"You are not serious people." One of the greatest lines from Succession could easily be applied to Pete Hegseth's leadership at the Pentagon. But here's the rub. America's most unserious people are systematically sidelining its most serious assets. One such example from the NYT (Gift Article): Hegseth Closes Pentagon Office Focused on Future Wars. It's called the Office of Net Assessment and it's populated by some of the best and smartest people in the country working on plans to protect us and our children from worst case scenarios. Many of them have turned down seven figure salaries in the private sector out of a sense of sacrifice and duty. Like so many of the public servants being reassigned or canned willy-nilly by those often ignorant of what they even do, they deserve our admiration, not the politically-motivated wrath of unserious people. 2Chuck RoastWhen a sports team fails, players are cut and coaches are fired. The same doesn't go for political parties. Instead, the pent-up frustration just keeps penting. And right now, the pent is too damn high as Democrats are eating their own over the decision whether or not to support a GOP bill to avert a government shutdown. The choices are both pretty bad: Shut down the government or acquiesce to an administration that seems hell bent on deleting it. As Cory Booker explained, "We are in a perverse, bizarro land where we’re having to decide between letting Donald Trump wreck the government this way or wreck the government that way." Chuck Schumer has opted to wreck it by voting to support the GOP stopgap spending bill. The decision has set off something of a generational war between younger and older Dem leaders. NYT (Gift Article): Young Democrats’ Anger Boils Over as Schumer Retreats on Shutdown. "Younger Democrats are chafing at and increasingly complaining about what they see as the feebleness of the old guard’s efforts to push back against President Trump. They are second-guessing how the party’s leaders — like Mr. Schumer, who brandishes his flip phone as a point of pride — are communicating their message in the TikTok era, as Republicans dominate the digital town square. And they are demanding that the party develop a bolder policy agenda that can answer the desperation of tens of millions of people who are struggling financially at a time when belief in the American dream is dimming. In other words, the younger generation is done with deference." (Mos def.) The divide, it's worth noting, is not entirely generational. Nancy Pelosi has split with Schumer: "Let’s be clear: neither is a good option for the American people. But this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable." 3Gov Will Keep Us TogetherSome listeners may have been a tad dubious when Trump proclaimed that the theme of his inaugural speech would be unity. But give credit where credit is due: Our allies are ushering a period of extreme unity. It just doesn't include us. WaPo (Gift Article): Trump is pushing Canada and Europe closer together. Sadly, unity is not the only thing our (former?) allies might be unifying around. FP: An Unreliable America Means More Countries Want the Bomb. "For the last eight decades, the United States has served as a security guarantor to many countries in both Europe and Asia. Trump insists that Washington has received the short end of the stick from these arrangements, since it was the U.S. nuclear arsenal that served as the ultimate deterrent in defense of the United States’ allies. The massive upside of U.S. security guarantees, however, including for Americans, has been the astonishing containment of nuclear proliferation elsewhere." (Not what we had in mind when conservatives promised a focus on the nuclear family.) 4Weekend WhatsWhat to Watch: Let's celebrate our Canadian neighbors and watch Shoresy on Hulu. There are four seasons of this spinoff from a show called Letterkenny that features our hero, Shoresy, who joins the Sudbury Bulldogs of the Northern Ontario Senior Hockey Organization (aka The NOSHO) on a quest to never lose again. It's not necessarily for everyone. You have to be able to "set the tone." You'll quickly know whether it's your kind of thing. Drop the gloves and find out. 5Extra, ExtraGood Old College Trial: "More than 50 universities are being investigated for alleged racial discrimination as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs that his officials say exclude white and Asian American students." (It's important to note that this, like the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, is about a broader attack on universities specifically, and expertise in general, and an attempt to silence critics. It's not about wokeism. It's about putting a sleep-hold on institutions. That's why this is part of the same story. The Atlantic(Gift Article): The NIH’s Grant Terminations Are ‘Utter and Complete Chaos.') 6Feel Good FridayHappy Pi Day. As we do every year, we'll celebrate by watching my wife recite the first 314 digits of Pi while taking shots of tequila. (Akira Haraguchi once recited 100,000 digits of Pi in Tokyo, but he was sober, so it didn't count.) BTW, just so you don't think stupid politics is anything new: Indiana’s House of Representatives Once Voted Unanimously to Change the Value of Pi.
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