreed that that would be a scary moment at any defense. But think what it would be like to have a Loury/McWhorter hechsher on the cover page of your thesis.
Looks quiet on weit this friday, so I’ll kibbutz: I put frozen peas into my fettucine alfredo…just enough for some color and a little crunch. Also use any wide or tubular noodle which holds significant amounts of luscious, rich, alfredo sauce. Accompany with a white burgundy or Sauvignon blanc.
Peas are one of the only two veggies I don’t really like (the other is lima beans). Instead of peas, what I add to my alfredo is a combo of roasted broccoli florets (apologies to Jerry Coyne) and toasted walnuts or pecans. Delicious
So, Trump wants to expel the Palestinians, take over Gaza and build a Palestinian free luxury city. And just who is going to pay for it all? I have yet to see anybody from the MSM ask Trump about that.
I think everyone is stuck on the whole “expel the Palestinians” thing.
Investors will “pay” (i.e., invest) for it, just like they always do when the conditions for investment became favourable. Which does mean curing the jihadi disease or putting it into prolonged remission. Either purging it from the Palestinians or purging the Palestinians from Gaza, makes no never mind.
“Which does mean curing the jihadi disease or putting it into prolonged remission.”
This is why the idea is a non-starter, pie-in-the-sky, pipe dream and ridiculous to even ponder. Unless we’re serious about starting WW3 and an Islamic genocide- creating a Christian caliphate if you will. I know Hegseth, the new Defense Department leader is a Christian Crusader, so maybe he’d be down with it.
It is not money that is the problem here.
Biden (to his credit) promised war with Iran, if they went ahead with plans to assassinate Donald Trump. My guess is J.D. Vance has similar views.
I agree that lawsuits are the proper way to challenge Trumps actions. I wish he and his people would explain what they are doing better. I think he feels he explained himself during the campaign, and doesn’t need to anymore. Still, it will be interesting to see what headway the lawsuits make against the Executive Branch doing Executive Branch things.
The thing with Gaza is that the whole point is having the Palestinians adjacent to Israel so that they are Israel’s problem. That is their only purpose and is why no one else wants them.
David Anderson posted this explanation the other day, which is considerably more detailed.
Thank you Hempenstein!
D.A.
NYC
Re: “White People Suck”. Why do many white people in the Anglosphere love to insult and debase all whites as a group? The only reasonable conclusion I see is that it’s a twisted form of virtue signaling. White nationalists commonly blame Jews* for allegedly teaching whites to hate ourselves, but then that just makes us seem stupid, suggestible, and highly credible.
I don’t think black people under Jim Crow or even slavery commonly believed or expressed how awful and unworthy they were as a people, did they? (Many whites did that for them, alas).
*Of course, I think of European-descended Jews as being white, but obviously WNs don’t.
I think you mean “credulous”, which is how I took it. White people saying white people suck are anything but credible.
yes, sorry.
Virtue signalling, yes. Suggested moral superiority—and probably intellectual—in the form of self-degradation. This characteristic seems to be particularly prevalent in Caucasians.
Interestingly, as “awful” as Caucasians are, research indicates that they are the most altruistic; furthermore, it was the “sucky” British who helped out an end to the Dahomey slave trade.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166046224000498#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20we%20find%20that,towards%20whites%20and%20non%2Dwhites.
As for folks like the young lady pictured, she and her ilk are more than welcome to remove themselves to some non-White paradise – might I suggest Wakanda?
I sometimes suspect there might be a small but sometimes significant human drive towards self-degradation which rewards itself not with feelings of virtue, but feelings of safety and harmony.
It would have evolved. Since primates often war or engage in acts of aggression against each other, one survival strategy which helped the genes get into the next generation was for the gene-hosts to respond to attacks with submissive obedience and servile admissions of deserving the beating. The more sincere these apologies are, the more you’re seen as not a threat. The less threatening you are, the more likely you are to be accepted and be safe. Blessed are the meek.
In a victimhood culture, power lies in the hands of those with the most grievances. I wonder if these performative expressions of “I really suck and deserve any scorn you heap on me” isn’t just a catalyst, but a response to a changing cultural hierarchy.
You see this in Christianity: “We are all sinners who deserve to be burned in Hell for all eternity, but God, by His grace, will spare us if we grovel enough.”
That strategy might apply chiefly to women, who must trade sex for high-protein animal food in order to make and nourish vigorous healthy babies. A female newcomer trying to join a tribe after her own tribe died from an epidemic can’t be choosy and must be meek if she is to be allowed to eat. A modern woman holding a sign saying White People Suck is really advertising that she’s a cheap date and can be impregnated at low cost to the commons of the tribe. Which is ironic when you consider that actually doing that is probably the furthest from her mind.
I can’t see how a man saying, “Abuse me. I suck” would win him much acceptance from the members of either sex in the tribe he was trying to join. Low hunt value and low mate value.
I like the cut of your evo bio jib there, Leslie. I agree. Also, there’s a deep psychological rejection of “Daddy” whoever that is: country, culture, race, etc.
I note the “I hate us/me” people do trend female (and many feminine presented males)… often of what I’d charitably call “Low Mate Value” for whatever reason.
People’s motivations are often hidden from them but in the end, as any evo biologist of greater leaning than I will attest: reproduction is the only game in town.
D.A.
If the alternative to a man saying “abuse me, I suck” is death at the hands of a more powerful enemy, his hunt and mate values are much higher if he embraces that option.
What Sastra said.
Also, whether or not a hominid female has to signal submissiveness or sexual availability in order to get meat from a male will depend in part on whether or not females are the exogamous sex in the given species. In bonobos, they are. Meaning females always leave their natal group to mate. And since female bonobos eat before males, she needn’t worry.
(Yes, bonobos are omnivorous. Though they eat less meat than chimps do.)
I think the woman in the photo is simply signalling to her in-group that she is One Of Them.
It reminds me of when “Oolon”, a creepy weirdo pro-harasser, stated over at FreeThoughtBlogs that “all white people are racist”. But then he and PZ Meyers got all mad and defensive when people pointed out that they’re racist on that basis.
Also have a memory of an American university admitting it was “racist”, only for some government department (under Trump first time round) threaten to punish them on the basis they’re racist. The university then backtracked somewhat.
I’ve had so many arguments with idiot white people who claim that all whites are racist then deny that they are racists…
Woke white person: All white people are racists!
Me: You’re white.
WWP: So?
Me: Then you’re a racist.
WWP: I’M NOT A RACIST! YOU’RE A RACIST! I DO THE WORK!
Me: You just said that all white people are racists. You’re white. Therefore by your own argument, you are a racist.
WWP: You don’t understand!!
Me: So please explain to me how a white person like you is not a racist when you just said ‘all white people are racists.’
WWP: Screams obscenities! BLM! George Floyd! 1619 Project! YOU’RE THE RACIST!!
Once I witnessed two white people, after establishing that all whites are racists, viciously arguing over which of them was more racist:
WWP 1: You’re more racist than I am!
WWP 2: WHY???
WWP1: You’re rich and live in a rich neighborhood in a gated community!
WWP2: So do you!
WWP1: Yes, but my gated community is not nearly as rich as yours. So YOU are more racist!
Srsly, it’s hard to unpack all the stupid here…
February 7 is the date I celebrate the birthday of two of my favorite writers, Charles Dickens (1812) and Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867). I will cook up fried apples ‘n’ onions and a pot of gruel. And allow seconds to anyone who asks, “Please, sir, I want more.”
❤️
According to my Parisian friend, whom I asked,Timothée is a normal French name and not pretentious at all. I’ve seen his film and he was fantastic as Dylan! I was less thrilled by the Baez actress.
Agree on the name. And in any case he had no input. I do think he should get some credit for being the lead actor in two of the best picture nominees (probably won’t hurt his future earnings).
Of the nominees I’ve seen so far (Dune, Brutalist, Conclave and Perez) I think the Brutalist was probably the best – but it’s soooo long (first movie I’ve seen in a while with an intermission). I enjoyed Dune (but watched part one again immediately before starting part 2). Likewise I enjoyed Conclave. Perez turned out better than the first 15 mins or so indicated. However, I’m not convinced that any of those are “great”. I image a movie that looks somewhat sympathetically at a drug addicted holocaust sturvivor will not be politically acceptable, so there goes my current top pick. The weather forecast here is dismal, so I nave The Substance and Anora lined up for the weekend, but there is a game on sunday that might get in the way.
Doing an impression of Bob Dylan isn’t that hard. Monica Barbaro (Baez) had next-to-nothing to do, which makes the nomination just ???!! Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger was real acting – a recreation of a vivid and real person.
If impressions are the point, Sebastian Stan’s impression of the Donald should carry the day.
Here’s a shameless plug for a movie, but it’s a really great movie that my cousin spent at least 40 years working on getting it accomplished. It’s the story of his mother and my great aunt, Lee Miller, who is known as a great photographer and as witnessing the liberation of Dachau during WWII while embedded with the troops as a war correspondent. Staring Kate Winslet.
https://youtu.be/tfqa2kKmRbY?si=YviACouGBut8ljJ-
Thanks for the reminder, Amy. I’ve added it to my Prime watchlist. Saw Kate interviewed on Amanpour(?) a while ago, but then forgot about it.
There is a new episode of the Michel Shermer show in which he interviews Jonathan Rauch. Rauch has written a new book which is soft on religion. Jerry is mentioned a couple of times, including his “little people” criticism.
Well worth a listen: https://youtu.be/8kJ2Cm3OP7g?si=IDLSiY7GlepC4zaV
Looks interesting! Thank you for the link.
I haven’t yet seen “Flow”, but I hear good things about it. I would love “Wallace & Gromit: Murder Most Fowl” to win the Best Animated Feature category. There’s a lot of very British humour in that film, not least the many visual gags that are only on screen fleetingly.
Apropos the glum-looking bee, I’m reminded of a freshwater flatworm whose scientific name is Dugesia lugubris, supposedly because its body markings made it appear to be sad.
I made a rare trip to a theater to see Flow on New Year’s Day, and soon after that I was happy that it won a Golden Globe. It was great. It’s definitely a movie to see in a theater if possible. (The release is very limited, but within the Chicago region it’s currently showing in Highland Park.)
The following day I saw A Complete Unknown, and I enjoyed it. I was more impressed with Timothée Chalamet than was our WEIT host, and I thought he did a great job with the singing as well.
I hardly ever go to see movies at real theaters, but I don’t know why. There are good prices to be found, newer theaters are often more comfy and spacious than they used to be, and there is nothing like a big screen and decent sound system to bring a movie to life.
FLOW is a wonderful movie with marvelous animation and a heroic cat and the animal friends it makes as they all try to survive an environmental disaster. With no human dialog, my focus was completely on the cat, hoping it would adapt and survive. I wish I could have seen it on a big screen in a theatre where I live. Definitely worth seeing again.
“Flow” is a beautiful film, heartbreaking and breathtaking all at once. See it in a theater if you can.
+1
I too thought that Trump wanted to reduce the number of workers not replace them.
Who knows? Everything is chaos.
On a positive note, the baby goats are adorable!
The plan to replace federal workers with Trump supporters was reported before the election. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/25/project-2025-trump-plan-fire-civil-service-employees Trump’s apparent desire is to take over all of government. He’s nominated lackeys to lead agencies so they will show obedience to him, not the people. He brags about already having the Supreme Court on his side (which may be true). His current actions are usurping the power of the legislative branch (and it appears so far that Republicans are willing to let him.) We’re on the path to autocracy similar to what Orban has done in Hungary, but whether Trump will succeed is impossible to know.
Which of President Trump’s actions so far do you think are incompatible with his Constitutional power as chief of the Executive (all of it) and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces? Even if you want to include his executive orders that are being challenged in the courts you have to concede that he is not attempting to enforce them over injunctions etc. until they are upheld.
It would help us nervous foreigners if opposition to President Trump could be categorized as
1) personality and character traits you don’t like,
2) policies you don’t agree with, or
3) illegal or unconstitutional actions
Hmmm, let’s see:
Reorganizing USAID, which can only be done through Congress.
Impounding funds that were appropriated by Congress. (Blocked by courts but some healthcare groups are still unable to access funds so they are being forced to close).
Ending birthright citizenship (currently blocked by court order.)
Giving Musk and his minions access to payment data violates the Privacy Act. (The DOGE group itself has questionable legality).
Attempting to illegally fire the FEC Chair.
Firing Inspectors General without 30 days notice to Congress as specified in statute.
Firing members of the National Labor Relations Board without a hearing as specified in statute.
Offering federal workers a “buyout” if they resign. (Current budget only goes through mid-March. He can’t legally offer them money that hasn’t been appropriated.)
That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure I missed some. And yes, even though some actions are being blocked by courts we have no idea if he is actually complying due to the everyday chaos.
Leslie, did you not read the part in the US Constitution where it says that the career bureaucrats in the executive branch are supposed to serve “as check and balance” against the head of that branch? When they disagree with legal policies of their elected head, they are supposed to undermine, subvert, stonewall, and delay implementation until an elected official more to their liking changes course?
Truly, nothing broadcasts a lack of reflection like someone yelling about Trump lackeys and sycophants undoing the policies of Biden lackeys and sycophants. If those policies and actions are illegal, there is a process to correct that–much like the courts overturning Biden’s attempt to conflate sex and gender in discrimination law. But legalities aside–and they should be addressed–this policy blitzkrieg by Trump is impressive in its execution. I didn’t think the man had it in him.
As for your categories, do recall that 1 + 2 = 3.
T’s approach is to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. To say anything and everything, no matter how sensible, shocking or stupid. And if there’s blow back, he denies saying it, he was misquoted, or it’s a plot against him. But most important is to be the center of attention at all times, something he has always achieved.
Thanks for the info. Being Canadian I wasn’t paying close attention that early.
I knew he was firing top officials to replace them with loyalists. And firing anyone who had crossed him (like the J6 prosecutors).
I didn’t realize how far reaching the plans were.
“Flow” is wonderful–be sure to see it!
I would be surprised it Trump came up with the Gaza idea on his own. Did people see Netanyahu grinning when the topic came up at the press conference? I’m willing to bet that N. planted some seeds and was inordinately pleased when T. picked the idea up and ran with it, particularly since he can almost certainly envision Trump hotels all along the Gaza “Rivera.”
The following describes what has just started in the USA under Trump—the “conservative revolution” as planned by Project 2025:
“[P]opulists tend to colonize or “occupy” the state. Think of Hungary and Poland as recent examples. One of the first fundamental changes Viktor Orban and his Fidesz Party sought was a transformation of the civil service law, so as to enable the party to place loyalists in what should have been nonpartisan bureaucratic positions. Both Fidesz and Jarosław Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) also immediately moved against the independence of courts. Procedures of existing courts were amended and new judges were appointed. Where a reshaping of the entire system proved difficult, as has been the case in Poland so far, paralysis of the judiciary proved an acceptable second best for the governing party. Media authorities were also immediately captured; the clear signal went out that journalists should not report in ways that violate the interests of the nation (which were of course equated with the interests of the governing party). For Kaczynski, who has long believed that a shadowy “network” is bent on undermining his party, it was also crucial to bring the secret services under control. Whoever criticized any of these measures was vilified as doing the bidding of the old elites (which the populists as proper representatives of the people had finally managed to replace) or as being outright traitors (Kaczynski spoke of “Poles of the worst sort” who supposedly have “treason in their genes”). The end result is that political parties create a state to their own political liking and in their own political image.”
(Müller, Jan-Werner. What Is Populism? Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. pp. 44-5)
“Something that is essential to ensuring that a new President in 2025 can successfully implement a conservative agenda is having the right personnel to run the executive branch departments and their agencies.
This is why it is so often said that “people are policy.” The Cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, deputy assistant secretaries, administrators, agency heads, and on and on that a new President chooses to place throughout the executive branch must be principled individuals already aligned with the President’s conservative vision. And they must be willing to execute it on the President’s behalf.
These personnel choices will ultimately determine the success or failure of the policy agenda and, hence, of the whole Administration.
Presidential appointees not only are critical to implementing the policy agenda, but also must serve to “watch the watchers” in the departments and agencies they oversee. They must ensure accountability as well as provide a check on the inherent nature of the administrative state to overreach its authority.”
(Feulner, Edwin J. “ONWARD!” In Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (Project 2025), 883-887. Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation, 2023. p. 886)
Not to deny what you’ve written but I see the Democratic party and the Biden administration in some of that as well.
“Populists tend to colonize or “occupy” the state.” Much more slowly, but isn’t this the long march through the institutions by the liberal party?
“Procedures of existing courts were amended and new judges were appointed.” Hasn’t liberal administrations moved more and more legal decisions away from justice department law judges to administration law judges (ALJs) within the agencies of the executive branch?
“Media authorities were also immediately captured; the clear signal went out that journalists should not report in ways that violate the interests of the nation (which were of course equated with the interests of the governing party).”
Need I say more than Hunter Biden laptop and 51 intel agency heads claiming it was a Russian plant?
“… crucial to bring the secret services under control.”
See above wrt laptop.
As for Musk and the new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE):
“Of course it’s a coup: Miss the obvious, lose your republic,” by Timothy Snyder: https://snyder.substack.com/p/of-course-its-a-coup
DEI and the Oscars
This explains a lot. Before a movie can be considered for the Best Picture category, it must first meet the AMPAS’s DEI requirements in four areas. Those areas are:
On-screen Representation, Themes and Narratives
Creative Leadership and Project Team
Industry Access and Opportunities
Audience Development
https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-establishes-representation-and-inclusion-standards-oscarsr-eligibility
From the On-screen requirements:
The film must meet one of the following:
At least one of the lead or significant supporting actors is from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group.
At least 30 percent of all actors in secondary and more minor roles are from an underrepresented group.
The main storyline, theme or narrative of the film is centered on an underrepresented group.
See the link for the requirements listed in the other three areas.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to the Top Notch Beef Burger on 95th Street, but for me the patty melt was their signature dish! Caramelized onion inside, and the assembled rye bread sandwich toasted on the griddle like a grilled-cheese.