A banner looking quite similar to Big Brother

I watched the Olympic figure skating gala, well about 30 minutes of it and mostly just the Americans because that’s all NBC showed (a disappointment). The skaters didn’t have to conform to any standards – no prescribed spins or jumps, no list of things they couldn’t do, no rules on costumes, just create whatever they want. And what they gave us was beautiful and much more heartfelt. Interesting that for this program the cameraman was also on the ice, able to give us a much closer experience. Ilia Maninin, the guy proclaimed the Quad God yet who finished 8th, did a marvelous routine. He dressed in jeans and a hoodie and portrayed his frustration with the expectations placed on him. Afterward Malinin said his purpose in skating now is to bring joy to himself and those who want to watch him. Sounds good. Alyssa Liu did the same thing and ended up with gold. So, yeah, these skaters can do a beautiful job, a meaningful job, and do it more creatively, when they’re not worrying about pressure, exactness, scores, and ranking. I also watched and enjoyed the closing ceremony, especially the references to Italian opera. I was puzzled because announcers occasionally mentioned Verona, which I thought was odd for the Milan Cortina Games. So this evening I checked out a map with street view. Yes, the closing ceremony was not held in Milan or Cortina, but in Verona, two hours east of Milan. The attraction was Arena di Verona, a renovated Roman Amphitheater that has actual seats installed and hosts a summer opera program. Quite a venue choice! Max Burns of Daily Kos reported on what the nasty guy said on Fox Business where he claimed he doesn’t need anything from Congress for the remaining three years of his term.

“In theory, we’ve gotten everything passed that we need,” Trump told Fox host and former economic adviser Larry Kudlow. “Now we just have to manage it, but we’ve gotten everything passed that we need for four years.”

Burns wrote this implies the nasty guy will do nothing for the next three years, in spite of the many problems facing Americans with the economy at the top of the list. I’ll agree that the nasty guy has done nothing for Americans in his first year except to make their lives worse and will do nothing more. But I don’t think Burns has it quite right. If the nasty guy doesn’t need anything from Congress he is implying he will rule as a dictator who no longer needs Congress to pass laws. He (or his aides) will just write them. Of course, Congress, at least while it remains under Republican control, doesn’t look like it will do anything anyway. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted GOP strategist Susan del Percio on MSNOW discussing the Supreme Court overturning the nasty guy’s tariffs and his rant against them afterward.

I'm just reminded of the old saying, you never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. So if you fast forward it to 2026, it's why would he pick this fight with the Supreme Court when there's so many other cases in front of it? And frankly, I think it gives the Supreme Court now more chance to, more freedom, to feel less beholden to Donald Trump because this is upsetting. This upsets all nine of them. No one likes to see the president do this.

In Sunday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Jonathan Last of The Bulwark describing something that many people expected.

The latest trick of the regime has been to pretend that the occupation of Minnesota is over. Greg Bovino was removed from command and the new head of operations, Tom Homan, announced that DHS was pulling out of Minnesota. But this has not happened. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told us, point blank, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” The observers I spoke to at Whipple said they have seen no reduction in the number of DHS vehicles going in and out on a daily basis, or detainees being released ... or street abductions. Another adaptation has been for DHS to push its theater of operations outward from the cities and into the suburbs and exurbs, where the lower population density makes it harder for a critical mass of citizens to observe them.

Dean Obeidalla tweeted a comparison of the banner the nasty guy installed at his Department of Justice, which features his face, to the film 1984 showing a banner of Big Brother. Obeidallah added, “The resemblance between these two is NOT a coincidence.” Other people offered similar images: Rome’s Palazzo Braschi, 1934. Banners of Putin and Stalin. And, of course, Hitler. Lisa Needham of Kos writes a column titled Injustice for All in which she reviews the latest rulings on the nasty guy’s court cases. In this column she wrote: Two courts have now ruled that university students peacefully expressing their pro-Palestinian views does not threaten national security. There is a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that bars the government from inhibiting people from freely exercising their religion. Conservatives love it because it was used to say Hobby Lobby’s health insurance doesn’t have to cover female contraception because it denies the evangelical owners their free exercise of religion. It is now used to say that ICE and government agents can’t go into churches to abduct people because that makes people scared to go to church and freely exercise their religion. Of course, this administration will fight it. No, the administration can’t re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia. I had written about the six Democrats, including Sens. Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, who created a video telling military service members they must disobey illegal orders. The case against them went to a grand jury where not a single jury member voted to indict. Now we know why. Jeanine Pirro, Attorney for the District of Washington, DC, has had a very bad record of getting people indicted. In this case the reasons was simple: Pirro could not identify a law those six had violated. A year ago the Department of Education to every school in the country saying a school that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion would lose its federal funding. The National Education Association sued, saying this was a violation of free speech, impossibly vague, and destroyed academic freedom. Last April a lower court blocked it. Recently a district court issued a final ruling saying the government was barred from enforcing its directive and from reviving it. So the DoE finally said it was ending the directive. Needham responded: “DEI is BACK, baby! Woke Mob Rise Up!” Scott Detrow of NPR spoke to Kelsey Piper, a staff writer at The Argument, and Martha Gimbel at the Yale Budget Lab discussing the scary thought that AI will soon (as within a decade or maybe much less than that) replace huge swaths of the workforce. This fear has come out of the tech world and into mainstream because people are quite anxious about the economy and a potential of a massive loss of jobs makes the anxiety worse. Another reason is AI is now able to do things that it couldn’t do (or couldn’t do well) just six months ago. Examples include writing computer code and doing scientific analysis a grad student used to do. But so far AI-related job loss is minimal and labor market disruption is not instantaneous. Yes, a labor disruption (see also the Industrial Revolution) is really hard on people, but, as Gimbel said, “at the end of technological change, living standards are higher, we are always better off.” Piper discussed the worries of job loss. How would a person feel if in 2028 there were 100 million students entering the workforce willing to work for free. The economy may end up being wealthier but if you are competing against those 100 million students – AI bots – you’re not going to like it and have good reason to be scared. In a crisis, such as COVID, Congress can act fast. But if the job loss is a lot slower Congress may not act at all. Gimbel said people don’t understand what is involved in AI taking over the tasks of a job and how long a company needs to figure it out. There is also how much consumers will allow AI to handle – we’re not going to turn child raising over to a robot. Piper said be wary of the promises and hysteria over AI. They’re likely trying to sell you something or to get you to gamble on AI. Don’t believe those who say you have only a few years to be a millionaire or end up in permanent poverty. There’s a ton of nonsense out there.