If it's Thursday, this must be Pyongyang.
Only 1,367 days to go...
“Bad news isn't wine. It doesn't improve with age.” ~ Colin Powell
Donald Trump's Approval Rating on Economy Plunges to Record Low in Poll
"Donald Trump was reelected specifically to improve the economy, and so far, people are not liking what they're seeing."
Tesla take down is working…
Living through these times…
Laughing in the Face of ‘Overwhelming Malice’
Absurdity can seem like the only recourse in a situation where the state is, itself, absurd. After snarky Chinese social-media users noticed a striking similarity between Xi Jinping and Winnie-the-Pooh, the bear became a popular online stand-in for Xi, thus leading the government to at times censor Pooh images…Unlike citizens in a democracy, not all laughter is created equal…. Conventional satire also seems overmatched. What room is there for hyperbole when a 19-year-old known as “Big Balls” has been rampaging through the federal government, perhaps even accessing confidential data?
This week’s Joseph Welch and Neville Chamberlain Award Winners
A Cult of Personality Without a Personality
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” H.L. Mencken
Trump has a personality, honed through years of reality TV and perfectly carried forward into the social media age. But it’s ultimately a superficial and vacuous one, and the fact that the president’s opponents have not been able to match him is an indictment not only of the current Democratic Party, but a stagnant political culture three decades in the making.
Where I don’t agree with Mencken is that this represents the “inner soul” of America. Americans are not (all) idiots, but, like any nation, they want direction. So you fight a cult of personality with character. Someone who can show that public service is a noble thing in a democracy and demonstrate a little internal consistency. That profile isn’t a unicorn—it exists. But in order to find new leaders to shore up democracy in America and around the world, we need to be honest about where our old ones have fallen short.
Whatever side you’re on, if you’re not satisfied with the substance of your leadership, then it is on you to seriously vet the candidates the next time you head to the polls.
"Focus on the things you are for, not the things you are against. Many people spend large chunks of their day thinking about what they hate. They are always telling you about something they dislike: this food, that subject, this political party, that coworker. You are more than your frustrations. Build your identity around what you love." ~James Clear
Finding the humor…
Barbie has been given a makeover with each major change in the American zeitgeist. This cultural icon has been given continual rebranded facelifts to keep her relevant in the changing times. And now — we have her MAGA makeover, to represent the state of Murica in 2025.
Why Brett Goldstein Is Finally Showing ‘Ted Lasso’ Fans His True Self
Since I love Roy Kent, I can’t wait to watch this special and watch his creator.
Thought for the day in honor of her birthday…
“Each one of us has the responsibility to create the world, in which we choose to live.”
~Shirley MacLaine
Must Read Article:
Pete Hegseth’s Patriotic Duty Is to Resign
Pete Hegseth was never qualified to be the secretary of defense. Donald Trump should never have nominated him, Hegseth should never have accepted the nomination, and the Senate should never have confirmed him. Alas, qualifications, self-knowledge, and the courage of Senate Republicans are all things of the past, and for three months now, Hegseth has been a proven failure as a secretary of defense. If the president still refuses to fire him, he should resign….
Hegseth, a former Army major and talk-show host, has bungled one issue after another. His anti-wokeness campaign has removed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings from the Naval Academy’s library while leaving Mein Kampf on its shelves… He stumbled through an uproar about a planned Pentagon briefing to Elon Musk concerning possible war plans with China, an event for which conflict of interest isn’t a big-enough term….And of course, Hegseth was at the center of the Signalgate scandal—or, I should say, the first Signalgate scandal, the one instigated by Mike Waltz, the president’s national security adviser…
American military officers are not usually impressed with leaders who dodge responsibility for their troubles. More to the point, if … the entire Pentagon is fighting against Hegseth, that says more about the secretary’s poor leadership skills than about the men and women of the Defense Department. After all, every leader can encounter staff problems. But when one adviser after another has to be shown the door, the problem is likely not the staff, but the boss. During all of these dramas, Hegseth has comported himself not as the confident leader of the world’s most powerful military, but as an overwhelmed and whiny political appointee.
Quote of the day:
“There is no policy. No plan. No logic. There is only Donald Trump.”
~ Matthew Continetti
What I’m reading today…
White House Assesses Ways to Persuade Women to Have More Children
The White House has been hearing out a chorus of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans to get married and have more children, an early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda pushed by many of its allies on the right to reverse declining birthrates and push conservative family values…Those ideas, and others, are emerging from a movement concerned with declining birthrates that has been gaining steam for years and now finally has allies in the U.S. administration, including Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk. MAGA Pronatalism Is Doomed to Fail
But if Trump really wanted to arrest the decline in America’s fertility rate — which reached a historic low of 1.62 births per woman in 2023 — the best thing he could do is resign in concert with his entire administration. The crude chauvinism his presidency represents is a major impediment to the creation of healthy families.
Implicit in that statement is the notion that people of color, women, and LGBTQ individuals are unqualified, but got jobs because they check a box. They must be removed, the thinking goes, so that the most proficient and skilled people are chosen solely on merit. Except that’s not really what conservatives want…
Rather, they want what can only be described as affirmative action for unqualified true believers. Put another way, adherence to a particularly hardline conservative worldview is the sole qualification that matters…
Several of Trump’s first-term judicial picks were emblematic of his elevation of the incapable, with 10 of his nominees being rated as “not qualified” by the American Bar Association. Conservatives try to excuse this by saying the ABA’s ratings are driven by liberal bias, but from 1989 to 2017, spanning two GOP administrations and two Democratic ones, only 12 nominees in total received that rating. Trump offered up people like Brett Talley. Even if you set aside concerns about Talley’s views, such as his apparent defense of the KKK, his lack of experience was staggering. At the time of his nomination, he had never tried a case or even argued a motion in federal court.
Exclusive: The White House is looking to replace Pete Hegseth as defense secretary
Former Defense Department spokesperson John Ullyot resigned and then published an opinion piece calling the past month at the Pentagon a "full-blown meltdown" of infighting that is hurting President Trump. Hegseth's siege mentality
Joint statement from Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll, and Darin Selnick:
We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended. Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door. All three of us served our country honorably in uniform - for two of us, this included deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, based on our collective service, we understand the importance of information security and worked every day to protect it. At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of “leaks” to begin with. While this experience has been unconscionable, we remain supportive of the Trump-Vance Administration’s mission to make the Pentagon great again and achieve peace through strength. We hope in the future to support those efforts in different capacities.
Former Top Pentagon Spokesperson Details ‘Month From Hell’ Inside the Agency
“Yet even strong backers of the secretary like me must admit: The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration.”
Elon Musk Vows to Spend Less Time in Washington as Tesla’s Profit Drops 71%
Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, said on Tuesday that he would spend less time in Washington working for President Trump after the automaker reported a profit drop of 71 percent in the first three months of the year… Tesla sales have been slumping because of intense competition from Chinese carmakers like BYD, a lack of new models and Mr. Musk’s support of far-right causes…its shares have lost about half their value since mid-December as investors have grown more pessimistic about the company’s prospects and concerned about Mr. Musk’s role in the Trump administration. Some investors and analysts have recently called on Mr. Musk to spend more time managing Tesla and limit or end his work for the Trump administration.
Here’s how bad DOGE has been for Elon Musk’s business. Musk’s hard turn to DOGE has shown that mixing business with politics can backfire, especially for a public CEO of a company that relies on customers who in large part don’t share his views.
Top Producer of ‘60 Minutes’ Quits, Saying He Lost Independence
“60 Minutes” has faced mounting pressure in recent months from both President Trump, who sued CBS for $10 billion and has accused the program of “unlawful and illegal behavior,” and its own corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News… Legal experts have dismissed that suit as baseless and far-fetched, and Mr. Owens said in February that he would not apologize as part of any prospective settlement. Many journalists at CBS News — the former home of Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace — believe that a settlement would amount to a capitulation to Mr. Trump over what they consider standard-issue gripes about editorial judgment.
Every government lies now and then, but authoritarian regimes go further. They don’t just stretch or hide the truth. They look you in the eye and tell you that what you just saw didn’t happen…The tariff turnabout illustrates what sort of people now populate the upper reaches of the U.S. government. They’re the sort of people you’d find in a regime like North Korea’s, willing to say whatever the great leader wants them to say that day…HOW DO THESE MEN SPOUT such utter garbage with a straight face?
The answer is that they’re in these jobs precisely because they’re the sort of people who can do it. They’re invertebrates. They’re able and willing to contort themselves in whatever way Trump, at any moment, requires.
With Latest Missteps, Veneer of Discipline in 2nd Trump Term Falls Away
While the chaos has not reached the first Trump administration’s levels, the mistakes, miscommunications and flip-flops have started piling up after an early run defined by a flood of major policy changes at breakneck speed…Conservative groups, through Project 2025, laid the groundwork for Mr. Trump to quickly enact his agenda upon taking office. Almost immediately, the president opened investigations of his perceived enemies, issued sweeping executive orders and slashed the federal work force as part of a flood-the-zone strategy aimed at distracting his opponents and throwing them off balance….the agency heads running the country often lack experience in managing large institutions or even traditional policy backgrounds.
“In order to filter out people who are on board with what he wants, that prioritizes loyalty and it prioritizes a certain set of ideological worldviews over competence.”
How America Can Avoid Becoming Russia
Americans seem to be awakening, if only slowly, to the magnitude and nature of the threat they face. President Donald Trump and his allies in power are trying to erect an authoritarian Mafia state like the one Vladimir Putin and his cronies established in Russia...If this sounds alarmist, forgive me for not caring. Exactly 20 years ago, I retired from professional chess to help Russia resist Putin’s budding dictatorship. People were slow to grasp what was happening there too: Putin’s bad, but surely he’ll stop short of—and you can fill in the blank with a dozen things he did to destroy Russia’s fragile democracy and civil society, many of which Trump is doing or attempting to do in America today. Attacking the press as fake news and the enemy of the state? Check. Delegitimizing the judiciary, the last constitutional brake when the legislature is co-opted and feckless? Check. Expanding influence over the economy by threatening businesses and using tariffs to introduce a crisis and a spoils system? Check. Creating a culture of fear by persecuting unpopular individuals and groups? Been there, done all of that.
How Trump backed away from promising to end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours
During his campaign, Donald Trump said repeatedly that he would be able to end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in 24 hours” upon taking office. He has changed his tone since becoming president again…The promises made by presidential candidates are often felled by the realities of governing. But Trump’s shift is noteworthy given his prior term as president and his long histories with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Donalds faces the anti-DOGE music
But beyond that, Byron Donalds mostly was put in a defensive position, having to answer for the Trump administration just weeks after Democrats put a spotlight on the president’s actions to try to make inroads during the April 1 special elections. It was a reminder of how much Donalds’ political future would be tied to how voters are feeling about Trump’s record more than a year from now.
Federal immigration authorities wrongfully detain U.S. citizens
Since Trump took office, numerous citizens have been detained, sometimes for days, on "suspicion" that they were undocumented. "U.S. citizens should not be detained by ICE, yet they are continuing to get swept up in these racially motivated raids and collateral arrests," ACLU attorney Amy Godshall told the Independent. U.S. citizen in Arizona detained by immigration officials for 10 days
The Trump Billionaires Who Run the Economy and the Things They Say
… the comments show how clueless Mr. Trump and his friends are about the lives of most Americans, and that this is what happens when billionaires run the economy….Psychologists say that extreme wealth does change people and their views of those who have less… almost no one thinks the comments have been politically helpful for Mr. Trump, or calming for Americans.
“You have to laugh to keep from crying,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “What did they say about the old New York Mets? ‘Can’t anybody here play this game?’”
Incompetence is Part of One-Man Rule
Trump's unconventional governing style has prompted many observers to think there must be some method to the madness. Yet, as has been the case with other one-man rulers, there is often just madness.
A book I highly recommend…
Just finished reading this book and loved it. It was written for women of my age, but I think many of the ideas and lessons are universal and appropriate for all.
Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age by Mary Pipher
“If we can keep our wits about us, think clearly, and manage our emotions skillfully, we will experience a joyous time of our lives. If we have planned carefully and packed properly, if we have good maps and guides, the journey can be transcendent.”
What I am listening to… EXCELLENT
Trump is elevating his own businesses over the nation's, and is quickly adopting the kleptocratic models of Russia and China. Plus, children all over the world are going to die because Elon wants our money to go to his companies, and Marco signaled that the big talker who promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours is ready to give up and walk away.
What I read every day…
