This is post 29,998!
Welcome to the Sabbath for goyische cats: it’s Sunday, February 9, 2025, and National Pizza Day. Chicago the Mecca of American Pizzas, and the only pizza I deliberately seek out is the famous stuffed pizza, which cannot be duplicated in other cities—though they try. Here’s a video of one from Chicago, which still to me seems a bit understuffed:
It’s also Chocolate Day and National Toothache Day (does anybody get them any more?)
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 9 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*From the NYT’s editorial-board op ed, “Now is not the time to tune out” (archived here)
Don’t get distracted. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t get paralyzed and pulled into the chaos that President Trump and his allies are purposely creating with the volume and speed of executive orders; the effort to dismantle the federal government; the performative attacks on immigrants, transgender people and the very concept of diversity itself; the demands that other countries accept Americans as their new overlords; and the dizzying sense that the White House could do or say anything at any moment. All of this is intended to keep the country on its back heel so President Trump can blaze ahead in his drive for maximum executive power, so no one can stop the audacious, ill-conceived and frequently illegal agenda being advanced by his administration. For goodness sake, don’t tune out.
The actions of this presidency need to be tracked, and when they cross moral or legal lines, they need to be challenged, boldly and thoughtfully, with the confidence that the nation’s system of checks and balances will prove up to the task. There are reasons for concern on that front, of course. The Republican-led Congress has so far abdicated its role as a coequal branch of government, from allowing its laws and spending directives to be systematically cast aside to fearfully assenting to the president stocking his cabinet with erratic, unqualified loyalists. Much of civil society — from the business community, to higher education, to parts of the corporate media — has been disturbingly quiet, even acquiescent.
But there are encouraging signs as well. The courts, the most important check on a president who aims to expand his legally authorized powers and remove any guardrails, so far have held, blocking a number of Mr. Trump’s initiatives. States have also taken action, with several Democratic attorneys general suing over Mr. Trump’s attempts to freeze federal grant funding and end birthright citizenship and vowing to fight Elon Musk’s team’s access to federal payment systems containing personal information. State or local officials are also defending their laws in the face of federal immigration raids and fighting Mr. Trump’s executive order barring gender-affirming medical care for transgender children. And independent-minded journalism organizations have continued excellent reporting on the fire hose of excesses of these early days, bringing essential information to the public.
None of this is to say that Mr. Trump shouldn’t have the opportunity to govern. Seventy-seven million Americans cast ballots to put Mr. Trump back in the White House, and the Republican Party, now fully remade in service of the MAGA movement, holds majorities in both houses of Congress. Elections, it is often noted, have consequences. But is this unconstitutional overhaul of the American government — far more sweeping, haphazard and cruel than anything he campaigned on — really what those voters signed up for? To put America’s system of checks and balances, its alliances and its national security at risk? Because, beyond the bluster, that is what Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk and their supporters are doing.
They then mention areas to watch (see also the Sullivan excerpt below), including Musk’s takeover of the government, Trump’s bloviating about Greenland, Canada, and other allies, and the endangering of public health via staff reducation and bad appointments like RFK Jr. As I’ve always said, if you want to change things, there is always the ballot box, but not for two years. Right now there’s the legal system, and it’s operating as it should.
*One of the bad moves that Trump made (and yes, there were some good ones) is his apparent desire to dismantle U.S.A.I.D. (called “AID”) nearly completely. Some people think that’s good, cherry-picking cases of misuse of foreign aid to justifying deep-sicing the whole agancy. But, unlike UNRWA, AID does a lot of good stuff, and dismantling it, unlike dismantling UNRWA, will endanger lives. From the NYT:
For decades, sub-Saharan Africa was a singular focus of American foreign aid. The continent received over $8 billion a year, money that was used to feed starving children, supply lifesaving drugs and provide wartime humanitarian assistance.
In a few short weeks, President Trump and the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk have burned much of that work to the ground, vowing to completely gut the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday, accusing the agency of unspecified corruption and fraud.
A federal judge on Friday halted, for now, some elements of Mr. Trump’s attempt to shutter the agency. But the speed and shock of the administration’s actions have already led to confusion, fear and even paranoia at U.S.A.I.D. offices across Africa, a top recipient of agency funding. Workers were being fired or furloughed en masse.
As the true scale of the fallout comes into view, African governments are wondering how to fill gaping holes left in vital services, like health care and education, that until recent weeks were funded by the United States. Aid groups and United Nations bodies that feed the starving or house refugees have seen their budgets slashed in half, or worse.
By far the greatest price is being paid by ordinary Africans, millions of whom rely on American aid for their survival. But the consequences are also reverberating across an aid sector that, for better or worse, has been a pillar of Western engagement with Africa for over six decades. With the collapse of U.S.A.I.D., that entire model is badly shaken.
*The Times of Israel reports that three male hostages were released, but were not in good condition. One or two of them, however, did not know that members of their family had been killed. Moreover, Hamas once again stages a big show of the release, forcing each hostage to make a speech.
Three hostages abducted during the October 7, 2023, attack were released by Hamas on Saturday, with the men looking gaunt and unsteady on their feet as they were released by the terror group, 16 months after they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri and the Nova music festival.
Eli Sharabi, 52, Or Levy, 34, and Ohad Ben Ami, 56, all appeared extremely thin and frail, and while they were able to walk, seemed to be unsteady on their feet.
Sharabi and Levy were coming home to a tragic new reality — Sharabi’s wife and two teenage daughters were murdered on October 7, and Levy’s wife was also killed that day.
According to reports, Sharabi did not know that his wife and daughters had been killed. His mother and sister, who reunited with him on his arrival back in Israel, told him the terrible news, having prepared ahead of time for how to break it to him, the report says.
It was unclear if Levy had known about his wife.
Michal Cohen, the mother of Ben Ami, said she was devastated to see her son look so thin and unwell.
“He looks terrible. He is 57, but he looks ten years older. It is so sad for me to see him like this,” she said. “He looked like a skeleton.”
The three men were made to speak while on stage, carrying the now ubiquitous certificates of their release before they were handed over to the Red Cross. None of the hostages has been visited by the humanitarian organization while held captive.
Considered to be propaganda by the Hamas terror group, Israeli outlets have not reported what the men were made to say.
The Red Cross transported the freed hostages to IDF and Shin Bet forces inside Gaza, after which they were escorted out of the Strip to a military facility near the border to reunite with family members and undergo initial assessments by doctors and mental health officers.
In return for these three ill-treated hostages, Israel released a bunch of terrorists, some of them murderers:
Israel on Saturday freed 183 Palestinian prisoners, including some serving life sentences for terrorism, following the release of three hostages from Hamas captivity as part of the ongoing Gaza ceasefire deal.
Of the prisoners released, 18 were serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis.
Those released included 111 Palestinians captured by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip throughout the war, while the remaining 72 prisoners were arrested before the Hamas invasion and slaughter in Israel on October 7, 2023.
70% of Israelis want to proceed with these exchanges, but I suspect that most of the remaining hostages are dead. I won’t second-guess the Israelis, but it does bother me that many of these released Palestinians will try to kill again, like Yahya Sinwar, a prisoner released years ago in a swap of a thousand Palestinians for a single Israeli soldier. Sinwary, serving a life sentence for murder, was released, went back to Gaza, and later engineered the October 7 massacre. And it’s now clear that the Israeli woman Shiri Bibas and her two small children, kidnapped along with the father Yarden, are dead. Yarden has since been released, but Hamas will not reveal the status of the remaining hostages. Since women and children were supposed to be released first, it looks as if Shiri, Yariel, and Kfir are no more. I don’t know why Israel could not force Hamas, as part of the deal, to release the status of all the hostages. But Israel probably asked, Hamas surely would refuse, and that’s that.
*Over at The Weekly Dish, Andrew Sullivan’s column is in two parts, called “Dick Cheney’s wet dream”, and “The Trans Lash and Backlash”. I’ll give a few paragraphs from each section. In the first, he denigrates Trump and Musk for preempting Congressional powers:
Unlike Bill Kristol, and like George Will, I have long held, in fact, that Article 1 is first for a reason. The branch of government with the most democratic legitimacy is the Congress, representing all of us, in our varied, complicated ways. The role of the president is merely to enforce the laws made by Congress in institutions created and funded by the legislature. If Congress has funded a government agency for certain reasons, for example, only the Congress can defund it. So a huge amount of Elon Musk’s manic destruction of the administrative state is thereby illegal on its face. Which means it almost certainly cannot last.
This is not to say that Musk hasn’t exposed predictable waste. Why are we surprised that our enlightened elites would use USAID for their pet ideological projects: $3.9 million to promote critical gender and queer theory in — checks notes — the western Balkans; $2.1 million to help the BBC “value the diversity of Libyan society” (is the British government funding insufficient?); $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion,” and $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language.” Exposing this is fantastic — and could lead to real reform; but instantly shutting down whole agencies, freezing funding for others, laying off thousands and thousands, without any congressional approval, is the path to nowhere.
Part of me attributes this to the usual Trump shit-show. But part is also quite obviously an attempt to get these issues before the courts. The goal is to dramatically enhance even further the executive branch’s power, and to cede to it effective control of the federal purse. This would fundamentally alter the shape of American governance — and turn us into a fully illiberal democracy. Richard Hanania suggests an interesting analogy between what conservatives are currently trying to do with the executive branch and what liberals, beginning with the Warren court, tried to do with the judiciary: take one branch of government to overrule the rest on key policy matters, like abortion.
Donald Trump has always viewed his office as an elected monarch, and he has a mass movement that has explicitly declared and supported him as such. Musk sees himself as the monarch’s aide, and has no understanding of the Constitution at all, as far as I can tell. The role of the legislature, in this worldview, is to do whatever the president wants; and the role of the Court is to buttress presidential power. This has, alas, been the trend now for decades, with Democratic and Republican presidents, facilitated by the Congress’s sad abdication of so many of its inherent powers. But Trump and his Claremonsters want to take this to a whole new level of an elected dictatorship. There is nothing that would make Trump and Vance happier.
Until, of course, a Democrat is elected president.
And when things go politically bad, as they so often do these days, remember that in four years there will be a new President. We can only hope that it’s a smart Democrat, someone like Mayor Pete.
As for trans issues, Sullivan applauds some of them, like the sports issues, but says that the language is crude and some of it bespeaks a simply dislike of gender-nonconforming people:
Much worse is how the commander-in-chief described some trans people who have served their country with distinction. He says their gender identity
conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.
What an ugly, deplorable, and untrue thing to say. People who have come to terms with their gender identity — and I don’t mean the gender woo-woo babies and po-mo nutters who have done so much to muddy the waters, but actual grownup trans men and women — are telling the truth of their lives. How dare anyone — let alone a president — call that selfish or dishonorable?
This needless sneer is a reminder, if we needed one, that there has never been anyone as depraved or dishonorable as Donald Trump in the White House. I may agree with him on a few issues, and I’m not afraid to say so. That doesn’t mean he isn’t still every bit the monster he always has been.
Agreed! Them’s strong words from a conservative, but Sullivan’s right. The words in Trump’s order are cruel and untrue.
*The National Review has an article with a title that many of us have thought about: “DEI in higher ed hasn’t been defeated. It’s just going underground” (article archived here). Although you’d think that Trump had largely killed DEI in higher education, it’s bouncing back like those inflatable rubber clowns I hit when I was a child. A lot of the evasion of DEI-elimination comes through simply changing names. North Carolina State University can stand for just about every major university these days:
With President Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the federal government, coupled with laws passed by several state legislatures targeting DEI in higher education, conservatives are celebrating significant victories. We appear to be at a turning point in the fight against DEI. However, as examples from my university illustrate, DEI has not been defeated — it has merely shifted tactics. Supporters of DEI have adapted to these new restrictions, ensuring that the influence of DEI is as pervasive as ever.
. . . . North Carolina State University [state elimination of DEI as a compelled-speech entity] responded to these policies by making surface-level changes designed to appear compliant while retaining its DEI infrastructure. Rather than abolishing the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, the university renamed it the “Office of Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity.” When it became clear that the term “equity” remained problematic, the office was renamed yet again, just two weeks later, to the “Office of Equal Opportunity.” Despite these changes, not a single staff position was eliminated, and the staff pages showing two different teams focusing on inclusion and equity just had the team titles removed. This pattern extended throughout the university. For instance, the main DEI employee in the College of Sciences, the “assistant dean for inclusive excellence,” simply had her title changed to “associate dean for college success and well-being.”
All of these staff members were originally hired to promote DEI, and their professional backgrounds are focused on DEI. It is highly unlikely that these individuals will now shift their focus to champion equal opportunity, given their previous commitment to promoting the opposite of equal opportunity — equity, or equality of outcomes, a central tenet of DEI ideology. This minimal restructuring is intentional: The chancellor, a vocal advocate for DEI, has ensured that all DEI personnel at the university remain in place. By simply renaming positions and offices rather than eliminating them, the university has enabled these staff to continue advancing DEI initiatives discreetly, despite the new board policy.
The College of Sciences Strategic Plan outlines four priorities for faculty and staff, with “Advance Equity” prominently listed as the third priority. Similarly, the Culture Charter explicitly calls on faculty and staff to demonstrate fealty to DEI, including:
- “Invest in and demonstrate your own awareness of systemic inequalities.”
- “Demonstrate leadership on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.”
- “Demonstrate your commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.”
Faculty job candidates are highly perceptive; they understand the implications of being directed to review a strategic plan. They recognize that this request signals an expectation to be familiar with the content and prepared to discuss how they can contribute to the plan. By referencing these documents in job postings, faculty and administrators create opportunities to ask candidates indirect questions, such as “How will you contribute to Goal 4 of the University’s Strategic Plan?” or “What positive action will you take to support the Culture Charter?” These questions avoid directly asking, “Do you support diversity, equity, and inclusion?” But they still serve to assess a candidate’s alignment with DEI ideology. Their goal is to circumvent North Carolina’s law prohibiting compelled speech.
This is happening everywhere, though in different ways, and I hear about it from my colleagues all over America. Nearly all of these colleagues are opposed to DEI (my academic friends are of course not a random sample), but seriously, schools have to obey the law and I don’t like them being sneaky. Remember, if you love DEI, it will be back with the next Democratic President and Congress.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,
Hili: You’ve decided something again.A; Yes, but this time…Hili: Yes, yes, I know.
Hili: Znowu coś postanowiłeś.Ja: Tak, ale tym razem…Hili: Tak, tak, wiem.
And in cold Berlin, Stupsi, spent the morning outside. “Stupsi sagt: „Die Sonne scheint, aber die Welt ist kalt. Lass mich zu Dir hineinkommen.“ (“Stupsi says, ‘The sun shines but the world is cold. Please let me come in to you’.”):
*******************
From reader Pliny the in Between’s site Far Corner Cafe. Probably only biologists will get this right off the bat, but you can look up the terms:
From Cat Memes:
From Annie on FB. Is this real?
And from Stephen on FB:
Masih impugns the “hospitality” of Hamas towards the hostages (see above):
In Iran, state media praise Hamas for ‘taking good care’ of hostages. Terrorists sure have an interesting definition of ‘hospitality.’ This isn’t care. This is brutality.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Reza Jalali, an Iranian-Swedish hostage, is being ‘taken care of’ so well in Iran that he’s… pic.twitter.com/MxiD53AWHg
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 8, 2025
It might be worth having a look at this book:
This is a very good book and I swear I’m not just saying that because I’m quoted in it. https://t.co/AcVYsEWx1x
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) February 6, 2025
Two from Simon. First, our governor, J. B. Pritzker, shows a sense of humor as he mocks Trump:
🚨 BREAKING: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker says he’s going to rename Lake Michigan to “Lake Illinois.”EPIC TRUMP TROLL!!! 🤣
— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@calltoactivism.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T20:02:38.336Z
And the new cover of Time: Musk sitting at the President’s desk in the Oval Office. Trump, I hear, isn’t pleased with this cover; is a parting of ways in the offing? As for the ketchup, Simon says, “Trump is known for throwing ketchup bottles when annoyed.”
Trump was asked about the cover at the White House on Friday.
“Is Time magazine still in business?” Trump jokingly asked. “I didn’t even know that.”
Ketchup On Walls Alert: HIGH
— Mark Hamill (@markhamillofficial.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T19:50:56.088Z
A skillful cat rescue sent by Malcolm:
A different rescue of a cat 🐈#TiredEarth #CatsOfTwitter pic.twitter.com/KmAbapvzll
— Rebecca Herbert (@RebeccaH2030) January 19, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:
A 52-year-old German woman and her sister were gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-09T11:28:07.588Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. I commented on his first selection:
Much as I love flies, I think the spider is cuter. The fly is a chonk.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-08T17:22:01.525Z
Matthew dug up this unpublished graph by Crick showing that A/T and G/C ratios were close to 1 in DNA, giving strong evidence that A pairs with T and G pairs with C:
One of my favourite pieces of trivia found while writing CRICK is this unpublished graph Crick drew in May 1953 for a talk in Edinburgh. He and Watson calculated all the A:T and G:C ratios in the literature then did the same for A:G. Convincing evidence that the ratios really were 1:1.
“… DEI has not been defeated — it has merely shifted tactics. ”
The core faith in The Church of Perpetual Sublation is located in dialectic – mystical Hermetic alchemical transformation – practiced on thought.
Firing people who were trying to help the hungry and homeless around the world, while adding White House staff to stop anti Christian bias in this country, well that is about the most Christian thing I can imagine.
To Governor Pritzker,
I think “Lake Wisconsin” has a stronger claim than Illinois.
I kinda like Hoosier Lake 🙂
I disagree with Sullivan’s “People who have come to terms with their gender identity…actual grownup trans men and women — are telling the truth of their lives.”
I think Sullivan is completely wrong here. There is no gender identity. Dawkins compared the idea of gender identity to the Christian notion of the soul–and neither exists. In almost all cases, there is no ambiguity in saying a person is either a man or a woman. End of discussion. Those individuals uncomfortable with reality would be best served by seeing a therapist.
One of the interesting challenges of existence is learning to change or mitigate the suboptimal character traits that we all have–and learn to like and accept ourselves for who we are. I’m sorry there are so many out there who don’t like who they are. They deserve sympathy and kindness.
Agreed.
I think the issue comes down to distinguishing between a dishonorable and untruthful set of beliefs, and the person who believes them. At this point in time, given our culture’s strong support for a fundamental gender identity that replaces sex as the signifier of being a man or woman, a man who sincerely believes he’s a woman is not necessarily himself dishonest, arrogant, or selfish. He’s following an acceptable narrative. The narrative — and what it causes people to do — is, however, toxic.
I see it as being similar to religion. Although there are always bad actors and people looking to exploit opportunities, I don’t think it fair to say that religion is a fine thing which only goes wrong when there are bad people in it. I think religion contains a series of bad ideas which can make ordinary people believe and do wrong and bad things.
“I see it as being similar to religion.”
There’s a word for that:
Cult
Specifically, theosophic (vs. theologic) gnostic cult religion. The relevant gnosis being gender performativity. The intent of all thought promoted (i.e. grooming) with the word “gender” is for that consciousness – that gnosis.
Gender in Mystical and Occult Thought – Behmenism and its Development in England
B. J. Gibbons
Cambridge U. Press
1996
No. Decades ago we could see a similar dismissal of gay people. But we’ve grown out of that, haven’t we? Haven’t we?
Right now what I see is that when children claim gender dysphoria, whatever is going on apparently settles in a variety of areas. Some just grow out of it. Others figure out they are gay, or they are very gay. Others really seem to be transgender with a life-long commitment to that. I am probably omitting some outcomes, but that is bc it’s quite variable.
We don’t know how this works. We don’t know why you and I, born into male bodies, also identify as male. Of course we don’t know why gender dysphoria happens, but it seems that it does and the evidence says that some of them really are trans and they have to accept it -it being one of the toughest and cruelest things ever.
I know people who are trans. It is not a cult (well, sometimes it is. But not always), and in those cases it is not a choice.
“We don’t know how this works.”
Drag queens have gnosis of it – they demonstrate it : gender performativity. They show how nobody knows except for those with the secret knowledge as a “preparatory introduction to alternate modes of kinship” and “living queerly” :
Harper Keenan, Lil Miss Hot Mess
“Drag pedagogy: The Playful Practice of Queer Imagination in Early Childhood”
Curriculum Inquiry
50:5, 440-461, 2020
What sets our teeth on edge about trans ideology is not someone’s belief that he is really and truly a woman but his demand, backed up by activists with legal force, that the rest of us give must uptake to his belief and conduct ourselves as if it was true. Not just to accept that he truly believes he’s a woman (and isn’t just faking it) but that he really is a woman even though we know he’s not. This is a deeply illiberal view and one we ought to resist.
The reason for laws that say transwomen are women is to knock out from under us the epistemological basis for saying that his belief isn’t true. To say it isn’t true then is to engage in a transphobic lie.
Contrast this with the liberal tolerant beneficent view: If a long-term male patient in a mental asylum always wore makeup and women’s clothing, a kindly nurse might explain to a puzzled visiting psychiatrist, “Oh, that’s just Fred. As part of his mental illness he thinks he’s a woman and we all refer to him as ‘her’ in his hearing just so he doesn’t get upset and need more meds. As you know, we don’t try to reason patients out of their delusions. But we don’t let him shower with the female patients or anything like that. He seems only into guys anyway.”
Sullivan’s remarks suggest that he has decided he has to pick a side, and he has picked the side that says trans really is the new gay….or at least the activist subset of it. Scratch a transwoman and a gay man bleeds.
Yes Leslie. As always scale matters.
A decade ago we remember a big kerfuffle about bathrooms in North Carolina. While the trans thing was so vanishingly rare and a bit weird most of liberal society took their side (I did).
Things change and scale changes everything.
Then trans became a Thing, aspirational, cool, wildly popular and in your face.
And unlike the gay argument of decades: “This has nothing to do with kids, just consenting adults” which won the conversation, trans activists said “we’re coming for your trans-to-be kids!” In a decade acceptance of gay marriage went from 75 to 65%, its first decline since the 1980s.
D.A.
NYC
Agreed, Doug. It is impossible for a man to “feel like” a woman (and vice versa), he can only feel like his own stereotype of what it is to be a woman – which is something else entirely. The whole of gender identity ideology is utterly regressive and couldn’t exist without outdated stereotypes about how men and women should look, dress, behave, etc. and what they should be interested in. I thought we had left that kind of BS behind decades ago.
Meanwhile, this is what non-Democrats are reading:
In an egregious and unconstitutional assault on executive authority, Judge Paul Engelmayer has unilaterally forbidden all of Trump’s political appointees—including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—from accessing Treasury Department data. This ruling, concocted without legal precedent or constitutional justification, is nothing short of judicial sabotage. Worse, it was issued ex parte—meaning Trump administration lawyers weren’t given notice, weren’t allowed to argue, and weren’t even in the room. Only Democrat attorneys general were heard, ensuring a predetermined outcome.
https://x.com/ishapiro/status/1888341445033050157?s=61
Japanese sign translates as: “Please do not dispose of trash here.” They probably looked up “dump trash”. I’ve seen that kind of thing a lot there – hilarious.
D.A.
NYC
😆
Thanks, David – I was wondering about what lay behind that ridiculous sign.
It’s very easy for things to get lost in translation. In Wales, an automated “out of office” message from the translator got printed on a road sign: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/nov/01/5
Just a suggestion, that I got from Steve M–
Print the Time cover, add the word “Congratulations!” (my addition, not from Steve)
Put it into an envelope and mail to:
The President
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500
Do you really think Trump opens his own mail and/or that his loyal aides are going to show him anything likely to upset him?
At the end of the day, the thing people should be looking at it our $36 Trillion debt. If we do not do something about that, the economic fallout will be disastrous. The only way to do something meaningful is to dramatically cut the Federal budget. The bloated Federal government of the last 50 years is unsustainable. Entire Departments and their associated expenditures will have to be eliminated. Foreign aid is an obvious place to start.
I agree. Some cuts will be more painful; others secretly delicious. But many cuts do need to be made.
Dems seem to be taking the position that the elected government doesn’t have the right to even know how tax dollars are being spent.
Well, that and the environment. (Aside: in the clip from the NYT in the OP, note that they talk about trans and immigrant issues, not about the debt and the environment).
I’ve just read David Wessel’s book, Red Ink. It makes the point that small cuts won’t work. Representative quotes:
“Eliminating the federal workforce entirely would have pared the federal budget deficit in 2011 by only one-third.”
“The overarching lesson: Bringing the deficit down to sustainable levels takes big changes. Little ones won’t do it.”
“Everyone thinks there’s a lot, but there’s nothing that a majority wants to cut. The average person doesn’t want less government. They just want the government to cost less.”
And this is what leaves me shaking my head. Annual US expenditures are just over $6 trillion, revenue is just under $4.5 trillion. Total discretionary spending is about $1.7 trillion, but half of that is the military. Just like some on the left are delusional about sex and gender, many on the right are just as delusional about tax cuts. Are we going to have a military, are we going to continue social security and medicare, are we going to build roads, are we going to respond when hurricanes and tornadoes and fires decimate whole communities? If so there needs to be a come-to-Jesus meeting about taxes and finance.
“At the end of the day, the thing people should be looking at it our $36 Trillion debt.”
According to Perplexity AI Search, at least $10 trillion of that debt is from tax cuts for the rich, with Trump as the biggest culprit.
That’s what the Canada & Mexico tariffs were all about: raising revenue.
I’ve noticed that Americans seem to be completely paranoid about taxes. We pay a lot more in taxes in Canada than the US.
But I should also add: government hiring freezes and budget cuts are by no means unheard of on the side of the border.
They’re easy to push through in the parliamentary system of government: parliament is the only authority.
I think when the Americans were setting up their republic they created an elected king (the president), an elected House of Lords (the Senate) and Congress (House of Commons).
In the UK, the king and House of Lords have lost all power and are ceremonial. Only the House of Commons still has power. So it’s easier to get things done: you don’t have three competing power sources.
Replied to you at #16. (It didn’t stick here.)
A view from Canada.
US military budget around 1970 was $167 billion – 45% of the total of $371 billion – in 2020 constant dollars. In 2020 it was 721.5 billion – 20% of the total of 3608 billion. So US budget increased 10 times, military 4.5 times, and I wonder what or whom they are spending it on. Every public service is severely underfunded in the US, but the money still disappears like into a black hole.
BTW Foreign aid in 2020 was less than 50 billion so what is he talking about?
*however, USAID seems to have unclean conscience as per Daniel Pipes (danielpipes.org) so maybe the budget situation is just a convenient excuse.
As noted by others, an obvious place to start is military expenditures.
Oh yes, exactly when Putin is attacking US allies.
Disagree. We have plenty of firepower and not the will to use it. The Russian buildup before the invasion was obvious for a long time and we could have destroyed the entire gathering of military hardware. And the USA actually had the obligation to do that and reneged.
I watched in sadness and horror as the Israeli hostages were released (there was some footage of the release, although it may have not been broadcast live). The Times of Israel had an excellent report—as Jerry cites—and all of the English-language Israeli news outlets had both substantial news coverage and analysis.
What caught my attention the most yesterday was the measured response of the U.S. media outlets and of the BBC. The Associated Press, for example, barely covered the release at all—it was buried below the (online) fold. I suppose that President Trump’s flood of the zone pushed the hostage release out of the news, but I am a bit surprised that having those poor men look like they were just liberated from a concentration camp got only muted coverage. If these three men were severely malnourished and near death—which is probably why they were released yesterday—I can only guess the state of the remaining captives.
The Hamas prisoners who were released yesterday were lauded by cheering crowds of Palestinians carrying guns. These criminals will no doubt rejoin the fight. I can only hope that the IDF will remove them from the battle field before they kill any more Israelis,
I was equally horrified by how those men appeared. It really did look like a photo from the Holocaust. And the devastating news they must now face. Very sad.
Dreadful. But all these crowds of cheering Palestinians do illustrate one thing: everyone looks well fed.
I still see comments from the ignorant about supposed starving Palestinians.
A modern community cannot have the birth rates of Palestinians without being well fed at other people’s expense.
Right. Fertility drops right off in famine situations.
“He says their gender identity
conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
Apparently not required of the Commander In Chief or Sec of Defense.
OK, the Time magazine cover was cute. But when I clicked over to Mark Hamill’s page to see it, I noticed that two posts more recently, he had some screed against watching the Super Bowl, which he linked to resisting fascism. I am unfamiliar with whatever it is he is complaining about. Is there something to it? Or is this just another demonstration of Godwin’s Law?
By the way, I’ll be listening to, not watching the Super Bowl. But that’s only because I don’t have a TV!
I listened to football on radio for years (when I chose to keep television out of my house) and I found it plenty enjoyable. I concentrate better using my mind’s eye and “saw” everything quite well. Radio has always been my favorite medium.
Have you ever heard of Rocco’s Little Chicago in Tucson, Jerry? He’s the real thing. He’s from Chicago and has become kind of famous. He’s also a very cool
guy. We’ve got a lot of Chicago transplants here and they swear by his pizza.
Oops, there I go misspelling my own name again. Ceiling Cat help me!
I thought I’d look for St.-Joan-of-Arc coffee. … What I found was even better than the product itself:
Not only is the product absolutely real, the fine flavor can be selected online, and blissfully unironically, from the equally real “Catholic Coffee collection”. Money quote from the product description:
Praise thee for the passive voice!
I think looking at government efficiency is a really good idea. What I find to be troubling is how accepting so many people are of DOGE’s actions at the Treasury. Like whether or not they have any legal authority to download the payment system onto their own servers or collect social security information. According to Francis Fukuyama, if Musk does stop any payments then he will have broken the law. Many in tech are very enthusiastic about everything Musk does because of the incredible companies he has built. Other tech entrepreneurs cite their own success as an example of the benefits of taking risks. The problem is the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful tech companies is very different than the US government. When people admire the high risks startup companies take to succeed they tend to ignore that high risk moves often don’t succeed.. Most companies fail. The unquestioning enthusiasm that such a large portion of our country has for DOGE, including leaders in technology, is pretty disturbing. To say the least, the next couple of weeks will be interesting.
My heart aches for the Bibas family.
Like the Holocaust victims whose photos Prof. Coyne posts.
Au contraire. In Westminster systems the House of Commons has lost all its power to an Executive Cabinet that absolutely controls the voting and public utterances of the Government MPs in the H of C who theoretically hold it to account but in fact are beholden to the Party Leader (who serves by convention as Prime Minister.). The party leaders have the power to eject any MP from caucus. There goes your political career and if your leader is the PM, there goes your chance ever to get into Cabinet as long as he’s PM. The Prime Minister, an office that isn’t even mentioned in our constitution, thus controls both the executive and legislative branches, absolutely so if he has a Parliamentary Majority. The P.M. also appoints judges, including to the Supreme Court, without any public input or hearing. Not only that, the Executive creates the panoply of administrative structures that control and regulate all the rest of us. None of this has any public accountability except to the extent the PM wishes it to have.
It has been said that when Canadian voters give a majority to a party, they are handing a time-limited (5 years) constitutional dictatorship to that party’s leader, especially for Leftist leaders whose views comfortably comport with the news media’s View of Things. Donald Trump, with Congress, judges, the civil service, and news media barking at everything he does, could only wish for that kind of authority. Small stakes up here, but still…
Yet the US failed at a couple of things:
FDR couldn’t enter WW2 until the US was attacked. Canada entered right away, despite opposition from the Quebec.
no state has managed to push through universal healthcare. All provinces managed to do it.
I don’t think I’d call either of those examples American failures. Rather, they were rational policy choices in a pluralistic constitutional system where one guy can’t tell the Congress what to do. Keeping out of a war for 27 months that you have no geopolitical reason to get involved in counts surely as a brilliant success. What business did Canada have over Poland in 1939 other than that our flag was the Union Jack?
Universal free health care in Canada and other rich but aging countries doesn’t look to be in retrospect such a policy success. Sure it’s a sacred cow to old people in all countries that cover the elderly, which of course the U.S. does, but it’s been a poor investment of either public or private dollars for the population health achieved. I don’t think even a dictatorial Canadian-style government could have achieved all three of: the destruction of the wealth invested in insurance companies (which are major investor-owned financial services businesses), the imposition of price and volume controls (aka rationing) on patients and providers, AND sharply increased taxes on the wealthy. There are limits to what dictators can do and they are spelt M-O-N-E-Y.
I didn’t know that Leslie. My Canadian politics file is embarrassingly thin. The accountability void seems to be a biiiiig problem and seems to have provided the latitude for Trudeau to insert all sorts of goodies for his questionable coalition.
David Frum (along with you and Jon Kay – my Main Kanuk Gangstas!) asserts that the indigenous industry there gets more fed money than the entire Canadian defense forces…. above and beyond usual wealth transfers to other citizens. Wild. That’s before we talk about genderwang even!
D.A.
NYC
I’m straight, but if ever I were to succumb to literary girl crushes, J.K. Rowling and Nellie Bowles (featured recently in another Hili Dialogue)—both wielding pens like rapiers—would be my inevitable downfall.
I’m amazed when I read this: “remember that in four years there will be a new President”, or something “will be back with the next Democratic President and Congress.” or “And when things go politically bad, as they so often do these days, remember that in four years there will be a new President.” I’m afraid that is what it will be: pure remembering, while hailing the king.