If it's Thursday, this must be Riyadh.
Only 1,360 days to go...
“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” ~Benjamin Franklin
Exclusive: Most Americans see Trump as "dangerous dictator," poll says
"Most Americans view Trump in dictatorial terms, and I think most Americans are concerned that American democracy is on the line."
A majority of Americans say President Trump is a "dangerous dictator" who poses a threat to democracy and believe he's overstepped his authority by actions such as the mass firing of federal employees, a new survey says.
Living through these times…
Gratitude is experienced as a positive emotion. It results from noticing that others − including friends and family certainly, but also strangers, a higher power or the planet − have provided assistance or given something of value such as friendship or financial support. By definition, gratitude is focused on others’ care or on entities outside of oneself. It is not about one’s own accomplishments or luck. When we feel gratitude toward something or someone, it can increase well-being and happiness and relationship satisfaction, as well as lower depression.
Shakespeare’s plays repeatedly make the point that the unjust distribution of rights and care among various social groups – Christians and Jews, men and women, citizens and foreigners – challenges the happy effects of benevolence.
Those social factors are sometimes overlooked in cultures like the U.S., where contemporary notions of happiness are marketed by wellness gurus, influencers and cosmetic companies. Shakespeare’s plays reveal both how happiness is built through communities of care and how it can be weaponized to destroy individuals and the fabric of the community.
What these experts on happiness want you to know about making your weekdays more fulfilling
Finding the humor…
My schadenfreude moment - I smiled when I read this in Axios: Elon Musk's net worth has declined a staggering $122 billion this year — nearly matching the $160 billion in government savings claimed by DOGE, which budget experts believe is wildly inflated.
Thought for the day in honor of his birthday…
“The future belongs to those who give the next generation a reason for hope.”
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Must Read Article:
‘This Is Not How We Do Science, Ever’
Since its first days, the new Trump administration has clearly shown where it thinks scientific attention should not be focused: It has attempted to censor federal scientific data, cut billions in government spending on research, and compromised care for some of the world’s most at-risk populations. Now, as the nation’s leaders have begun to encourage inquiry into specific areas, they are signaling that they’re willing not just to slash and burn research that challenges their political ideology but to replace it with shoddy studies designed to support their goals, under the guise of scientific legitimacy…
Kennedy, who has no scientific or medical training himself, also seems confused about what a scientifically rigorous investigation would entail—and how long it might take. During this month’s Cabinet meeting, he said that by September, HHS would complete “a massive research and testing effort involving hundreds of scientists from around the world.” At last week’s press conference, however, his comments suggested that HHS might rely heavily on AI and electronic-health-record data, which aren’t gathered uniformly, can depend on self-reporting, and cover only populations that interact with the health-care system. And Jay Bhattacharya, the new, Trump-appointed director of the National Institutes of Health, recently gave a presentation detailing the administration’s plans to source data for these investigations from hospitals, pharmacies, wearable devices, and other private sources with limited reach.
Quote of the day:
“The degree of chaos and uncertainty that has been unleashed upon the U.S. economy, and the world economy, is unprecedented. There have been other Administrations that have come to office and had to deal with instability early on. But the fact that this Administration comes in and its own policies are what stoked instability is quite remarkable.”
~ Eswar Prasad, economist at Cornell
What I’m reading today…
In only 100 days, President Trump has swiftly reshaped the federal government: redefining the scope of executive power, testing and defying the courts, and targeting his perceived enemies. The president's team has been open about his second term's "flood the zone" strategy. For many ordinary people, his administration's speed and volume of activity is simply too difficult to track.
Trump’s First 100 Days: Roosevelt in Reverse
It’s always easier to wreck than to build. Roosevelt rescued the banks, which were failing everywhere; Trump alarmed the banks and global markets with his idiotic tariff policy. Roosevelt calmed and unified the country with his first Fireside Chat; Trump has terrified and further divided us, even using his Easter message to trash his critics. Roosevelt put 250,000 people to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps in his first three months; Trump fired tens of thousands of federal employees and is trying to disband AmeriCorps; Roosevelt envisioned a system of social security at home and collective security abroad; Trump has undermined both.
Loss of FEMA program spells disaster for hundreds of communities and their projects
“This is a generational set of infrastructure projects that would set us up for the next hundred years and it just — poof — went away,” said Erin Burris, assistant town manager for Mount Pleasant, 25 miles east of Charlotte.
FEMA’s elimination this month of the BRIC program revoked upwards of $3.6 billion in funding earmarked for communities like Mount Pleasant. Though President Donald Trump has openly questioned whether to shutter FEMA completely, local officials said they were blindsided by the move to end BRIC, established during the Republican president’s first term.
Bureaucrats get a bad rap, but they deserve more credit − a sociologist of work explains why
…their tendency to act “in the interests of the welfare of those subjects over whom they rule.” Bureaucrats’ expertise and adherence to impersonal rules are meant to advance the common interest: for young and old, rural and urban dwellers alike, and many more.
Trump Insists His Dismal Polling Numbers Are ‘FAKE’ and the Economy Is Doing Great
President Donald Trump is deep in denial about his record-low approval ratings as he hits his first 100 days.
“The Polls from the Fake News are, like the News itself, FAKE!” he wrote late Monday night on Truth Social. “We are doing GREAT, better than ever before.”
The president accused ABC News correspondent Terry Moran of "not being very nice" during a heated exchange about whether a wrongfully deported Maryland father tattooed "MS-13" on his knuckles.
Trump Is Wrecking a US Competitive Advantage
Scientific research has given the US economy a notable edge. The Trump administration is reversing that competitive advantage by withholding research grants and gutting the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, Fareed argues. This is happening as China has emerged as a scientific rival of the US, one that already leads on key measures like its scientists’ quantity of publications in academic journals.
Inside the Fiasco at the National Security Council
The national security adviser seemed at a loss.
It fell to Michael Waltz to explain to handpicked members of his staff this month why the president had ordered their dismissal after a meeting with Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who rose to prominence by making incendiary anti-Muslim claims and who last year shared a video that labeled 9/11 an “inside job.”
The NSC was the first part of the federal workforce to be purged of expertise when Donald Trump returned to power in January. Two days into Trump’s second term, before agents of Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative arrived at federal agencies with orders to cull their ranks, the NSC performed its own amputation. That’s when the council’s new leaders banished dozens of career officials, telling them on a conference call to leave the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, located next to the West Wing. “I offered to bring my computer back, and they said, ‘No, you can’t come into the building,’” one official told me. “Everything about it was bizarre.”
…The disorder at the NSC, officials told me, stems from Trump’s impatience with process, disregard for the law, and insistence on loyalty in place of expertise.
The rapid remaking of a nation, in 100 days
Donald Trump's first 100 days have been an unprecedented display of unilateral power exercised by a modern American president. His efforts to dismantle large swaths of the federal government will take years, if not decades, for subsequent presidents to restore - if they so desire. In other ways, however, Trump's efforts so far may end up being less permanent. Without the support of new laws passed by Congress, many of his sweeping reforms could be wiped away by a future president. And so to what extent this whirlwind start leads to lasting change remains an open question.
Later this year, the narrow Republican majorities in Congress will attempt to provide the legislative backing for Trump's agenda, but their success is far from guaranteed. And in next year's mid-term congressional elections, those majorities could be replaced by hostile Democrats bent on investigating the administration and curtailing his authority. Meanwhile, more court battles loom - and while the US Supreme Court has a conservative tilt, its decisions on a number of key cases could ultimately cut against Trump's efforts. The first 100 days of Trump's second term have been a dramatic show of political force, but the next 1,361 will be the real test of whether he can carve an enduring legacy.
Republican-led states keep adding school voucher programs even as critics worry about cost
States are required to produce annual spending plans that don’t exceed what they bring in. With pandemic-era federal money mostly phased out, voucher opponents fear the programs will come at the expense of other priorities, including public schools.
“Even if they’re being funded by separate revenue sources, it can feel like school choice programs and public schools are competing for the same slice of an increasingly smaller pie.”
The president’s latest pardon: ‘Lady Trump’
President Donald Trump has pardoned a former Las Vegas City Council member and one-time Nevada gubernatorial candidate who was found guilty of fraud last year, the latest example of the president using his pardon power to reward allies.
How Europe is quietly stealing America’s scientists
As the Trump administration slashes billions in funding for research, conducts mass firings of federal employees, and cracks down on institutions of higher education, American pain is turning into European gain.
Across the EU, an effort is underway to capitalize on the U.S. brain drain, hoping to tap into the exodus of intellectual talent from universities and the federal government. European universities are courting top American scientists and researchers en masse with offers of “academic asylum.” The European Research Council has doubled the funding it offers researchers to move to the continent to €2 million ($2.3 million). A bloc of 12 EU nations are working together to fast-track visas, Horizon Europe grants, and relocation stipends in an effort to poach U.S. brainpower in accordance with their own strategic priorities.
Trump often casts himself as a man of the people. But as historians, we don’t see a garden of heroes as a populist effort. To us, it represents a top-down approach to U.S. history, akin to the hagiography that Americans already regularly get from movies, television and professional sports. And it comes at a cost: It’s going to be paid for with funds that had been previously allotted to tell stories about people and places that may be less familiar than the proposed figures for Trump’s garden. But they’re nonetheless meaningful to countless communities across the nation.
Sen. Chris Murphy’s ‘emergency’ message about Trump is connecting with Democratic voters
“We are doing the job that these Republican congressmen and senators won’t do,” Murphy told the hyped-up crowd of mostly older voters at the event, while acknowledging that Democrats need to do more to soothe their anxiety and counter President Donald Trump. “I want to make sure that everywhere, in every corner of this country, people are willing to stand up and fight.”
Trump orders Justice Department to investigate Democrats’ top fundraising platform
President Donald Trump has ordered the Justice Department to investigate the Democratic Party’s top fundraising platform, the latest example of Trump using the tools of the government to go after his political opponents. Trump, in an executive order signed Thursday, directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate allegations that Republicans have raised that ActBlue allows illegal campaign donations. Democrats, who had anticipated they would be targeted, condemned the move Thursday and ActBlue called it an “oppressive use of power” by the White House.
“The Trump Administration’s and GOP’s targeting of ActBlue is part of their brazen attack on democracy in America. Today’s escalation by the White House is blatantly unlawful and needs to be seen for what it is: Donald Trump’s latest front in his campaign to stamp out all political, electoral and ideological opposition,” ActBlue said in a statement.
Silencing “60 Minutes”: Why Its Producer Walked Away, and Why It Matters
It’s open season on the free press, and for those outlets owned by corporations, it may prove to be deadly. As Brian Lowry of The Wrap wrote, “60 Minutes found itself in a particularly awkward position, having drawn Trump’s ire at a time when the network’s parent company, Paramount Global, is seeking to ensure no roadblocks get thrown in the way of its pending merger with Skydance Media, amid ongoing regulatory review.” In other words, corporate greed won.
Finally, Someone Said It to Joe Rogan’s Face
Someone had been on Joe Rogan’s show and pointed out that getting your opinions entirely from stand-up comics, Bigfoot forums, and various men named Dave might not be the optimal method for acquiring knowledge. Rogan fans were appalled at this disrespect….The immense fallout from this mild back-and-forth demonstrates that nothing splinters a movement like victory. When the Roganverse could paddle in the safe waters of pronouns, Joe Biden jokes, and COVID conspiracy theories, everyone got along just fine. Life was easier for them when Donald Trump was merely the punkish challenger to the presidency. Now Trump is in the White House, the former upstart independents of the Roganverse are the new establishment, and their desire for power without responsibility is being challenged….Over the past few years, Rogan has invited on a horde of crackpots who see themselves as a lone Galileo standing up to Big Pharma or the “deep state.” Nevertheless, his reach, popularity, and patronage powers are so great that few guests want to challenge him.
Instead of making the eminently supportable accusation that the media and the scientific establishment both make mistakes from time to time, Rogan now disparages expertise as a concept.
Mike Johnson Admits Trump’s Presidency Is a ‘Roller Coaster’
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has conceded that President Trump’s first 100 days of his second term have been a “roller coaster.”
Website For MAGA-Friendly Businesses Backfires As People Use It For Boycotts
Fast-forward to February 2025, when Trump is back in the White House and destroying virtually everything he touches. He’s tanking the global economy. He’s hollowing out the federal government. It is not hyperbole to say he’s pushing American democracy to its breaking point….“MAGA has made it easy for all of us to avoid their businesses. A couple years ago, they introduced a website – publicsq.com — to promote MAGA businesses. We can use that same tool to make informed purchasing decisions.”
CNN Analyst Torches Trump’s Rally Claims: ‘Schoolchildren Could Fact-Check This’
“If anyone is surprised that he’s still lying about not only the election more than four years ago, but the election he won, as he did tonight, they haven’t been paying attention.”
What I am watching…
What I read every day…
