The Daily Parker

I just finished 3½ hours of nonstop meetings that people crammed into my calendar because I have this afternoon blocked off as "Summer Hours PTO." Within a few minutes of finishing my last meeting, I rebooted my laptop (so it would get updated), closed the lid, and...looked at a growing pile of news stories that I couldn't avoid:

• Dan Rather calls tomorrow's planned Soviet-style military parade through DC a charade: "The military’s biggest cheerleader (at least today) didn’t serve in Vietnam because of 'bone spurs' and has repeatedly vilified our troops, calling them 'suckers and losers,'", Rather reminds us. "But when service members are needed for a photo op or to prop up flagging poll numbers, all is forgiven, apparently."
• Anne Applebaum reminds us of the history of revolutions, and what happens when the revolutionaries get frustrated that the masses don't agree with them (hint: ask Mao or the Bolsheviks.) "The logic of revolution often traps revolutionaries: They start out thinking that the task will be swift and easy. The people will support them. Their cause is just. But as their project falters, their vision narrows. At each obstacle, after each catastrophe, the turn to violence becomes that much swifter, the harsh decisions that much easier."
• James Fallows praises California governor Gavin Newsom (D) as "the adult in the room" for his response to the OAFPOTUS federalizing the California National Guard.
• Andrew Sullivan draws a straight line between the OAFPOTUS's behavior and an archetypical colonial-era caudillo.
• Timothy Noah, who may have his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, wonders aloud if the OAFPOTUS's incompetence relates somehow to his obsession with weight? (tl;dr: Narcissistic projection.)
• US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) agrees with the OAFPOTUS on only one thing she can think of: the need to abolish the debt ceiling. (I also agree!)
• The US House of Representatives voted 214-212 yesterday to claw back $1.1 billion in funding for public broadcasting, which particularly imperils NPR stations in Republican districts.
• Slate looks into signs that exurban areas may finally be slowing down their car-centric sprawl as the economics of maintaining all that barely-used infrastructure finally take hold.

Finally, Politico describes the absolute cluster of the Chicago Public Schools refusing to close nearly-empty buildings that, in some cases, cost $93,000 per student to keep open. But don't worry, mayor Brandon Johnson, a former Chicago Teachers Union president and now the least-popular mayor in city history, is on the case!

Comrade OAFPOTUS! (h/t Paul Krugman)

The music legend has died at 82. Barenaked Ladies popped into my mind when I read the story.

Meanwhile, I've got a meeting in 10 minutes, so let me also add just small note how the OAFPOTUS has affected Chicago. A friend of mine works for Northwestern University, and she is pissed off:

In a message to the Northwestern community, the school’s leadership said the new measures would include a faculty and staff hiring freeze, reductions in academic budgets, and a “0% merit pool with no bonuses in lieu of merit increases,” among other actions.

“Like a number of our peer universities, we have now reached a moment when the University must take a series of cost-cutting measures designed to ensure our institution’s fiscal stability now and into an uncertain future. These are not decisions we come to lightly. The challenges we face are many, some of which have been building for some time and some of which are new,” the message said.

Other cost-cutting measures include modifications to the health insurance program and additional non-personnel budget reductions. The school said more information on each of the actions would be coming in the days and weeks ahead.

I'd also point out my agreement with Josh Marshall on how states like Illinois and California, by being net contributors to the Federal budget, are essentially funding the war on themselves.

We've got 19 more months of this shit, folks.

Really, this post is just a list of links, but I'm going to start with Dan Rather's latest Stack:

• US Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) started her 2026 re-election campaign last week by telling constituents not to worry about the proposed $880 billion cuts to Medicaid because "we are all going to die."
• Writer Andy Craig takes a look at the destruction the OAFPOTUS and his droogs have caused, and tries to find a path back to a constitutional republic. "Whatever eventually replaces this crisis-ridden government will result in a new constitutional settlement, not a simple revival of what came before. We will find ourselves engaged in a kind of constitution-making arguably not seen since Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War."
• Paul Krugman looks at what professional money people are doing, and thus what they're predicting, and warns that the TACO trade is misguided, because the OAFPOTUS really has no off-ramp for his tariff obsession: "[T]he nonsensical nature of the whole enterprise is why I don’t think he’ll find an off-ramp. After all, it’s obvious that the increased steel tariff wasn’t a considered policy, it was a temper tantrum after the Court of International Trade ruled against his other tariffs. ... If you want to know where this is going, keep your eyes on the bond and currency markets, where cool-headed traders realize that U.S. policy is still being dictated by the whims of a mad king."
• Evan Osnos smacks his forehead at the unprecedented scale and reach of said mad king's plundering of the United States.
• Max Boot points to the OAFPOTUS's assault on science and education as "the suicide of a superpower."
• Jen Rubin believes the Republican Party has "no good options on the budget," thanks to a Democratic Party in array.
• The Clown Prince of X likes to excuse his sociopathy, cruelty, immaturity, and incompetence by claiming he's "Aspie." (He isn't. He's just a rich asshole.)
• Josh Marshall relays the story about the mess (literal and figurative) that the United States Institute of Peace faced when they got back into their offices after its illegal DOGE takeover in March.

Finally, Streetsblog Chicago's Harjas Sandhu shakes his fist at the seeming inability of the Chicago Transit Authority to find competent leadership. At least it's not currently run by a not-too-bright reality TV star. (And I don't mean the OAFPOTUS.)

On some days, I have more meetings than others. Today was a more extreme example, with meetings for 6 of the 8½ hours I put in. Somehow I also managed to read some documentation and get some other things accomplished. I also can't say that any of the meetings was a waste of time, either. Welcome back to management.

Unfortunately, that meant I could only put these stories in a queue so I can read them now:

• William Finnegan wonders if he or Homeland Security Secretary Kristi "Dead Puppies" Noem is brain-damaged.
• Chicago's animal shelters report a surge in surrenders as people discover pets cost a lot of money (I'm looking at you, Cassie).
• Does it make sense for the CDC to recommend that healthy children and pregnant women not get a covid booster? Yes, with some pretty big caveats, and a reminder that corruption and incompetence make it really hard to trust what comes out of the executive branch these days.
• With only a couple of days left until the Illinois legislature lets public transit in Chicago fall off a cliff, a bill is slouching towards the governor's desk to reorganize our multiple transit agencies into one big one.

OK, Cassie is sitting next to me and staring into my eyes with an intense "feed me" vibe, so off I go. I really hope I have fewer meetings tomorrow.

Today's theme—in fact, almost every day's theme on the Daily Parker lately—is a group doing one thing that freaks everyone out to distract from the other thing that they really want to do. For instance:

• In the middle of passing the biggest wealth transfer from the poor to the rich in American history, Republicans are lying about the plight of the working class being all Obama's fault. Because of course they are, and of course it isn't.
• Even though the OAFPOTUS is attacking Harvard to take attention away from the biggest wealth transfer from the poor to the rich in American history, the assault on the country's oldest university is "an astonishing act of national self-sabotage," writes Yascha Mounk.
• Michelle Singletary explains how the "no tax on tips" provision in the bill proposing the biggest wealth transfer from the poor to the rich in American history will function to make the lives of lower-wage employees worse, while enriching gig companies like Uber at their expense. For example, if it becomes law, Uber will immediately move their workers to a tip-only structure and lower ride costs, simultaneously taking a bigger chunk of the ride revenue for the company while lowering the amount that riders tip. Sucks to be an Uber driver if that happens. (Even more than it does already.)
• ProPublica explains the nonsense coming out of the administration about "invasion," and why Stephen Miller is spending so much energy on this fringe legal theory, even as Congress is passing the biggest wealth transfer from the poor to the rich in American history.

Did I mention that the House voted at 1am yesterday to impoverish more Americans and create more billionaires with their money than has ever happened in the United States?

Keep this in mind when you vote in 18 months and for the rest of your lives: The unprecedented—and I'm including Harding and Reagan here—corruption and outright theft of your money that the Republican Party are perpetrating on the United States is the culmination of a 60-year program that started when Ronald Reagan was Governor of California. They have been working on this since 1964. I am not exaggerating. So the next time a Republican tells you they have a plan to help the working class or to bring "good jobs" back or whatever lie they're telling you, remember how they have used the power voters have given them.

And if you're a MAGA Republican, take a good hard look at what they're doing to you, even while you're cheering the cruelty they're inflicting on everyone you hate.

First, there is no update on Cassie. She had a quick consult today, but they didn't schedule the actual diagnostics that she needs, so we'll go back first thing Tuesday. She does have a small mast cell tumor on her head, but the location makes her oncologist optimistic for treatment. I'll post again next week after the results come back from her spleen and lymph node aspirations.

Meanwhile, in the real world, things lurch forward and backward as the OAFPOTUS's political trajectory slides by millimeters towards Buchanan levels of popularity and effectiveness:

• Jen Rubin sounds yet another alarm, pointing out that charging your political opponents with bullshit crimes makes you a fascist.
• In a fragile but important win for the First Amendment, Justice Amy Coney Barrett (R) recused herself from two Oklahoma cases, which allowed the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision barring publicly-funded religious schools to stand. (Because the per curiam order was unsigned, it's not clear who cast the 4th vote to affirm; my money's on Chief Justice Roberts (R).)
• Nicholas Kristof suggests three ways that we can undermine the OAFPOTUS's autocratic project.
• The Chicago City Council agreed to $87.9 million more in settlements stemming from police brutality over the years, while the police union does nothing to prevent it.
• A bill working its way through the Illinois legislature would require companies to provide an itemized list of fees before a purchase in an attempt to curb "junk fees."

I took half a day off of work because I didn't know how long Cassie's appointment would take, so after my 4pm meeting I will sod off for the rest of the day. There will be much walkies and much patting of the dog starting around 4:30.

The American Revolutionary War began 250 years ago today when Capt John Parker's Minutemen engaged a force of 700 British soldiers on the town green in Lexington, Mass. Just over a year later, England's North American colonies declared their independence from King George III with a document that you really ought to read again with particular focus on the King's acts that drove the colonists to break away. It was almost as if they believed having a temperamental monarch with worsening mental-health problems was a sub-optimal political situation.

Today is also the 30th anniversary of Timothy McVeigh's mass killing of Federal employees and their children in Oklahoma City. Any similarities between McVeigh's and the OAFPOTUS's politics are, I'm sure, coincidental.

• Dana Milbank staggers at the self-inflicted failures that have made this the most destructive first 100 days in presidential history—with 11 days to go, yet!
• Andrew Sullivan takes us through the history of El Salvador dictator Nayib Bukele's rise to power, which of course the OAFPOTUS wants to emulate.
• Molly White outlines how blatant self-dealing combined with firing all the regulators has launched a staggering cryptocurrency grift to enrich the OAFPOTUS and his family. Former SEC Office of Internet Enforcement chief John Reed Stark concurs.
• Administration officials now claim that their letter demanding Harvard University install party cadres in every department was "unauthorized," and reminded everyone not to pay attention to the little man behind the curtain. Regardless, Jennifer Rubin cheers Harvard on.
• Jeff Maurer struggles with getting to the appropriate level of vitriol against the extremists in our party who don't seem to get that we have to win elections before they can get anything close to what they want.

As for me, and the gap in posting yesterday: I have a cold which seems entirely contained in my eyes and sinuses, so I didn't really feel creative. (Not that today's post is creative either, of course.) Somehow I got 9½ hours of sleep last night, according to my Garmin device, though I distinctly remember getting up to close windows when the temperature plummeted from 16°C to 9°C in less than an hour. And when the thunderstorms came through. And when Cassie poked me in the head. Both times.

It feels like the cold has mostly gone away, though. And with tomorrow's rainy forecast, it looks like I might get some writing done this weekend.

Before I go through the stories from the last day about how we live in the stupidest timeline, here's a photo of the Milwaukee Intermodal Station I snapped heading to my return train on Friday:

Elsewhere in the stupidest timeline, where maximizing corruption is the defining goal of the Republican Party:

• James Fallows takes us through Harvard's big "fuck you" to the OAFPOTUS's demands that the university install minders in its HR and academic departments, as does Josh Marshall.
• Jennifer Rubin reminds everyone that a functioning center-left party opposing a rogue authoritarian party does not constitute "polarization."
• A memo from the Office of Management and Budget outlines the OAFPOTUS's plans to gut climate and weather research, bringing a fresh new anti-intellectual, anti-science mission to NOAA.
• Paul Krugman outlines how cuts to the IRS will enable the rich to steal even more from everyone else.
• A whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board says the DOGE children have enabled Russian hackers to gain access to NLRB data.
• Coders using large language models to write code have given attackers an enormous opportunity to introduce malicious code into your favorite apps through supply-chain attacks.

Finally, take a few minutes to read Chuck Marohn's Strong Towns series on how municipalities in the US and Canada routinely hide (or simply don't know) their long-term obligations so as to make building new infrastructure look like a better financial strategy than repairing existing infrastructure. I can tell you that you get no better view of the shitty state of American roads than riding a Divvy down almost any Chicago street, because Americans seem allergic to maintenance spending.

I know we need to put the fire out in Washington before we can fix anything else. But the long-term damage the OAFPOTUS continues to inflict on us will include more failing roads, bridges, and trains. So if you voted for him, you voted for the US becoming a third-world country in our lifetime.

The markets started slightly up this morning, but whatever optimism traders had before noon has evaporated. Both the S&P and DJIA are technically up, but less than 0.5%, while the OAFPOTUS continues to act like the demented old man he is.

And to think, Twin Peaks turned 35 today.

Meanwhile...

• The Biden Treasury official who co-wrote the research the OAFPOTUS cited to justify his malignantly stupid tariffs explains how malignantly stupid the OAFPOTUS is.
• Catherine Rampell waits in vain for the little boy to tell the OAFPOTUS he has no clothes.
• Michelle Goldberg finds it fascinating that so many people on the political right continue to have delusions about the OAFPOTUS.
• Paul Krugman returns the focus to the Health & Human Services Department under Robert F Kennedy, Jr., the head of the Quack-Industrial Complex.
• Jeff Maurer equates the OAFPOTUS with Toonces the Driving Cat. (Work with me, here.)
• Former Treasury Secretary and Harvard University president Larry Summers argues that universities need to stand up to the OAFPOTUS and his anti-intellectual flunkies.
• Cranky Flyer wants to watch what the airlines do in Chicago as an economic downturn looms.

Finally, SMBC inadvertently explains the Republican Party's entire educational policy, complete with a joke I've made for years: if I ever win the lottery, I'll set up a math scholarship for areas that sell the most lottery tickets.

Stuff to read:

• Forgetting (or just plain ignorant) that we have a Coast Guard better suited to the task of guarding our coasts, the OAFPOTUS has ordered the guided missile destroyer USS Gravely to the Texas-Mexico border.
• The OAFPOTUS and the Clown Prince of X, apparently not seeing the connection between weather forecasters and weather forecasts, have illegally fired 10% of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff just as a violent tornado outbreak killed 40 people in the Midwest and South.
• The administration's attacks on universities fit the Orban plan of creating a failed democracy, so naturally the OAFPOTUS has doubled down on them.
• Krugman points out that all of the above administration malfeasance has had a depressing effect on the US economy by reducing demand for our key exports, not least of which includes the $50 billion foreigners used to spend to get American educations. (He also has a good, long explanation of how inflation works, if you subscribe.)
• Surprising no one but still an illegally-targeted exercise of Federal power, the Federal Communications Commission has demanded to see the contracts between a number of National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting System stations and their acknowledged donors.
• The Waterbeach development outside Cambridge, England, has a new car-free housing complex—though it's still a 10 kilometer walk from the nearest railway station.
• Pilot Patrick Smith wishes the public would have a better sense of perspective about the safety of air travel, while acknowledging that it has seemed a bit rockier than usual.

Finally, thanks to reduced funding and deferred maintenance, the Chicago El has seen slow zones balloon from 13% of its tracks to 30% since 2019. Fully 70% of the Forest Park branch has reduced speed limits, making the trip from there to downtown take over an hour. But sure, let's  keep funding below the minimum needed to function, and keep the CTA, Metra, and Pace all separate so they can each fail in their own ways.