Events

Demonstrating one more time that the OAFPOTUS is all hat and no cattle, the White House announced that it will "postpone" the crippling and needless tariffs he had threatened to impose on our second-biggest trading partner in exchange for...something Mexico would have done anyway. Avocados will continue to flow north, and dollars will continue to flow south. Canada, meanwhile, has taken a more hardline position on the threat, which James Fallows calls "an international lesson in leadership." Perhaps...

Since I live in a dense urban environment and drive a plug-in hybrid, I can go a long time without buying gasoline. Last night, I broke down and put 35 liters of gas in the car, because I'm concerned the OAFPOTUS's tariffs against Canada will cause petrol prices to spike in the Midwest. In fairness, I only had 3 liters left, but still: I could have gone another month! I last filled up coming back from watching the eclipse on April 8th. So I did set a new personal record for time between refueling: 300...

Throughout all the bullshit the OAFPOTUS has spewed onto the nation in the past couple of weeks, Ezra Klein wants to remind you of something I have mentioned many times: he's a charlatan, and everything he does is a grift. Don't believe him: People largely learn of what the government is doing through the media — be it mainstream media or social media. If you overwhelm the media — if you give it too many places it needs to look, all at once, if you keep it moving from one thing to the next — no coherent...

We got a lot of outdoor time yesterday, and more than an average amount so far this morning. Yesterday we took a 5.5 km walk from downtown Elmhurst to the Prairie Path, with a sojourn at a big field where Cassie and her friend Kelsey found big sticks: Then this morning I had to get my butt down to the University of Chicago, so Cassie got to be a Big Dog on Campus for a bit: The forecast calls for 6°C today and 9°C tomorrow, so I imagine we will get a lot more walkies before the cold front comes in...

It's hard to see the OAFPOTUS's actions towards our two biggest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, as in the interests of the United States. So far, the White House hasn't actually issued a (probably unlawful) order imposing steep tariffs that would undo our free-trade agreements, but just the threat has caused a lot of damage already: As I wrote the other day, in the three decades since NAFTA went into effect, North American manufacturing has evolved into a highly integrated system whose products —...

Cassie didn't like how I came home late (8pm!) last night, but she forgave me. She really is the sweetest dog:

Wednesday night saw the worst air-transport crash in the US in 19 years. The National Transportation Safety Board won't have a preliminary report until at least March 1st, but that didn't stop the OAFPOTUS from blaming everyone he doesn't like for it: In the aftermath of the deadly collision between a jetliner and a Black Hawk helicopter at Reagan National Airport, Trump held an extraordinary news conference during which he speculated on the cause of the accident. At length, he attacked former...

I had a delightful 2-hour lunch with a friend I've not seen in a while, after a morning of non-stop meetings. I also updated a piece of software that gets deployed tomorrow. I've got about 20 minutes now to jot down all of the things I hope to read later today: An Army helicopter on a training flight collided with an American Airlines CRJ on approach to DCA last night, killing 64 people; the OAFPOTUS blamed black folk. (I'm not kidding, he really did.) Paul Rosensweig explains how the flurry of orders...

I had about a half-dozen meetings this morning, including one that dragooned me five minutes before another meeting that I had to preside over. The consolations were (a) I took most of them from home, so (b) I got to walk Cassie in sunny, March-like 6°C weather, and (c) when I finally got to the office my view looked like this: I've got two more meetings starting in half an hour before I can head back to my dog. I'll deal with all the OAFPOTUS's chaos tomorrow.

I reported earlier that our Once And Felonious President ordered a halt to all loans and grants, but oh my dog what he did is actually so much worse: As President Donald Trump’s temporary freeze on federal funding to state and local governments seeded disruption and panic throughout the country Tuesday, state officials reported that Medicaid funding in Illinois had shut down. Trump’s administration announced the pause in federal grants, loans and other financial assistance as they embarked on a sweeping...