Oh fine. Now Elon Musk is proving that domestic terrorism works.
Elon Musk said yesterday that he will significantly cut back his commitment to DOGE beginning in May to focus more time and energy on Tesla, which this week reported a 71% drop in profits compared with the first quarter of 2024. In so doing, he immediately validated the illegal and unethical domestic terrorism campaign against him that has been wink-winked as valid by leading Democrats and Trump-haters.
By far, the most extreme, controversial and risky Cabinet appointment by President Trump (well, at least until Matt Gaetz dropped out) was the one that put Fox News personality Pete Hegseth in charge of the Defense Department. EA declared the nomination irresponsible at the time, and nothing that has transpired since has changed that assessment. Loyalty is wonderful, but competence is essential. Now NPR is reporting that “The White House has begun the process of looking for a new leader at the Pentagon to replace Pete Hegseth.” The source is a U.S. official “who was not authorized to speak publicly.”
The report makes sense, and if true, it is good and encouraging news. A competent leader recognizes mistakes and moves to fix them rather than digging in and compounding the adverse consequences. The fact that this particular blunder by Trump was throbbingly obvious from the outset doesn’t alter the fact that fixing it as soon as the need to do so becomes undeniable is still the responsible course of action.
The Defense Secretary, incredibly, is again being accused of sharing classified information in a Signal messaging app group chat, this one including his wife, brother, and lawyer. Hegseth reportedly used his personal smartphone while detailing minute-by-minute classified information about airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. This occurred March during the same period in which Hegseth shared similar details with top White House officials in a different Signal chat group that somehow included a virulently anti-Trump progressive journalist.
When baseball managers are in serious trouble during the season, the kiss of death is usually the dreaded “vote of confidence” from the team owner or general manager. This is essentially what President Trump gave Hegseth yesterday, saying, “He’s doing a great job — ask the Houthis how he’s doing!” Meanwhile, Hegseth is employing the Clinton Three-Step (“Deny, deny, deny”) and White House Paid Liar Karoline Leavitt is doing her job, posting on Twitter/X that President Trump “stands strongly” behind Hegseth.
Harvard’s president Alan Garber invaded my email yesterday with a “message to the Harvard Community,” of which, alas, I am a long-time member. It arrived on the same day that the University, with its almost 55 billion dollar endowment, announced that it was suing the government for having the audacity to withhold about 2 billion dollars in federal research grants. Here is Garber’s letter—-you can skim it or jump to the end: it is easily summarized as “How dare they?” …
It has long been the position of this website that only a cynical and contrary God could have contrived to put the United States of American in a position where a volatile, unpredictable and ethically flawed figure like Donald Trump is its only avenue of rescue from the anti-American and totalitarian aspirations of the modern Democratic Party. This means that for the next four years I, and anyone who is similarly perceptive, must exist in a state of continual dread. Will this President engage in a disastrous unforced error or definitive breach of leadership conduct that will result in such public revulsion that the Machiavellian Left can again get its metaphorical clutches around America’s throat? This keeps me up at night, and, to be blunt, anyone who doesn’t see this as a constant threat from which there is no relief until the 2028 election is living in a dream world.
Thus I was pleased and relieved to read Ryan Harkins’ Comment of the Day on my post expressing personal revulsion at President Trump’s self-indulgent and completely gratuitous Easter message, rotten Easter egg if there ever was one. Here’s Ryan…
The proper and necessary celebration of “The Shot Heard Round the World” and the Battles of Lexington and Concord is, for some strange reason—-I’m guessing apathy and incompetence—diffused and unfocused. Although April 19, 1775, was the momentous day, we haven’t agreed when it should honored, or even what the day should be called.
Only six states—Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Florida recognize Patriots Day, though Maine, being perverse, calls it “Patriot’s Day.” It is a legal holiday in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and North Dakota. In Florida and Wisconsin, it is recognized without being a state holiday. Massachusetts and Maine celebrate the day on the third Monday of April. The other states that observe the date celebrate on the 19th, when they should. Why Massachusetts and Maine (which was part of the Bay State when “The Shot” was fired), of all states, don’t use the historically correct date is bewildering. Wisconsin designates April 19 is a special observance day for schools, which are required to teach students about the events and key figures of Patriots’ Day. but the observance is moved to Friday, April 18, if April 19 is a Saturday and to Monday, April 20, if April 19 falls on a Sunday. Got that?
I cannot describe how sick I am of this phenomenon.
Here is the Conservative Brief’s report on the recent decision by a judge not to take further steps enforcing his order that the Trump White House cease discriminating against the Associated Press following its refusal to embrace the President’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. Headline: “Associated Press Loses Court Case To Regain Coveted White House Access.” But it didn’t “lose the case.” Still, the slanted analysis was reported as fact by the conservative news site PJ Media. Here’s the New York Times spin. [Let’s see if the Gift Link works this time…]. Headline: “Judge Rejects A.P.’s Challenge to New White House Press Policy, for Now.” For now. “The judge said that he needed more time to determine whether the new policy was discriminatory, but said that the elimination of rotating access for newswires was ‘facially neutral.’”
Here’s the Associated Press: “Judge won’t take further steps to enforce his order in AP case against Trump administration.” “U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, who handed the AP a victory last week in its efforts to end the ban, said it’s too soon to say that President Donald Trump is violating his order — as the AP suggests. ‘We are not at the point where we can make much of a determination one way or another,’ said McFadden, ruling from the bench. ‘I don’t intend to micromanage the White House.’”
Having read these three reports and a couple more, what seems to be the story is that the judge who said that the White House couldn’t punish the AP for which name it chooses to call the Gulf by banning it from White House functions (thanks to the White House announcing publicly that this was its motivation, making the ban a government infringement on free speech), the Associate Press could not insist that it has special privileges due to its once-justifiable status as long-time trustworthy news source, and could be placed in rotation with other news services instead of keeping a regular, permanent spot in the press pool.
The judge made clear what his conclusion was: that the proverbial jury is still out on whether the White House is engaging in viewpoint discrimination, which it may not do, or simply treating the AP like any other news service. However, he did reject the idea that because the AP has been anointed with special deference by past Presidents, the Trump White House is constitutionally obligated to continue them.
Especially since the AP now sucks. (But the judge didn’t say that.)
I know, I know…The Julie Principle.
Even so, as I said in brief summary of Rep. Mace’s uncivil and disrespecful treatment of a constituent who dared to imply criticism of her representational, “This doesn’t help.”
Once upon a time, Presidents chose their words carefully for their public pronouncements. I defy anyone to explain how the Truth Social rant above can accomplish anything positive. I place it in the same category as the Trump Hate outbursts by the likes of Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff or Jasmine Crockett, all of which are designed to inflame rather than to unite, except that a President should be held to higher standards than members of Congress.
The only question in my mind is whether exploiting the holiest of Christian holidays to barf out insults and declarations of personal pique is less revolting, more revolting, or about as revolting than President Biden’s use of the day last year to issue a pandering, celebratory proclamation about “Transgender Day of Visibility.” I score Trump’s message as worse, as in “more unethical,” because its language is, though typical of this President, still inappropriate for any resident of the White House. (Trump issued a similar message last Easter, but he wasn’t President them. That’s a material distinction, or should be.)
It is also, like Biden’s message, stupid and incompetent. Trump has a challenging agenda and a tough road ahead; his personal popularity is crucial to achieving that agenda, and there is no way these kinds of self-indulgent outbursts can do anything but alienate potential supporters.
This doesn’t help. The Speaker of the House needs to insist that his party members adhere to basic standards of dignity, civility and decorum both in the House and in public. Mace is a repeat offender. She’s an embarrassment to her party, her district, Congress and the nation. Behold….
Ethics verdict: the Representative is 100% in the wrong in this confrontation. To say Mace was looking for a fight is an understatement. There was nothing inappropriate or uncivil in this constituent’s demeanor or rhetoric. For Mace to immediately stereotype him because he appeared to be gay was obnoxious; for her to resort to crude language, especially in a public setting, is indefensible.
Finally, for Mace to post this incident as if it is something to be proud of is profoundly disturbing. She appears to be seeking cognitive dissonance points with homophobics.
What did this Democrat (if he indeed is a Democrat) say that marked him as “nuts”? He was being civil, and it was Mace who acted like she was angry at the man’s very existence.
I challenge anyone to offer a justification or excuse for her conduct. (Hint: There isn’t any.)
—-I would respect my various Facebook friends, including many lawyers, posting diatribes about President Trump’s deportation efforts “violating the rule of law” if they had ever, ever, evinced similar concerns about President Biden or whoever…) deliberately foiling U.S. immigration laws while allowing millions of illegal immigrants to breach our borders and scatter, often leaving violent crimes in their wake.
—-As a Greater Bostonian who was brought up in the shadows of Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, the Paul Revere House, Fanuel Hall, the Old North Church and other Meccas of the American Revolution (I must not omit the one such landmark in my home town of Arlington, the Jason Russell House, where Jason and several Menotomy Minute Men were shot to death on April 19 by the British while they were hiding in Jason’s closet), I’m going to save the Ethics Alarms celebrations of the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” and related events for Patriots Day, which is tomorrow.
Meanwhile…
1. Just to push Harvard further down the Cognitive Dissonance Scale where it belongs, I want to note that Cedric Lodge, manager of the morgue at Harvard Medical School from 2018 until March 2023, will plead guilty to stealing body parts that had been donated for research and selling them for thousands of dollars to non-medical personnel, aka ghouls, who collect them as trophies. Nice! He had been entrusted with handling cadavers that were part of the medical school’s Anatomical Gift Program and were supposed to be cremated after the research on them had been completed. Instead, Lodge “turned the morgue into a shopping emporium for brains, skin and other body parts, that were purchased by collectors.” Investigators say that he drove the stolen body parts to his home in New Hampshire.
2. Baseball Ethics alert! New York Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. was ejected from Thursday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays for arguing balls and strikes with home-plate umpire John Bacon. That’s an automatic ejection now. Immediately thereafter, the angry player referred to the incident on in a Twitter/ X post, writing, “Not even fucking close!!!!!” I can’t say he was wrong…
I wanted to start Easter (and Greek Easter: for once the calendars agree) morning off on a moral note, and Glenn Logan‘s ringing Comment of the Day on the revolting Axis admiration of murderer Luigi Mangione provides exactly that. Glenn was a prolific blogger himself, has been a regular commenter here from the beginning (2009) and I have recognized him here too seldom, probably because he is economical with his pronouncements.
Yesterday was pretty quiet around these parts with few comments, but, as Spencer Tracy says of the “meat” on Katherine Hepburn’s person in “Pat and Mike,” what there was “is cherce.”
Here is Glenn Logan’s COTD on the post, “What’s Going On Here?” Is This Incident Just A Single Teenage Idiot In Love Or Does It Have Larger Cultural Significance?
Ethics Alarms 