Eric The Blue

Reaping the whirlwind

Trump 2.0’s motto could be “move fast and break things,” which seems apt: it’s the motto of lots of other robbers, too. One risk, that of thoughtlessness, generally applies only  to those capable of the power of thought, but it does appear that Team Trump is sometimes paying a price for moving too fast. From a Feb. 21 NPR story:

Last week wrought days of chaos at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a civilian agency within the Department of Energy that oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

After being told that they would not get an exemption for national security purposes, officials were given hours to fire more than 100 employees. Workers were abruptly shut out of their government email accounts and told to clear out their desks on the spot. . . .

Those who were fired spent Friday worrying about what to do next. “That mental game was horrible,” says one NNSA employee who received a termination notice.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers were incensed by the firings, given the sensitive nature of the agency’s work, which includes making safety and security upgrades to nuclear warheads, overseeing emergency response plans at nuclear storage facilities and trying to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons-grade plutonium and uranium. 

Behind the scenes, pressure built on Energy Secretary Chris Wright to reverse the terminations. By Saturday, many employees were rehired, without explanation.

”I think they were, like, ‘Oopsie, let’s just say you didn’t work Friday,’” said another NNSA employee who watched the firing process unfold.

Meanwhile, the military’s new transgender ban is being challenged in court, and the judge appears unimpressed with the government’s argument:

“[President Trump’s executive order] calls an entire category of people dishonest, dishonorable, undisciplined, immodest, who lack integrity,” [Judge] Reyes said. “People who have taken an oath to defend this country. People who have been under fire. People who have received medals for taking fire for this country. I want to know from the government, does that express animus?”

”I don’t have an answer, your honor,” Jason Lynch, an attorney with the DOJ’s Federal Programs Branch, said. . . .

Over more than five hours, Reyes pressed Lynch to provide any data or analysis Trump relied on in making his decision or any expert opinions about the effects of transgender service members on military readiness. Over and over again, Lynch was forced to say he had no answers to give.

“I’m really loathe to speculate what the president had in mind when he signed this order,” Lynch said.

“It’s not like I randomly picked you off the street. You’re the government’s representative here,” Reyes said.

The energy department employees were fired by mistake, then rehired, at least the ones who could be found. Great place to work! Transgender service members are also out although, as the judge’s questions revealed, the administration has yet to work up any reasons that can be articulated in court. I feel kind of sorry for Mr. Lynch, the lawyer in the transgender lawsuit: you can look like a dope while representing one.

People are afraid of Trump, because he has power and is a vindictive a-hole. But he’s also an incompetent idiot. He gives more proof, as it were casually, every day. Was this yesterday, or the day before?

Trump: "I did ask Elon because he knows more about computers than anybody I know. I said, what do you think of the voting system? He said, computers are not meant for voting. It's too many transactions taking place too quickly." pic.twitter.com/9h9LXxDQZ5

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 21, 2025

Yes, as everyone knows, computers can’t cope with “too many transactions taking place too quickly.” Lol, what a moron.

YouTube has me pegged

Once you’ve listened enough for YouTube to figure out what you like, it makes music “mixes” for you, and damn if they don’t have me pegged. The problem is the ads between songs. You can skip them after a few seconds, but sometimes you’re not hovering over your device, maybe you’re hovering over a drink instead, and are thus disinclined to rise and take a few steps. So you hear the whole ad. Medical quackery is the recurring theme. I think they might also have figured out that I’m an old man, because coming in first place for product frequency is “natural remedies” for ED. These typically feature testimonials from a woman, buxom and thirtyish, concerning what happened when she hooked up with a 60-something man who is willing to share his “secret” for the endlessly fun rompings that she describes.

Arguably less plausible is an ad claiming that, for Christians, the cure for neuropathy in the feet is hidden in plain sight within the Gospel According to St. John. When it ended, I took two sips and considered that it was probably impossible to imagine a mental world farther from mine than the one inhabited by someone who would credit such a come-on.

On the upside, I discover stuff I love. Didn’t “The Mike Douglas Show” air at around 3 p.m. on weekdays, target audience people like, say, my mom, who had done the laundry, dusted and vacuumed and was now returned home from the grocery store? I doubt that people who watch whatever the present-day equivalent is ever see anything like this—the Patti Smith Group performing “Free Money” for Mike Douglas viewers in 1977:

 

 

Trump &c cave to Putin before Putin even asks

A clip of our defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s statement on the war in Ukraine is embedded within this AP story. He says it would be “unrealistic” for Ukraine to join NATO and, in another tip of the hat to what realism requires, adds that Kyiv must give up hope of retaining territory annexed by Russia. When our European allies objected that the US was unilaterally ceding to Russia everything it wants before negotiations even begin, Hegseth walked back what he’d said. But it’s like when an objection is sustained in court: too late, the jury heard it. Hegseth’s remarks are an instance of what journalist Michael Kinsley called a Washington gaffe, defined roughly as screwing up by revealing your actual beliefs and intentions.

Our allies’ mistake was to assume that we’re still on Ukraine’s side. Trump himself dispelled any question on this point when, answering questions in the Oval Office, he appeared flummoxed when asked whether Ukraine would be “an equal partner” in negotiations about ending the war. “That’s an interesting question,” he managed to stammer, before saying it was a war “they should never have gotten into.”  You can see the exchange here.

What a demented response! For one thing, he blames the guy who was sucker punched for getting into a fight. And to call the question “interesting” indicates there is much to be said on every side of it. Maybe Ukraine should have a say in negotiations about its fate. But then again, maybe it shouldn’t. Since Trump appears poised to give Putin what he wants in talks between just Moscow and Washington, the question wasn’t “interesting”—it was an obvious and entirely predictable one.

In his only debate with Kamala Harris, Trump boasted that he’d end the war on his first day in office. Harris retorted that this was a promise he might keep, considering that it would be quick and easy to sell out Ukraine. But it turns out that Trump couldn’t do it in a day. More like three weeks.

Timberwolves fall, commentators comment

Chuckling while washing up some supper dishes . . . because the Timberwolves are on TV in the next room, and I can hear my roommates' commentary:

Younger one: C'mon! Just dribble up to the rim, then stuff it in!

Older one: It's not as easy as you make it sound. 

Younger one: Whaddya mean? Do you not see what happens when the other team has the ball?

[Older one laughs. Then the sound of a foot landing hard on the ottoman.]

Footnote: In tonight's game, the Timberwolves made two baskets in the first quarter, the second a buzzer-beater, and lost the game by 20 points. Their single-digit deficits came to an end soon as the score was 10-0. 

For selfish reasons, I don't make either one of them dry. 

 

The 51st state

I’m not going to comment on every bit of bullshit with which the Trump Administration is “flooding the zone” (not that this would even be possible with two kids, a part-time job, and a pretty serious NBA addiction), but I do find myself wondering whether Gross Orange Blob has considered the electoral consequences of annexing Canada, a country with the population of California, as the 51st state—or, as I think he has put it, “OUR 51st State.” The political culture of our northerly neighbor is somewhat to the left of what prevails in our benighted land, and Canadians’ distaste for MAGA would not be diminished by whatever coercive techniques are involved in ushering them into our union. Thus 50-plus more electoral votes for the Blues, and an additional 50 or so congressional districts tilting mainly toward the Dems. (Actually, the Reapportionment Act of 1929 sets the size of the House at 435 seats, so the effect of bringing in Canada would be to take seats away from the current states in order to give them to present-day Canadians.)

What about the Senate? My first thought was that the Democrats could expect to get two more seats. But how plausible would it be for Canada to enter as a single state stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward to above the Arctic Circle? If there’s a North and South Dakota, it seems there should be, at the least, an East, Central, and West Canada. It might be more natural for the separate Provinces to enter as states, and in that scenario the GOP could probably kiss the Senate good-bye into the foreseeable future. (Plus, winning the electoral college would become for them an even heavier lift.)

Democrats, citing the undemocratic essence of the Senate, have occasionally murmured about statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Republicans scoff at such a “naked power grab”—equal representation for Americans, ridiculous!—but Trump, unprompted, has put on the table a prospect considerably more in the Dems’ interest than statehood for two comparatively small unrepresented constituencies would be. The population of Canada is roughly ten times that of D.C. and P.R. combined.

Perhaps such considerations would make Trump realize that he doesn’t want Canada as a 51st state—rather, as another D.C. or P.R., without full representation or voting rights. But the aforementioned “coercive techniques” are then going to have to be somewhat more coercive, and he promised during the campaign “no more foreign entanglements” (which is why he also wants to annex Greenland, wrest away from Panama the Panama Canal, and convert Gaza into a Riviera East administered by the US, though we might subcontract to Israel the necessity of vanishing the Gazans).

Or maybe all the above is a giant distraction that diverts our attention from the fact that Elon Musk has apparently purchased our government for just $275 million. 

Only thought I was “living the life”

Shit, thought there might be as many as a dozen.

More baseball math

Teaching kids lessons about converting fractions to decimals, and vice versa, I realize that at the same age nerdy me was way ahead of them, mainly on account of my interest in baseball stats and how to calculate them. Not every fifth grader is carrying around in his head the knowledge that, to the nearest thousandth, one-seventh is equal to 0.143.

Though you have a better chance if you’re not a very good hitter.