SATURDAY: USAID around the world...

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2025

...as described on the Fox News Channel: What does USAID do in Latin America?

All in all, we have no idea. The same can be said of most people. Triggered by the ongoing attempt to terminate the federal agency, the Associated Press recently published a news report on that very question.

The report appeared on Wednesday, February 5. Headline included, the report began like this:

USAID is going away. Here’s what it’s been doing in South America

The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development will deliver a major blow to efforts including humanitarian assistance in Colombia, conservation efforts in Brazil and coca eradication in Peru—South American countries that have been a priority for the support.

Even if some foreign aid resumes after the 90-day suspension ordered by President Donald Trump, many USAID-backed projects focus on areas he has derided as ideological: climate change, biodiversity and minority and women’s rights, so several recipients fear their projects are now dead.

So began the AP's lengthy report. Like almost everyone else, we don't have the kind of personal knowledge which lets us assess its accuracy or its overall quality.

That said, the article described a range of initiatives the agency has supported. Below, you see an account of USAID's work in our major country. You can read the full AP report simply by clicking here:

Trump told reporters Monday that shutting down USAID “should have been done a long time ago.” Billionaire Elon Musk, who is leading government cost reduction in the new administration, said the agency was run by “radical left lunatics.”

In Brazil, USAID’s largest initiative is the Partnership for the Conservation of Amazon Biodiversity, which focuses on conservation and improving livelihoods for Indigenous peoples and other forest communities. About two-thirds of the world’s largest rainforest is in Brazil.

One Brazilian organization USAID has supported is the Amazon-based Roraima Indigenous Council, which operates in 35 areas including the territory of the Yanomami tribe, totaling some 157,000 square kilometers (60,600 square miles), larger than Greece. This direct support is representative of a shift at USAID over the last few years, to prioritize funding grassroots organizations.

In a region vulnerable to illegal gold mining and drug-trafficking, the Roraima Indigenous Council is using the money for improved family farming, adapting to climate change and income generation for women.

Now everything is at risk, Edinho Macuxi, the tuxaua (leader) of the Indigenous Council, told the AP. In recent weeks, his organization, which represents some 60,000 people, laid off workers and canceled activities due to lack of funds...

[...]

In recent years, USAID also supported arguably the most successful sustainable resource effort in the Amazon, the managed fishing of pirarucu, the region’s famously giant fish. The U.S. funds built a slaughterhouse where fishers could work during the legal catch. Indigenous and riverine communities helped recover what was an endangered species, at the same time getting income and food.

In 2024, USAID disbursed $22.6 million to Brazil. Over half, close to $14 million, went to general environmental protection, with the Amazon, which stores crucial amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, as a top priority.

In the case of Brazil alone, that was $22.6 million shoveled right out the door!

Was that a good use of federal money, or was it instead the latest example of "waste, fraud and abuse?" Are the programs in question well managed? Are American interests served by these efforts? Are the humanitarian efforts actually successful on the local level?

It's imaginable that opinions about such questions will differ. In a slightly more rational world, the lengthy AP report could be a starting point for a sane discussion of such issues, which have suddenly come to the fore in the realm of Musk and Trump.

Imaginably, that could happen in a more rational world. Our world isn't like that. 

In theory, a news report like that could trigger a serious discussion. Today, we thought we'd show you what viewers of our nation's most-watched "cable new" program have been told, in recent days, about the work of USAID in the region in question.

We start with the 60-year-old Greg Gutfeld, speaking on the most-watched TV show in all "cable news." He cleared his throat last Wednesday evening, then emitted this:

GUTFELD (2/5/25): ...You cannot fix USAID any more than you could have fixed Joe Biden, and it is the same problem. You have a corrupt, broken product operating under the guise of empathy and compassion.

You know, as USAID promotes gender equality in Madagascar, they did help fund the Wuhan virus and they killed 15 million people. You can't fix Joe, you can't fix USAID, yet they will deny the corruption to the very end, and this is the problem when a single ideology contaminates an entire system.

All in all, it didn't sound good! The gentleman continued:

GUTFELD (continuing directly): The media is 90% to 95% liberal—there is data for that—and what did you get? You get a hoax matrix that covered for Joe and tried to destroy Trump. 

Then you have the academia—90 to 95% of the faculty is liberal. Maybe you can find one Republican per major department, and then what do you have? Rabid anti-west activism. Pro-terror activism. USAID is almost uniformly peopled by one party, and we are paying for it. That's the difference.

At that point, Dana Perino said it was time for a break.

Question! Is USAID in the grip of "rabid anti-west and pro-terror activism?" Or is it just academia which is so afflicted? 

As the gentleman orated, it was hard to tell. But of one thing there was no doubt—USAID was said to have killed 15 million people. 

Gutfeld made that specific claim twice during his peroration, as you can see by clicking here, then sitting through his full speech. (Full disclosure: USAID was said to have killed only 12 million people in Gutfeld's initial statement.)

(Fuller disclosure: Has USAID been promoting "gender equality in Madagascar?" We're not entirely sure why that would be wrong. But a cursory Google search turns up no claim to that effect, not even in reporting at the Fox News site.)

At any rate, that's what viewers in Red America heard on Wednesday night. USAID killed 15 million people, or maybe as few as 12 million. Also, the agency seemed to be connected to "rabid pro-terror activism."

Perino took it to a break. The next day, Gutfeld expanded his analysis:

WATTERS (2/6/25): Greg, I haven't seen a lot of actual regular citizens complain about—

GUTFELD: A very good point, and now we come full circle, Dana, which I will touch on shortly. But your point is well made.  

Where are the grassroots protests?...Instead, you're getting these shrieking Democrats who are acting like drug addicts watching the cops flush their drugs down the toilet—because they are!

So it's really hard to get energized about USAID. And is it because it is a front that creates artificial social instability in foreign countries, portrayed as aid, with the illegitimate goal of installing a puppet of our liking? 

So think about what they are doing in small countries. You will follow me, Dana—trust me. 

They do DEI, identity-driven activism with gender and trans. They make disinformation an urgent cause, while also playing up the latest climate apoplexy.

The fellow continued from there. For the record, Gutfeld still explicitly describes climate change as "a hoax."

On this day, Red America heard the fellow extend his critique. Now, Fox viewers seemed to be told that USAID is about the business of "creating artificial social instability in foreign countries...with the goal of installing a puppet of our liking." 

In service to that end, USAID "make[s] disinformation an urgent cause, while also playing up the latest climate apoplexy." Or so Fox viewers were told.

For the record, in what specific country has USAID "created artificial social instability with the goal of installing a puppet of our liking?"

No example was given this night, and no example was sought. Five Stepfords sat on the panel this night, including the fully transformed Harold Ford.

Everyone agreed with everyone else. Each Stepford agreed with every word each other Stepford produced. 

We were going to show you what Jesse Watters said about USAID. But for today, let's close right now, with this comment:

The night assault which destroyed sacred Troy was an assault of the Late Bronze Age. The journalism we've just described is a deadly night assault of our own Information Age.

Briefly, let's be frank! No serious discussion of any topic exists within our failing culture. In the process, the walls of our own Troy are being overrun. 

(In our view, Blue American orgs have been bad enough. Red American orgs have been worse.)

Is anyone describing this process? Given the way Musk and Trump are now "flooding the zone," that has become an extremely difficult undertaking. That said, ignoring the predecessors to the current flood has been the norm in Blue America for a very long time.

Is there a way to turn back this assault? We know of no obvious way "back out of all this now too much for us."

Meanwhile, we close with this:

What has USAID actually done in Latin America or elsewhere in the world? Given the way our culture now works, there's essentially no way (to find) out.

FRIDAY: Is something "wrong" with Musk / Trump / Vance?

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2025

No, really—is something wrong? Is something "wrong" with Elon Musk? No really—is something wrong?

The latest string of bizarre behavior starts with the gang of bro/defectives he's siccing on the republic. One such fellow was 25-year-old Marko Elez. We'll let Mediaite provide some basic background:

DOGE Staffer Out After Social Media Posts Unearthed: ‘Normalize Indian Hate’

[...]

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Elez was connected with a social media account on X under the name @nullllptr that previously used the username @marko_elez. The account was deleted back in December shortly before Elez joined DOGE.

“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote on X in September, according to the Journal. Around the same time, the account wrote “Normalize Indian hate,” in regard to Silicon Valley hiring people from India.

“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account connected to Elez wrote in July while another tweet read, “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.” The account also called for repealing the Civil Rights Act and backed a “eugenic immigration policy.”

The youngster was racist before it was cool! He wouldn't mind if Gaza—and, in fairness, Israel too—was wiped right off the map!

For the record, here's the initial Wall Street Journal report. No one has claimed that the Journal's reporting was inaccurate. That said, here was Musk's response:

Musk Demands Firing of ‘Disgusting, Cruel’ WSJ Reporter Who Uncovered DOGE Employee’s Racist Tweets

That is correct! Musk, who is now the world's richest and most powerful person, wants the reporter fired!  He has denounced her as "disgusting and cruel." Could something be "wrong" with this man?

If something's wrong with Elon Musk, so too perhaps with JD Vance. 

You'll recall that Vance grew up in a home which was so disordered that his grandmother is positioned as the heroic, sane one in the crew—and she once poured gasoline over her sleeping husband and set the man on fire.

Stating the obvious, none of that was the fault of the mistreated child who grew up to be Vance. But the adult Vance has now jumped up to insist that the bro who wants to normalize hatred against people of Indian ancestry / heritage / background should of course be rehired by Musk:

Vance Goes to Bat for 25-Year-Old ‘Kid’ Who Resigned Over Racist Tweets: ‘Bring Him Back’

Inevitably, that has led to this new report by the same Wall Street Journal reporter, dual headline offered:

Trump Calls for Rehiring of DOGE Staffer Who Resigned Over Racist Posts
Employee has links to a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics

Inevitably, also this:

JUST IN: Elon Musk To Rehire DOGE Staffer Who Bragged 'I Was Racist Before It Was Cool'

Musk will be rehiring the bro in question. So we all get to enjoy a thoroughly feel-good ending!

In the Iliad, Achilles weeps for sacred Patroclus. Trump and Musk are busy weeping for this disordered "kid."

For better or worse—stated opinions are going to differ—this is the world the reigning commander has dropped on American heads. As for the commander himself, he also wants the Washington Post's Gene Robinson to be fired!

‘He Should Be Fired Immediately!!!’ Trump Rips Washington Post Columnist Following Morning Joe Segment on USAID

As you can see if you read the report, this complaint is stone cold stupid all the way down. Could something be "wrong" with Trump?

Full disclosure:

Normally, when people behave in such erratic ways, you may suspect a drug problem. In the case of these very strange men, it may be as simple as this:

There may simply be something "wrong" with the commander's remarkably large collection of broken toys.

Also, it may be too late to turn back the "night assault" being staged by these peculiar men. That said, Katherine Stewart is holding out hope in a new guest essay for the New York Times.

In our view, the headline above her essay asks an interesting question:

Now Will We Believe What Is Happening Right in Front of Us?

They told us they would smash the institutions that safeguard our democracy. And that is exactly what they are doing.

Many Americans chose not to believe what they were saying. Will we now believe what we are seeing?

To be clear, “they” are not just Donald Trump and his billionaire co-pilot. Over the past half-century, an anti-democratic movement has coalesced in the United States...

That's the way the essay starts. It poses an intriguing question:

At this point, will we Americans be able to see what's happening right before us? Will we be able to believe what we're seeing? 

 In this morning's report, we pondered a similar question. Here's the problem with Stewart's framework:

Stewart seems to assume that it isn't too late for us to come to our senses and successfully push back. It could be that it isn't too late. But it may also be that it is.

How did we ever get to this place? At present, madness is conducting a "night assault" on basic institutions. Next week, we expect to explore the various ways we denizens of Blue America have helped bring on, and enable, this burgeoning madness.

Is something "wrong" with Elon Musk? No really—is something wrong?

MADMEN: Yes, the commander actually said it!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2025

This is our own "night assault:" As we've noted in the past, the "night assault" which occasioned the death of sacred Troy isn't described in the Iliad.

That said, make no mistake—we're currently experiencing our own present-day "night assault." 

The Iliad is a story of the late Bronze Age. By way of contrast, we live in an era which is known as "the information age." 

That said, the madness in question is bred in the bone; it's part of the human inheritance. Once again, we think of Professor Knox's account of that Bronze Age "night assault," including his account of the lesson it was intended to deliver to succeeding generations of Greeks.

The assault in question follows the slaying of noble Hector by the madman Achilles. Within the verses of the Iliad, Achilles proceeds to drag Hector's body through the dust outside the walls of Troy, even as Hector's horrified parents look on from Troy's high walls.

With the upstanding Hector defeated at last, those towering walls could be breeched. In his 1990 essay in support of the Robert Fagles translation, Professor Knox offered this account of the assault which followed, and of the lesson this famous poem was intended to teach:

Professor Knox, Introduction

 [...]

The whole poem has been moving toward this duel between the two champions, but there has never been any doubt about the outcome. The husband and father, the beloved protector of his people, the man who stands for the civilized values of the rich city, its social and religious institutions, will go down to defeat at the hands of this man who has no family, who in a private quarrel has caused the death of many of his own fellow soldiers, who now in a private quarrel thinks only of revenge, though that revenge, as he well knows, is the immediate prelude to his own death. And the death of Hector seals the fate of Troy; it will fall to the Achaeans, to become the pattern for all time of the death of a city. 

The images of that night assault—the blazing palaces, the blood running in the streets, old Priam butchered at the altar, Cassandra raped in the temple, Hector's baby son thrown from the battlements, his wife Andromache dragged off to slavery—all this, foreshadowed in the Iliad, will be stamped indelibly on the consciousness of the Greeks throughout their history, immortalized in lyric poetry, in tragedy, on temple pediments and painted vases, to reinforce the stern lesson of Homer's presentation of the war: that no civilization, no matter how rich, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force.

That was a "night assault" carried out in the Late Bronze Age. Today, though, make no mistake:

We here in our "Information Age" are undergoing a similar night assault. The background to that earlier assault would be this:

From the opening verses of the Iliad, Achilles is the mightiest of all the warriors, but he's also a visible nutcase. Eventually, the madness of that time and place are expressed in the night assault his comrades inflict on the more civilized Troy:

A baby boy is thrown to his death. Hector's wife is dragged away. 

Hector's father, the generous King Priam, is butchered at the altar. Hector's sister is raped. 

These were the types of penalties performed by the madmen of that age. According to Professor Knox, this was the lesson this story was intended to convey to the (many) generations which followed:

No civilization, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force.

Even by the time of Classical Greece, "the power to meet force with equal or superior force" was a reference to military power. Today, we live in a messaging age. 

It's entirely possible those of us in Blue America have already lost this era's messaging war in a way which can't be reversed. Beyond that, it must be said:

Our own Blue American civilization was never anywhere near as "refined"—as intellectually brilliant and morally pure—as we Blues have always imagined and alleged. 

Simply put, we aren't the people we've persistently claimed to be, and we never were. A similar situation obtained in (the fictional) Oran, concerning which Camus (metaphorically) told us this:

Albert Camus, The Plague

CAMUS (page 36): The word “plague” had just been uttered for the first time. At this stage of the narrative, with Dr. Bernard Rieux standing at his window, the narrator may, perhaps, be allowed to justify the doctor’s uncertainty and surprise—since, with very slight differences, his reaction was the same as that of the great majority of our townfolk. Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in the ones that come crashing down on our heads from a blue sky. 

He even used the term "blue sky!" Moments later, Camus continued

In fact, like our fellow citizens, Rieux was caught off his guard...

Our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they haven't taken their precautions. 

Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be modest, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences. 

The people of Oran hadn't been able to see it coming! According to Camus, no one will ever be free "as long as there are pestilences" (with their attendant "night assaults").

We Blues! Like the people of Oran, we just kept believing our own twaddle.  Our blindness dates back at least sixty years, though we'll set that chronology aside for another day.

(By happenstance, we ourselves were physically present on the day the problem began.)

We didn't quite see it coming! Even today, our tribunes refuse to employ the language which describes what's currently happening. They refuse to acknowledge the presence of "madmen" engaged in a new form of "madness." 

(In fairness, a few of our tribunes flirt with an appropriate term of art, "coup.")

The Achaeans overran Troy's walls. Within the past two weeks, Elon Musk, a visible nutcase, has seized control of the instruments of the Information Age. 

Yesterday, as USAID fell, that nutball's commander was droning at the annual prayer breakfast, giving voice to such madness as this—and yes, this madman actually made the statement we've set out in bold:

TRUMP (2/6/25): We're doing really well. It's, I think—

In two weeks, they're saying—I'm reading it, so I'm not even saying it—but I feel it, that we've done more than just about any president ever. 

The first two weeks have been probably, they say, the most successful two weeks in the history of any presidency. Now what we have to do is keep it going for another couple of hundred weeks. But it's been very successful...

After years of decline, Americans are reasserting our true identity as a people ordained by God to be the freest and most exceptional nation ever to exist on the face of the earth. But we weren't that for four years. I don't believe we were. And we're getting there very soon, very quickly. I'll be able to say it, and we'll be able to say it again, as I said in my inaugural address two weeks ago, a light is now shining over the world, the entire world, and I'm hearing it from other leaders.

I'm hearing it from leaders that have traditionally not been on our side. That there's so much more— there's such a good feeling in the air. It's so different than it was just a short time ago. Because here in America we are once again a nation that believes in ourselves. 

We believe in our destiny and trust in the providence of almighty God. And I can tell you the opposite side, the opposing side—and they oppose religion. They oppose God. They've lost their confidence. They've lost their confidence. It's a different group of people than I remember. 

His entire address was a tribute to an unexplored, undescribed version of apparent madness. But once again, here's that one thing this apparent nutcase actually said:

I can tell you the opposite side, the opposing side—and they oppose religion. They oppose God.

So went the unifying message at the annual Prayer Breakfast, even as the night assault raced along.

Almost surely, you don't believe that the commander actually said that. It's also true that Blue America's news orgs are weirdly refusing to report the fact that he made those highlighted remarks.

That said, the commander did make those remarks! To see C-Span's full videotape, you can just click here. The passage we've posted starts at the 12:30 mark. His statements about the way the opposite side "opposes God" can be seen at the 13:45 mark.

(Here's the New York Times report on that address. For whatever reason, Shawn McCreesh, or perhaps his editor, has chosen to disappear those astounding remarks.)

Our comments today have been occasioned by the night assault on USAID. This is a modern version of the Bronze Age assault described by Professor Knox. 

Also this: All across the Blue American dial, we still don't seem to know how to describe these events. 

For decades, we Blues have insisted that we were the very smart, highly moral people. Rather plainly, we aren't.

We aren't any smarter than anyone else. (In the language of Camus, we're "like everybody else.") Beyond that, our vaunted morality has routinely been a performative matter—an artefact of obvious public performance, visible to everyone but us.

We aren't the townsfolk we said we were! That doesn't mean that we're bad people. It means that we're people people.

Like the Trojans, we're being overrun. With no modern-day Hector around, it isn't clear that we 'll be able to find a way to resist.

We've earned our way out again and gain. Today, as before, that assault!

For extra credit only: According to Homer, who was Achilles? 

In the formulation of Professor Knox, he was "this man who now in a private quarrel thinks only of revenge."

Compare and contrast. Also, you can muse.

THURSDAY: What might a specialist say about that?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2025

We'll suggest that you listen to Reason: “What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?”

We apologize for repeating the opening line of the 1970 Erich Segal blockbuster novel, Love Story. That opening line popped into our heads as we pondered a similar question.

Our own question goes like this:

What can you say about a 78-year-old man who keeps making blatantly ludicrous statements?

What can you say about a person like that? (We're thinking of Donald J. Trump!)

What can you say about a person like Donald J. Trump? We still owe you our reaction to the fact-checks which appeared concerning his ludicrous claim about the way our own United States has been "ripped off" by the World Health Organization. 

(For our initial report on that topic, you can just click here.)

That report dealt with the commander's ludicrous claim about the way we were being ripped off by the WHO. We assume his recent statement about the number of Chinese-language signs in Panama is also an absurd misstatement—but when we tried to consult the fact-checks of that statement, we found that no one had bothered to try.

In fairness, Trump says so many crazy things that it's very hard to keep up. Many orgs have simply abandoned the task of fact-checking his endless string of absurd misstatements. As a general matter, those same orgs have never been willing to ask what the existence of so many crazy statements may perhaps or possibly say about the person who makes them.

With those facts in mind, we'll update our question:

What can you say about a 78-year-old man who keeps making crazy statements? If a person keeps making crazy statements, what might that say or suggest about him?

Our trigger today is a report by Joe Lancaster for the web site over at Reason. Below, you see the headline atop the piece, and you see the crazy statements which have now, at long last, been thoroughly debunked:

Transcript Proves the 60 Minutes Scandal Was Always Fake

An issue that came to define the closing days of the 2024 presidential election, oddly, was a single televised interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate. Republican candidate Donald Trump claimed the interview was misleadingly edited to Harris' benefit and demanded investigations—which he, as the newly elected president, could potentially order.

This week, CBS released the transcript and raw footage of the interview, demonstrating how pointless the controversy always was but also potentially setting a dangerous precedent for the future of news media.

[...]

"[Harris] gave an answer that was from a loony bin," Trump claimed two weeks later at a campaign rally. "[CBS News] said, 'We can't have that.' They took the answer out in its entirety, threw it away, and they put another answer in. And I think it's the biggest scandal in broadcasting history."

According to the crazy statement in question, the way CBS edited Candidate Harris' statement constituted "the biggest scandal in broadcasting history." 

Also, it constituted "election interference," this person weirdly said.

Now, the full videotape and transcript of the interview has been released. As Lancaster notes, the material shows how clownish the commander's statements actually were.

We'll recommend that you peruse Lancaster's full report, which demonstrates the craziness of this famous person's claims. We close with another version of our own question:

What can you say about a commander who keeps saying the darnedest things? What might a specialist say about a person who just keeps behaving like that?

MADMEN: Did King George suffer from porphyria?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2025

Did he spot a ball of worms? Is something wrong with Elon Musk? No, really—is something "wrong" with Musk?

We've shared some of the gentleman's tweets in recent days. We should have included his additional comment, offered this Monday, about the ball of worms he and his teen warfighters have apparently discovered in the halls of USAID: 

The first lieutenant's assessments
"USAID was a viper's nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America." 

"USAID is evil." 

“USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” 

"We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could [have] gone to some great parties. Did that instead."

 "It became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it. What we have actually is just a ball of worms."

At DOGE, the kingpin spotted a ball of worms—and he fed them into a chipper!

Those statements by the lieutenant strike us as highly unusual. It's hard to avoid wondering if something might be "wrong" with this rather strange individual, or even with the commander who has commissioned this nighttime assault.

Could something be "wrong" with Elon Musk? In theory, everything's possible! Meanwhile, in this morning's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof describes the peculiar arrangement which currently obtains as Musk and his band of warfighters conduct their night-time assault:

The World’s Richest Men Take On the World’s Poorest Children

The world’s richest man is boasting about destroying the United States Agency for International Development, which saves the lives of the world’s poorest children, saying he shoved it “into the wood chipper.”

By my calculations, Elon Musk probably has a net worth greater than that of the poorest billion people on Earth. Just since Donald Trump’s election, Musk’s personal net worth has grown by far more than the entire annual budget of U.S.A.I.D., which in any case accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget. It’s callous for gleeful billionaires like Musk and President Trump to cut children off from medicine, but, as President John F. Kennedy pointed out when he proposed the creation of the agency in 1961, it’s also myopic.

As he continues, Kristof describes the things he's seen around the world as USAID saves children from starvation. He also explains the way these missions serve the American national interest, as President Kennedy said.

Kristof has seen starving children. By way of contrast, the world's richest person says he has spotted a ball of worms. He's spotted the vipers and the radical Marxists who need to go into the chipper! 

Is something wrong with this guy? Could something even be wrong with the commander who unloosed Musk on the world? 

It can almost seem like a fairly obvious question—but under current rules of the game, it's a question the tribunes of our failing discourse aren't allowed to ask or explore. Under prevailing rules of the game, attention must not be paid! 

Example:

On this morning's Morning Joe, the word "crazy" was uttered, again and again, as David Ignatius and others described the commander's now retracted plan to remake Gaza as a Pleasantville.

The proposal came, and then it went. The word "crazy" was in wide employ on Morning Joe, but it can't be found in Ignatius' column, which appears beneath this unflattering dual headline:

Real estate developer in a china shop
To a region still recovering from the trauma of war, Trump’s proposed takeover of Gaza was incendiary.

The word "crazy" doesn't appear in that column. Instead, we see the "incendiary" proposal described as "jaw-dropping" and "capricious," with this sidelong observation thrown in:

There have been signs for months that the plan had taken root in the mind of the former real estate developer.

The jaw-dropping, capricious plan had been taking root in his mind. That said, there is no claim that the plan, or even its craftsman, could perhaps be crazy in some way. In high-end journalism, for better or worse, such things simply aren't done.

We very much don't offer this as a criticism of the invaluable Ignatius. For better or worse, we'll guess that we're looking at an aspect of Post editorial policy.

That said, we are looking at a basic feature of contemporary public discourse, in which we aren't allowed to wonder if something might be (clinically) "wrong" with the world's most powerful men.

Is Lieutenant Musk a madman? As we've told you again and again, there's no such clinical term! 

Beyond that, a more nuanced discussion is strictly forbidden in the case of major political figures, including those who capriciously shut down programs which keep starving children alive.

Over on the Fox News Channel, the flyweights, stumblebums and Stepfords continue to recite the mandated points about the brilliant work of the commander and his lieutenant. Within the beachfront properties of Blue America, our own journalists—such as they are—are forbidden from thinking about a fairly obvious, if highly complexificated, matter of possible public concern.

It's verboten! Tribunes aren't allowed to talk about "mental illness," which most clinical practitioners prefer to refer to as "mental disorder." As we noted yesterday, there seem to be hundreds of such disorders—but if you believe in this branch of medical science, you can't reveal that here.

We do speak freely about "mental illness" in the realm of everyday street crime. Also, we're allowed to speak about such matters regarding historical figures. Just consider poor King George!

What the Sam Hill was wrong with King George? The leading authority on a 1994 feature film offers this overview of the matter:

The Madness of King George 

The Madness of King George is a 1994 British biographical comedy drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner and adapted by Alan Bennett from his own 1991 play The Madness of George III. It tells the true story of George III of Great Britain's deteriorating mental health, and his equally declining relationship with his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, particularly focusing on the period around the Regency Crisis of 1788–89. Two text panels at the end of the film note that the color of the King's urine suggests that he was suffering from porphyria, adding that the disease is "periodic, unpredictable and hereditary."

The Madness of King George won the BAFTA Awards in 1995 for Outstanding British Film and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Nigel Hawthorne, who was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. 

What the heck was wrong with King George? Questions abound:

Did he really engage in conduct which could be described, if only colloquially, as a type of "madness?" If so, was he suffering from porphyria, and is porphyria a "mental disorder?" 

In these decidedly latter days, we're allowed to ask such questions about public figures, as long as they exist in the past. Regarding the status of porphyria, the leading authority on the topic offers such assessments as these:

Porphyria

Porphyria is a group of disorders in which substances called porphyrins build up in the body, adversely affecting the skin or nervous system. The types that affect the nervous system are also known as acute porphyria, as symptoms are rapid in onset and short in duration. Symptoms of an attack include abdominal pain, chest pain, vomiting, confusion, constipation, fever, high blood pressure, and high heart rate. The attacks usually last for days to weeks. Complications may include paralysis, low blood sodium levels, and seizures...

Most types of porphyria are inherited from one or both of a person's parents and are due to a mutation in one of the genes that make heme. They may be inherited in an autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, or X-linked dominant manner.

[...]

History

The underlying mechanism was first described by the German physiologist Felix Hoppe-Seyler in 1871, and acute porphyrias were described by the Dutch physician Barend Stokvis in 1889.

The links between porphyrias and mental illness have been noted for decades. In the early 1950s, patients with porphyrias (occasionally referred to as "porphyric hemophilia") and severe symptoms of depression or catatonia were treated with electroshock therapy.

[...]

Notable cases

George III. The mental illness exhibited by George III in the regency crisis of 1788 has inspired several attempts at retrospective diagnosis. The first, written in 1855, thirty-five years after his death, concluded that he had acute mania. M. Guttmacher, in 1941, suggested manic-depressive psychosis as a more likely diagnosis. The first suggestion that a physical illness was the cause of King George's mental derangement came in 1966, in a paper called "The Insanity of King George III: A Classic Case of Porphyria," with a follow-up in 1968, "Porphyria in the Royal Houses of Stuart, Hanover and Prussia." The papers, by a mother/son psychiatrist team, were written as though the case for porphyria had been proven, but the response demonstrated that many experts, including those more intimately familiar with the manifestations of porphyria, were unconvinced. Many psychiatrists disagreed with the diagnosis, suggesting bipolar disorder as far more probable...

Quite a few other notable cases are thumbnailed. We are allowed to discuss the "mental illness" of major public figures—just so long as they aren't present-day spotters of worms or serial dispensers of jaw-dropping proposals. 

According to the leading authority, King George III actually was gripped by "mental illness." Porphyria may not be a "mental illness" itself, but it seems to be linked to same.

Under current rules of the game, we're allowed to talk about that. For better or worse, we aren't allowed to talk about this—about the nighttime assault now underway on our own sacred Troy, the assault which is proceeding along on a crazy daily basis.

Did the king ever spot a ball of worms? Citizens, we're just asking!

Tomorrow: Pity for the afflicted

WEDNESDAY: As the madness continues to swirl...

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2025

...we explain the need for five votes: Jobs in the Senate must be the greatest jobs in the world! 

We say that after watching the things people will do to avoid ever losing such jobs.

Three extremely shaky nominees—Kennedy, Gabbard and Patel—still await their confirmation votes in the Senate. By now, it seems fairly clear that Kennedy and Gabbard are going to make it through, with Patel's confirmation possibly still in doubt.

Or then again, possibly not!

Quickly, an aside:

With respect to this ongoing spectacle, whatever made Joni Ernst think she could oppose Nominee Hegseth without having the world of Red American opposition come crashing down on her head? It isn't the fact that she quickly surrendered in such an unmistakable way. It's the fact that she apparently didn't know what was coming when she attempted to take a stand!

These Senate jobs must be quite good, given the way a solon like Ernst will fold up in order to keep one. With that in mind, we now explain the alleged search for "the fourth vote."

The prevailing pundit theory goes like this:

In the current 53-47 Senate, the GOP can lose three (3) Republican votes and still get a nominee confirmed. This has led a string of pundits to say that the Democrats are out there looking for the decisive "fourth [NO] vote."

Does it actually work that way? Yesterday morning, we finally saw someone address the problem with that formulation, though even he made a mistake in his assessment.

We refer to Morning Joe's Jonathan Lemire. Yesterday morning, he described an obvious problem with being the fourth [NO] vote:

LEMIRE (2/4/25): Guys, I was on the Hill last Thursday during that day when they had hearings all happening at once for Kennedy and Patel and Tulsi Gabbard. And talking to congressional aides— 

The thing is, it's about the math. What's so hard for these Republican senators is being that one vote who can be blamed. It's hard to be that fourth vote—

MIKA: Yeah.

LEMIRE: —if you are assuming that Collins and Murkowski and McConnell, who showed a willingness to defy Trump, are going to be three.

According to Lemire, it's hard to be the fourth NO vote. He said the person who casts the fourth vote is the one person who will get blamed! 

At that point, Lemire noted that Senator Collins has already bailed in the case of Nominee Gabbard. He then continued with this:

LEMIRE: We know there are other senators who have real concerns about [Gabbard]. We're watching Todd Young from Indiana as well. 

But the issue is, it's just so hard to do it with four. And these aides were saying what they would really need would be a bunch of senators to come together to say no. So therefore, it could be five, six, seven or eight, and therefore that one person doesn't get all the blame, and potentially that Elon Musk-backed primary challenger.

There's a bit of truth to what Lemire said. There's also a basic fallacy there.

It's true! Under current circumstances, four NO votes would be much worse than three! In the case of Nominee Hegseth, three GOP solons voted NO—but Hegseth got through anyway.

That meant that none of the three could be assailed as the traitor who defeated Hegseth. But here's where Lemire's logic breaks down:

Uh-oh! If someone had cast a fourth NO vote, then all four senators could (and would) have been assailed as the decisive vote—as the vote which took Hegseth down. 

It wouldn't just be the poor shlub who happened to cast the last of those votes. It would have been each of the four, each of whom could have saved Pete simply by voting YES.

In the current situation, three NO votes is no huge deal; four is a disaster. So, of course, is five NO votes—but in that circumstance, no one could be assailed as the one decisive vote, as the solon who could have saved the day simply by voting YES.

In short:

In the current circumstance, there will never be four NO votes for one of these nominees. There could be three or there could be five, but there will never be four. 

In the Senate, Homey don't play it that way! In support of that theory, consider what happened when the fate of Nominee Hegseth hung in the balance on the night of Friday, January 24.

Good grief! Murkowski and Collins had already said that they would be voting NO. That meant there was room for one more NO, but two more would be a big problem.

And then, sure enough, how strange! 

By widespread agreement, no one know how Senator Tillis was going to vote. And as the world waited to see what Tillis would do, McConnell kept refusing to vote. 

The clerk kept calling his name as she took the roll; he kept failing to answer. Then Tillis announced online that he would be voting YES, and McConnell instantly told the clerk that his vote was a NO.

Just a guess! If Tillis had voted NO, McConnell would have voted YES. This would have saved the four dissenters—each of the four—from being trashed as the decisive vote who took the nominee down.

It wouldn't have been the fourth NO voter who got blamed. For the reasons we've laid out, it would have been all four.  

If you want to see this chronology as it played out in real time, you can watch Rachel Maddow doing the play-by-play that night. It was Friday night, January 24. You can start right here, at 9:15 p.m.

Could Nominee Patel be voted down? We don't think that will happen. But our prediction would be this:

With all these nominees, you may see three NO votes, or you may see five. But you won't see four NO votes. It simply isn't done!

We would have thought that everyone understood these facts of life concerning congressional voting behavior. That said, over the past few weeks, we've said a long string of pundits talking about the search for the fourth NO vote.

There will never be a fourth NO vote in the absence of a fifth! Can anybody here play this game? More and more, the answer seems to be no. 

Meanwhile, those Senate jobs must be wickedly great. Look what folks do to keep them!

MADMEN: On Monday, we said he isn't a madman!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2025

Two days later, this: We're going to start today's report with rare words of self-endorsement.

We revealed the framework for this week's rumination when we posted Monday morning's report. The one-word framework was this:

MADMEN

We said the commander isn't a madman. We said you could feel sure about that because there's no such clinical term.

We said the same thing about the commander's first lieutenant. Allegedly, he's the world's richest person. Employing a version of the king's English, he's also a visible nutcase.

He may be a visible nutcase, but he plainly isn't insane. We know that this visible nutcase isn't insane because no such diagnostic term exists in the DSM.

To our credit, we chose that one-word framework—MADMEN—and posted it Monday morning. Two days later, the commander has proposed that we the people send our nation's military overseas to make Gaza the 54th state, but also the world's largest golf course.

Before the commander made that proposal, the lieutenant added to his array of characterizations concerning USAID. In Monday afternoon's report, we linked you to four of his more thoughtful tweets about that federal agency. 

As of yesterday, he had added a fifth. Please pardon this first lieutenant's French:

The first lieutenant's tweets
"USAID was a viper's nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America." 

"USAID is evil." 

“USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” 

"USAID is a criminal organization." 

"We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could [have] gone to some great parties. Did that instead."

To see that latest tweet, click here. That said, this fellow in question isn't a madman and he isn't insane or nuts, for the reason already stated.

On this morning's Morning Joe, Joe was unhelpfully AWOL Lucky for us, Anand Giridharadas was there. 

In our view, Giridharadas is one of the clearest voices currently found within our failing nation's failing attempt at a discourse. Perhaps because he has too much hair, he hasn't attained his rightful place at the top of that (imitation of) discourse.

He comes to us by way of Shaker Heights and then Sidwell Friends. For more on his background, you can simply click this, or you might decide to click here.

This morning, Giridharadas said that our major newspapers have had a hard time finding the language to describe what Musk is doing as what it is—"a coup." In our view, a similar situation exists with respect to the language being explored this week right here at this site.

We went with MADMEN on Monday morning. Two days later, this! 

We'll close today with a key point concerning the role of "aha moments" within our imperfect human discourse. First, though, we'll tell you this:

As we noted on Monday, there's no such lingo as madman or insane within the clinical discourse. As we noted, the very term "mental illness" is fairly widely eschewed, or so says the leading authority in this particular treatise:

Classification of mental disorders

The classification of mental disorders, also known as psychiatric nosology or psychiatric taxonomy, is central to the practice of psychiatry and other mental health professions.

[...]

Most international clinical documents avoid the term "mental illness," preferring the term "mental disorder." However, some use "mental illness" as the main overarching term to encompass mental disorders. Some consumer/survivor movement organizations oppose use of the term "mental illness" on the grounds that it supports the dominance of a medical model. The term "serious mental impairment" (SMI) is sometimes used to refer to more severe and long-lasting disorders while "mental health problems" may be used as a broader term, or to refer only to milder or more transient issues. Confusion often surrounds the ways and contexts in which these terms are used.

Confusion surrounds the contexts and ways! But around the world, most clinical documents don't even like to use the term "mental illness," or so says the leading authority.

For reasons which are spelled out elsewhere, clinical specialists tend to avoid that familiar term. They prefer the term "mental disorder." 

For today, though, let it be said—possibly adding to the confusion, there seem to be (literally) hundreds of ways in which a person can fall victim to, or be in the grip of, some diagnosable "mental disorder." We'll start you off with the material offered below. 

This material is drawn from the authority's lengthy treatise on "Mental disorder." We've done a bit of editing to keep the word count down:

Mental disorder

A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is also characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior, often in a social context. Such disturbances may occur as single episodes, may be persistent, or may be relapsing–remitting. There are many different types of mental disorders, with signs and symptoms that vary widely between specific disorders. A mental disorder is one aspect of mental health.

The causes of mental disorders are often unclear. Theories incorporate findings from a range of fields...

[...]

Disorders

There are many different categories of mental disorder, and many different facets of human behavior and personality that can become disordered.

Anxiety disorders...

Mood disorders...

Psychotic disorders...

Personality disorders...

Neurodevelopmental disorders...

Eating disorders...

Sleep disorders...

Sexuality related...

Other... 

[Seven are listed, plus this:]

There are a number of uncommon psychiatric syndromes, which are often named after the person who first described them, such as Capgras syndrome, De Clerambault syndrome, Othello syndrome, Ganser syndrome, Cotard delusion, and Ekbom syndrome, and additional disorders such as the Couvade syndrome and Geschwind syndrome.

And so on from there. "Mental disorders are common," the treatise eventually states—and if you believe in this branch of medical science, you're almost forced to agree with some such assessment as that.

Forget about the percentage of people subject to some form of mental disorder at some given point in time. How many different disorders are there? 

How many mental disorders are there? In that other treatise at the authority's site, we find ourselves told this:

Classification of mental disorders

The classification of mental disorders, also known as psychiatric nosology or psychiatric taxonomy, is central to the practice of psychiatry and other mental health professions.

The two most widely used psychiatric classification systems are chapter V of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition (ICD-10), produced by the World Health Organization (WHO); and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5), produced by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

[...]

DSM IV:

The DSM-IV was originally published in 1994 and listed more than 250 mental disorders...

The DSM-IV-TR (Text Revision, 2000) consisted of five axes (domains) on which disorder could be assessed...The axis classification system was removed in the DSM-5 and is now mostly of historical significance. The main categories of disorder in the [current] DSM-5 are:

[DSM-5] 

Disorders usually first diagnosed in infancy, childhood or adolescence. *Disorders such as ADHD and epilepsy have also been referred to as developmental disorders and developmental disabilities.

Delirium, dementia, and amnesia and other cognitive disorders...

Mental disorders due to a general medical condition...

Substance-related disorders...

Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders...

Mood disorders...

Anxiety disorders...

Somatoform disorders...

Factitious disorders ...

Dissociative disorders...

Sexual and gender dysphoria...

Eating disorders...

Sleep disorders...

Adjustment disorders...

Personality disorders...

Other conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention...

Again, we've done some editing there. But you're getting the general idea.

In short, there are currently many ways in which a person can not be a madman—can not be "mentally ill." Concerning the decision by our major news orgs to avoid this branch of medical science, we'll close today by offering this:

For years, we've been saying that the refusal to enter this realm is a marker of the immaturity of our journalistic and academic discourse. (We've also persistently said that it may be a good or a bad idea that our big news orgs have insisted on avoiding this dangerous realm.)

Having said that, also this:

Giridharadas has said that our major orgs have been avoiding the scary but accurate term, "coup." According to us, they've also avoided all suggestion that something may be clinically "wrong" with the commander and with the collection of apparently broken toys with whom he's been filling his playroom.

Those orgs have stayed away from even the most humanely couched suggestion that something might be clinically "wrong" with the commander or with his collection of toys.  For today, we'll leave you with a suggestion:

On its face, this latest proposal by the commander is transparently crazy. Voters might be able to see that fact more clearly—might have experienced Merriam-Webster's "Aha moment" with respect to this commander's suit of clothes—if the guardians of our discourse had been able to find humane ways to suggest that possibility all along.

The sitting commander isn't a madman. On the other hand, this! Make way for the 54th state!

Tomorrow: Concerning the 1994 film, The Madness of King George

MADMEN: Marcus voices arresting opinion!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2025

Our series resumes tomorrow: Over at the Washington Post, Ruth Marcus has given voice to a matter of opinion.

Her column appeared on the Post's web site one hour before we walked in the door. On the front page of the site, it was teased in the following manner:

Ruth Marcus
The most damaging two weeks in history

Yikes! That's the way it's teased!

Greedily, we clicked the link. Marcus was giving voice to a matter of opinion. Headline included, her column starts like this:

Trump 2.0: The most damaging first two weeks in presidential history

No president in history has caused more damage to the nation more quickly. As we enter Week 3 of President Donald Trump’s second term, the chaos and disruption of his first look quaint by comparison. The country survived Trump 1. Now, it faces a real threat that the harm he inflicts during his second term will be irreparable. The United States’ standing in the world, its ability to keep the country safe, the federal government’s fundamental capacity to operate effectively—all of these will take years to repair, if that can be achieved at all.

This column will concentrate on the third piece of that trifecta: efforts to undermine the basic functioning of government...

As you can see, the tease slightly overstates the claim. That said, Marcus continues along from there, giving voice to several (arresting) matters of judgment, assessment, opinion.

Some people will agree with her views. Other people will not. Senators Collins and Tillis will give it plenty of thought and will then announce that they don't.

Others will agree with Marcus' arresting assessments. Of one thing we can all be sure:

If "irreparable harm" is being inflicted, it isn't being inflicted by madmen! We can say that with some assurance because, as we noted yesterday, there's no such clinical term.

That said, the bizarre statements continue from the commander and his lieutenant. Also, the extremely unusual actions continue on an array of governmental fronts.

Some may refer to this as a "putsch," even as a series of "putsches" (actual plural form). We think such people would be speaking in a highly colloquial manner.

Yesterday, we promised to stop playing cute with this deadly serious topic. Given the madness-adjacent behavior which seems to be all around us, that might be a difficult promise to keep.

For ourselves, we lost the entire day to the rigors of medical science. We plan to resume our series tomorrow.

We're shooting toward a series of questions about the people who are conducting the actions to which Marcus refers in her column. Is something possibly "wrong" with these people? And how exactly does the logic of such an assessment work?

In the strictest clinical sense, there are literally hundreds of ways for something to be (clinically) "wrong" with a person. The possibilities go on and on and on and on. We may discuss that tomorrow.

Could something be "wrong" with the people in question? We still think that's a seminal question about a deadly serious matter. 

Also this:

For the record, we're still recommending that you feel "pity" for the (metaphorical) "poor immigrant"—even as you try to strip them of the "power to do evil."

 That was Dylan's advice long ago—and once again, he's hot.

BREAKING: Blue America seeks the fourth vote!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2025

Can anyone play this game? In the critically-acclaimed film of the same name, Joseph Cotten scoured post-war Vienna is search of "the third man."

In recent weeks, Blue America's tribunes have been scouring the countryside, looking for "the fourth vote." We've had a basic reaction to that search:

Can anyone here play this game?

We would have thought that everyone had agreed, long ago, on the fallacy which lies behind that search. This morning, we finally saw Jonathan Lemire say that it will almost surely take a fifth vote to defeat one of the commander's nominees.

Even he made an error along the way. Our prediction goes like this:

We've already seen a Trump nominee receive three NO votes. (There were three such votes against Nominee Hegseth, who of course got confirmed.)

Also, we may see some nominee get rejected by a group of five NO votes. We aren't predicting that that will occur, but it always could.

Our prediction, which could always be wrong:

You won't see a nominee rejected by four NO votes. Later today, we'll explain this deathless theory, hopefully with the aid of Lemire's full statement. 

(We'll buttress our theory as we recall the peculiar timing of Mitch McConnell's NO vote with respect to Nominee Hegseth.)

Until the past few weeks, we would have thought that everyone had long since agreed on the logic behind this five-vote theory. Over here in Blue America, can anyone play this game?

Needless to say, our prediction could always be wrong! For ourselves, we'll be losing most of the day to the ongoing work of medical science. We'll post this afternoon.

MONDAY: Elon Musk isn't a nut!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2025

There's no such technical term: For the record, Elon Musk isn't "a madman" or a nut. As we detailed this morning, there are no such technical terms.

The same can be said for Donald J. Trump. On the other hand, in this morning's print editions, the New York Times was reporting this:

Top Security Officials at Aid Agency Put on Leave After Denying Access to Musk Team

The two top security officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development were put on administrative leave on Saturday night after refusing to give representatives of Elon Musk access to internal systems, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.

And the agency’s chief of staff, Matt Hopson, a Trump administration political appointee who had started his job days ago, has resigned, two of the officials said.

[...]

Mr. Trump, returning to Washington from his home in Palm Beach Sunday evening, disparaged the agency, telling reporters traveling with him that it was run by “radical lunatics.”

“We’re getting them out, and then we’ll make a decision,” he said.

He also praised Mr. Musk as “very smart.”

A few hours later, Mr. Musk said that Mr. Trump believed that the agency should be shut down.

“None of this could be done without the full support of the president,” Mr. Musk said on an X Spaces event. “I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed with that we should shut it down. I want to be clear. I actually checked with him a few times. I said, “Are you sure?’ ‘Yes.’ So we’re shutting it down.”

Mr. Musk has posted a series of messages in recent days expressing fury at the aid agency and voicing conspiracy theories about it.

“USAID is a criminal organization,” Mr. Musk wrote on Sunday in a social media post that many aid workers saw as confirmation the agency would soon be absorbed into the State Department and that some viewed as a potential threat to their personal safety. “Time for it to die.”

According to these public officials, neither of whom is insane, USAID is "a criminal organization." As it turns out, it's an organization which has been run by a bunch of "radical lunatics." 

For the record, the Times was quoting one of several social media posts from the man who isn't a nutcase. Yesterday, Musk authored such posts as these:

"USAID was a viper's nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America."

"USAID is evil."

“USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.”

"USAID is a criminal organization."

As any very smart person would do, he was trying extra hard to articulate his key point.

Yesterday, Kevin Drum explained Musk's concern about this evil viper's nest. We link, you decide:

Here’s how USAID ended up in Trump’s crosshairs

[...]

What account[s] for Trump's specific fury toward USAID? Most likely, he was influenced by Elon Musk, who has been raging against the agency on Twitter, calling it a "a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America"¹ and later declaring, "USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die." Yesterday, Musk acolytes stormed into USAID headquarters demanding access to security systems and personnel files. They were turned back, but eventually got in after a couple of top security officials were put on leave.

Whew. But why is Musk so exercised about USAID? This is where things get murky, but it turns out Musk is a big fan of a guy named Mike Benz, a far-right provocateur, white supremacist, and all-around conspiracy crank...

Kevin's account continues from there. Meanwhile, there was Chrystia Freeland, on today's Morning Joe, using such language as this with respect to the tariffs which are being slapped on Canada. Over at Mediaite, David Gilmour provided a transcript and tape:

This really is utter madness. And, you know, from our [Canadian] perspective, the key thing here is you guys are engaged in this colossal act of self-harm. These tariffs are going to make life more expensive for Americans. You have put a tariff on the gas we sell you, so gas is going to be more expensive. You have put a tariff on the food that you are buying. That’s a tax on groceries, they’re going to be more expensive. We have now the United Steelworkers, the American Farm Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce, all saying this is going to hurt America. Stock futures are down.

You are hurting yourselves. You are taxing regular Americans. And we are going to fight back. And Canada is your biggest market. Canada is a bigger market for US exporters than China, Japan, the UK and France combined.

For Americans. like, your businesspeople, right? The customer is always right, and your customer is really angry at you. The whole country is behind the retaliation the prime minister has announced so now we are going to tax American exporters who are trying to sell us stuff. That means Americans are going to lose jobs.

So this is really—it is self-mutilation. America is hurting itself. We think that it is utterly crazy. And we’re also really, really angry at you.

Presumably, Freeland was speaking metaphorically when she used such terms as "utter madness" and "utterly crazy" with respect to the conduct of Trump.

Who the heck is Chrystia Freeland? We're so old that we can remember when she was a journalist and a regular guest on Hardball.

Freeland was always a bit too bight for that particular program. Today, she's a member of Canadian parliament who hopes to succeed Justin Trudeau as PM. Before she called Trump crazy and mad, she explained how the tariffs will affect our two countries. 

We aren't saying that she's right. We aren't saying she's wrong. 

We promise to stop being snarky about this serious topic. But for today, we'll only say that we were struck by the (obviously colloquial) language Freeland chose to use.

MADMEN: "Madman" isn't a technical term!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2025

The silence has been a surrender: A far as we know, "madman" isn't, and has never been, a technical clinical term.

As far as we know, it isn't a term that's used within the fields of psychiatry or psychology. As far as we know, it isn't a term that's used within any branch of medical science.

"Madman" is a term of art—a part of colloquial discourse. As far as we know, no one in the medical field ever says that Person X is a madman, or even a madwoman, not even if the person in question lives in Chaillot, a part of Paris, France. 

(In French, the corresponding term seems to be "la folle." As far as we know, medical practitioners never use that term.)

"Madman" is a part of colloquial discourse. In its place, medical practitioners might be inclined to say that some such person is "mentally ill"—or then again, possibly not! Consider what we learn from the planet's leading authority on matters of mental health.

That authority does offer a lengthy discussion which carries this heading: "Mental health." That said, the same authority offers no corresponding submission headlined as "Mental illness."

Instead, the authority matches its lengthy entry on "Mental health" with an equally lengthy entry on "Mental disorder." Regarding the term in question, the reader is quickly told this:

Mental disorder

A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is also characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior, often in a social context. Such disturbances may occur as single episodes, may be persistent, or may be relapsing–remitting. There are many different types of mental disorders, with signs and symptoms that vary widely between specific disorders. A mental disorder is one aspect of mental health.

The causes of mental disorders are often unclear...

According to that passage, a "mental disorder" is also referred to, presumably by medical specialists, as a "mental illness." Somewhat similarly, the reader is also quickly told this, right there at the start of paragraphs 5-7 of the submission in question:

The definition and classification of mental disorders are key issues for researchers as well as service providers and those who may be diagnosed. For a mental state to be classified as a disorder, it generally needs to cause dysfunction. Most international clinical documents use the term mental "disorder," while "illness" is also common. 

According to the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), published in 1994, a mental disorder is a psychological syndrome or pattern that is associated with distress (e.g., via a painful symptom), disability (impairment in one or more important areas of functioning), increased risk of death, or causes a significant loss of autonomy; however, it excludes normal responses such as the grief from loss of a loved one and also excludes deviant behavior for political, religious, or societal reasons not arising from a dysfunction in the individual.

DSM-IV predicates the definition with caveats, stating that, as in the case with many medical terms, mental disorder "lacks a consistent operational definition that covers all situations," noting that different levels of abstraction can be used for medical definitions, including pathology, symptomology, deviance from a normal range, or etiology, and that the same is true for mental disorders, so that sometimes one type of definition is appropriate and sometimes another, depending on the situation.

Even this early in the discussion, it's getting complex in here! 

That said, it sounds like there's nothing "wrong" with the familiar term, "mental illness." On the other hand, we're told that the alternate term, "mental disorder," is used more frequently around the world.

It still sounds like either term is pretty much OK. However, if you click ahead to another long entry within that same authoritative source, the reader is now told something different. 

Below, you see language from that third lengthy entry, an entry whose heading is shown below:

Classification of mental disorders

The classification of mental disorders, also known as psychiatric nosology or psychiatric taxonomy, is central to the practice of psychiatry and other mental health professions.

The two most widely used psychiatric classification systems are chapter V of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition (ICD-10), produced by the World Health Organization (WHO); and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5), produced by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

[...]

Most international clinical documents avoid the term "mental illness," preferring the term "mental disorder." However, some use "mental illness" as the main overarching term to encompass mental disorders. Some consumer/survivor movement organizations oppose use of the term "mental illness" on the grounds that it supports the dominance of a medical model. The term "serious mental impairment" (SMI) is sometimes used to refer to more severe and long-lasting disorders while "mental health problems" may be used as a broader term, or to refer only to milder or more transient issues. Confusion often surrounds the ways and contexts in which these terms are used.

At long last, our guide has acknowledged a bit of "confusion" surrounding the complexities of the conceptual wilderness into which we've now agreed to wander. Beyond that, we're also told that most international clinical documents avoid the term "mental illness!" 

Most clinical documents avoid that term! In some venues, the term "serious mental impairment (SMI)" may be preferred, we're now told. 

Alas! As with everything else in our struggling world, "Confusion often surrounds the ways and contexts in which these terms are used." 

The confusion and complexity seem to be general, or so it now seems we've been told. And that's certainly true within the world of American journalism with respect to the concepts at hand.

In the world of American journalism, practitioners routinely speak of "mental illness" when discussing certain types of behaviors, including instances of violent "street crimes" committed by people who are said to be homeless, or who are perhaps unhoused. 

On the other hand, practitioners never speak of "mental illness" when discussing the peculiar behaviors and crazy statements of major public officials. For better or for worse, it simply isn't done.

For better or worse, our journalists don't speak of "mental illness" with respect to such people—and they don't speak of "mental disorders" either. With respect to such prominent people, the use of such language has long been forbidden by the unwritten rules of the guild.

Does "mental illness" (or some such condition) even exist in the world? We may briefly sample that question before the week is done.

But according to journalistic tradition, no such condition can be said to exist in the world of major public officials. That's true no matter how wildly disordered their behaviors, and their endless public statements, may endlessly seem to be.

No major public official can be said to be gripped by a mental illness, or even by a mental disorder! Similarly, no such person can be said to be a madman, or even a nutcase or nut.

Such prohibitions may be creating a major problem with respect to the public discussion of some current public officials. For example, is it possible that Elon Musk is a clinical nutcase? Is it possible that the current commander, Donald J. Trump, fits within that same rubric?

For the record, the questions we're asking are totally academic—are totally theoretical. No such behavior will ever emerge within the mainstream press, no matter how disordered the behavior of these people may seem to become.

Our questions are purely theoretical. At most, someone will be "telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence."

With that basic point acknowledged, is it actually possible? Is it possible that a major, well-known public official could be gripped by a "mental disorder?" 

A system-wide silence has been maintained with respect to such questions. That system-wide silence is being maintained even now, as it starts to look like the nighttime assault has begun. 

The system-wide silence is being maintained. We'll close today with one more theoretical question:

Is it possible that the refusal to ask such obvious questions will qualify, in the end, as yet another "mental disorder" within this vale of tears?

Tomorrow: We expect to lose most of the day tomorrow. For a tiny overview of our (purely theoretical) concerns about the commander and the satrap, see this afternoon's report.

("A satrap served as a viceroy to the king, though with considerable autonomy." If you doubt that representation, you can just click here.)

SUNDAY: Brooks expands journalistic language!

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2025

It's the stupidity, Stupid: In this morning's New York Times, David Brooks is taking an important step in a new direction.

He's extending, or seeking to extend, the possibilities found within our journalistic language. Headline included, his column starts like this:

The Six Principles of Stupidity

This was the week in which the Chinese made incredible gains in artificial intelligence and the Americans made incredible gains in human stupidity. I’m sorry, but I look at the Trump administration’s behavior over the last week and the only word that accurately describes it is: stupid.

Brooks starts by apologizing for his surprising language. We think that step was appropriate. We'd call it a good idea. 

Brooks says he's sorry for what's coming next. But then, he goes ahead and pops the cork on his unusual choice of words:

He employs a rarely used term. He says there's only one word for recent behavior by the current commander. Here's the word for which he apologizes:

The key word he uses is "stupid."

We ourselves have often noted the need to activate certain types of forbidden journalistic language:

We've often said that we need to introduce the language of "mental illness" into the journalistic discourse. Starting tomorrow, "mental illness" will be our theme all through the course of the week.

Of late, we've also noted the fact that our journalistic traditions make it hard for journalists to describe certain behaviors for what they are—for being blindingly stupid. In his column, Brooks is pushing forward toward that new frontier.

By tradition and practice, journalists don't talk a lot about people, actions or ideas being "stupid." That helps explain today's apology by Brooks. It also helps us understand the value of the direction in which he points in his column—a column which, at fuller length, actually starts like this:

The Six Principles of Stupidity

This was the week in which the Chinese made incredible gains in artificial intelligence and the Americans made incredible gains in human stupidity. I’m sorry, but I look at the Trump administration’s behavior over the last week and the only word that accurately describes it is: stupid.

I am not saying the members of the Trump administration are not intelligent. We all know high-I.Q. people who behave in a way that’s as dumb as rocks. I don’t believe that there are stupid people, just stupid behaviors. As the Italian historian Carlo Cipolla once put it, “The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.”

And I am certainly not saying Donald Trump’s supporters are less intelligent than others. I’ve learned over the years that many upscale Democrats detest intellectual diversity. When they have power over a system—whether it’s academia, the mainstream media, the nonprofits or the Civil Service—they tend to impose a stifling orthodoxy that makes everybody within it duller, more conformist and insular. If Republicans want to upend that, I say: Go for it.

I define stupidity as behaving in a way that ignores the question: What would happen next? If somebody comes up to you and says, “I think I’m going to take a hike in a lightning storm with a copper antenna on my head,” stupidity replies, “That sounds like a really great idea!” Stupidity is the tendency to take actions that hurt you and the people around you.

The administration produced volleys of stupidity this week...

After apologizing, Brooks includes a few disclaimers:

He isn't saying that members of the new administration are unintelligent. (Although some certainly may be.) Also, he isn't saying that the commander's supporters are dumber than everyone else.

He also seems to say that many of us in Blue America have trafficked in The Stupid too. That's a very important point. We'll list some specifics below.

That said, let's ponder this:

Is it true? Did the Trump administration "produce volleys of stupidity this week?"

That, of course, is a matter of judgment. As he continues, Brooks presents examples of alleged stupidity with which some people won't agree.

From there, he goes on to present what his headline promises—six "principles of stupidity." You may or may not agree with his list—but in our view, the gentleman is suddenly pruning trees in an appropriate vineyard.

The Stupid is all around us at this point in time. Our journalists never say so, but The Stupid is one of the central organizational principles of modern American "journalism."

For starters, we're thinking of the organizational principle called "segregation by viewpoint." Here's the obvious question we've raised this very week:

What's the point? What's the point of assembling four-member panels on "cable news" TV shows if every member of every panel is going to agree with every word every other member has said?

(That's exactly right should be the official corporate motto at Fox.)

Plainly, that practice is designed to create an illusion—the illusion that some sort of "discussion" is taking place. 

What's actually taking place is an act of preapproved corporate messaging. Judged on a journalistic / informational basis, the creation of those pseudo-discussions is an amazingly stupid act—an imitation of life.

That said, The Stupid has been running wild—and not just on the commander's team, and not just in Red America. As Brooks suggests, The Stupid has been on a roll in Blue America too.

Over the past four years, our own Blue versions of The Stupid helped send the commander back to his perch in the White House. We refer to the ways we Blues earned our way out, to such manifestations as these:

Our failure to see that something seemed to be wrong with President Biden. (Or perhaps, our refusal to give voice to what we were able to see.)

Our failure to see the apparent lunacy of what seemed to be happening at the southern border. (Or our refusal to discuss that unexplained state of affairs.)

Our failure to discuss the problems which seemed to be involved in various aspects of "the cost of living." Our astounding, single-minded focus on the desire to frog-march Donald J. Trump to prison, which we used as a way, on our own cable shows, to avoid discussing the actual apparent problems which everyone else could see.

Also, the endless clown shows which were tangled up in what had come to be known as "Woke." Those clown shows were endlessly tangled up in Blue, even in the bizarre (and weirdly ugly) insertions of black characters into the recent Dylan film—weirdly ugly insertions we've seen no one in Blue America notice or discuss.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep—but we humans are inclined to veer toward behaviors which are perhaps a bit "stupid."

Our journalists need to be able to talk about those endless manifestations. It's generally wiser to veer toward the gentler word "dumb," but The Stupid has been running wild, and not just Over There.

Also this, concerning the WHO: Two fact checks have appeared concerning what the commander said about the WHO. (See yesterday's report.)

We sighed when we read each fact check! We expect to discuss those offerings on Tuesday, a day on which we're scheduled to lose a large chunk of time.

Tomorrow, we start a week in which we'll be discussing "mental illness." Full disclosure—we'll be catching your eye with a (colloquial) term which is even more racy than that!

The commander keeps saying the darnedest things, about an array of topics! What should journalists think about that? What should their fact-checks look like? What should their conventions of language permit such people to say? 

Is "something wrong" with the person in question? What kinds of science are journos avoiding when they keep refusing to ask?

SATURDAY: Commander hears and tackles the WHO!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2025

Is a modern American Samson tearing the pillars down? In the realm of children's books, Horton famously heard a Who. 

Last week, a certain commander—he may also be a nutcase!—wrestled the WHO to the ground.

The WHO in question here is the World Health Organization. Our story starts with a news report from the New York Times on the day the commander took office:

Trump Withdraws U.S. From World Health Organization

President Trump moved quickly on Monday [January 20] to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, a move that public health experts say will undermine the nation’s standing as a global health leader and make it harder to fight the next pandemic.

In an executive order issued about eight hours after he took the oath of office, Mr. Trump cited a string of reasons for the withdrawal, including the W.H.O.’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic,” and the “failure to adopt urgently needed reforms.” He said the agency demands “unfairly onerous payments” from the United States, and complained that China pays less.

According to the commander—he may also be a Samson—the WHO had been demanding "onerous payments" from Us. The WHO had been requiring that They pay much, much less.

For that reason, the commander had announced his plan to take a hike from the WHO. The Times report didn't attempt to state any numbers regarding those onerous payments.

This Times report never appeared in print editions. Apparently, it wasn't deemed important enough. Online, the Times report does include this correction:

A correction was made on Jan. 21, 2025: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the WHO’s $6.8 billion budget. It is the organization’s biennial budget, not annual.

One years? Two years? Was it "close enough for journalistic work?" In this vale of tears, had it seemed to make a big difference?

At any rate, the commander had quickly announced his plan to abandon the WHO. One day later, CNN added some numbers to the mix:

What is the World Health Organization and why does Trump want to leave it?

[...]

There is also a financial aspect to Trump’s animosity. The president has previously said that the US contributes around $500 million a year to WHO, compared to China’s $40 million, despite its far larger population.

As he signed Monday’s executive order, Trump was asked whether, as president during Covid-19, he appreciated the importance of agencies like WHO.

“I do, but not when you’re being ripped off like we are,” he replied.

The commander said we were being ripped off—and CNN cited his numbers. But were his numbers accurate?

Within a very lengthy report, CNN made no attempt to say. On January 27, it fell to a reporter at the Fox News site to take the story further. 

Regarding those numbers, the commander had gone on and on, then on and on, at a Las Vegas rally. As you scan the Fox News report, please note the reference to the fact check from NPR:

Trump open to considering re-entry into World Health Organization: 'They'd have to clean it up'

President Donald Trump said he was open to potentially rejoining the World Health Organization (WHO), just days after he signed a Day One executive order that withdrew the U.S. from the international group.

During a rally at Circa Resort & Casino in Downtown Las Vegas, the president told those in attendance that it was unfair a country like China, with a population much greater than the U.S., was only paying a fraction of what the U.S. was paying annually to the WHO.

"We paid $500 million a year and China paid $39 million a year despite a much larger population. Think of that. China's paying $39 million to have 1.4 billion people, we pay $500 million we have—no one knows what the hell we have, does anyone know? We have so many people pouring in we have no idea," Trump told rally goers on Saturday.

"They offered me at $39 million, they said 'We'll let you back in for $39 million,' they're going to reduce it from [$500 million] to [$39 million], and I turned them down, because it became so popular I didn't know if it would be well received even at [$39 million], but maybe we would consider doing it again, I don’t know, they have to clean it up a bit." 

An analysis of national contributions to the WHO from NPR found that the U.S. pays for roughly 10% of the WHO's budget, while China pays about 3%.

[Bracketed insertions by Fox News]

The commander had said he might beat back his great anger and walk back his stand. First, though, the WHO would have to offer a better deal regarding those crazy payments.

Meanwhile, there you saw the specific numbers the commanders had been citing. It was much as CNN had said:

Thanks to the rip-off by the WHO, We had to pay $500 million. Meanwhile, They gained admission to the WHO for only $39 million.

To its (minor) credit, the Fox News report had cited an NPR fact-check. As of a few days ago, we were still unable to find any other fact-checks of those numbers. With this, as with so much of his madness, Blue news orgs had decided to let the commander's angry claims go.

Fox News linked to the NPR fact-check. At this site, we'd already seen it—and sure enough! When we reviewed it, Sad!

We'd already seen the NPR effort. Eventually, it offers a surprise:

Assessing Trump's claim that U.S. pays 'unfair' share of dues to WHO

Newly inaugurated, President Trump took a set of thick, black sharpies on Monday [January 20] and signed a flurry of executive orders—including one that has people in the global health community deeply concerned. That order would withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, a U.N. global health agency the U.S. helped found in 1948.

As he penned his name to the order, Trump began by saying, "Ooh, that's a big one." He then offered a set of spontaneous remarks about the rationale behind the withdrawal, which focused on what he and his team perceive as an unfair allocation of dues.

He noted that the U.S. pays WHO $500 million annually compared to China's $39 million contribution. But Trump raised the point: Should the U.S. pay so much more than China when its population (1.4 billion people) is way larger than the American population (341 million estimate by the Census Bureau).

"Seemed a little unfair to me," he said.

[...]

The World Health Organization receives funding from two pots. The first is a set of assessed contributions from its nearly 200 member states. Each assessment is determined by the United Nations and based on a country's "capacity to pay," which involves both the size of its population and wealth. Member states vote to approve the assessments at the World Health Assembly every other year. For the years 2024-2025, WHO says that number has been set at $264 million for the U.S. and $181 million for China.

Say what? According to the WHO, the actual numbers differ from those the excited commander had blared. 

"For the years 2024-2025" (whatever that means), the actual numbers were now said to be this:

Us: $264 million 
Them:  $181 million 

According to the NPR fact-check, that's what the WHO said. Meanwhile, are those numbers accurate? As with CNN, so too here:

The NPR fact-check never attempted to say. 

For the record, the fact-check had been composed by a "freelance contributor" to a minor NPR site. And from there, the NPR fact-check drifted off into what we would regard as a conceptual La-La Land.  

You can review where it went for yourself. We'd call the conceptual cluelessness massive from that point on.

(Frankly, we weep when we see it! When we see that this seems to be the best our own Blue America can do at this (very late) date.)

In conclusion, we offer a summary:

The commander had leaped into action, assailing the rip-off by the fiendish WHO. Below, you see the numbers he constantly cited—and you see some (possible) alternate facts:

Numbers according to the commander:
Us: $500 million 
Them:  $39 million 

Numbers according to the WHO:
Us: $264 million 
Them:  $181 million

Which set of numbers is accurate? We know of no sign that anyone cares. But if the WHO's numbers are accurate, the commander had done it again!

Is the commander also a madman? Beyond that, is he possibly a Samson, tearing the pillars of the American project down?

Is the commander also a Samson? Is he a stone-cold nut?

Is the commander a nutcase? Over here in Blue America, does anyone actually care enough to actually try to find out?

Discourse on method: We last searched for fact-checks earlier this week. More than a week after the commander's initial action, only that NPR effort appeared. 

As that fact-check continues, we regard its reasoning as remarkably hapless. This seems to be the best we massively self-impressed Blues are able to do at this point.

Is a Samson pulling the pillars down? What keeps us from floating a "yes?"