Growing Our Own (Weekend Resistance Journal)

There’s a new report out that gardening is a good way for older people to keep their brains sharp, and given all the crap Trump is shoveling our way, I’m thinking that we definitely need to be staying as sharp as possible. 

So, if you are able to grow something — anything — now’s the time to start planning for it. Maybe start with a flower in a pot on your windowsill. A garden box of herbs. If you’ve got the space and the inclination, a few rows of vegetables.

You might plant a fruit tree. Or a berry bush. Hell, even a banana tree (we’ve got a couple.)

The point is that one way to counter Trump’s poison is to help something new grow and thrive.

Trump equals death. Death of ideals, hope, dreams, decency and kindness. The polite term for him is manure.

To start fighting back, we have to be about life. So I suggest using his manure to create some new life.

HEADLINES:

• Trump puts new limits on Elon Musk's authority amid backlash to DOGE cuts (NBC)

• DOGE attempts to enter an agency building led to physical standoff that spilled into court (CNN)

• Is Trump preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act? Signs are pointing that way (SFC)

• Inside U.S. spy agencies, workers fear cataclysmic Trump job cuts (WP)

• Musk calls social security a ‘Ponzi scheme’. The real con is what Trump’s peddling (Guardian)

• War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon’s DEI purge (AP)

• President expands retribution campaign against law firms that aided his foes (WP)

• ‘It’s like a whipsaw’: Donald Trump’s tariff U-turns unnerve businesses and investors (Financial Times)

• Tariffs by Whim Keep Allies Off Balance, but Do the Same to Markets (NYT)

• Trump Pares Back Canada, Mexico Tariffs in Latest Whipsaw on Trade (WSJ)

• ‘I’m Heartbroken’: California Scientists Left Adrift by Mass Federal Layoffs at NOAA (KQED)

• Army Corps knew Trump order would waste California water, memo shows (WP)

• 'A pig in lipstick': Trump's strategic Bitcoin reserve criticised (BBC)

• Newsom Splits With Democrats on Transgender Athletes: ‘It’s Deeply Unfair’ (NYT)

• The US is directly talking to Hamas for the first time. So what does the Palestinian militant group want? (CNN)

• Russia bombards Ukraine’s energy grid after Zelenskyy says his team will hold talks with the US (AP)

• Trump threatens ‘large scale’ sanctions on Russia after its major attack on Ukraine (WP)

• EU leaders agree on a surge in defense spending (Reuters)

• New study uncovers unexpected activity that may keep brain sharp later in life: 'Use it or lose it' (Yahoo)

• The White House’s favored new reporter, the one who scolded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not wearing a suit, was the primary voice at a “news” outlet that has taken $192,000 from President Donald Trump, HuffPost's S.V. Date reports. [HuffPost]

• Trump is fast dismantling the free press. We all have to stop him. (WP)

• ‘People Are Going Silent’: Fearing Retribution, Trump Critics Muzzle Themselves (NYT)

• Dolly Parton posts 'love note' after husband Carl Dean's death (ABC) 

• Google co-founder Larry Page reportedly has a new AI startup (TechCrunch)

• Lockheed Martin Develops Giant Tactical Rubber Spider (The Onion)

NEW MUSIC: 

Dolly Parton - If You Hadn’t Been There (Official Audio)

Differentiating

Virtually every tech startup that I met with during my years as a consultant/blogger/media analyst wanted me to help them articulate how they were different from everyone else out there.

That was an obvious need because in order to get funding from VCs and adoption by the public, these companies needed to make a case compelling enough to get people to take that first step — which usually was that first click.

After that, it was a matter of a good enough user experience to attract repeated usage, hopefully massive repeat usage as in addictive behavior, a willingness to spend money, and communicate to others in a way that attracted still more usage.

But truth to tell, most of them did not have the kind of unique idea that could be fully differentiated from their competitors. Rather, they tended to be poised at the edge of a new consumer or business trend along with several other groups and probably only one was going to succeed in becoming the category-killer.

My work in these cases involved helping to forge their story. And when I think back on it, my contribution in all cases was only as good as the story they actually had to tell.

The groups I worked with fell into two broad categories — for-profit startups and non-profit institutions expanding online. Those are seemingly radically different creatures but in fact they have a lot in common.

Resources — both financial and human — are in short supply, at least at the quantity needed to sustain a major launch. They all had competitors. Most had visionary founders or leaders. Some of them were trying to fashion sexy founding myths.

As a journalist, writer and editor, I could improve their use of language, advise them strategically on positioning and help shape their story. But I couldn’t help them create a founder story on the basis of a fiction.

Their stories had to be true. And the product or service they were offering had to deliver on its promise. Due to that irrevocable state of play, my help was only as successful as their truth allowed.

In this case, what is true in business is also true in life.

(I wrote this in 2022.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump delays tariffs on Mexico, and Lutnick says Canada will likely also get a delay (CNN)

• It is not the economic impact of tariffs that is most worrying (Economist)

• Did tariffs contribute to the Great Depression? Here's what to know (NPR)

• 'The extreme concentration of the world's money is suddenly frightening at a time of intense political chaos' (LeMonde)

• Trump’s lightning policy shifts risk stifling ‘animal spirits’ (Politico)

• Tariffs add a new shock to food supply chains (Seattle Times)

• Judge says Trump illegally fired National Labor Relations Board member (WP)

• What will happen to student loans if the federal Education Department is closed? (NorthJersey)

• The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning a reorganization that includes cutting over 80,000 jobs, according to an internal memo. [AP]

• Shock, anger felt among local VA staffers fired by Trump orders (Seattle Times)

• Inside the White House’s new media strategy to make Trump ‘KING’ (WP)

• Industry-Backed Legislation Would Bar the Use of Science Behind Hundreds of Environmental Protections (ProPublica)

• Trump to revoke legal status for 240,000 Ukrainians as US steps up deportations (Reuters)

• US Immigration Service Wants To Review Applicants’ Social Media Accounts (Forbes)

• Does Canada supply electricity to US? What to know after lawmaker's threat of surcharge, shutoff (USA Today)

• CDC rescinds termination notice, calls about 180 fired employees back (AP)

• ‘He needs to do much more’: RFK Jr.’s measles response under scrutiny (Politico)

• Can we reverse human aging? This breakthrough research may be nearing human trials. (WP)

• House censures Rep. Al Green for outburst during Trump speech (CBS)

• ‘Catastrophic’ decline in butterflies could upend ecosystems, scientists say (WP)

• "Humans in the loop" make AI work, for now (Axios)

• Flora is building an AI-powered ‘infinite canvas’ for creative professionals (TechCrunch)

• Trump Outlines Bold Vision For Golden Age Of China (The Onion)

 

Why Substack?

Occasionally, a new acquaintance or reader will ask me what I am trying to accomplish by publishing here on Substack every day, 365 days a year. It’s a good question, one I ask myself as well.

This project started during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. At that time, like virtually everyone else, I found myself isolated, unable to see friends or relatives, dependent on social media to connect with others.

In my case, the pandemic coincided with several other factors to deepen my sense of isolation. After more than a half-century living in San Francisco, I left the city. And due to a series of serious health incidents, including a stroke, I was forced to retire after a long career in journalism.

During my illnesses, I spent many weeks in medical institutions, including hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, rehab centers and finally an assisted living complex.

Once Covid hit, my isolation became extreme, as I could no longer leave my room to socialize or eat meals with the other residents. I began to wilt like a flower without sunlight or water.

My family saved me. I left that place to move in with my oldest daughter and her family.

And I started writing these short essays every day. (For many years, since 2006, I’d been blogging on various platforms.)

During the pandemic, at first I published them on my personal page at Facebook. People responded from all over the world and very soon I hit the limit of 5,000 friends. Many of these Facebook friends asked me for my thoughts not only on Covid but on the news of the day beyond the confusions of the pandemic.

In response, I started sifting through the headlines in various authoritative news sources to provide a kind of virtual news broadcast via the social network. That eventually grew from ten or twenty headlines to forty or fifty and on some days up to ninety stories per day.

But I found Facebook/Meta limiting because it is extremely difficult to include links to the news stories I aggregate, which I want to do so readers can read them.

Meta also seems to punish people who try to include links, because whenever I used workarounds to make the headlines clickable, my traffic there fell close to zero.

At the urging of readers and friends, I moved my operation here to Substack, which provides the ability to link directly to the sources I cite, plus a subscription option for those who wish to support my work.

So that is my story. And thank you to my subscribers!

HEADLINES:

• The Trump Depression — Donald Trump is on track to be the first president to deliberately engineer a severe depression. (American Prospect)

• Trade War Sends a Shiver Through Global Markets (NYT)

• Prepping a Coup?: The Trump Administration’s Military Purge (Daily Kos)

• In just five days, Trump has set the country back nearly 100 years (WP)

• Trump prepares order dismantling the Education Department (NPR)

• Tariffs on cars from Mexico and Canada delayed by one month (CNN)

• Supreme Court rejects Trump administration's push to rebuke judge over foreign aid freeze (WBAL)

• Trump’s lawyers just made a $2 billion mistake (Vox)

• Inside the upheaval at Trump’s NIH: Lasting consequences for U.S. science (WP)

• I Think We’re Being Lied to About DEI (Mother Jones)

• Elon Is Coming for Your Social Security (Bulwark)

• Trump administration plans to cut 80,000 employees from Veterans Affairs, according to internal memo (AP)

• Russia Is Not Winning (Atlantic)

• Exclusive: U.S. holding secret talks with Hamas (Axios)

• Arab leaders endorse Egypt’s plan to rebuild Gaza as an alternative to Trump’s proposal (AP)

• Kabul bombing suspect arrested: What it means for US-Pakistan relations (Al Jazeera) 

• Amazon’s Delivery Drones Are Grounded. The Birds and Dogs of This Texas Town Are Grateful (Wired)

• Google Search’s new ‘AI Mode’ lets users ask complex, multi-part questions (TechCrunch)

• Congress All Groggy Today After Staying Up Past 8:30 (The Onion)

Trump's War Within

Much of Trump’s appeal to his base has always been his promise to reclaim the glory days of the past. This appeals to those who feel resentment at having been left behind by an increasingly globalized economy and technological changes they don’t understand.

But what Trump doesn’t tell his supporters is there is no going back, at least not without major upheavals that will further destabilize the lives of average Americans.

Trump’s trade war is absurd. The idea that tariffs will incentivize multinational corporations to relocate their manufacturing plants back to within our borders is simply false.

The companies go where the labor costs are lower, the tax burdens less, and increasingly where the global supply chains determine they should be. You might call this the natural distribution of resources in a globalized economy.

And nothing Trump can do will change any of that in any substantive way. But what he can do, and currently is doing, is to disrupt the free flow of goods and services across borders, which affects millions of people around the world.

The dirty story no one in Trumpville wants to hear is that the only way the U.S. can extract an even greater share of global resources than we consume already is by making everyone else poorer. We already dominate these resources; Trump aims to bully his way to command even more.

It will not work, and Americans are going to literally pay for his misguided approach. In the end, Trump’s declaration of war against everyone else is a war on us as well. It is indeed his War Within.

HEADLINES:

• Supreme Court rejects Trump’s request to keep billions in foreign aid frozen (CNN)

• Fact-checking Trump's address to Congress (BBC)

• Tariff War Risks Sinking World Into New Great Depression, International Chamber of Commerce Warns (WSJ)

• Breaking Down Trump’s Tariffs (New Yorker)

• Target and Best Buy warn of price hikes from Trump's tariffs (NBC)

• Trade war escalates as China, Mexico, Canada retaliate (WP)

• Warren Buffett Rebukes Trump’s Tariffs Plan in CBS Interview: ‘Act of War’ (NYT)

• US tariffs on Canada and Mexico take effect, as China takes aim at US farm exports (AP)

• DOGE firings provoke heated confrontations, shouts of ‘Nazi,’ at Republican town halls (LAT)

• Speaker Mike Johnson Is Living in a D.C. House That Is the Center of a Pastor’s Secretive Influence Campaign (ProPublica)

• The Trump administration plans to put an anti-union advocate in charge of the Labor Department’s office that oversees financial disclosures by unions and "union-busting" consultants, HuffPost's Dave Jamieson reports. [HuffPost]

• RFK Jr.’s Solution for Measles Outbreak Has Health Experts Horrified (TNR)

• Why Elon Musk is targeting a free tax-filing software package (Guardian)

• Planes are having their GPS hacked. Could new clocks keep them safe? (BBC)

• US supreme court weakens rules on discharge of raw sewage into water supplies (Guardian)

• Republicans target 4 ‘sanctuary’ cities as Trump pushes mass deportations (AP)

• US and Ukraine prepare to sign minerals deal (Reuters)

• Zelenskyy says he will work under Trump’s leadership as he proposes Ukraine peace plan (Guardian)

• Scientists Discover Natural Compound That Stops Cancer Progression (SciTechDaily)

• Carl Dean, Dolly Parton's husband of nearly 60 years who inspired 'Jolene,' dies at 82 (NPR)

• AI copyright wars need a market solution (Financial Times)

• A.I. Start-Up Anthropic Closes Deal That Values It at $61.5 Billion (NYT)

• Pete Hegseth Deploys 3,000 U.S. Troops On Beer Run (The Onion)

 

Where's the Fraud?

Where is all that alleged fraud that DOGE was going to uncover? That there is some waste and inefficiency is indisputable, but fraud?

Maybe not, unless of course Musk and his gang dig into those giant Pentagon contracts.

More and more, the demolition of federal agencies seems like a giant sideshow to distract public attention from the administration’s naked power grab.

It also serves as a confusing maneuver while the Republicans add the final details to a massive tax cut for the rich. The tax plan will not benefit you and me but it will greatly benefit the billionaires cozying up to Trump.

The stock market usually responds well to tax cuts, but it is nosediving due to Trump’s crazy obsession with tariffs on our friends and enemies alike.

When it comes to the economy, it’s clear that Trump has no idea what he is doing. And the problem with that is the rest of us are going to have to pay for it.

HEADLINES:

• Where’s the fraud? Musk's claims of DOGE's savings crumble under closer inspection (MSNBC)

• China and Canada immediately retaliate against Trump’s tariffs. Mexico is next (CNN)

• Trump’s opponents see a sweeping crackdown on free speech (WP)

• Just When We Need Them, the Media’s Credibility Hits Bottom (WSJ)

• No One Wins a Trade War — Protective tariffs risk triggering a cycle of escalation that ends well for no one. (Atlantic)

• On Another Tariff Eve, Here Is the Impact to U.S. Autos (WSJ)

• US auto industry could be collateral damage in Trump's trade wars (AP)

• Stocks fall sharply after Trump confirms tariffs on Mexico and Canada (WP)

• Trump's trade threats compound global ocean shipping uncertainty, and big food scrambles as shoppers turn to smaller brands. (Reuters)

• How big is the stock market’s America bubble? (Financial Times)

• The Trump administration may exclude government spending from GDP, obscuring the impact of DOGE cuts (AP)

• Government shutdown looms as Trump tries to assert new spending powers (WP)

• Shutdown clock ticks with Trump set to address Congress (The Hill)

• Top HHS spokesperson quits abruptly (Politico)

• Can Elon Musk find any fraud before Trump’s base notices the con? (WP)

• Musk wrote that he agrees the United States should leave NATO and the United Nations as the fallout from the heated Oval Office showdownbetween President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues. [HuffPost]

• Defiant but tactful Zelenskyy seeks to move on from White House fiasco (Guardian)

• U.K. prime minister unveils steps toward a Ukraine peace deal, urges U.S. cooperation (NPR)

• Hegseth Orders Pentagon to Stop Offensive Cyberoperations Against Russia (NYT)

• US suspends offensive cyber operations against Russia, senior US official says (CNN)

• Washington now ‘largely aligns’ with Moscow’s vision, Kremlin says (WP)

• Mark Cuban offers to fund government tech unit that was cut in the middle of the night (TechCrunch)

• Major storm to bring severe weather and create critical wildfire risk for millions (NBC)

• Senior USAID official ousted after detailing government’s ‘failure’ to provide life-saving aid (WP)

• Department Of Education Sternly Announces It Is Counting To 3 (The Onion)

Flipping the Script

The constituents complaining in town halls held by Republican lawmakers are an early indication that the Trump/Musk demolition of the federal bureaucracy is not going over so well back home.

But as far as Trump is concerned, these complaints don’t really matter because he has larger designs on accumulating power that are not dependent on the traditional checks and balances of our political order at all.

He cannot run for re-election under the current rules, although that’s only a minor technicality he’s looking to circumvent by the time 2028 rolls around. By then, he believes, there will be no need for further elections, as he plainly stated throughout last year’s campaign.

When he told his hordes that they wouldn’t need to worry about voting after electing him, he meant it.

To fully grasp what Trump is up to, you’ve got to take Project 2025, add Musk, Trump’s foreign policy moves, his tariffs, and his executive orders and track the trajectory of it all collectively.

To me, it’s clear that Trump hopes and intends to neutralize anyone or anything that gets in his way to attaining absolute power. The only question is how exactly he will be able to obtain his goal.

It is obvious that he believes that creating as much chaos as possible will only work in his favor now. So for example, in Trump’s twisted way of thinking, a terrorist event with mass casualties, assassination attempts, or events overseas might be opportunities for him to declare martial law and seize absolute control over all branches of government.

I believe that is what he hopes and intends to do, and that the Trump realty show is still only in its opening act.

But there’s one problem with Trump’s nightmarish scenario and that is those of us who have caught on to his game. We now need to figure out how to flip the script and eliminate his part.

HEADLINES:

• America faces a Trumpian economic slowdown (Economist)

• Opinion | In ‘fixing’ a trumped-up crisis, Trump may end up creating one (South China Morning Post)

• As the economy shows signs of cooling, many executives sour on Trump (MSNBC)

• As GOP eyes Medicaid cuts, Trump tries to avoid the political third rails (WP)

• ‘It Feels Like It’s Chaotic on Purpose’ — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency laid off a team whose purpose was to make the government more efficient. (Atlantic)

• Trump’s moves test the limits of presidential power and the resilience of US democracy (AP)

• Fresh Musk emails to workers lead to renewed pushback at federal agencies (WP)

• Canada Curbed Illegal Migration to the U.S. Now People Are Heading to Canada. (NYT)

• Starmer says Europe faces a ‘once in a generation moment’ as leaders discuss ending war in Ukraine (CNBC)

• Europe Aims to Forge Its Own Peace Plan for Ukraine (WSJ)

• How DOGE set off a crisis at a highly sensitive nuclear weapons agency (WP)

• ‘Top Priority’: RFK Jr. Backtracks After Embarrassing Measles Misstep (Daily Beast)

• ‘How Are We Going to Afford This?’ U.S. Companies Face Tariff Reality. (NYT)

• Israel blocks entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza (BBC)

• Gaza ceasefire talks have made no progress on second phase, Hamas says (Guardian)

• Wildfires Break Out in the Carolinas, Prompting Evacuations (NYT)

• DEI Has Lost All Meaning (Atlantic)

• These Humanoid Robots Work Together, Running the Same AI (CNET)

• DeepSeek Continues to Rattle the Cages with Bold New Claims (TipRanks)

• RFK Jr. Vows To Make Measles Deaths So Common They Won’t Be Upsetting Anymore (The Onion)

 

Wooden Moon

 (I wrote this back in 2008. I’m reprinting it now because I am desperately seeking a new way of seeing in our troubled world.)

Our eyes are sometimes called the "window to the soul”(fenêtre sur l'âme). 

I've heard Secret Service agents brag that they can identify an assassin by looking into his eyes. (So why do they always wear sunglasses?)

Cops often claim they can tell whether a suspect is lying by how his or her eyes move under questioning.

Reporters often claim the same thing. I have done it. It's tempting to think, after many hundreds of interviews, that you can identify the prevaricator among the horde.

But we can be deceived. There are those so convincing with their lies that even jaded cops, reporters, and investigators fall for their act.

Then, there is the role of eyes in attraction. We know, from biological studies, that a person's pupils tend to expand when they look into the eyes of another they find attractive.

Perhaps a college biology student, newly armed with this fact, will try to gauge the pupil expansion factor in a new potential lover.

With our eyes we watch one another ever so carefully. We read. We watch movies, TV, and other screens.

Our eyes can express our feelings. We tear up, get angry, sad, happy and curious, depressed, evasive, newly engaged and it all comes out in our eyes. We might become shifty-eyed, misty-eyed, steely-eyed or open-eyed, according to observers. And then there’s always Lyin’ Eyes.

There is also this. The photo at the top of my post is an illusion. The "moon" is painted on wood sitting on the slats of my back porch. I think of it as the Blue Moon of Kentucky, now hovering over San Francisco.

Or as John Berger might say, it’s just another way of seeing.

ARCHIVAL VIDEO:

Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys - Blue Moon of Kentucky

HEADLINES:

• Trump’s Disgrace —While F.D.R. set a modern standard for the revitalization of a society, Trump seems determined to prove how quickly he can spark its undoing. (New Yorker)

• Fear and Loathing in the White House (Journal of the Plague Years)

• White House clash ups pressure on Europe to aid Ukraine without U.S. (WP)

• Zelenskyy embraced by British PM Starmer a day after clashing with Trump (Al Jazeera)

• Vance Positions Himself as Trump’s Attack Dog During Blowup With Zelensky (NYT)

• Zelenskyy Forgot the First Rule of Dealing With Trump (Politico Mag)

• "Three strikes": Inside the Trump-Vance fury with Zelensky (Axios)

• Trump-Zelenskiy shouting match leaves Ukraine exposed in war with Russia (WP)

• Pentagon orders civilian staff to justify work in Musk-led review (Reuters)

• Cuomo Enters N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race, Upending Contest to Unseat Adams (NYT)

• Track One Car Part’s Journey Through the U.S., Canada and Mexico—Before Tariffs (WSJ)

• Up to 3,000 more U.S. troops are ordered to the border with Mexico (NPR)

• America Is Pushing Its Workers Into Homelessness (NYT)

• Education Department Blocks All Student Loan Forgiveness For 3 Months (Forbes)

• China Tells Its AI Leaders to Avoid U.S. Travel Over Security Concerns (WSJ)

• Gaza ceasefire deal hits critical moment as first phase ends (BBC)

• Newly Discovered Jurassic Bird Rewrites History (WSJ)

• Aging Brains Have a Sugar Problem – And Stanford Scientists May Have Found a Fix (SciTechDaily)

• From boycotts to ‘good-buys,’ consumers are showing support for DEI (WP)

• Trump Signs Executive Order Making Official Language Of U.S. Remedial English (The Onion)