The State of the Union Address is Going to be Lit

 

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has invited President Trump to deliver his State of the Union address on March 4th. The event is sure to be raucous. Given all the revelations about fraud, waste, and abuse that Democrats refuse to address specifically, Trump will hopefully read out each example. Whether he pauses to shake his head or look directly at the Democrats and say, “Really?” or “Have you no shame?”…or “American taxpayers’ money to terrorists and terrorist affiliates? Really?” remains to be seen.

The Democrats are sure to heckle or stage a walkout…or perhaps all dress like handmaids. We do know that at least one Democrat congressman will dress like a woman. My suggestion would be that they all wear cones of shame around their necks…but that’s just me.

I just hope that Elon Musk is in the gallery and Trump calls on him to rise to the applause and cheers of Republicans in the chamber. I recommend the gladiatorial chant from, well, Gladiator: “Maximusk! Maximusk! Maximusk!

Trump Team Won’t Hire People Critical of Trump

 

When I first read the title of this article, I scratched my head, because I had to ask, why would Trump want to hire people who weren’t supportive of him? But then I looked into the likely reasons behind the article, and the reasons Trump’s team was going to pick people who were loyal and supported him, and it made sense.

How many times did we learn of people betraying Trump in his first term? Trump admitted that his personnel decisions seriously handicapped him his first time around. We heard about Rex Tillerson, John Kelly, Jim Mattis, John Bolton, Nikki Halley, Mike Pence, Gary Cohn and Anthony Scaramucci, who made the betrayers’ list, to name a few. They either worked against him when they served, attacked him after they left the government or were dismissed, or leaked information to the media.

Everybody’s a Critic

 

“I Was a Teenage Film Critic” sounds B-movie-ish, but it’s the truth. In 1966, Brother Thomas Allen, S.C. started the Bishop Reilly High School Film Society, and that’s where I became a dedicated lifelong film nut. Brother Thomas worked out a deal for half a dozen of us to review movies at local theaters after school each Wednesday, write reviews overnight, edit a weekly newsletter on Thursdays, copy it and hand out The Reilly Reviewer in school on Friday in time for the weekend. It was a Tinkertoy version of what actual film critics did, but when you got a strong positive reaction on Monday morning from people who followed your advice, it sure felt like the real thing. There’s the same impact when—let’s face it—they didn’t like the advice. Either way, you learn fast.

The first lesson of a reviewer: my opinion is no better or worse than yours. That’s a cold fact. But you can describe and discuss a film entertainingly without ever being able to flat-out prove its worth. Like most areas of life, experience usually counts for something. Seeing a lot of movies helps with comparisons that tell a potential viewer how the subject of this week’s review may fit in, or not, with other ones they liked, competing for their dollars and/or time. Do ‘em right, and they’ll read you every week.

My Four Big Game Changers

 

I’ve been talking to my family lately about “game changers.” These are developments that improve some area of life, ease difficulty, and boost motivation. I’ve encountered multiple game changers in the last couple of months.

Our Personal Mechanic- We should all have our own Subaru mechanic on call. Until recently, my family has been taking our old Subarus to the dealer. This involves driving to another town and forking over thousands of dollars for repairs. There are telephone calls, trips back and forth, working around a missing car for days, and uncertainty about the bill.

Questions about G-d 2: Can G-d Make a Rock So Heavy He Can’t Lift It?

 

I made a short series of videos considering questions about G-d that I have noticed get asked from time to time. Below is a rewriting based on the script for the second video, followed by the video itself. (For Ricochet old-timers, pardon the overlap with an earlier Ricochet post.)

I remember hearing some variation of “Can G-d make a rock so heavy He can’t move it?” in high school.  I don’t remember thinking much about it at the time.

My earliest memory of having any clear thought about it is probably around 2010 when, as I recall, I answered it, “Yes, and that rock is called ‘free will.’”

Proud Boys leader, Enrique Tarrio, on his 22-year sentence for J6 – despite not being in Washington that day — and (un-prosecuted) antifa stabbing attacks.

“I Will Play for Gumbo!” Notes on the Super Bowl, and a Recipe

 

Today is the Super Bowl.  I don’t have a dog in this year’s fight (at least not a two-legged one), as the Stillers–after a promising start to the season–folded, as they so often have in the past couple of decades, towards the end.  Oh well.

And without Tom Brady (Boo!) and the New England Patriots (always worth rooting against–cheaters!) in the mix, I can’t gin up all that much interest, pro or con, in the game itself.

As for the sideshows, I am delighted that nubile girls in bikinis (together with the implication that there are places in the country where it’s warm enough to wear such garments, even this early in the Spring) are back in the ads.  And that the league is at least beginning to purge meaningless virtue-signaling from the field. Poor Bud Light, though.  Their ad is a pretty sad commentary on how far they’ve yet to go to find their way back to their base.  Although, full points for the fact that the ad does seem to be full of people more closely resembling actual members of the male sex than the cringey last gasp of some Harris supporters.

The Newspaper in One Hand…

 

Rev. Kate Braestrup
Sermon: The Newspaper and the Bible
February 9, 2025
LK. 5:1-11

When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.

Time for the Jacksonian Response?

 

I thought we would soon see this, this material from a RedState article.

A federal judge issued an order Saturday that purports to not only stop the US DOGE Service, which is part of the Executive Office of the President, from accessing data on federal payments, but also prohibits Treasury officials from accessing the system managed by that agency. Buying into a tenuous — one might say bull**** — claim of “irreparable harm,” a leftist Obama appointee serving in the Southern District of New York blocked access to Treasury systems and demanded Trump’s audit team “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems, if any.”

Friendships Forged Under Fire

 

Edward Salter was a solicitor working for a firm in Brighton before World War I started. Feeling a call to serve, he volunteered, and gained a commission in a regiment raised after Britain entered the war. He has just finished training.

The Fires of Gallipoli, a novel by Barney Campbell, opens in Malta, with Salter, a platoon leader, about to join the Allies Mediterranean Expeditionary Force at Gallipoli. It follows Salter and his regiment from there.

Salter, a shy, reserved man, is thrown into an inferno. While not among the first troops to land, he and his regiment endure eight months on the Peninsula.  Edward discovers unknown reserves. He proves a fast learner. He progresses from platoon leader to company commander and then battalion adjutant through a combination of courage, competence and luck. Even as his regiment is winnowed by combat, he survives uninjured.

Blanket Pardons and Commutations

 

As someone who has seen intended and unintended mayhem as a former police officer, I believe that a pardon or commutation should be based upon the specific crime and the specific actions taken by an individual in the commission of a crime.

Regardless of the political beliefs of whomever is in a position to grant pardons or commutations, each case should be judged upon the merits of their case.

I’m Enjoying the Winning, but…

 

I want it to be durable. What Trump can do with an executive order, the next president can in large part undo with an executive order. I hope there is an effort underway to persuade Congress to implement these actions into law, so that they won’t be subject to the whims of the next chief executive.

I believe the progressive project has been dealt a serious blow and will not recover quickly. Millions of Americans who let leftist bullies frighten them from saying what they knew to be true — that the emperor was sporting an outfit from the Bianca Censori Collection — are now emboldened; millions more who just accepted the fabricated mainstream narrative are coming to understand just how deep the gaslit rabbit hole goes.

Random Thoughts

 

This morning as I was walking back from the pickleball courts, a young woman ran past me. She was wearing a small backpack that held water she could drink through a flexible tube. She was also wearing the brightest red shoes I had ever seen. I said to her as she went by, “Dorothy is going to want her shoes back.” She looked back at me as if I was crazy. I decided she was too young to have seen The Wizard of Oz.

When I take a long walk, I head to the Lake Worth fishing pier. I go down Lakeside Drive where my wife grew up. The 100-year-old homes are quite popular. During the days of George Floyd hysteria, many yard signs said “Hate has no place in this house,” or something like that. After the recent election, the only yard signs I see over there say “For Sale,” and there seem to be a lot of them.

Saturday Night Classics: “Slip Slidin’ Away” by Paul Simon

 

I’m equally enamored with and indifferent to Paul Simon’s catalogue, but the dude is multifaceted. He works in the border regions of folk, pop and rock, but he’s not particularly edgy. He’s collaborated with famous musicians, while others claim he stole from them. He’s a Jew, yet Jesus pops up here and there in his work. He’s sometimes awkwardly and seriously self-conscious, yet found it in himself to cut loose on Saturday Night Live on more than one occasion. And he was FUNNY.

When I was a kid, we would sing out the line, “slip slidin’ away” when appropriate, in winter. None of us kids knew the rest of the lyrics. If we had, we might have grown up jaded.

“You disgust me.”

 

First, for those who may have missed it, some background:

About a week ago, the WSJ hired a young reporter away from Business Insider. Her name is Katherine Long, and her pinned post on X reads, in part: “If you work with or around DOGE, I’d love to speak with you.” Two days ago, the WSJ published her piece, titled “Exclusive | DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts”. The following Mashable piece, titled “DOGE staffer resigns after racist posts uncovered. Elon Musk might bring him back,” does a pretty good job of going into the details, including what ensued over the following day or so:

Perhaps ideological purity is less important than I thought…

 

Wikimedia Commons

Snooty pseudo-intellectuals like myself sometimes claim to be above mere politics, and more interested in philosophy and ideas.  I care less for the issues of the day than I do for the great ideas that govern our personal and political lives.  While this is a fairly common refrain from conservatives, it is unusual among Democrats.  Because their issues of the day move from baby seals to racism to illegal immigration to global warming to men playing women’s sports to banning gas stoves to Lord knows what, suddenly and unpredictably.  And, of course, it’s difficult to find a cohesive ideology that would explain all their issues, or the transitions between them.  So Democrats tend to be purely political creatures.  Some Republicans are, too, of course.  But some of us prefer to see things through a philosophical lens.

We’re only 19 days into Trump’s term, but it seems like 19 months have passed already since January 20. When Alexander Hamilton wrote of “energy in the executive,” he had no idea that a real estate tycoon would become the greatest example of this understanding of the presidency.

This week’s episode reviews five of Trump’s biggest fights that are interrelated in ways that could rebalance out constitutional order in ways conservatives have hoped beyond hope for decades might be possible. Trump’s challenge to birthright citizenship is forcing a long overdue debate on the issue along with a challenge to district judges issuing nationwide injunctions; his freezing of spending revives the issue of presidential power to impound funds Congress has appropriated; and his firing of civil servants and termed appointees to federal boards and commissions will force a reconsideration of the old Humphrey’s Executor case that a wide spectrum of scholar believe was wrongly decided.

Government Job Buyout Offers

 

Despite my advanced age (almost 69 years), during much of which I have paid at least some attention to politics and government policy, I continue to be baffled by how differently government workers and “private sector” workers view their jobs.

A recent befuddlement is the objection by the (national) government workers to even the offer of a “buyout” incentive to quit in anticipation of possible layoffs to reduce the size of the government workforce.

Have you seen the price of eggs? It’s a crime I say, a crime. A real mystery…

Jobs Revisions Point in Opposite Directions. Pro-Democrat Bias Trend in the Establishment Number Continues.

 

I’ve pointed out before that the two jobs surveys often point in different directions.  In fact, in every Democrat presidency, at least as far back as Carter, the headline Establishment Survey consistently reports more jobs created than the Household Survey.  During every Republican presidency, the headline Establishment numbers are consistently less than the Household numbers.   Today’s jobs report is the first during the Trump presidency, so naturally….

The headline Establishment number disappointed.  The headline number (after revisions) was up 143,000.   The expectation was that it would be in the 170,000 neighborhood.  The Household number (after revisions), on the other hand, was up 234,000.  So, the trend continues.  A Republican is in office and the headline number disappoints while the little-reported Household number is much better.

I Call Him Jason

 

It’s rare to meet a person in our day-to-day lives who intrigues and surprises us by just being himself. And yet my husband and I are regularly meeting a young man, who is a checker at the Publix we frequent, who has made a poignant impression on us.

When we shop on Tuesday mornings, he has been a regular checker, and after several weeks we have made our way to his lane. The first time we met him, we saw this curly-haired, tall, thin, young man with black hair and black-rimmed glasses. He was distantly polite and barely looked at us. But he was clearly engaged with his work. After he asked the required question, did you find everything, he silently weighed produce and scanned items. I tried to make small talk, but he was politely aloof.