The OAFPOTUS today destroyed the East Wing of the White House, which he does not own. This reminded long-time observers of the time in 1980 when he destroyed historic frescoes that he promised not to destroy with the grace and maturity of a toddler. He has changed quite a bit since then, but unfortunately only through age-related dementia and probably myriad other cognitive problems we'll find out about 20 years from now.
The constant firehose of awful things coming from him and his droogs also now includes his demand that the Department of Justice compensate him $230 million for the affront of being prosecuted for the awful things he did before. (Thanks, Merrick Garland.)
Meanwhile, Republicans continue to misinterpret why Democratic voters tell pollsters they don't like the Democratic party, since Republicans only understand blind fealty to their totem while we actually want to govern competently. Criticizing one's leaders, you see, helps get better leadership. It doesn't mean that Democrats will stay home next November, or that we'll vote for MAGA fanatics because we don't like that our nominee hedged on trans extremism. Oh, no. We will not.
At least the Sun-Times had something good to say about life today. Apparently there's a stretch of Grand Avenue west of Halsted that has some of the best pizza in the world. The tavern-style pie from Pizz'Amici they showed at the top of the article made me want to leave my office and head over there. Maybe this weekend...
Naturally, the press had a lot to say about the largest protest in my lifetime (I was born after the Earth Day 1970 demonstration):
- As many as 250,000 people turned out for the downtown Chicago event, which included a procession that carried a 23-meter replica of the US Constitution, and resulted in zero arrests or reports of violence. (The video of the procession leaving Grant Park is epic.)
- David Graham of The Atlantic explains why the protests got under the OAFPOTUS's skin: "Trump’s movement depends on the impression that it’s unstoppable and victorious. ... Huge protests that demonstrate he is not invincible endanger his political success: They offer people who voted for Trump reluctantly or who have had second thoughts a feeling of camaraderie and hope, and give them a way to feel okay ditching him. ... Trump and his allies seem to grasp what Saturday revealed: The protests are popular, and the president is not."
- Brian Fife sees a paradox in the protests: "One could find this inspiring, so many disparate causes united under one banner. But for those of us who want to see tangible reform in the United States, the lack of clear messaging or policy recommendations—especially during a protest intended to inspire action—was disorienting."
- Josh Marshall disagrees, lauding "the subtle genius of 'No Kings'," saying the name itself is "a deceptively resonant name and slogan with the deepest possible roots in American history. This brings with it a critical inclusivity, which grows out of the name itself and the lack of those specific and lengthy sets of demands that often characterize and ultimately fracture such movements. ... The jagged and total nature of the onslaught against the American Republic creates a clarity: We all know what we’re talking about. You don’t need to explain. The imperfect but orderly and generally lawful old way versus this. And when you say “No Kings,” you’re saying I don’t want this. I don’t accept presidential despotism. I’m here ready to show my face and say publicly that I will never accept it."
- Brian Beutler has "22 thoughts on No Kings DC," of which: "I do not think it’s a coincidence that, as anticipation grew, and the GOP panicked and smeared, universities rejected Trump’s extortionate higher-education “compact,” and the Chamber of Commerce finally decided to sue Trump, etc. The days of proactive capitulation seem to be ending."
I looked for mainstream Republican reactions to the event but only heard crickets. The OAFPOTUS's own response, which I will not dignify with a link, would be grounds for invoking the 25th Amendment in any normal era.
Meanwhile, the vandalism continues:
- Workers have begun demolishing the east side of the White House East Wing as the OAFPOTUS continues to wreak historical violence on the Executive Mansion without Congressional—i.e., the owner's—approval.
- Writing in Harvard Magazine, Lincoln Caplan examines the damage that US Chief Justice John Roberts has done to the Constitution, tracing his legal career from Harvard Law through his clerkship under US Chief Justice William Rehnquist, another hard-right ideologue who, unlike Roberts, didn't have the votes to become his generation's Roger Taney.
- Jeff Maurer suggests that Democrats simply change the conversation about immigration and not apologize for our past policy misses: "I think that Democrats can craft a positive, forward-looking message on immigration that starts a new conversation without dwelling on the past. It would tell a story that happens to be true, which is nifty, because I prefer political narratives that aren’t a towering skyscraper of bullshit whenever possible. The narrative goes like this: 'America is rich, safe, and vibrant because we’ve always attracted the smartest, hardest-working people from around the world. We need an immigration system that attracts the best and the brightest for years to come.'"
- North Carolina, already one of the most-Gerrymandered states in the union, has passed a new congressional map they believe will give them a 10th Republican US House seat, with only three Democratic-majority districts in Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte. (They've even managed to get Asheville to turn pink, based on 2024 election results.)
- Adam Kinzinger suggests encouraging Russia to end its war in Ukraine through the simple expedient of giving $2 billion of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine each day the war goes on.
- Julia Ioffe reviews the life of Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, Vladimir Putin's ex-wife.
- Molly White explains the October 10th crypto meltdown that destroyed $19 billion of Bitcoin holdings in just a few seconds.
And hey, I even read some non-political news in the past 24 hours:
Finally, it warms my heart to read that Gen Z workers have the same attitude toward workplace "emergencies" that Gen X workers have always had. (Boomers and Millennials, WTF is wrong with y'all?)
We've had a fairly warm autumn so far, but this morning we got a nearly-normal temperature at O'Hare and the coldest temperature at Inner Drive Technology WHQ since April 27th. O'Hare saw 5°C this morning, a scoche below the normal October 20th low of 6.7°C.
We're also starting to get fall colors. I've been watching a locust tree down the block, and I'll have some photos of its progress later this week.
I thoroughly enjoyed our performance yesterday. After the No Kings demonstration, between the dress rehearsal and the concert, and well before the rain hit, Millennium Park looked pretty nice:
After the concert, I did not enjoy the rainstorm that greeted us when we walked over to the place where we had our post-concert drinks and snacks. I got home well after midnight, which fortunately Cassie didn't mind because she was at sleepaway camp.
Cassie, now home, seems to be recovering from the trauma pretty well:
I also finished Cory Doctorow's Enshittification a few minutes ago. At the very end he pointed to an essay by Cat Valente, "Stop Talking to Each Other and Buy Things," which I now recommend to you.
I will now debug some unit tests and watch vaguely-interesting videos because my body battery has dropped to 7.
I'll be in tonight's Ear Taxi Festival performance at Harris Theater in Millennium Park, singing Damien Geter's African American Requiem. I'm really enjoying the piece. Even though our call time (1:30pm) makes it impossible to participate in the No Kings demonstration happening just 400 meters away from the concert venue, I think the chorus are doing their parts as Geter's message is relevant to the day.
If you're in Chicago, come for the demonstration and stay for the concert!
If you're not in Chicago, find a No Kings demonstration near your house and help break the Earth Day 1970 record for largest demonstration in US history.
After almost two years, Chicago's "rat hole" continues to leave an impression on people:
Initially, the origin story of the hole seemed straightforward: a brown rat scurried onto a wet layer of concrete and became trapped. There were no signs of escape, so the rat most likely died and was somehow eventually removed, leaving behind a cavity as the concrete dried. The series of events seemed plausible in Chicago, which was named the country’s “rattiest” city for the 10th year in a row in 2024 by the pest control service Orkin. However, there has been little evidence to tie the rat hole to its eponymous rodent.
A team of researchers recently analyzed the anatomical dimensions of the rat hole to identify the critter that left the sidewalk impression. Their findings, published Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters, reveal that another rodent is responsible for the hole. “We can affirmatively conclude that this imprint was not created by a rat,” said Michael Granatosky, an evolutionary biomechanist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Statistical analyses revealed that the size and shape of the hole closely aligned with larger-bodied rodents, particularly tree squirrels in the genus Sciurus. The team concluded with nearly a 99 percent likelihood that the rat hole was left by either an eastern grey squirrel or a fox squirrel, both found within Chicago’s city limits.
A squirrel creating the hole is not a complete surprise.
No, and in fact I thought we'd settled this over a year ago. The most likely hypothesis that I've encountered posits that, sometime in 1993 when the concrete was first poured, a raptor startled a squirrel who was either in the then-existent tree above the sidewalk or on the roof of the apartment building next to it. The squirrel decided that down was better than dead (squirrels can fall any distance without harm if they're conscious) and was surprised to discover the wet concrete below. The lack of exit tracks is easily explained either by the squirrel not having enough mass to make further impressions in the concrete, or the aforementioned raptor plucking the confused, now-stuck rodent up into the air.
In any event, the squirrel has been dead for at least 25 years, the hypothetical hawk probably just as long, and the concrete square containing the impression has buggered off to City Hall.
I attended an event last night at Chicago's Old Post Office. It was a lovely night in (and on top of) a lovely building:
That's all, just some pretty photos.
But today? 10/10 would recommend!
Ah, ha ha. Ha.
Everything else today has a proportion of funny to not-funny that we should work on a bit more:
- The administration served up two full helpings of corruption today: indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James as payback for prosecuting the OAFPOTUS, and finalizing a $20 billion gift to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's friends under the guise of propping up the Argentine Peso.
- US District Judge April Perry (NDIL) has blocked the National Guard from entering Chicago pending new arguments on the 24th.
- Julia Ioffe reports on what the troops sent to Portland, Ore., think of being sent there; Jeff Maurer reports on the twerking inflatable dinosaurs taunting ICE there.
- Paul Krugman patiently explains that, in fact, everything economists predicted about the OAFPOTUS's tariffs has happened, even though what non-economists claimed they predicted didn't: "The point is that corporations are very good at finding ways to avoid paying taxes, especially when the rules are complicated and the tax collectors don’t have enough resources to track down their clever strategies."
- Why is billionaire and scary dude Peter Thiel warning about the Antichrist? Seems, you know, unhinged. In fact, he sounds a lot like Charlotte Iserbyt. What is it with these people?
- Quico Toro has lived in Japan for a year, which gave him an unhappy view of Amtrak. (Though, frankly, living in any other OECD country except Canada would do that.)
- The Cubs beat the Milwaukee Brewers yesterday, so the two teams go on to a final, fifth game tomorrow at Miller Park.
Finally, Loyola University Chicago's Sister Jean has died at 106. She was the official team chaplain of the Loyola Ramblers men's basketball team, and well-loved throughout the University.
So many things passed through my inbox in the last day and a half:
- The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that an assistant to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was observed over the weekend discussing plans over Signal with an aide to Reichsminister Stephen Miller to send the 82nd Airborne to Portland.
- Paul Krugman breaks from his usual economics beat to lambast the OAFPOTUS and his Reichskabinett der Nationalen Rettung for the horrifying ICE raid* on a Chicago apartment building last week: "What do we learn from the Chicago apartment raid plus the growing number of incidents in which ICE agents have physically attacked people who posed no conceivable threat? To me, it says that even 'alarmists' who warned about the threat a Trump administration would pose to democracy underestimated just how evil this administration would be."
- Adam Kinzinger draws a straight line between the OAFPOTUS really, really not wanting anyone to read the Epstein files and the Republicans' not caring really one whit about "protecting kids."
- Jamelle Bouie suggests that if Hegseth and the OAFPOTUS want to see "the enemy within," they should glance at the nearest mirror. Jen Rubin concurs.
- In his latest column on the OAFPOTUS's bullshit, Glenn Kessler mocks the TACO King for "crying 'witch hunt' while stirring the cauldron."
- Josh Marshall applauds California governor Gavin Newsom and Illinois governor JB Pritzker for being willing to use the power they have to prevent the rending of our nation.
- Matt Yglesias wants to shake some sense into the "groups" who have clearly learned nothing from Kamala Harris's embarrassing loss last November.
- Pilot and journalist James Fallows once again reminds people that it's safe to fly during a government shutdown. Of course, since all the air-traffic control trainers were furloughed...
- The Times has yet another essay about craft breweries shutting down because there are just too darn many of them. (Since the Brews & Choos Project started in February 2020, 22 of the 146 breweries I've visited have closed—plus another 7 I didn't get to.)
Finally, Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford goes over the numbers: September was warm and very dry. October is shaping up to be as well, despite the forecast calling for rain tonight and cooler temperatures through Saturday.
* Seriously, doesn't anyone in ICE realize that people will talk about them 30 years from now the way we talk today about the Schutzstaffel?
I spent yesterday afternoon reading and relaxing with Cassie. As we had near-record warmth (31°C at O'Hare, 28°C at Inner Drive Technology WHQ), we spent the day mostly outside. The highlight for Cassie may have been the woman who gave her a couple of fries before her partner and toddler arrived. Cassie's lowlight might have been unsuccessfully trying to psychically will the toddler to toss a couple of fries in her direction:
Back home, I've inadvertently taken in a boarder. This orb weaver has been hanging outside my kitchen window for the past week or so:
For scale, she's about 12-13 mm (½ in) fangs to spinner, and about 25 mm (1 in) all spread out as above. She looks like a neoscona crucifera, which is very common in the area. I hope she's getting all the food she needs. I'll let you know when her eggs hatch, though I haven't yet located her egg sac.