SHE SHOULD PROBABLY JUST ORDER A TAX INCREASE WHILE SHE’S AT IT: Judge blocks White House funding cuts to NIH.
Archive for 2025
April 6, 2025
ROGER KIMBALL: Actions v. Words.
Donald Trump is different. He does what others say is impossible. Some commentator (I forget who) recently employed a quip attributed to Winston Churchill about Trump. Churchill is supposed to have said that U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was “the only bull I know who carries his china shop with him.” Apparently, Churchill did not say that. But it is a memorable image, and one can understand why someone would apply it to Donald Trump. He has been in office fewer than 100 days, yet look at the disruptions he has instigated. On his first day, he abolished all “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs throughout the federal government. He also forbade simply renaming those programs in order to carry on their racist, inequitable work by subterfuge. He insisted that universities jettison their coddling of racist and anti-Semitic policies as a condition for receiving federal money. As of this writing, hundreds of millions of dollars have been withheld from Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and other elite institutions for failing to abide by this directive. He tapped Elon Musk to help him identify and eliminate waste and fraud in the government. The revelations are stunning. It’s almost as if the U.S. government had evolved into a machine to serve politicians at the taxpayer’s expense.
This last week, Trump got around to one of the main things he campaigned on, his “favorite word,” tariffs. The stock market cratered, the establishment recoiled like a scrotum in icy water, and the acrid scent of panic was everywhere. I wrote about the tariffs the morning of what Trump called “Liberation Day” before the market opened. I expected market tumult but was taken aback by the ferocity of the market reaction.
Still, I continue to believe that we should give Trump’s strong medicine a chance to work. I think that the commentator Tanvi Ratner is correct: the tariffs “aren’t a trade tweak,” she wrote, “they’re the first move in a full-spectrum reset.” As the stock market declines, investors flee to treasury bonds, forcing the yield on those bonds lower. This year, almost $10 trillion will need to be refinanced. Every basis point that the yield declines translates into a billion-dollar annual savings in loan repayment. Thus, a 0.5% drop, she points out, would save $500 billion over a decade. As of this writing, the yield has declined about 0.7 points. That’s a lot of money saved.
Read the whole thing.
YOU GO, GIRL! Joan of Arc was non-binary, schoolchildren taught.
Joan of Arc was non-binary, secondary school pupils are being taught.
Lesson plans produced for English language students aged between 11 and 14 include the claim about the medieval figure, who is the patron saint of France and fought against the English during the Hundred Years’ War.
In the Who We Are anthology published by Collins, which is made up of “representative and inclusive contemporary texts”, a lesson plan includes a biography that reads: “Joan of Arc (1412-31) is today considered by some to have been non-binary.”
The knight cropped her hair in the male fashion and wore men’s clothes, which formed part of the heresy case against her for which she was burned at the stake in 1431.
But she never claimed not to be female and also did not adopt the non-binary gender identity, which only emerged in the late 20th century.
Robert Tombs, professor emeritus of French history at the University of Cambridge, branded the claim “insulting”.
“Joan of Arc fought as a woman and died as a woman,” he told The Telegraph. “To call her something else is insulting to her and indirectly to all women who are brave enough to risk their lives for their beliefs – as if women are incapable of heroism.”
Carolyn Brown, a retired psychologist now working with the Women’s Rights Network, said: “This is yet another ridiculous example of attempting to rewrite history and erase strong, rebellious female characters from our past.
As they say on Airstrip One, who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.
NOW IT CAN BE TOLD: The Opportunistic End of the Biden Cover-Up.
The people who told you there was nothing wrong with former President Biden are excited to discuss all the ways in which there was absolutely something wrong with former President Biden.
If these people had any capacity for shame, they’d be feeling it about now.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe last week…NBC News’s Jonathan Allen and The Hill’s Amie Parnes discussed their new book, which details the lengths to which the former president’s inner circle reportedly went to keep his deterioration a secret from voters.
Scarborough and his chirpy co-host, Mika Brzezinski, nodded along during the segment, as if they were mere spectators to the effort to hide the president’s condition and not themselves active participants.
“You know,” said Scarborough, “we always look back in retrospect and think things were a certain way, just because it’s the way the media, at the time, defined it.”
You said it, Joe! But you also said this, back in March of last year:
“I’ve said it for years now: he’s cogent,” said Scarborough on Wednesday. “But I undersold him when I said he was cogent. He’s far beyond cogent. In fact, I think he’s better than he’s ever been, intellectually, analytically, because he’s been around for 50 years. And, you know — I don’t know if people know this or not — Biden used to be a hothead. Sometimes that Irishman would getting in front of the reasoning. Sometimes he would say things he didn’t want to say.”
“Start your tape right now,” he continued, “because I’m about to tell you the truth. And eff you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second, and I’ve known him for years. The Brzezinskis have known him for 50 years. If it weren’t the truth, I wouldn’t say it.”
Joe Scarborough: “F you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever.”
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 6, 2024
The Obama and Biden administrations (but I repeat myself) would say anything to survive the current newscycle, knowing that their Democratic party operatives with bylines would never call them on their duplicity. I hope it was worth it for those party operatives to sacrifice whatever minimal amount of credibility they had left in their effort to drag the withered husk of Joe Biden over the finish line one last time.
UPDATE: Scott Jennings of CNN effectively calls the rest of CNN full-blown liars over their 2024 reportage:
"These books coming out, it can all be told now. I mean, I sat here all during the campaign and was assured Joe Biden was fine, Kamala Harris had the most organic-grassroots-driven campaign. The Democrats were unified. We had a campaign of joy and everything was hunky dory." pic.twitter.com/n53Z95gBbA
— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) April 5, 2025
HMMM: REVEALED: How Jeffrey Goldberg Got In the Signal Group Chat.
Authentication is a whole ‘nother problem in secure communications.
INEXPENSIVE GIFT FOR SKETCHERS: Mr. Pen- Metal Mechanical Pencil Set with Lead and Eraser Refills. #CommissionEarned
SO MANY OF THE WEALTHY FEAR AN END TO THE GRIFT:
🇺🇸ELITE PANIC: WHY BILLIONAIRE HEIRESS FEARS ELON'S ZERO-COST GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY
There's delicious irony in Rep. Sara Jacobs—granddaughter of Qualcomm billionaire Irwin Jacobs—filing legislation to "defund" a government efficiency initiative that costs taxpayers absolutely… https://t.co/puJkFTrSXM pic.twitter.com/WU4EkP6lKh
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 5, 2025
OLD PROGRAMMERS NEVER DIE: Notes From An Old Programmer.
Or at least I hope so. This is more technically oriented than The Stars Our Destination. Both of them welcome paid subscriptions, which feed my cat and me, but there’s no paid-only content.
CHANGE? OR CAMOUFLAGE? Indiana University removes DEI language from website.
MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Congress on Easy Mode: Get into gear, please.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Carhartt Men’s Relaxed Fit Heavyweight Short-Sleeve Pocket T-Shirt. #CommissionEarned
DESTINED FOR DEFEAT: Behind the Democratic Disaster of 2024.
QUESTION ASKED FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY: Has Sweden Found the Right Solution to the Coronavirus?
If the COVID-19 pandemic tails off in a few weeks, months before the alarmists claim it will, they will probably pivot immediately and pat themselves on the back for the brilliant social-distancing controls that they imposed on the world. They will claim that their heroic recommendations averted total calamity. Unfortunately, they will be wrong; and Sweden, which has done almost no mandated social distancing, will probably prove them wrong.
Lots of people are rushing to discredit Sweden’s approach, which relies more on calibrated precautions and isolating only the most vulnerable than on imposing a full lockdown. While gatherings of more than 50 people are prohibited and high schools and colleges are closed, Sweden has kept its borders open as well as its preschools, grade schools, bars, restaurants, parks, and shops.
President Trump has no use for Sweden’s nuanced approach. Last Wednesday, he smeared it in a spectacular fashion by saying he’d heard that Sweden “gave it a shot, and they saw things that were really frightening, and they went immediately to shutting down the country.” He and the public-health experts who told him this were wrong on both counts and would do better to question their approach. Johan Giesecke, Sweden’s former chief epidemiologist and now adviser to the Swedish Health Agency, says that other nations “have taken political, unconsidered actions” that are not justified by the facts.
In the rush to lock down nations and, as a result, crater their economies, no one has addressed this simple yet critical question: How do we know social-isolation controls actually work? And even if they do work for some infectious epidemics, do they work for COVID-19? And even if they work for this novel coronavirus, do they have to be implemented by a certain point in the epidemic? Or are they locking down the barn door after the horses are long gone?
Flash-forward to a year ago: How Sweden Proved the World Wrong About Lockdown:
Certainly, Sweden did not do everything right during the pandemic. The government itself admitted that in 2022, when it concluded its inquiry into the handling of the pandemic. However, Sweden did manage to succeed in a few key areas where other nations failed spectacularly. Notably, it did not panic during the crisis. It considered how its policies would impact society as a whole. It did not just focus on limiting cases of Covid. And it did not ignore the potential long-term effects of lockdown. Above all, it recognised that the pandemic policy of China’s authoritarian government should not have served as a guide for a liberal democracy.
Of course, our study isn’t perfect. We could never possibly cover every single health aspect or economic indicator. And yet our analysis does reveal some cold, hard facts about the real cost of lockdowns. The burden is now on the pro-lockdown camp to prove that their disastrous policies were worth it.
As John Tierney spotted here in August of 2023, “Sweden’s ‘Laissez Faire’ Pandemic Policies Paid Off. Sweden, which the media denounced in 2020 as a ‘pariah’ and a ‘cautionary tale’ because it stayed open and and told its citizens not to wear masks, has come through the pandemic with the lowest rate of excess mortality in Europe, as Johan Norberg shows in a Cato Institute report. All the more reason its public-health leaders deserve a Nobel Prize.”
Not surprisingly, John’s post was titled, “Why the Media Doesn’t Talk About Sweden Anymore.”
I GUESS IT’S TIME FOR RAINBOW STEW. Reader Bill Rudersdorf writes:
Somebody ought to remember the stanza from Merle Haggard:
“When a President goes through the White House door,
An’ does what he says he’ll do,
We’ll all be drinkin’ that free bubble up,
Eatin’ that rainbow stew.”
— Merle Haggard, 1981
April 5, 2025
OPEN THREAD: It’s that time again.
LET’S START WITH . . . ME! Golden Dome: who and what should it defend?
PIONEERING MUSICIAN’S DIARY REVEALS AN ADDICTION TO PHOTOSHOP:
As reported by Digital Camera World, [Brian] Eno’s diaries offer behind the scenes look into the thoughts and daily life of a musical genius. However, one note stuck out to many readers. It seems that Eno has an addiction. His vice may surprise, as Eno appears to be addicted to Photoshop.
Nearly a dozen diary entries detail Eno’s penchant for losing time by “fiddling” with Photoshop.
The entry for January 31, 1995, reads, “Too long playing with Photoshop — lethal time-waster — like chronic alcoholism. Should schedule it in the diary and not use it otherwise.”
Then on February 13, 1995, “Renata came to clean, but I’d already wrecked the morning by resorting to Photoshop.”
Several other entries give insight into his hobby of using Photoshop to alter the physiology of women.
The diary entry for January 2 muses, “created some novel [redacted] in Photoshop — modifying back views of women to expand their bottoms to Cosmic proportions, creating she-males by collage. Strange that one remains gripped by the same fantasies throughout life.”
Sir Mix-a-Lot could not be reached for comment!
Related: Eno’s late ’70s speech, “The Studio As Compositional Tool,” transcribed by Downbeat for their July and August 1983 issues, and the gateway drug for many home music recording enthusiasts in the 1980s.
GREAT MOMENTS IN ASTROTURF:
These protests today are not organic. All 1300 of them have been preplanned by the same six Democrat led and funded NGOs. The resistance is made up of a professional agitator class, whose only purpose is to engage in destabilizing and Marxist revolutions. That is what they learn…
— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) April 5, 2025
WHEN BOTH SIDES SEE IT PAYS: Here’s When Canada Will Cave on Trump’s Tariffs.
IT’S NOT REALLY ALL THAT SECRET: Reading the Sky: The Secret Science Behind Cloud Shapes and Weather Prediction.
HOLLYWOOD IN TOTO: September 5 Draws Powerful Distinction Between Good and Evil.
The politics of such a terrorist attack also gum up the situation. Given that the Munich Olympics were happening in Germany just 27 years after the Holocaust, there is a palpable pressure for the German government to show it has reformed.
Officials want to protect the Israeli athletes at all costs, but its police and military are inexperienced and neutered, hiding important details from the public. When the pressure gets too hot, their first response is to shut down the broadcasts.
“September 5” certainly isn’t a deep cut against the Fourth Estate. If anything, it’s meant to lionize it. Given its unique perspective, though, and the insane history in play, it captures many of the fascinating tensions that exist within journalism.
ABC’s voyeuristic viewpoint, inexperienced journalists and reliance on press releases from the state mean that it is doomed to misreport important details that can get people killed. They want to make a difference, but their success can only be bittersweet.
Their best efforts make them, at best, documenters of man’s inhumanity.
Not surprisingly, the film’s approach to the underlying issue of Israel vs. Palestine is mostly to sideline it. There isn’t much reflecting on the morality of the conflict.
It’s currently streaming on Paramount+ and highly recommended. Or as I wrote last month: September 5: Chilling Recreation of the First Live TV Broadcast of Terrorism.
“I’M EMOTIONALLY PREGNANT WITH SECONDHAND EMBARRASSMENT.”
@gettothepointbro I AM VERY CONFUSED HONESTLY