Week 79
By 
The shelf that Luca (orange tabby) is on has been a point of contention. Luca figured out that he can prevent Jose from jumping to it by spreading himself out in the landing area, which he is doing in this photo. Jose was in the ready position for some time while he scoped out the possibilities. Before this, both cats had a 100% record on making the jump. Jose finally took his chance, and landed next to Luca. After a short time, both cats deserted the shelf for other places to make trouble.
Another week with a lot of Groundhog Day vibes. Trump can’t give up his “Bomb bomb bomb Iran” because he doesn’t want a ground war and has nobody who can negotiate their way out of a paper bag. Besides, he doesn’t want to negotiate his loss. So here we are. So here we are. So here we are.
The problem, as ever, is that the Iranians fire back, and people, including US servicemenbers, are killed. Trump doesn’t like that either, so he tried to pull some legalisms this week to argue that it wasn’t his fault those last four died. That seems not to have been accepted.
Meanwhile, he offered, or maybe not, a nuclear program to Saudi Arabia, most likely without appropriate safeguarads, but we don’t know because, as usual, no document has been made public. In any case, he took it back the next day, after his Energy Secretary signed it. I don’t know how backsies works in that situation. More fodder for Groundhog Day.
And here’s how the Department of Energy is promoting itself these days.
Kevin Kruse built a record thread of invective responding to Stephen Miller’s claim that protesters against ICE are “deformed.” Others contributed too, but the credit is mainly Kevin’s.
The Silicon Valley boys sent one of their best to posture himself as today’s Vannevar Bush, but nobody is buying that. Silicon Valley wants ALL that sweet, sweet research money that has been going into foolishness like developing m-RNA vaccines for damn near everything, and drugs like the GLP-1s that started out as diabetes treatments, have moved on to weight loss, and may be useful for other disorders as well. None of that for you peasants!
It seems to me a poor idea to tie particular technologies like AI, quantum computing, and fission and fusion energy to one political party while ransacking the rest of science to fund them, but I guess those rich guys know what they’re doing, or they wouldn’t be rich. Right?
Trump’s DOJ subpoenaed the New York Times reporters who wrote about Air Grift 1’s inadequacies to serve the President and others traveling with him. Those subpoenas got slapped down this week, and the Times celebrated with an even longer article on the topic (gift link).
Things are beginning to come apart for Trump and the lampreys who hoped to accomplish destruction by hanging on to him. We’ve got a ways to go, and there will be more destruction – ICE continues to kidnap people – but I think things are turning.
Here’s where I think the political parties are headed, and The Editorial Board thread I’ve embedded has a lot of useful facts you should peruse.
Follow the court-watchers for the details of the lawsuits. Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker. I haven’t seen any of them write about the Hawaii decision.
Let’s stay away from hypotheticals, as usual. Post your pets.
129 more weeks to go. What are you doing?
Previous weeks: Week 10, Week 20, Week 30, Week 40, Week 50, Week 60, Week 70, Week 71, Week 72, Week 73, Week 74, Week 75, Week 13,044, Week 77, Week 78