The Daily Parker

Even though I put aside Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism for the moment because it was just too depressing, I do still think about the ongoing destruction of the United States from within.

Over the weekend I realized that one way the billionaire class have approached their accelerating theft of our collective wealth is to attack the base of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. By undermining the lowest two levels, physiological needs and safety needs, they render entire communities unable even to address the higher needs that the modern Democratic Party tends to worry about.

This makes it even more of an imperative for our party to present an actual plan for how we're going to make sure people have homes, food, health care, and physical security. This shouldn't be hard. Until we do, people won't have any space in their minds for long-term infrastructure project let alone social justice.

The Republican Party, in service of their billionaire donors, have bombed the US Government back to the 18th Century. We've go a lot of work to do before we can campaign on DEI or UBI. I don't for a second want us to stop doing those things; but FFS, we need to talk about much simpler issues until people feel secure enough to listen.

It's no accident that the most prosperous period in the most prosperous country in world history coincided with a strong middle class, highly progressive taxes, and strong labor unions. Only then did people have the mental energy to worry about civil rights for people they'd never meet. And the Republican Party has spent the last 70 years trying to prevent and then undo those gains.

Everything we're seeing is about corruption: taking money from us and giving it to billionaires instead of investing it in the country. It won't stop until we make it stop by winning back power and taxing the shit out of them.

Ninety years ago today, FDR signed Social Security into law:

In his public statement that day, FDR expressed concern for “young people [who] have come to wonder what would be their lot when they came to old age” as well as those who had employment but no job security. Although he acknowledged that “we can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life,” he hoped the act would prevent senior citizens from ending up impoverished.

Although it was initially created to combat unemployment, Social Security now functions primarily as a powerful safety net for retirees and the disabled, and provides death benefits to taxpayer dependents. The Social Security system has remained popular and relatively unchanged since 1935.

Alas, the Republican Party has wanted to end or privatize Social Security since, oh, 1935, and they're getting closer to doing so. (Just look what they did to schools in Texas.) It would be the biggest heist in history and it would risk the retirement security of millions of senior Americans. As I get closer to the age when I will start taking payments from the system, I really hope the thieves in the party opposite don't succeed.

The United States will spend a generation or longer in the "find out" phase after the OAFPOTUS began a trade war against our most powerful adversary while simultaneously crippling our ability to win it:

You can see it in the economic numbers: China’s economy grew by an average of 5.3 percent in the first half of the year, America’s by only 1.25 percent. You can see it, too, in Trump’s failure to wring significant concessions from Beijing. Though most countries have acquiesced to U.S. trade bullying, China has not. In April, Trump hiked U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 percent. China retaliated with 125 percent tariffs on U.S. goods. Then President Xi Jinping ramped up the pressure by restricting exports of rare earth metals to the United States, which threatens to halt production of cars, fighter jets and other products.

While conciliating Beijing, Trump has been alienating U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region with his capricious tariff threats. The latest to suffer is India, a key U.S. partner in confronting China. Trump announced Wednesday that he was hitting India with 25 percent tariffs, to be followed by additional sanctions to punish India for buying oil and gas from Russia. It makes sense to pressure India to reduce its economic relationship with Russia, but these blunderbuss tariffs threaten to undo decades of efforts by American administrations, including the first Trump administration, to draw India into the U.S. orbit. Now there are signs of a reconciliation between New Delhi and Beijing.

Trump’s attempts to close down Voice of America are another gift to Beijing. From Indonesia to Nigeria, Chinese state media is filling the vacuum left behind by VOA. Trump’s decision to walk away from the World Health Organization and UNESCO has also opened the door for China to increase its influence in those international organizations.

China’s Achilles’ heel has long been the fear it engenders with its aggressive behavior and lack of respect for other nations. Now, America is acting a lot like China and paying the price in global opinion.

Trump’s tariff hikes, budget cuts and immigration restrictions are weakening America and inadvertently strengthening its chief rival.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it strikes me that tanking the US economy would give billionaires and private equity the biggest gift in history and rapidly create an entirely rentier-driven, parasitic, stratified economy that, history tells us, would end in violence. So is that the end game? Or are these guys really that stupid? It's so hard to tell.

One thing, though: the more I hear about BYD cars, the more I want one. Unfortunately they're not for sale here—mainly because they're technologically superior to anything Tesla has, and a fraction of the cost. The free market doesn't apply when your friends need billions in profits.

So we'll protect Tesla and GM, while making it nearly impossible for either of them to build here because of the OAFPOTUS's asinine commodity taxes, making US consumers pay higher and higher prices for inferior products. Like I said: rentier economy.

Former Chicago Opera Theater artistic director Lidya Yankovskaya, with whom I have worked several times, has started moving to London because she doesn't want her children to grow up in the anti-humanities environment the United States is becoming:

“I want to be sure that my children can grow up feeling like they can always express themselves freely. I want my children to live in a society that really takes care of its people. I want my children to live in a world that really values things like the arts, that really values things like education,” she told WBEZ on a recent Zoom call from Sydney, where she has been leading Georges Bizet’s classic “Carmen” at the Sydney Opera House. “In London in particular, there is such a culture of valuing intellectualism, of valuing the arts and artistic pursuits for their own sake.”

As I'm no longer eligible for the kinds of highly-skilled migrant visas I could get 15 years ago from Europe and the UK, I am a bit envious. But I also understand her completely, and if I had kids, I might also make more of a concerted effort to go somewhere closer to my values.

Two more nuggets about the end of the United States as a functioning country:

• Perry Bacon argues that major institutions like CBS and Brown University have caved to the OAFPOTUS is that they kinda-sorta agree with him on a lot of things, like labor rights and DEI.
• The New York Times' chief economics correspondent, Ben Casselman, examines what happened to other regimes that meddled with their data-gathering institutions. But that's not surprising given the OAFPOTUS's continent-shattering ignorance of basic economics.

Well, that's enough optimism and cheer for one afternoon! Time to get back to my real job.

Dayrestan, Iran, sits on an island just inside the Strait of Hormuz directly across the Persian Gulf from the UAE. At 9:30 am local time Thursday, the airport weather station reported a temperature of 40°C with a dewpoint of 36°C, which makes a heat index of 83.2°C (181.8°F). AccuWeather says it was likely an instrument error, though the next station over, in Bandar Abbass, reported a temperature of 39°C with a 27°C dewpoint for a heat index of 52.3°C (126.1°F) at the same time—hardly an improvement. Bandar Abbass got up to 42°C with a 56.3°C (133.3°F) heat index later in the day, so I will not plan any summer vacations there in the near future. (Well, that and US citizens aren't allowed to visit Iran, but still.)

Elsewhere:

• Both Michael Tomasky and former Pro Publica president Richard Tofel argue that news outlets need to stop both-sidesing the OAFPOTUS and call him out on his lies more directly.
• Nobel-winning economist George Akerlof likens the OAFPOTUS's tantrum over the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report to a 5-year-old playing a board game.
• A group of Democratic legislators from Texas have decided to vacation in Chicago this week to deny Texas Republicans a quorum in the state's House of Representatives in an effort to stop the anti-democratic redistricting plan the OAFPOTUS wants them to pass.

Finally, one of the three endangered piping plovers that hatched at Montrose Beach six weeks ago got eaten by a hawk over the weekend. RIP Ferris.

With my PTO cap continuing to force me into Friday afternoons off this summer (the horror!), and the sunny but (smoky 23°C) weather, Cassie and I will head to the Horner Park DFA just as soon as I release a new version of Weather Now in just a few minutes.

When Cassie and I come back, I'll spend some time reading all these nuggets of existential dread:

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised last 3 months of US jobs data down to basically nil (which Krugman blames on tariffs), prompting the OAFPOTUS to fire BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer.
• Not only is the State Department's HR director a "RIF-happy, Christian evangelizing MAGA warrior with an axe to grind," he's also apparently kind of creepy.
• Former intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper "set the record straight on Russian and 2016."
• James Fallows once again calls on everyone to help protect our institutions.
• Yascha Mounk sees the rise of AI as akin to the Industrial Revolution.
• After more than a century of slow traffic through Wrigleyville, the CTA finally straightened out a section of the Red Line to cut travel times for everyone, which unfortunately means more noise.
• The impending merger between the Southern Pacific and Norfolk Southern railroads will have a huge impact on Chicago rail traffic—but no one yet knows whether it will be up or down.
• Molly White suggests using RSS readers instead of email lists to reduce the enshittification of news publications.
• Jeff Maurer, who spent several years writing for John Oliver as you may recall, wants to have a serious autopsy of late night television that includes all the uncomfortable topics.

By the way, the new Weather Now build allows users to create their own weather lists and share them with the world or keep them private. I've wanted to build this feature for a long time, finally starting work on it two weekends ago. Try it out and let me know what you think!

One of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded struck off the east coast of Russia last night, registering magnitude 8.8 according to the United States Geological Survey. So far there have been fewer casualty reports than one might expect, owing to the sparse population in the area. Governments around the Pacific basin issued tsunami warnings almost immediately, though they have since downgraded them.

In other stories:

• Jeff Maurer doesn't think the Epstein scandal will end the OAFPOTUS's regime, suggesting that "Trump is being so defensive that it’s tempting to think that there’s something incredibly damning in the files, but I have a simpler, highly plausible explanation: Trump is just a huge fucking idiot."
• Paul Krugman agrees on that last point, explaining in greater detail how the EU just played the OAFPOTUS like a three-dollar kazoo.
• Though I rarely agree with George Will, today in the Post he echoes some of my own annoyances at the laziness of too many writers. Reminder: there are no degrees of "unique."
• Writer and actor Patton Oswalt has a hilarious take on pretty songs that creep him out.

I'll close with a photo that explains why so few people died in such a large earthquake. This is what Kamchatka looks like (but it's actually a bit north of there):

Historian Timothy Ryback, writing in The Atlantic, takes us through a short history of a not-so-long-ago German Chancellor's war with his country's apolitical civil service:

A memorandum was circulated to all state civil servants demanding blind loyalty to the Hitler government. Anyone who did not feel they could support Hitler and his policies, [future war criminal Hermann] Göring added, should do the “honorable” thing and resign. The Berliner Morgenpost observed that Hitler was clearly working to “transform the state bureaucracy from the most senior positions down to the administrative levels to align with his political positions.”

Despite Hitler’s heavy-handed assault on the government bureaucracy, he could not touch [central bank president] Hans Luther. According to a 1924 law, the Reichsbank was independent of the elected government; the Reichsbank president served at the discretion of a 14-member board, which included seven international bankers and economists.

[In a meeting with Luther in March 1933,] Hitler acknowledged that, as chancellor, he did not have the legal power to remove Luther as central banker. But, he told Luther bluntly, as the new “boss” of the country, he had access to considerable alternative sources of power that he would not hesitate to employ “ruthlessly” against Luther “if the interest of the state demanded it.” The nature of Hitler’s threats was unmistakable. Luther—who had already been shot once before in protest of his monetary policies—did not need to be warned again.

One hopes the OAFPOTUS and his droogs don't resort to such things. This is the "farce" part of the "first as tragedy" proverb, however, so we might escape going full-on Fascist for the next three years. I hope.

The temperature at Inner Drive Technology World HQ has passed 32°C (with a 42°C heat index!) and it keeps going up. Welcome to the summer heat advisory season, with 30 million hectares of maize corn sweating to our west.

Speaking of an uncomfortable atmosphere, the OAFPOTUS and his droogs have had a bad couple of days, which they responded to by making everyone else's days bad as well.

First, on yesterday the US Court for the District of New Jersey declined to allow acting US Attorney Alina Habba (whom you may recall for her previous ethical difficulties) to take the post as a permanent appointment. Instead, the Court ordered her deputy, Desiree Leigh Grace, to step in as acting USA, as Grace has years of experience as a prosecutor and no obvious disqualifications. In response, US Attorney General Pam Bondi fired Grace:

Desiree Leigh Grace, Habba’s first assistant, was tapped by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to lead the office upon the expiration of Habba’s 120-day temporary term. But, Tuesday, Grace was “removed” from the post by the Justice Department (DOJ).

Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “politically minded judges refused to allow [Habba] to continue in her position.”

It's not clear how many acting US Attorneys the OAFPOTUS will have to appoint before the Court decides that one of them is competent enough to stick around more than 120 days. Meanwhile, the USA's office in New Jersey is in absolute shambles—which is a side-benefit for the OAFPOTUS and his cronies as many of them have property or offices in the state.

Also yesterday, the OAFPOTUS announced a "deal" with Japan that sets bilateral import taxes at 15%, compared with basically 0% before he started ripping up the global trading system. Paul Krugman patiently explains how this "deal" will make things so much worse than before:

As I and others have repeatedly pointed out, there’s some basic arithmetic linking international investment and the trade balance. A few technical details aside,

U.S. trade deficit = Net foreign investment in the United States

This isn’t a theory, it’s just accounting. So if the deal leads to more investment in the U.S., it must, necessarily, lead to a bigger trade deficit.

So why aren’t we seeing big increases in consumer prices yet? Basically because for the moment U.S. businesses are absorbing much of the cost rather than passing it on to consumers. They’ve been able to do that partly because many companies rushed to bring imports in before the tariffs hit, and are still selling out of that inventory. They’ve been willing to do that because they don’t want to alienate customers and lose market share, and have been hoping that the tariffs will mostly go away.

But if Japan still faces a 15 percent tariff after making a deal, that hope will soon fade. Winter Inflation is coming.

Update: Friends have been pointing out that this deal means that Japanese cars will pay 15 percent tariffs, while US car producers will still be paying 50 percent on imported steel. Not exactly a strategy to boost manufacturing. What were they thinking? They probably weren’t thinking.

Of course, the main point of all these tariffs is to further the massive theft of American wealth that is the point of the entire Republican project these days. As Krugman says, "We’re already well on the way toward an economy in which success in business depends not on how good your product is but on your political influence."

Just don't call them stupid. They wouldn't like it.

Leading off the news this afternoon, Black Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne died today at age 76. I am surprised he lasted this long, as he didn't exactly take care of himself over the years.

In other news:

• House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has stopped the legislative process of the United States rather than vote on releasing details of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with the OAFPOTUS.
• Adam Kinzinger details the quiet cruelty of the OAFPOTUS's droogs.
• Tom Nichols points out that the OAFPOTUS has no theory of governance beyond "anger, fear, and, most of all, pettiness."
• Maryland police officers got away with at least 36 murders thanks to former Maryland Chief Medical Examiner David Fowler's interference in the death classifications.
• CBS cancelled its top-rated talk show, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, in a sop to the OAFPOTUS ahead of a proposed merger involving CBS's parent company, Paramount. (Jeff Maurer has a more nuanced take on this.)
• Paul Krugman bemoans the "enshittification and the bitterness of billionaire bros."
• The Chicago Transit Authority restored the Red and Purple Lines to full capacity and re-opened the four Red Line stations closed in 2021 for the Red-Purple Modernization Project.

Finally, NOAA released its findings on the meteotsunami and seiche that rolled over Lake Superior on 21 June 2025. The storm surge and seiche rebound caused lake levels to change by 2.2 meters over the span of three hours in some places, making it the largest such event in recorded history.

Oh, and Cassie gets her cone off almost exactly 24 hours from now. Photos when it happens.