Welcome to the end o’ the week: it’s Friday, March 21, 2025, and National French Bread Day. Here’s a well-known photo by one of my photography heroes, Henri Cartier-Bresson (you can buy the print at Amazon). The kid runs home with a necessary dinner item:
It’s also National Crunchy Taco Day, International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, National California Strawberry Day, National Vermouth Day, World Poetry Day, International Day of Forests, National Flower Day, Red Nose Day in the UK, and International Tiramisu Day.
For World Poetry Day, I give you “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” by Yeats (note that it rhymes, almost an essential of good poetry):
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,And live alone in the bee-loud glade.And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,And evening full of the linnet’s wings.I will arise and go now, for always night and dayI hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 21 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Heathrow Airport is near a gigantic fire that sprang up today causing a power outage, and the airport will be closed all day. Since Heathrow is a worldwide travel hub, flights all over the globe will be affected. 1300 flights have already been canceled today.
Travelers braced for a day of chaos as Heathrow Airport in London was expected to remain shut all of Friday because of a power outage, grinding flights to a halt at one of the world’s busiest airports and disrupting travel across the globe.
Officials at Heathrow said the airport would remain closed until 11:59 p.m. local time because of a fire nearby that caused a power outage overnight. Ed Miliband, Britain’s energy secretary, described the blaze to Sky News as a catastrophic fire that had also affected backup systems, complicating the response.
Speaking to LBC radio on Friday morning, he said that “there’s no suggestion there is any foul play” having led to the fire, but that it would “take time to unwind the disruption for obvious reasons.” So far, he added, “we don’t yet have a real understanding of what caused the fire.”
Around the world, people were starting to see their plans upended, and analysts said it could take several days for airlines to rebook passengers because of the large numbers.While Heathrow is the world’s fourth biggest airport in terms of total scheduled capacity, it is considered the top travel hub as the most connected airport in the world. Many travelers use it as a stepping stone to further destinations.
“We expect significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens,” a Heathrow representative said in a statement.
*Yesterday Trump signed an EO aimed at closing the Department of Education (NYT here and WaPo here). That’s because Republican perceive the Department as an epicenter of wokeness (don’t ask me; I just work here).
From the NYT:
President Trump on Thursday instructed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin shutting down her agency, a task that cannot be completed without congressional approval and sets the stage for a seismic political and legal battle over the federal government’s role in the nation’s schools.
Surrounded by schoolchildren seated at desks in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Trump signed a long-awaited executive order that he said would begin dismantling the department “once and for all.” The Trump administration has cited poor test scores as a key justification for the move.
“We’re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Mr. Trump said.
The department, which manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and supports programs for students with disabilities, was created by an act of Congress. That means, according to Article I of the Constitution, that only Congress can shut it down. That clear delineation of power, a fundamental component of democracy from the inception of the United States, underscores why no other modern president has tried to unilaterally shutter a federal department.
But Mr. Trump has already taken significant steps that have limited the agency’s operations and authority. Since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, his administration has slashed the department’s work force by more than half and eliminated $600 million in grants. The job cuts hit particularly hard at the department’s Office for Civil Rights, which enforces the country’s guarantee that all students have an equal opportunity to an education.
That movement, which includes key pro-Trump, grass-roots activists, expanded around opposition to progressive agendas that promoted mandating certain education standards and inclusive policies for L.G.B.T.Q. students. Activists contended that these policies undermined parental rights and values.
But the hyper-partisanship around education issues has been present for decades, from progressive-leaning teachers’ unions who organized against President George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policies to conservative Republican presidential candidates in 2016 who ran against the Common Core standards elevated by President Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” program.
Divisions within the agency that were particularly affected by the layoffs include the Federal Student Aid office, the Office for Civil Rights, and the office responsible for data collection and research, data obtained by The Post shows. Most of the lawyers at the Office of General Counsel were laid off. And just days after the president signed an order declaring English the nation’s official language, nearly
The WaPo notes that what the Department did will not be completely eliminated:
The Education Department administers federal grant programs, including the $18.4 billion Title I program that provides supplemental funding to high-poverty K-12 schools, as well as the $15.5 billion IDEA program that helps cover the cost of education for students with disabilities. And the department oversees the $1.6 trillion federal student loan program and sets rules for what colleges must do to participate.
A senior administration official said Wednesday that these programs, which make up the bulk of the Education Department’s budget and work, “will NOT be touched.” It’s not clear what that means or how the White House expects significant change without touching those programs. McMahon has said she does not support cutting federal spending on Title I or IDEA.
This looks a bit harsh, though it’s generally acknowledged that teacher’s unions and schools in progressive states are uber-woke. Can’t they keep the Department but pare away the rotten bits? (And why did “progressive-leaning teachers’ unions” organize against Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policies? Weren’t those policies designed to create more equity?
At any rate, the closure of the Department has to be approved by Congress.
*The Free Press has a “Fight Club” article about whether Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University pro-Palestinian activist with a green card, should be deported. There’s both a pro and con. The “pro” is by Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, who argues for deportation on the grounds of what Khalil did, not what he said:
Let me be clear: This is not a case about free speech. The heart of the problem lies not in Khalil’s words, but in his actions.
He is not some wide-eyed idealist who uttered unpopular opinions or scribbled inflammatory op-eds. In fact, he served as the “negotiator” for Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a student organization that gleefully cheers for “the total eradication of Western civilization.”
CUAD is the primary agent of the chaos that has roiled Columbia since October 7, including assaults on janitorial workers and Jewish students. This is a determined, persistent anarchist enterprise aided by Khalil who, while enjoying the privileges of American residency, helped to spread support for terrorist organizations that have a documented history of kidnapping and killing U.S. citizens.
. . . . A green card is a grant of privilege—an invitation to participate in the American project under certain mutually understood terms. The power to revoke that privilege rests with the American public through its constitutional processes precisely because we expect immigrants to respect the foundational principles of our society. If an individual devotes himself to undermining or violently dismantling our culture and institutions, that is a fundamental breach of the agreement he entered into when seeking to live here.
And Eli Lake argues against deportation because, he says, this is purely an issue of speech. He thinks Khalil should be punished by Columbia, but not kicked out of the U.S.:
. . . . it might surprise you that I also think the Trump administration’s effort to deport Khalil, who is a permanent legal resident of the United States, sets a horrifying precedent for free speech in America.
This is because the government’s rationale for deporting him is not that he committed property crimes. It’s not that he provided material support to Hamas. Nor is it that he coordinated his or CUAD’s activities directly with Hamas.
The reason Khalil is being deported is because of his speech.
Here is how the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Troy Edgar, explained it earlier this month: “We’ve invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he’s put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity. And at this point, like I said, the Secretary of State can review his visa process at any point and revoke it.”
“Pro-Palestinian activity”? That amounts to a kind of thought crime.
I agree with Lake; I think this is a free-speech issue, and green-card holders should have that right as well as American citizens. Yes, Khalil’s speech was reprehensible and abhorrent, but I have no evidence that he actually did anything illegal. Apparently, that doesn’t matter to Trump and his people, who think that Khalil endangered American security. Me, I favor free speech within First Amendment boundaries, and I can’t see that Khalil went outside those boundaries. This will be a case for the Supreme Court.
*Speaking of which, the WSJ reports that people are being held up and questioned a lot more as they try to enter the U.S. than they were during the Biden administration. It even holds for those who already have visas, and even here for tourism. That’s really no surprise:
Immigration officers are employing more aggressive questioning tactics with immigrants and tourists trying to enter the country, scrutinizing their visas and more frequently detaining them in a sharp break from past practice, lawyers and former immigration officials said.
In a string of recent cases, border authorities have detained U.S. tourist and work visa holders for lengthy periods after seemingly minor issues with their cases. Among them: a German national with a U.S. green card, who needed to be transported to the hospital after his mother said he was strip-searched during questioning. Another, a tourist who was shackled and chained, was detained after a routine stop driving into the U.S. from Mexico.
Immigrants with visa issues more often had been required to come back with additional paperwork to resolve their cases, or else put into deportation proceedings. Generally, it is rare that border authorities detain people with visa issues long-term, especially those with relatively minor violations, the lawyers and former immigration officials said.
“I can’t remember anything quite that extreme,” said Gil Kerlikowske, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection under former President Barack Obama.
The moves come after an executive order, which President Trump issued on his first day in office, called on immigration officials to apply “extreme vetting” measures to visa and green card applicants, including immigrants re-entering the country. Lawyers say the directive appears to have put pressure on them to find more violators, with the goal of tightening restrictions on who is allowed into the country.
This is clearly part of Trump’s promise to crack down on immigration and enforce national security. But seriously, a German with a green card has to get strip-searched? Did they have grounds for suspicion? And a tourist from Mexico put in chains and shackles? I wonder if the people who voted for Trump think twice when they hear about stuff like this. Actually, I doubt it.
*I already reported that Disney’s live-people remake of “Snow White” was plagued by criticisms before it was even released, criticisms ranging from the pro-Palestinian sentiments of Rachel Zegler to the pro-Israeli sentiments of Gal Gadot, as well as the idea that the Price “stalked” Snow White and kissed her when she was unconscious. Not to mention that instead of using real dwarfs, they used computer-generated dwarfs, whereupon real dwarfs objected that their jobs were being taken away. Apoparently this attempt to clean up and update the old classic wasn’t successful. It has only a 47% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and the AP review is also critical:
That legacy of “Snow White,” by comparison, doesn’t do any favors to Marc Webb’s inevitably lesser, inert live-action retread. Good intentions, like swirling bluebirds, flutter through this “Snow White”: to give its singing protagonist ( Rachel Zegler ) more agency; to expand that notion of “fair” beyond skin tone; to reframe that problematic prince. But all that updating adds up to a mishmash of a fable, caught in between now and once upon a time.
It wouldn’t be an earthshattering observation to note that a 1930s cartoon, let alone a 19th century German folk tale, might not be entirely in line with contemporary culture. Most of these Disney live-action remakes have carried with them more than a few notes of correction and atonement for the past — a laudable goal that means a generation of kids might not need a brief history lesson to go along with an old classic.
But it’s a tricky thing reworking a fable that’s been around two centuries, and that’s doubly true when leaping from the two-dimensional fantasy realm of animation to the more complicated land of flesh and bone. Webb’s “Snow White” has been a veritable case study for the headaches that can arise when a window into the real world is cracked open. Everything from Israel’s war in Gaza (Zegler and her co-star Gal Gadot, who plays the wicked stepmother, have differing opinions), the humanity of little people (there’s a reason “and the Seven Dwarfs” has been stripped from the title) and the alleged “woke”-ness of the production have been fuel for what we can gently refer to as online debate.
But like scaffolding that’s been left up too long, the strain of renovation shows in Webb’s film, particularly in its awkward handling of Dopey, Sneezy and company. The seven dwarfs, like the fawns and squirrels, are rendered in CGI. You could argue that this acknowledges the artificiality of a dated and offensive trope. But it also gives “Snow White” an uncanny quality, with all human characters but the dwarfs being played by real people. As if to Band-Aid over this, one of the woodsmen is played by an actor of short stature (George Appleby) whose presence seems like yet another atonement, only one for this “Snow White,” not 1937’s.But like scaffolding that’s been left up too long, the strain of renovation shows in Webb’s film, particularly in its awkward handling of Dopey, Sneezy and company. The seven dwarfs, like the fawns and squirrels, are rendered in CGI. You could argue that this acknowledges the artificiality of a dated and offensive trope. But it also gives “Snow White” an uncanny quality, with all human characters but the dwarfs being played by real people. As if to Band-Aid over this, one of the woodsmen is played by an actor of short stature (George Appleby) whose presence seems like yet another atonement, only one for this “Snow White,” not 1937’s.
I ain’t gonna see it. If real dwarfs wanted to play the dwarfs, why should they be prohibited? And I could care less about the political opinions of the actors. The important thing is whether the movie is good, watchable, and engaging, and apparently this one isn’t.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is jealous of Szaron:
Hili He is bothering you.Andrzej: Szaron needs attention as well.Hili: I’m not sure he does.
Hili: On ci przeszkadza.Ja: Szaron też potrzebuje uwagi.Hili: Nie jestem tego pewna.
*******************
From Cats Without Gods:
From Jesus of the Day:
From Things with Faces; scary meat!:
From Masih: An elderly lady gets a long prison sentence, with torture included, merely for protesting her son’s murder for protesting the Iranian regime:
The Islamic Republic killed her son, imprisoned her for seeking justice, and now, after two and a half years of torture, has released her on a 14-day leave.
Instead of holding the murderers accountable, they tortured Nahid Shirpishe, a grieving mother, because she dared to seek… pic.twitter.com/qlxNnQLgiT
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) March 19, 2025
From JKR; any guesses? (I have no idea.)
Three guesses.
Sorry, but that was irresistible.
🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/hAMHw2b8EV— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 18, 2025
From Malcolm, a delighted cat with an adopted kitten:
A happy new mother pic.twitter.com/yHpRyxEIJW
— smol silly cat (@Catsillyness) March 15, 2025
Two from my feed. First, after a bit of time, a camel is befriended by horses:
Camel’s only wish is to befriend horses pic.twitter.com/cDYN9sYp4k
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 20, 2025
Flora Borsi, a talented artist and photographer, has taken the world by storm with her innovative self-portrait project, Animeyed II. This unique series features Flora sharing her eye with a range of animals,….😍#viral #animals #nature #portrait
— Kanchana Adassuriya (@kanchanaadassuriya.bsky.social) 2025-03-20T17:47:50.070Z
From the Auschwitz Memorial; one that I reposted:
Killed with cyanide gas upon arriving at Auschwitz, this French Jewish girl was six years old.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-21T09:57:39.326Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. He thinks this lovely insect is a leafhopper:
I found another, this time bigger, of these weird looking guys 😍They are amazing-looking creatures. We still don't know the species, which is hard since they are not adults yet, but every time I spot one, I feel very excited because they are so cool, haha.Have a good day, y'all.
— Santiago Jaume, Dr. rer. nat. (@santijaumes.bsky.social) 2025-03-20T15:41:44.698Z
And ancient Egyptian ducks:
Ancient Egyptian wall relief depicting a basket filled with three young birds. Carved by an accomplished artisan some 4,300 years ago!Tomb of Kagemni at Saqqara 📷 by me.#ReliefWedneday#Archaeology
— Alison Fisk (@alisonfisk.bsky.social) 2025-03-19T16:18:51.794Z
RE: JKR
Really you have no idea?
It’s reasonable to suspect she is referring to the three “stars” of Harry Potter movies, who rallied against her on trans issues
https://www.euronews.com/culture/2025/03/20/three-guesses-jk-rowling-appears-to-take-a-swipe-at-harry-potter-stars-amid-feud
Yes, when I wrote this yesterday I truly had no idea. Then later, I suddenly thought, “It must be Emma Watson,” who has gone after JKR after Watson was in the Harry Potter movies. But I decided to leave the original so readers can guess.
I think it may also be Daniel Radcliff and Rupert Grint. Hence the “three” guesses. All three of them turned on her.
As I think they believed they had to in order to stay in good graces with their public.
Which means they wanted to.
Joke’s on them. JK is a hero and they are all but forgotten.
How pathetic, what sniveling “actors” (I know no better insult).
Where’d they all be without her genius? — and how have they done without her?
Not well, they peaked young. Ms. Watson… who had a LOT of “pretty privilege” parlayed her fame into 5th or 7th wave feminist lunacy and maximal genderwang. She’s getting on in years now so that priv. will run out kinda soon.
And the two boys…..? Not sure. Losers.
Coming up many older, more talented people helped me and my career on Wall St and in the law. Even if I disagreed with them I’d never even THINK of doing what these ungrateful little turds have done to JK.
At worst just shut your damn trap.
Shameful little scorpions.
D.A.
NYC
I was baffled.
There is speculation in the German media that JK Rowling’s tweet is directed at Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint because all three have distanced themselves from her because of the allegedly transphobic remarks. In 2024, Rowling said she was unlikely to forgive Radcliffe and Watson for this as they are “celebrities pandering to a movement that seeks to undermine women’s hard-won rights”.
Ah – missed this one. My thought also (below).
Note her incisive wit – the movie is ruined.
That’s what I call British.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace. -Benito Juárez, President of Mexico (21 Mar 1806-1872)
PEACE : An international affair, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
-Ambrose Bierce
The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
(I just today got an excerpt in a giant book of literature! Might have to buy a hard-copy…)
Sigh…
The Yates is good.
I think Rowling is referring to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
She definitely is!
The review of Disney’s new Snow White in The Times regrets that sick bags aren’t provided with each ticket and advises cinamagoers to bring their own. The reviewer notes:
The headline says it all: “Snow White review — Disney has trashed its crown jewel and its reputation”.
https://archive.is/a8n1s
Dopey is a subversive weed reference.
Actually it’s ‘shrooms, according to The Simpsons; “If Disney sues / We’ll claim fair use / Ho Hi, Ho Hi”.
Dope has been slang for injectable heroin since, like, forever, man. Its etymology goes so far back to a Dutch broth that you dip bread in, thence to cooking heroin in a spoon, with detours along the way to a resin you stiffen stretched aircraft canvas with, and to inside information about which horse in a race has been doped, that “dopey” was coined later to describe the mental state from taking dope, not the other way round.
So saith Mark Forsyth of The Etymologicon.
A movie that should never have been re-made. With all that budget to just do research in how a movie will land with audiences, what were they thinking? What’s next, Song of the South?
I’d love to see how they “deproblematize” that one!
I could not help but grin when I read the scathing review in the Times. 😆
Informative piece in the New York Post: “It’s absolutely legal to deport hate-monger Mahmoud Khalil”.
PBS Newshour headed their broadcast last night with Mr. Khalil’s (long overdue, richly deserved) deportation scandal. Apparently the biggest news of the day!
Followed closely by the Joos and Evil Zionists jay walking or littering somewhere, probably Gaza (which their chief newsperson learned to pronounce “properly” in Arabic lately – quite an unintentional comedic gem), thus killing billions of Palestinian babies and surgeons and puppies.
What a joke those people are.
D.A.
NYC
At the end of the Post article:
‘Khalil is a guest in our country. Guests do not have a First Amendment “right” to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or incite genocide. They do have a “right” to the first plane out of here.’
May one reasonably take it that Khalil has a right to criticize U.S. foreign policy while standing on U.S. soil, (which does not necessitate endorsing or espousing terrorist activity or inciting genocide)?
Several months ago U.S. CITIZEN, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, U.N. arms inspector – and U.S. foreign policy critic – Scott Ritter tried to “take a plane out of here” but – apparently because the U.S. State Department was miffed at his exercising his First Amendment rights – instead had his passport seized, was escorted out of the airport, and soon thereafter had his home raided by the FBI, the probable cause for the warrant apparently being someone’s (contrived, fatuous) suspicion that Ritter had violated the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).
Perhaps were Ritter instead only a green card holder he might have had a better chance of “getting out of here.” I wonder if Khalil has (also) been or will be charged under FARA.
Oh Filippo – I saw Ritter giving a Rah Rah speech in Chechnya in service to Russia. He gave the speech in Russian to my surprise – worse Russian than mine I was happy to note – but serviceable.
No doubt as to whose side he’s on. He’s a scumbag’s scumbag – a national embarassment.
And he is an unabashed traitor. Khalil can’t be a traitor as he isn’t American, he’s a foreign Islamist terrorist – so deportable. Ritter we have to endure until he takes his pro-Russia program ONE STEP too far and he can be charged for that. My popcorn is ordered. 🙂
All the best Filippo,
D.A.
NYC
(moderate – not grand or great Russian speaker)
“I wonder if the people who voted for Trump think twice when they hear about stuff like this.”
No, I believe most do not. They are too buried in their media feeds which have manipulated them into believing that Russian collusion was a hoax, and that re-electing a man who already tried to overthrow our democracy once was not a concern because eggs are expensive.
‘We deported an innocent man? Someone had to sit in chains? That couldn’t be that bad. Besides, my preacher at church told me that the President is protecting the horribly oppressed Christians in this country!’
By the time these people feel the pain, it will likely be too late.
The “Russian collusion” claim was found to be a hoax by R. Mueller. Let me quote from him “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”. Don’t worry it get worse. Adam Schiff promoted the “Russian collusion” hoax to the max.
Not a hoax. The Russians were definitely pushing Trump. But the investigation couldn’t prove the Trump campaign was in on it.
Seeing now how close Trump is to Putin now it seems suspicious.
Quote:
The investigation concluded in March 2019.
The report concluded that the Russian Internet Research Agency’s social media campaign supported Trump’s presidential candidacy while attacking Clinton’s, and Russian intelligence hacked and released damaging material from the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations.
The investigation “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign”, and determined that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally” from Russian hacking efforts.
However, “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_special_counsel_investigation
The Russian may have been promoting Trump in 2016. However, Mueller found that the Trump campaign did not collude with the Russian. Let me offer a germane quote from J. Toobin.
“Certainly the most important thing is the total vindication of the president and his staff on the issue of collusion. There’s just no way around that,” Toobin said on CNN.”
Other sources (MSNBC, the Guardian, Rachel Maddow, etc.) all agree that the Trump/Russia claims were a hoax. Should I quote from them?
No it wasn’t. Sort of the other way around, if anything. The “no collusion” claim was a hoax perpetrated by Bill Barr. More accurately it was pretty much a straight up lie. A counterfactual meme, if you will, released into the wild by Barr.
I recommend reading the Mueller Report. At least what is publicly available. For example, from volume 1, page 2 . . .
. . .
I know that’s a bit subtle, but it is pretty clear. The Mueller Report did not exonerate Trump from either collusion, which it didn’t consider at all, or even conspiracy. In fact Mueller bent over backwards to point out, perhaps too delicately, that his investigation found evidence consistent with, but not conclusive of, conspiracy.
The Russian may have been promoting Trump in 2016. However, Mueller found that the Trump campaign did not collude with the Russian. Let me offer a germane quote from J. Toobin (not exactly a Trump friendly analyst).
“Certainly the most important thing is the total vindication of the president and his staff on the issue of collusion. There’s just no way around that,” Toobin said on CNN.”
What does “total vindication” means to you?
You can read the source materials or you can believe outlier opinions that fit your prior commitments. I believe that you believe that Trump was totally vindicated.
If you think the Russians promoted Trump just because they thought he was a nice guy, you’re pretty naive.
Let’s also remember that Clinton campaign money was funneled to at least one Russian national in exchange for fabricated dirt on Trump.
Dems were actually doing what they claimed Trump was doing—colluding with Russians to influence the election.
Even if that were true, who cares? Weren’t we taught in grade school that two wrongs don’t make a right?
In any case, that characterization is not much different from being completely false.
You did not quote from the report. You must have typed it from memory. The real quote is “In sum, the investigation established multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the Campaign. In some instances, the Campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances the Campaign officials shied away. Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities.”
Not a hoax. The report clearly established Russian election interference. Lots of links from the Russian side. Just not enough evidence that during those discussions (e.g. calls between Flynn and Kislyak, Oknyansky met with Roger Stone, Konstantin Kilimnik working for Paul Manafort ‘assessed by the FBI to have ties to Russian intelligence, Michael Cohen “emailed the Kremlin requesting to speak to (Sergei) Ivanov”, and lots more) that anyone from the Campaign ‘coordinated or conspired’.
“Certainly the most important thing is the total vindication of the president and his staff on the issue of collusion. There’s just no way around that,” Toobin said on CNN.”
What does “total vindication” means to you?
Other sources (MSNBC, the Guardian, Rachel Maddow, etc.) all agree that the Trump/Russia claims were a hoax. Should I quote from them? The hoax was exposed and Trump was cleared.
You could try quoting from the Mueller report. But you don’t.
Your arguments are the epitome of the word facile. I don’t use the word often, but I love the instance where it stands alone.
You made a similar remark yesterday talking about Alito and Thomas corruption; you left a comment that “accepting a gift isn’t a crime” another example of your facile bullshit.
The word applies to Trump as well, and his explanations for his actions are somehow beyond facile.
WEIT has a lot of MAGAs nowadays…it’s sort of depressing, I must confess.
“You did not quote from the report”. I literally quoted from the report. “the investigation did not
establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian
government” is at the top of page 2 of the report (look for the “Introduction to Volume I”).
I apologize for confusing two sentences from the Mueller report. I had quoted from page 173. The partial sentence was almost identical and I thought you had added the word ‘Trump’ that was missing from the one on page 173. My unintentional error, which was partly due to search in Adobe.
Your quote was, however missing the beginning of the sentence (either on page 2 or 173), which means you quote-mined and ignored the context. To be an accurate partial quote, you must add ‘…’ to the quote. You capitalized ‘The’ instead. I acknowledge the capitalization may have been auto-corrected.
But you ignored the first two phrases “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts,” in the sentence you claim to be quoting. Because in my opinion, it clearly contradicts your intended point.
I don’t care what Toobin said, Trump was not ‘totally vindicated’. Russian definitely interfered with the election. Trump called for them to do so in public. Mueller didn’t have wiretaps or recordings of what was actually said in those numerous communications and meetings. I can agree that Mueller was unable to demonstrate collusion beyond a reasonable doubt, and therefore did not formerly charge Trump or the campaign (there were other reasons for no formal charges as well). To compare, OJ Simpson was found not guilty, but he was not totally vindicated either.
Border guards have very broad powers everywhere. All travellers ought to know this. Harsh vetting gets amplified in the news when the government is controversial. I wouldn’t think ordinary citizens would have much issue with non-citizens being scrutinized closely or harshly. Why should it bother them?
Even Canadian citizens returning home to Canada may experience “extreme vetting” if the Border Services Agency personnel suspect they are carrying contraband or have been up to no good while abroad. They don’t need probable cause. They can search everyone in the queue if they want to, and anything they find is admissible as evidence. The Border agents can demand you open your phone for them. If you refuse they will seize it and leave you to worry for the rest of your days that someday our spooks will crack it and tell the Mounties what they found. The body packers having swallowed condoms filled with dope are in for a particularly hard time. We’re not talking one or two. We’re talking dozens. And if one breaks, smuggler is def going to hospital. So you’d want to hear the whole story about the poor German before rushing to judgment.
Every Canadian has heard horror stories of retuning citizens having their cars taken apart in the parking lot outside the Customs shack. And these are Canadian citizens, whose right to enter Canada is not contestable. If you don’t have a right to enter (because you’re not a citizen), it’s on you to convince the border agent that you’re going to be worth the risk. Crossing borders is always a bit of a crap shoot, as is travel generally. Visa-free crossing between the U.S. and Canada for each other’s citizens is about as good as it gets but it still goes wrong sometimes, especially after 9/11.
I have a funny (really) story about this. I once tried to enter Canada and was held up (at the border) for at least 30 minutes. The Canadian border agents checked my background in every state that I had ever lived in. They had reason to do so. I told the Canadian border agents a story that they knew was not true (I said I was going to Canada to get dinner). They knew that there were no restaurants on the Canadian side of the border. They assumed that I was smuggling guns or drugs (which was not true, I thought that there were restaurants on the Canadian side of the border). Eventually they let me into Canada. I never found any restaurants. It turns out, that I was trying to enter one of the poorest parts of Canada.
The U.S. Dept of Ed is really a mixed bag at best. K-12 education in the U.S. is the responsibility of the states and each state is very possessive regarding its authority. So there has always been a pretty large variation in curriculum content between states. Even within states, there was large variation as localities could pretty much roll their own curriculum until the National Governors’ Association (NGA) in the late 80’s asked non-profit, Achieve, Inc, to develop a set of expected curriculum content standards in English Language Arts and math that was internationally normed and could be used as guidance for each of the states. Participation in the resulting standards was a voluntary committment of a state. I believe these standards were later expanded into the Obama Common Core and some money was attached to sweeten the pot for states who participated in that. The NGA also had Achieve, Inc develop the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) published in 2013 which, among other things, rolled engineering design, previously considered to be vocational education in K12, into science preparation. Again participation was voluntary and this was not a U.S. Dept of Education initiative. Some of you may recall PSSC physics or BSCS biology. Neither was a federal initiative, but rather came from university professors who coopted some high school teachers to develop some 20th century science content and textbooks to replace the extant late 19th century content of the 1893 Committee of Ten report under which almost all states still operated into the 1960’s and 70’s. The Advanced Placement (AP) courses came from the College Boards, not the U.S. Dept of Education.
What the U.S. Dept of Education does do well is assure that all states support civil rights of all children to participate in education across all states. Thus the various Titled funding and enforcement. But the vast majority of K-12 funding and all curriculum content requirements come from individual states and localities, not the federal government and certainly not the U.S. Dept of Education.
On our latest club terrorist:
“and green-card holders should have that right (of unfettered free speech) as well as American citizens.” writes WEIT.
Maybe they should! Good arguments for exactly that abound.
But they don’t.
So it is goodbye to Khalil.
D.A.
NYC
*ps Maybe while being deported he’ll be able to pick up some lighter fluid duty free for burning American flags (or humans) at his next stop?
Which should be Algeria. There’s debate as to his actual citizenship – details fuzzy as always with terrorists – but seems to be Algeria. I hope it is, few places are worse to be returned to than Algeria. (My thesis studying Middle East politics at Georgetown was about fundamentalism in Algeria and Iran. Trust me – Algeria is not a fun place.)
David, I really like the expression “club terrorist” and would like to use it.
They actually do, though, don’t they David?
A non-citizen alien can’t be charged with a speech crime and fined or jailed because such a speech crime law would itself violate the First Amendment no matter who was charged with breaking it. It’s the law that would fail, irrespective of the status of the person charged under it. Everyone has a right not to be punished for speech in the United States because no law abridging it can be upheld as enforceable even before the first person was charged under it.
Anti-Semitic speech is either illegal or it’s not (and it’s almost always not), no matter who utters it. There is no special provision in what laws you do have restricting speech, like libel, incitement, etc., that says it’s legal for citizens to say it but not for aliens.
Besides, the Government doesn’t even want to charge Mr. Whatzizname with a crime, with a goal to put him in jail. It just wants to deport him as an undesirable. That’s an administrative process subject to judicial review, not a 1A issue at all. Deportation to Algeria can’t be construed as a punishment. Algeria is not an American penal colony like Guantanamo Bay. It’s a sovereign country with citizens living in it. Once he’s off the plane in Algeria, U.S., law no longer applies to him. He’s a free man.
It would only become a 1A issue if the Supreme Court discovered some Constitutional right buried in immigration law that said the (Green-card in this case) alien can’t be deported unless convicted of an actual crime. Then to make deportation stick, the Government would have to first find him guilty of a crime. The only speech crimes that exist are those that apply to everyone (e.g., libel or incitement.) I think we all agree he hasn’t committed any of those. So the Government would have to find something else to charge him with.
But I don’t see the Supreme Court wanting to so restrict the power of the Executive to deport aliens. No one who strays into the U.S. from Canada or who is picked up in a sweep has (yet) been convicted of the crime of entering the U.S. illegally. ICE still proceeds with deporting them forthwith unless they claim asylum. They don’t get to stay until found guilty in Court.
The beauty of deportation is that it’s an administrative function of the Executive, like the granting or revoking of a motor vehicle registration. If you don’t pay your registration fee and you try to take your unregistered motor vehicle onto the road, the police will impound it. They don’t need to convict you of a crime to hold onto your car in the pound until you come to tow it home. But they can’t fine you unless they charge you with operating an unregistered vehicle (which they will) and they can’t collect the fine until you plead, or are found, guilty.
The CGI dwarves in the new Snow White were not the first choice. My understanding is that they originally began filming with seven ordinary-sized actors of various races, sexes, and shapes, with funny clothes and hair. Presumably the idea was to update the dwarves into magical creatures of the forest.
When photos and some film got out it was immediately mocked as “Snow White and the Seven Diversity Hires.” It looked pretty ridiculous. People were outraged and Disney backed off, coming up with the idea of using CGI. I suspect the original non-dwarf cast cemented the idea that this version was “woke.”
It must have been pretty frustrating to be an actor getting your first big break playing what you hoped would be a well-loved Disney character in a major motion picture, only to be replaced by a really good cartoon.
The “Seven Diversity Hires” are still in the film. Now they form a band of robbers who support Snow Whites love interest, the
princegang leader “Robin Hood” Jonathan.I’ve seen the film referred to as “Off-white and the Seven Diversity Hires”, too.
+1
HAHHA. Again… killer JezGrove. Or… Snowy-ish and the DEIs.
hahhaa
D.A.
NYC
Ceiling Cat:
Here is an open letter that may interest you. I’ve signed, as have leaders of CAFH.
“Open letter in response to federal funding cuts at Columbia”:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EQ9_FL9psAwt-QohkPZo2BVa5sxj5QSJL44DSFYwYE0/edit?tab=t.0
One of the first actions authoritarians do is to bend institutions to their will or simply destroy them: media, universities, institutions within the government, etc. The Columbia actions are a small part of these efforts. They also understand how easy it is to destroy an institution (USAID comes to mind) than to build one. An institution that has been a part of the US soft power infrastructure since the 60’s was destroyed with a couple key strokes.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian and an expert on authoritarians, how they take power and transform governments. If you want to understand exactly what the Trump administration is doing, I’d suggest following her.
Thank you for your reply, Mark.
I’ll admit, I’m torn. On one hand, I’m deeply troubled by the infiltration of our institutions by actors who promote the interests of foreign powers. Qatar’s funding of universities, for example, has enabled a great deal of soft power and influence that shapes academic priorities and public discourse in concerning ways.
I voted for the “Orange Beast” because I believe that Harris and the current Democratic Party no longer represent the interests of the working class—or the ideals the party once stood for. In my view, they’ve drifted too far, increasingly catering to Iran and enabling narratives that undermine core American values.
At the same time, I’m not blind to the threat posed by Putin’s influence. However, after the orchestrated psyops and misinformation campaigns waged by the CIA and certain Democratic factions—particularly regarding “Russian disinformation”—I find it difficult to trust anything emerging from those sources. It’s hard to discern what’s real when so much of the discourse feels manipulated.
Perhaps Trump’s personality—his ego and bluster—makes him susceptible to Putin’s manipulation. Or perhaps, despite appearances, he is uniquely positioned to counter Iran’s aggression while keeping Putin in check. I hope the latter is true, though nearly every Democrat I know parrots the former narrative without much critical thought.
What concerns me most is the sense that Putin and China are sitting back with popcorn in hand, watching how effortlessly our universities and federal institutions have been radicalized by ideologies hostile to the West. It’s disheartening to witness, and I wonder how far they’ll be able to exploit this ideological capture.
That said, I don’t buy into the “Trump is a dictator” hysteria. The more I hear that refrain, the more it reinforces my sympathy for him—if only because the arguments tend to be so hyperbolic and unconvincing.
For all that, I remain opposed to Trump’s cuts to university funding. I’ve made that clear, both by signing the Open Letter and in conversations on a Harvard listserv. Defunding biomedical research as a reaction to campus politics is a miscalculation. It’s shortsighted to jeopardize life-saving research in the name of fighting “wokeness” or antisemitism, even though wokeness and antisemitism are very real problems. It’s just that Trump bulldozing academia won’t solve either.
When it comes to slashing federal programs like USAID, I have fewer qualms. Agencies like that are bloated, often corrupt, and long overdue for a reckoning. But targeting universities? That’s a misfire. We shouldn’t sacrifice life-saving biomedical research to make a point about campus politics. There’s a world of difference between trimming the fat in Washington and gutting our research institutions. I only wish Trump had drawn that line.
At the same time, universities are to blame that DOGE and the public can’t tell the difference between woke, intersectional, DEI nonsense and research that quacks like that but saves lives.
Update on Columbia:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/21/metro/columbia-grants-trump-demands/?event=event25
I asked an AI bot to rename the Seven Dwarfs as woke characters. Part of its response was
That’s the problem right there. Even after careful consideration (and does that happen?) unforseen consequences will abound.
Sounds like Google Gemini. Very anxious not to offend. You might get better results from ChatGPT or Grok.
There is a public garden called Innisfree in Millbrook, NY. It is only open W-Su from 10-5 from late April through mid-Oct. You need a car to get there. It is 4 mi. east of the Taconic Pkwy, or a bit NE of Poughkeepsie, NY. Admin is $10 ($5 seniors & kids). It is a lovely, peaceful, informal garden with a large lake and trails that wander between ‘cup’ gardens. I highly recommend a visit if you are ever in the area at the right time. You can see some images here:
https://www.innisfreegarden.org/gardenareas
With the Snow White remake, I think they were forced to ‘reimagine’ the dwarf part of the story after Peter Dinklage criticized the notion of a bunch of dwarves living together in a cave.
Peter Dinklage being a famous dwarf actor from Game of Thrones.
Re why “progressive-leaning teachers’ unions” organised against Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policies which were designed to create more equity —
Partly because they could easily have imagined a likely result: the most (only?) feasible way to directly reduce existing gaps between high and low achievers is to reduce the standards, thus everyone becomes a high achiever, thus equity. The pressure on states and schools to reduce the gaps did indeed result in exactly that.
And IMO there’s no way that Bush’s admin didn’t anticipate this; one can reasonably speculate that they would consider this a feature not a bug, since it would reduce support for public education.
Say what you will about the Republican party, but it’s hard to disagree that they tend to run a longer con than the Democrats do. Not remotely 3-D chess, but much more than gut-reaction whining and performative outrage.
Roe’s gone, proof of your pudding…
With the Snow White remake, I think they were forced to ‘reimagine’ the dwarf part of the story after Peter Dinklage criticized the notion of a bunch of dwarves living together in a cave.
Peter Dinklage being a famous dwarf actor from Game of Thrones.
Before I became acquainted with “Innisfree” as a written poem, I knew it from this setting as sung by Judy Collins.
https://youtu.be/QahVf0wL9IU?si=kVI4tBrTQv7sWbc6
(I long thought she had composed the music, but later learned the setting was around and she picked it and sang it. It was not, however, a strange idea that she might have written the music — though not usually listed with the singer/songwriters, she did write several of the songs she sings. I have looked up who the composer was, but don’t remember. Oh, and there is another, entirely distinct, setting by somebody else.)
Edit: It appears to be Hamilton Camp.