MADNESS: Greg Gutfeld was thrilled when a lie was debunked!

 SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 2025

Obama's pink underwear: The angriest "cable news" star of them all was thrilled with one part of Tuesday night's address.

The following night, at 10:16 Eastern, the angriest child shared his thoughts with his hand-picked panel of dimwitted guests. Here's what the thrilled child said:

GUTFELD (3/5/25): One of the best things that he said last night, and I love it, when he said that kids identifying as trans is a big lie. Do you know how long I have waited for somebody to say that? That we know it is a big lie, and now you can say that?

For the record, this angriest child is now 60 years old! Even now, he explicitly refers to climate change as a "hoax."

At any rate, that's what the angry host said. In fairness, he was presenting a perfectly reasonable paraphrase of what the president actually said. This was the relevant passage from the commander's address:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (3/4/25): ...Shortly after taking office, I signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology. I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth. 

And now, I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie. And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.

That's what the commander said. For the record, he may have a limited idea of what is involved in any account of "the way God made" some particular child.

At any rate, that's what he said. The following night, an angry lad from a sunny land announced that he was thrilled with what the commander had said. 

On the basis of eruptions like this, we've accurately said that the Fox News Channel's Gutfeld! program isn't a comedy show. We've also said that it isn't even a "cable news" show. 

Most accurately, Gutfeld! is a propaganda program hiding behind comedy elements. It's presided over by a weirdly angry dysfunctional man who is supported, on a nightly basis, by a constantly changing four-member panel of ideological tools.

It's hard to know what the president or the angry child meant by the claim concerning what they called a "big lie." As far as we know, there is a long global history of the phenomenon under review. The leading authority on the topic offers this brief thumbnail from a much longer set of reports:

Transgender history

Accounts of transgender people (including non-binary and third gender people) have been uncertainly identified going back to ancient times in cultures worldwide. The modern terms and meanings of transgender, gender, gender identity, and gender role only emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. As a result, opinions vary on how to categorize historical accounts of gender-variant people and identities.

The galli eunuch priests of classical antiquity have been interpreted by some scholars as transgender or third-gender. The trans-feminine kathoey and hijra gender roles have persisted for thousands of years in Thailand and the Indian subcontinent, respectively. In Arabia, khanith (like earlier mukhannathun) have occupied a third gender role attested since the 7th century CE. Traditional roles for transgender women and transgender men have existed in many African societies, with some persisting to the modern day. North American Indigenous fluid and third gender roles, including the Navajo nádleehi and the Zuni lhamana, have existed since pre-colonial times.

[...] 

Transgender American men and women are documented in accounts from throughout the 19th century. The first known informal transgender advocacy organization in the United States, Cercle Hermaphroditos, was founded in 1895.

And so on, and on and on. Lucky for us, an angry child has now come along to help us see how widespread the historical lying has been!

This is a complicated topic. Anthropologically, many members of our species are disinclined to come to terms with the planet's endless array of complications.

The greatest anthropologist of the last century offered an account of such people. He offered this account of the way we humans may sometimes behave in the face of unwanted complexity and complication:

Where I come from, we only talk so long. After that, we start to hit.

The comment was recorded in a book the New York Times selected as one of the past century's hundred greatest (Ball Four, Jim Bouton). On the Gutfeld! program, the world is given a chance to see this synopsis validated on a nightly basis.

Below, we'll show you more of what was said in the Gutfeld! programs last week, with Barack Obama mocked as secretly being a woman and Michelle Obama mocked as secretly being a man. (That used to be Maureen Dowd's beat!) As this garbage emerges from the can every night, the New York Times averts its gaze—refuses to report this remarkable conduct. 

So too with the scholars at the Mediaite site. Quite literally, they never comment on what occurs on this heavily watched TV show. They routinely post about the little-watched CNN show which airs during the same 10 p.m. Eastern hour

On Wednesday evening's Gutfeld! show, millions of viewers were excitedly told that a long global history has all been a big lie. With that, we skip ahead to a news report in today's Washinton Post.

Here again, we'll show you something said by President Trump in Tuesday night's address. For now, the Post's news report concerns a thrilling new study which is reportedly being planned by the CDC:

CDC plans study on vaccines and autism despite research showing no link

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning a study into the potential connections between vaccines and autism, according to two people familiar with the plan, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that there is no link between the two.

The request for the study came from Trump administration officials, said the two people familiar with the plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy have repeatedly linked vaccines to autism.

Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, has disparaged vaccines for years. A previous Washington Post examination found that since 2020, Kennedy has linked autism to vaccines in at least 36 appearances, despite the evidence to the contrary.

Trump, who mentioned the rising rates of autism in his address to Congress this week, also has linked vaccines to autism. In a 2012 call into “Fox & Friends,” he said “they go in, they get this monster shot—you ever see the size of it? It’s like they’re pumping in, you know it’s terrible, the amount, and they pump this into this little body, and then all of a sudden the child is different a month later. And I strongly believe that’s it.”

Hallelujah! There may soon be an important new study—an important new study of a matter which has already been studied to death.

Also, sure enough! As it was in 2012, so it was last Tuesday night! The commander did mention the rising rates of autism in his address to Congress. Specifically, here's what he said:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (3/4/25): Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply, and keep our children healthy and strong. As an example, not long ago—and you can’t even believe these numbers—one in 10,000 children had autism. One in 10,000, and now it’s one in 36. There’s something wrong. 

One in 36. Think of that! So, we’re going to find out what it is, and there’s nobody better than Bobby and all of the people that are working with you. You have the best to figure out what is going on. Okay, Bobby. Good luck. It’s a very important job. Thank you.

"You can’t even believe these numbers," the president said. 

That may be because one of the numbers he cited is almost surely wrong. Here are the numbers which appear in the Washington Post's news report about the exciting new study:

The number of autism cases is rising in the United States. About 1 in 36 children has received such a diagnosis, according to data the CDC collected from 11 states, compared with 1 in 150 children in 2000.

Researchers attribute much of the surge to increased awareness of the disorder and changes in how it is classified by medical professionals. But scientists say there are other factors, genetic and environmental, that could be playing roles too.

Years of research based on data from hundreds of thousands of patients has shown no link between vaccines and autism. A decade-long study of half a million children in Denmark published in 2019 showed the MMR vaccine does not increase the risk of autism, lending new statistical evidence to what was already medical consensus.

Public health and other experts have feared Kennedy would use his new authority to mislead the public on vaccines.

And so on from there—but sad! According to the CDC, it was actually "1 in 150 children" as of the year 2000. On Tuesday night, the commander rounded that figure off to the more enervating "one in ten thousand" figure.

So it goes and goes and goes as the commander misstates every possible statistic, possibly (or possibly not) in a ""pathological manner (whatever that might mean). On programs like the Gutfeld! show, storebought collections of stooges and hacks cheer the commander on.

Meanwhile, the "comedy elements" on the program are ugly and stupid and coarse. They're also impossibly vast. 

Many of these comedy elements revolve around the aging host's astounding obsession with human waste—but they also revolve around his endless obsession with matters of sexuality and gender.

Liberal women are all too fat. The women of the The View look like horses, cows, elephants. (They recently adopted "pig Latin" as their program's official language!)

Michelle Obama is really a man. Rep. Tlaib allegedly has way too much hair on her face. Nancy Pelosi is swimming in Botox. Rep. Nadler is the smelliest person in the entire Congress.

Then too, consider the way the angry fellow started the week. After attacks on the usual suspects, including the size of "Oprah's ass," he arrived at the observation recorded below.

This is what the broken toy said. It was still just 10:01 Eastern!

GUTFELD (3/3/25): A pair of JFK's underwear sold at an auction for $9000, beating the previous record of 45 hundred dollars for Barack Obama's underwear.

[PHOTO OF LACY, PINK CROTCHLESS WOMEN'S PANTIES]

GUTFELD: [Makes face] 

AUDIENCE: [Shouting, applause]

TYRUS: Whewww.

KENNEDY: They're dainty!

GUTFELD: They are dainty. And they ride up. Trust me!

We know—you think we're making that up. But so it goes on this astonishing, soul-crushing TV program. 

To fact-check us, you can click here. Regarding JFK's underwear, this nutcase was citing a report in the New York Post. His insanity took things from there.

This eunuch goes on and on in this way, might after night after night, as four stooges cheer him on. The former VJ known as Kennedy is especially withering, vile.

As the Gutfeld! program goes on and on, Blue America looks away. Also, the president vastly embellishes every statistic. To all intents and purposes, this other astonishing practice has been normalized.

The other Kennedy—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—comes into play with respect to autism and vaccines. We suggest that you might want to pity the child—the child who saw his uncle murdered when he was 10 years old, then saw his father murdered less than five years later.

Though it may be hard to do in this case, we suggest that you pity the child! That said, does medical science have something to tell us about the way these people may end up behaving as adults? At the New York Times, and across the Blue American spectrum, the players who went to the finest schools have agreed that they must avert their gaze from this endless behavior.

Greg Gutfeld was thrilled this past Wednesday night with respect to a troubling lie. Some people aren't built for complication. In the face of such inconvenience, they simply find ways to hit.

Can medical science help us understand this perpetually angry segment of our species? The New York Times has reached an agreement:

They've agreed not to ask, not to tell.

FRIDAY: Should Lake Ontario's name be changed?

FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2025

War on the northern frontier: Way back in 1994, The Madness of King George was a well-received major film.

Then too, there's the possible madness that's floating around concerning some of our lakes and rivers, but also concerning our northern border and our onrushing war with Canada.

We refer you to a breaking news report in the New York Times.  That report appears beneath this dual headline—and no, we aren't making this up:

How Trump’s ‘51st State’ Canada Talk Came to Be Seen as Deadly Serious
President Trump, in an early February call, challenged the border treaty between the two countries and told Justin Trudeau he didn’t like their shared water agreements.

Say what? President Trump "challenged the border treaty between" the U.S. and Canada? The president also said that he doesn't like the two countries' "shared water agreements?"

We don't know if those claims are accurate, but as the Times report continues, it describes the contents of some February telephone calls between the two nations' leaders:

How Trump’s ‘51st State’ Canada Talk Came to Be Seen as Deadly Serious

[...]

On those calls, President Trump laid out a long list of grievances he had with the trade relationship between the two countries, including Canada’s protected dairy sector, the difficulty American banks face in doing business in Canada and Canadian consumption taxes that Mr. Trump deems unfair because they make American goods more expensive.

He also brought up something much more fundamental.

He told Mr. Trudeau that he did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary. He offered no further explanation.

The border treaty Mr. Trump referred to was established in 1908 and finalized the international boundary between Canada, then a British dominion, and the United States.

Mr. Trump also mentioned revisiting the sharing of lakes and rivers between the two nations, which is regulated by a number of treaties, a topic he’s expressed interest about in the past.

The northern border was established in 1908. According to this news report, a certain major political figure is interested in changing it.

We don't know if that statement is accurate. But here's a bit more from the Times report concerning those rivers and lakes, and other topics besides. At this fork in the road, Howard Lutnick swims into view:

While Mr. Trump’s remarks could all be bluster or a negotiating tactic to pressure Canada into concessions on trade or border security, the Canadian side no longer believes that to be so.

And the realization that the Trump administration was taking a closer and more aggressive look at the relationship, one that tracked with those threats of annexation, sank in during subsequent calls between top Trump officials and Canadian counterparts.

One such call was between Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick...and Canada’s finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc. The two men had been communicating regularly since they had met at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s home and club in Florida, during Mr. Trudeau’s visit there in early December.

Mr. Lutnick called Mr. LeBlanc after the leaders had spoken on Feb. 3, and issued a devastating message, according to several people familiar with the call: Mr. Trump, he said, had come to realize that the relationship between the United States and Canada was governed by a slew of agreements and treaties that were easy to abandon.

Mr. Trump was interested in doing just that, Mr. Lutnick said.

He wanted to eject Canada out of an intelligence-sharing group known as the Five Eyes that also includes Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

He wanted to tear up the Great Lakes agreements and conventions between the two nations that lay out how they share and manage Lakes Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario.

And he is also reviewing military cooperation between the two countries, particularly the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

If Secretary Lutnick actually said those things, that could have been bluster too! That said, we've drawn at least one strong conclusion:

At the very least, it's long past time to think about changing the name of Lake Ontario, which Americans find highly offensive.

Beyond that, this report has made us think of that 1994 film! Is someone sunk in a type of madness in this alleged state of affairs? Assuming that it isn't Trudeau, will American journalists ever look for a way to use their words to contemplate some such possible state of affairs?

Could something be "wrong" with one of these pols? No really—is it possible that something is actually wrong?

In our view, that would of course be a tragic state of affairs. Inevitably, someone will say that our press corps' ongoing silence could conceivably be thought of as a type of "madness" too!

It's time to change the northern border! Canada out of Five Eyes!

A WEEK: We face a succession of Weeks To Come!

FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2025

Ever so slowly, we turn: Just this once, we're going to let you ask us about our awareness.

We've often said that we ourselves were physically present when the problem began. We refer to "The Problem We All Live With."

We refer to the problem we all live with today, not the one Normal Rockwell laid out in his famous illustration for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. 

That famous illustration appeared in 1964—but that was the problem we all lived with back them. As we've noted at least once in the past, the current problem we all live with actually started like this:

It started during our freshman year at Harvard College—1965-1966. Two years later, we'd start getting schooled in the ways the later Wittgenstein. For the record, the country was much smaller then. 

The population was roughly 190 million. In terms of geographic ancestry and cultural diversity, the nation was much less complex.

It was easier, at that time, to get into "the finest schools." Also, a certain dress code was still in existence.

In order to eat at the freshman dining hall at the well-known college in question, you had to wear a jacket, shirt and tie! Rules like that would soon be gone, but that rule was still in effect that year.

Also, you had to check in with a cafeteria lady as you trooped in to eat. That's where The Problem We All Live With (Today) actually got its start.

On the day in question, we stood in line behind a fellow freshman who was engaged in a peculiar debate. The shirt he was wearing was a tee shirt—and he had tied a shoe string around his neck. 

Theoretically, that served as his "tie." Completing the look, his "jacket" was a windbreaker of some kind. He was questioning the cafeteria lady, who was admirably standing her ground:

How do you know that isn't a tie? our fellow freshman skillfully said

How did she know that wasn't a tie? She knew because she spoke the (American) English language! As Sam Ervin later said, it was her native tongue. 

We stood in line behind this kid as he pseudo-debated this working-class woman who most likely lived somewhere in working-class Cambridge, Mass.

This kid was a freshman at one of the finest schools. The cafeteria lady, displaying unerring good sense, told him he wasn't wearing a tie, or even a shirt or a jacket.

That's when The Problem started! Rather, it started when the woman in question went home that day and told her family about the unfortunate conduct of this particular kid.

In fairness, let's be fair! The kid was just a freshman in college. Most likely, he was 17 or 18 years old. 

Later in life, he may have become much wiser. The wisdom may have loaded in a bit further down the road—but on that day, he was the person whose disrespectful, hectoring conduct initiated The Problem We All Live With (Today).

In large part thanks to The Problem We All Live With, Donald J. Trump is back in the Oval Office. Many of us in Blue America still don't understand the way we helped create that state of affairs.

In Red America, many people are glad that he's back in the White House. In Blue America, most people don't feel that way.

We'll suggest our own view of the matter below. For now, let's jump to the new column by the New York Times' David Brooks.

We regard David Brooks as a good, decent person. Especially in the new incarnation he created at least a dozen years back, we think he's been a force for sanity and a force for the good.

On balance, we also think he's never quite broken free from a certain inclination. Today, his column starts in the manner shown below. 

For the record, we don't like the tone of the headline it carries:

An Angry Little Boy on a Great White Horse

I have a friend who worked in the first Trump administration who really admired the ancient virtue magnanimity (which is different than the modern definition, generosity). I thought that was odd since she is a devout Catholic whereas through most of the past 2,400 years magnanimity has been seen as a pagan virtue that directly contradicts the Christian ones. But especially after Tuesday night’s presidential address I could understand her interest. I walked away thinking that ancient magnanimity is the organizing principle of Donald Trump’s life—or at least a third rate, schoolboy version of magnanimity.

What is classical magnanimity? The magnanimous man is a certain social type who down through the centuries has fascinated people like Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas and Nietzsche. The magnanimous man accurately believes he is great and seeks to win triumphs that will bring glory and greatness to his country. Noble versions of magnanimity include Pericles, who led Athens through some of the Peloponnesian War, and more recently Charles de Gaulle, who reclaimed France from the Nazis. Third-rate versions include Trump, who dreams of conquest over Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal.

The magnanimous man does not believe in equality. In his view, some people are great-souled; they lead, live in splendor and strive for eternal fame. Other people are small-souled; they follow and are grateful to be led. The great-souled man displays courage and seeks honor and power. He has contempt for the small-souled man, whose humility, charity and compassion seem to him forms of weakness.

The quintessential magnanimous man is aloof. He doesn’t really have friends. Historically, he has rivals from whom he extracts tribute (like trying to seize Ukraine’s mineral wealth), and he has acolytes on whom he bestows gifts. He gives gifts to others not out of generosity but to display his own superiority. On Tuesday night, Trump told a grieving mother he was naming a wildlife preserve after her murdered daughter. He gave a student the gift of admission to West Point. Trump glowed at the sight of his own noblesse oblige.

That's how the column starts. For the record, we think the insult lodged in that headline is a fairly obvious part of "The Problem We All (Currently) Live With."

The headline refers to Donald J. Trump as "an angry little boy." We think that comes across as snide. To our ear, it too comes across as angry—as too angry by at least half. 

Also, we think that attitude tends to take "The Problem We All Live With" and harden it in place.

In the text of his column, Brooks never refers to President Trump as "an angry little boy," but there the term sits, in that headline. Brooks didn't vote for Candidate Trump, and we didn't vote for him either.

David Brooks, a good, decent person, doesn't admire the ongoing work of President Trump. In his column, he says the commander is currently offering "a third rate, schoolboy version of magnanimity."

We think Brooks is possibly overthinking this matter a bit. We think he's inclined to do that. There's nothing that's morally wrong with overthinking a state of affairs, but we'll guess that it doesn't much help.

Have we mentioned the fact that we believe that Brooks' work, on balance, has served as a force for good? That said, it often seems to us that there's something Brooks is withholding—for example, as he ends today's lengthy examination of that ancient virtue:

How does a nation overcome the seductions of the magnanimous leader? Abraham Lincoln offers a model. When he was 28, he gave a speech in which he warned that if the American system toppled, it would be because of homegrown men of overweening ambition. Historians have surmised that Lincoln was conscious of his own unchecked ambition as a political threat.

Lincoln argued that we can counter this kind of ambitious tyrant by cultivating a “political religion” based on reverence for law. He also confronted and regulated his own personal ambition by cultivating the virtues that stand in contrast to it—humility, kindness, respect for the equal dignity of all human beings. Lincoln emerged, by his 50s, as a man who reconciled power and humility.

It’s worth noting that our civilization has mostly rejected the pagan virtues and embraced the Abrahamic virtues. These virtues enable diverse people to live in friendship with one another, not amid permanent dominance games.

Friendship stands as a powerful rebuke to the magnanimous man, a better way to live. Lincoln ended up practicing a different and superior form of politics to the one Trump aspires to. Lincoln believed that you succeed in a democracy when you treat others as friends and not as enemies: “If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to his reason.”

There was very little of that spirit out of Trump’s mouth on Tuesday night.

That's the way the column ends. He starts that passage with an excellent question. After speaking in favor of friendship, he ends with an insulting tone.

To our ear, he's also overthinking—over intellectualizing—by many times more than half.

It's clear that Brooks didn't approve of Trump's joint address. That said, it seems to us, as we read the entire column, that there's something Brooks is withholding today, and it's making his column weak. 

We're referring to Frost, of course:

The Gift Outright

[...]

Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding...

What is David Brooks withholding? We'll guess that he is withholding what he must surely believe or suspect about Trump.

There's a certain rule in modern journalism—a rule which says that the modern journalist can't reveal what he actually thinks. In this case, he can't reveal what he thinks about President Trump—about the reason why he constantly says and does the peculiar things he constantly says and does.

This refusal to speak keeps Brooks from expressing pity for Donald J. Trump. It stops him from behaving like a friend to the tens of millions of people who don't share his overall view of this president.

Why does Trump do the peculiar things he does? Surely, David Brooks must think that this possibly involves a possible "mental health" issue.

(We emphasize the word "possible.")

Surely, David Brooks, and his many colleagues, must discuss that possibility when they speak among themselves. That said, they're all familiar with the rule of their own peculiar guild which forbids them from saying what they believe or suspect. 

They aren't allowed to say what the think. This leaves them working under headlines which traffic in "third-rate, schoolboy" insults. Isn't that the very thing they say they don't like about Trump?

There's much, much more to be said about "The Problem We All (Currently) Live With." There's much more to be said about the difficulty Blue America's elites display as they attempt to respond to this problem—as we Blues keep refusing to come to terms with the role we ourselves played in enabling the commander's return to the Oval.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but we Blues are quite limited too. We thought those limitations were on display as we watch a fascinating discussion, this very morning, during Morning Joe's initial half hour.

"I Pity the Poor Immigrant," Bob Dylan once wrote. (The word "immigrant" was used metaphorically.)

He wrote the song in 1968, when he was still at the top of his game. To our eye and to our ear, he was coming very close to saying that he pitied Donald J. Trump.

Why do some people do and say the destructive things they constantly say and do? Is it because they're "angry little boys," or could it be because they're afflicted by a syndrome—by a "mental disorder"—which sits right there, for all to ponder, in the DSM?

How does a person behave like a friend within the political realm? As we've often said, the best example of which we're aware was President Clinton's effusive praise "the Arkansas Pentecostals" in his 2004 autobiography, My Life. 

They had never tended to vote for Governor Clinton, but he said he admired the way they acted in accord with their own moral beliefs. 

Clinton knew how to behave around people with whom, on balance, he didn't agree. He knew how to respect members of the planet's oldest community—the community known as The Others.

The kid behind whom we stood that day may have been just 17 years old. Hank Williams described him well in one of the greatest performances:

The Lost Highway

[...]

I was just a lad, nearly twenty-two.
Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you...

As for our college classmate, he was still just a cocky freshman. That said, he broadcast an unfortunate attitude that day. 

When the woman to whom he was talking down went home and spoke with her family that day, The Problem We All (Currently) Live With got its unfortunate start.

That kid was only 17. Over here in Blue America, what's our current excuse? In fairness, no one else is as smart as we self-impressed Blues—except when it comes to this!

We'll have more on this topic next week. At long last, it seems to us that the time has finally come to "talk pork to the [Blue American] people" about what we'd be inclined to describe as "A Citizen's Duty."

To our ear, David Brooks is a bit angry himself at the close of this morning's column. By the prevailing rules of the game, he's allowed to talk about what Cicero antiquely said, but not about the "disorders" which get outlined in the modern-day DSM.

Is there something Brooks and others are withholding? Could it be making us weak?

Lincoln said we must be friends. But within this fraught political realm, how can a person do that?

Badly delaying a college lunch line, we Blues helped create The Current Problem. It started that day with one of Us.

Will we ever be able to see that?

THURSDAY: One of Trump's claims was "absurd," Kessler said!

THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2025

Elsewhere, it just "needed context:" We're still emitting mordant chuckles about that New York Times fact-check. 

As we noted yesterday, eleven writers fact-checked the president's hundred-minute address. They fact-checked twenty-six different statements, claims or passages from Tuesday night's joint address.

As we noted yesterday, the eleven writers found only two statements which they scored as "False." 

Only two, in a hundred minutes! Over at the Washington Post, Homey didn't play it like that. 

Glenn Kessler fact-checked 26 statements or passages all by himself. He scored twelve of the commander's emissions as "False"—and then he continued from there:

He scored another claim as "Wrong;" he even scored one claim as "Absurd." That assessment is even more scathing than "False." We applaud Kessler for using his words.

All in all, we'd say that Kessler found roughly twenty items (out of 26) which he basically scored as False. Here's the roll call of the ratings:

Assessments by Kessler:
False: 12
Appears to be false: 1
Trump often takes false credit: 1
Wrong: 1
This is apples and oranges: 1
This was not a scam: 1
Absurd: 1

There were several other presentations in which Kessler basically said that the statement in question was false or wrong without quite using those words. 

Over at the New York Times, eleven writers had been asked to grope the elephant. In the course of the hundred-minute speech, they were able to find only two claims which they scored as "False!"

Back at the Washington Post, what claim by Trump got scored as "Absurd?" Headline included, the assessment went like this, with Trump's statement appearing in bold:

Fact-checking 26 suspect claims in Trump’s address to Congress

[...]

“We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare.”

This is absurd. Trump inherited an economy with relatively low unemployment, falling inflation and strong growth. The month before the November election, the Economist newspaper published a cover story declaring that the U.S. economy was “the envy of the world.”

A person could imaginably think that "absurd" is wrong. For ourselves, we'd have to say that the statement by Trump was, at the very least, "Extremely or highly tendentious."

Kessler said that claim was absurd. At the Times, it just "needed context." We leave you with a question:

Whatever you think of President Trump, when did he ever speak for a hundred minutes and make only two false statements? That Times report seemed to have come from the dark side of the distant planet Nuance, with a trip to Avoidance thrown in.

Full disclosure: We think Kessler misunderstood one part of the third statement he fact-checked. This was the statement by Trump:

“Hundreds of thousands of illegal crossings a month, and virtually all of them including murderers, drug dealers, gang members and people from mental institutions and insane asylums were released into our country.” 

We think Kessler misread one part of that statement. In fairness, that statement—like so many others by Trump—is rather fuzzy in its construction, perhaps for tactical reasons.

We would have scored it (at best) as "Grossly misleading." After that, we would have explained why we did.

A WEEK: Has the U.S. been realigned with Putin?

THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2025

Does anyone know or care? After the commander's joint address, are we the American people still trapped in a Week That Was? 

Are we involved in a Week That Was? Did Friday's Oval Office event kickstart a week whose developments may signal a change in world history? 

Among other questions which have arisen, we wouldoffer these:

Are we the American people now being realigned into an alliance with Putin? Also, does anyone seem to be able to care?

Those strike us as serious questions. Let's return to the scene of the carnage:

At the end of last Friday's event, one president sent the other president packing. In the course of the sudden, surprising blowup, a "rare earths minerals" deal went unsigned.

In the days which followed, military aid to Ukraine was suspended. So was help with military intelligence. 

And then, along came Tuesday evening's address! In this morning's New York Times, Maureen Dowd, now sadder and wiser, highlights a largely overlooked part of that joint address:

The State of Himself

[...]

His new imperialist attitude was on display, a sharp contrast to his old rants about how awful George W. Bush was for his failed occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. About Greenland, Trump said, “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He also vowed, “My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it.”

The thrust of Trump’s speech was, of course, to glorify himself, to claim sanctification bestowed on him by God when he escaped assassination.

Regarding Greenland, "One way or the other, we’re going to get it?" Also, we're going to be "reclaiming the Panama Canal?"

It's astounding to think that comments like those have largely gone undiscussed. We'd call that a tribute to the sheer volume of gorilla dust the commander threw into the air Tuesday night on a hundred other topics.

That said, yes—the commander did make those statements! So you can more fully evaluate his meaning, here's the fuller passage from the Tuesday night joint address:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (3/5/25): To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it. Just today a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple other canals. The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others. But others could use it.

But it was built at tremendous cost of American blood and treasure. 38,000 workers died building the Panama Canal. They died of malaria, they died of snakebites and mosquitoes. Not a nice place to work. They paid them very highly to go there knowing there was 25 percent chance that they would die. The most expensive project also that was ever built in our country’s history, if you bring it up to modern-day costs. It was given away by the Carter administration for $1. But that agreement has been violated very severely. We didn’t give it to China; we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.

[...]

And I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland. We strongly support your right to determine your own future. And if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it—one way or the other, we’re going to get it. 

"One way or the other" may sound a bit menacing. But those were his fuller remarks.

In fairness, annexation of Canada went unmentioned on Tuesday night, as did ownership of Gaza. But that's what the commander said about the way we'll be taking the canal back, and about the way we'll end up getting Greenland.

Do those remarks display a "new imperialist attitude?"  If those remarks ever get discussed, some people will surely teach that question flat while others will teach it round.

In full fairness to Dowd, the other part of what she said in that passage was accurate. Here's the key spart of the commander's much longer presentation about what happened last July at the rally in Butler, Pa.:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I believe that my life was saved that day in Butler for a very good reason. I was saved by God to Make America Great Again—I believe that. I do. 

Thank you. Thank you very much.

He was saved by God to make America Great! (Perhaps to take back the canal?)

That remark in Tuesday's address has generally gone unmentioned too. As you can see in the full transcript, it's part of a much longer presentation about the way the president's life was saved by God that day, while others "were not so lucky:"

At this site, we're concerned about the president's possible mental state. Within the rules of American journalism, a topic like that cannot be discussed, no matter what the person in question may actually say and do.

Within the poverty of the American discourse, other highly significant topics routinely go undiscussed. With respect to last Friday's Oval Office event, consider this slightly fuller chunk from Dowd's new column:

The State of Himself

[...]

He offered a softer tone on Ukraine, citing a message from Volodymyr Zelensky urging peace and saying he was ready to sign the minerals deal. Now that Trump has forced the Ukrainian president to grovel, now that he has humiliated the war hero in public and put his own swollen ego above America’s longstanding foreign policy principles, he may give Zelensky another chance.

His new imperialist attitude was on display, a sharp contrast to his old rants about how awful George W. Bush was for his failed occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. About Greenland, Trump said, “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He also vowed, “My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it.”

According to Dowd, someone has now declared his readiness "to sign the minerals deal"—but to whom does she refer? 

Who has signaled this new readiness? Is it the lady, or is it the tiger? Is it Trump or is it Zelensky? 

For whatever reason, the answer isn't clear in Dowd's text. Someone's now ready to sign the deal, but it isn't real clear who that is!

That said, something else remains unclear at this point in time. As best we can tell, no one has the slightest idea what actually happened last Friday, and it isn't clear that anyone actually cares.

What actually happened last Friday in the Oval Office? Just for starters, who refused to sign the minerals deal? 

More to the point, what was in the minerals deal—the deal that didn't get signed?

As far as we know, most reporting has indicated that it was President Trump, not President Zelensky, who declined to sign the deal. According to all the reporting we've seen, it was Trump who sent Zelensky away, leaving the deal unsigned.

As to what was actually in the deal, have you seen anyone tell you? 

Fellow citizens, what was actually in the deal which suddenly went unsigned? Again, we'll link you to this analysis by The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) a centrist Washington think tank.

The detailed analysis was published last Thursday, one day before the Oval Office disaster. Here's what the CSIS seemed to report at that time:

It seemed to report that the original minerals deal—the deal Zelensky had originally refused to sign—had been vastly watered down by the time of the Oval encounter.

The original deal had been widely described as a virtual looting of Ukraine's rare metals wealth.  The renegotiated deal—the deal which was on the table last Friday—offered far less material advantage to the U.S., or so said the CSIS.

Was that an accurate account of the matter? We can't tell you that, but the CSIS is no flyweight org.

Did the CSIS give an accurate account of the adjusted minerals deal? If so, could that perhaps explain why Trump sent Zelensky packing without the deal being signed?

We don't know how to answer those questions. Within our flailing American discourse, others don't much seem to care.

No one else even seems to have noticed that these are fairly obvious questions. In the poverty of the time, this is the way our discourse works.

In fairness, gorilla dust was widely scattered during Tuesday evening's joint address. Crazy claims were made in droves, many of which are still in the process of being fact-checked.

Amidst the attendant confusion, less attention has been paid to the commander's pledge to Make The Canal American Again and to pull a snatch-and-grab with respect to Greenland. Also, little attention has been paid to what actually happened last Friday with respect to the minerals deal, the contents of which have gone almost wholly undiscussed.

In the course of all this turmoil, has the shape of a global realignment started to come clear? As he queered the minerals deal—as he then suspended aid to Ukraine—was the commander moving the United States into full alignment with Putin?

We get Greenland, he gets Ukraine? Could that have been the state of play at the start of a possible Week That Was? 

Donald J. Trump was saved by God! Was he saved to produce realignment. Does anyone actually care?

Tomorrow: We recommend that you pity the child. But what was he like at 13?

This afternoon: A very different factcheck of the address, as performed by the Washington Post

WEDNESDAY: Commander gives voice to an undisguised con!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2025

Needs context, one newspaper says: In the aftermath of the president's joint address, the New York Times tried to conduct a fact check.

The lack of sophistication put on display was little short of amazing. Even at the highest levels, our journalists just aren't super sharp.

In fairness, let's be fair! Before you can score a statement as True or False, you have to be able to discern what the speaker in question has said. 

Inevitably, many of the statements fact-checked by the Times were so fuzzy that it's hard to get clear on just what the commander was saying. The fact-checkers betrayed little awareness of this problem, and their work spiraled downward from there.

For today, let's look at one of the president's most striking presentations. In her fact check for the Times, Linda Qiu whittled a much longer presentation down to this:

“1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159, and over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are age over 160 years old.”

As presented, that cherry-picked jumble of words barely qualifies as a statement. 

Within the context of Trump's longer presentation, it's fairly clear what the commander was trying to say or suggest. But the tiny fragment selected by Qiu makes no discernible sense on its own.

At any rate, according to Qiu rates Trump's statement in a peculiar way. She says his statement "Needs context." 

She goes on to offer her own jumble of statements about the Social Security program. Her statements are almost as hard to sort out as was the fragmentary claim she fact checked.

The commander's full presentation is truly one for the ages. What was the president saying and why did the president say it? This was his full presentation:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (3/4/25): The Government Accountability Office, the federal government office, has estimated annual fraud of over $500 billion in our nation. And we are working very hard to stop it. We’re going to. 

We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors, and that our seniors and people that we love rely on.

Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119. 

I don’t know any of them. I know some people who are rather elderly but not quite that elderly. 

3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129. 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139. 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149. And money is being paid to many of them, and we are searching right now.

In fact, Pam [Bondi], good luck. Good luck. You’re going to find it. 

But a lot of money is paid out to people, because it just keeps getting paid and paid and nobody does—and it really hurts Social Security, it hurts our country. 

1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159, and over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are age over 160 years old. We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby [Kennedy].

Including, to finish: 

1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229. One person between the age of 240 and 249—and one person is listed at 360 years of age. More than 100 years—more than 100 years older than our country. 

But we’re going to find out where that money is going, and it’s not going to be pretty. By slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft we can find, we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors and put more money in the pockets of American families.

It's easy to see what's being suggested. The commander says, three separate times, that "money" or "a lot of money" is being paid to millions of people who are impossibly old. 

"According to government databases," Trump suggests that checks may be going to people who range from 100 years old all the way up to 360! Adding his population numbers, he seems to be suggesting that more than 20 million "Social Security members" are somehow involved in this matter.

The commander says his team has been "identifying shocking levels of probable fraud in the Social Security program." Quite a few weasel words are involved in his presentation, but it's abundantly clear what this man is suggesting.

As for the weasel words, let's get started with this:

What exactly is a "Social Security member?" For the record, the term was not in widespread use until the commander started using it in recent years. 

That said, what is "a Social Security member?" Presumably, it's not the same thing as a Social Security recipient, or the commander would have used that term. But the use of that slippery, amorphous term is where this fellow started.

Clearly, the commander was suggesting that Social Security is riddled with a giant amount of fraud. In the picture he was painting, checks are apparently being sent to tens of millions of people who are no longer alive. 

Presumably, this means that the money is being received by some other used. "Money is being paid to many of" these long-deceased people, we're rather murkily told.

("Many" is a highly imprecise term.)

Question! Is the Social Security Administration really sending monthly checks to tens of millions of such deceased people? Our answer to your question is this:

In theory, everything is possible. In reality, most things aren't.

What kind of term should come into play when a public official stands before the American nation and gives voice to a clown show like this? With incompetence that is hard to believe, the New York Times is telling readers today that the commander's ridiculous presentation "Needs context."

In truth, a serious journalist would have to invent new fact-check language to come to terms with a gong-show so vast. The New York Times seems to be eager to run from that that difficult challenge.

With that, we'll send you to CNN. For Daniel Dale's fact check of this presentation, you can start by clicking here.

Simply put, we Blues just aren't up to the challenge! Our tribunes have frequently gone to the finest schools, but we're not always sure what they did there.

One last minor irony:

Twenty-five years ago, the New York Time spent two years pretending that a Democratic presidential nominee was making crazily inaccurate statements on a regular basis. Now, a president is doing that very thing—and the Times refuses to say so!

This is the shape of one long-standing problem—a new "problem we all live with."

A WEEK: Are we trapped in a Week That Was?

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2025

Inquiring minds want to know: Are we Americans trapped in a Week That Was—in a week which may change the world's history?

Inquiring minds now suspect that we are. They suspect that the week may have started last Friday with the Oval Office debacle.

Inquiring minds have long memories. They can even remember this part of a 1992 speech from a future American president:

Just remember what the Scripture says: "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

I hope nobody in this great hall tonight, or in our beloved country, has to go through tomorrow without a vision. I hope no one ever tries to raise a child without a vision. I hope nobody ever starts a business or plants a crop in the ground without a vision. 

For where there is no vision, the people perish.

Inquiring minds are curious about these points:

Do we the alleged American people have a vision today? Also, do we still qualify as "a people?" Are we now "a people" at all?

Last night, the current president delivered an address to a joint session of Congress. We were struck by what we found when we perused the attempt by the New York Times to fact check the president's speech.

At this time, do we the people have enough skill to fashion an actual vision? Here's what we found when we fact-checked the New York Times' attempt at a fact-check:

For starters, eleven different writers were involved in the fact-check of the longest such speech ever delivered by an American president. We're going to say their names:

Writers involved in the New York Times fact-check:
Nicholas Nehamas, Colby Smith, Ana Swanson, Coral Davenport, Linda Qiu, Lisa Friedman, Apoorva Mandavilli, Eileen Sullivan, Jan Hoffman, Julian E. Barnes, Julian Barnes.

For the record, those are two different people named Julian Barnes. But as you can see by clicking this link, those eleven people fact-checked twenty-five different passages from the president's lengthy speech.

This president is known for his factual groaners—but good lord! Out of those twenty-five fact-checks, those writers declared only two (2) of the president's claims to be "False!"

Really? In a 100-minute address by the most disordered president in the nation's history, Blue America's leading publication found only two claims which were false?

Who knows? That may reflect some rules set down by the newspaper's editors. But as an organization, the New York Times has nuanced itself out of existence if eleven writers can watch this president speak for a hundred minutes and can find only two (2) statements which they're willing to score as "False."

Are we the people equipped for this task? Are we equipped for the assignment of creating a vision which can direct us in the challenging task of self-governance?

Given the size and the shape of our sprawling nation, we'd be inclined to say that the answer is no. As a people, we simply don't have the analytical skills to navigate the interactions which will exist within such a giant nation.

Only two statements were "False"—just two, over the course of a hundred minutes! The denatured scribes of the New York Times produced that somewhat peculiar result—but then, our own Blue America has been failing in its critical missions for a very long time now.

More on inquiring minds below. For now, let's turn to a more instructive bit of analysis, one which emerged from only three (3) writers at the HuffPost. 

Headline included, the passage in question reads like this:

Five Takeaways From Trump’s Joint Speech To Congress

[...]

Social Security Appears To Be In Trump’s Sights

Trump went on at great length about the supposed scourge of the Social Security Administration wrongly paying retirement benefits to people listed in the agency’s system as well over 100 years old. 

“A lot of money is paid out to people because it just keeps getting paid and paid and nobody―it really hurts Social Security and hurts our country,” Trump said. “1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159 and over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are over 160 years old. We have a healthier country than I thought.”

The super elderly Social Security recipients myth got heavily debunked last month after Elon Musk misread a chart, prompting even Trump’s acting Social Security commissioner to say, “These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits” in a statement on the SSA’s website. 

The fact that Trump still plowed ahead with the bogus story in his address to Congress and said Social Security is full of “probable fraud” could be a bad sign for the popular retirement program, which Trump has usually said he would never touch even as he calls for massive cuts to much of the rest of the government. 

Full disclosure! In that passage, the scribes misquote what Trump said. This afternoon, we'll post his full, extremely lengthy statement on this cockeyed topic.

At any rate, "Trump still plowed ahead with the bogus story," the three HuffPost writers said. To their credit, they were prepared to say bogus.

Over at the New York Times, Linda Qiu quoted part of the relevant passage from the president's speech. She ruled that his sprawling claims about very old people and Social Security "Need context."  

(In our view, the presumably well-intentioned Qiu seems to have disappeared into a cloud of nuance.)

By the way, is it true? Is it true that President Trump "has Social Security in his sights?" 

We can't answer that question! Regarding the error-plagued genius Musk, we can tell you this. In her official Democratic Party response, Senator Elissa Slotkin said this about Social Security:

SLOTKIN (3/4/25): [The president's] tariffs on allies like Canada will raise prices on energy, lumber, cars—and start a trade war that will hurt manufacturing and farmers.

Your premiums and prescriptions will cost more because the math on his proposals doesn’t work without going after your health care.

Meanwhile, for those keeping score, the national debt is going up, not down. And if he’s not careful, he could walk us right into a recession.

And one more thing: In order to pay for his plan, he could very well come after your retirement—the Social Security, Medicare, and VA benefits you worked your whole life to earn. The President claims he won’t, but Elon Musk just called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”

So said the error-plagued genius as he spoke with (who else?) Joe Rogan. Are we possibly trapped in a Week That Was—in a week which has signaled a set of changes, at home and abroad, which could go astoundingly wrong?

Inquiring minds want to know many things, but inquiring minds also feel sympathy for the members of suffering humanity. They know that severe mental illness, like severe physical illness, represents a tragic loss of human potential.

Is something "wrong" with President Trump and with the error-plagued Musk? An inquiring mind would want to know. By rule of law, the New York Times has agreed that questions of that type must never, ever be asked.

Where there is no vision, the people perish? In closing for this morning, we'll once again ask you to flash on the Oscar-nominated film, The Sixth Sense.

Our question would be this:

Is it possible that we as a people have already perished, but we just don't know it yet?

This afternoon: "Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old."

So said President Trump as part of a much longer presentation. 

This afternoon, we'll post the full text of his fuller statement.  If a people doesn't want to perish, how should such statements be scored?

THE DISAPPEARED: "Could it be Satan?" the Church Lady asked!

TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2025

This may be a Night Which Was: With apologies, all in all, we've had a challenging day.

Briefly, let's be honest. It was a challenging first world day. 

People are struggling all over the world with much more serious challenges. That includes the people of Ukraine, who are, or so it would seem, currently being abandoned.

Today, we returned from our participation in ongoing medical science. Not too much later, our internet service went down.

When our Internet Service Provider goes down, you're never real sure it will ever come up. Once again, we'd call this as a first world problem. 

Elsewhere, as Lawrence O'Donnell described last night, children are starving around the globe because of the apparent mental illness of the fellow named [NAME WITHHELD].

Does anyone doubt that we the Americans may be caught in a web of some version or versions of mental illness ("mental disorder")? Granted, our "journalists" won't discuss this apparent state of affairs—but does anyone really think that this circumstance doesn't exist?

At this site, we've been rereading the 2020 bestseller by Mary L. Trump, PhD—a detailed and thoughtful book about the upbringing of her uncle, Donald J. Trump, and his four brothers and sisters.

We have said, again and again, that (severe) "mental illness/disorder" is, like serious physical illness, a tragic loss of human potential. We've been struck this week by the very sad story Mary Trump tells in her book.

(Pity the child, we've long suggested. Pity the child, even as you try to disarm the adult.)

That said, why did we ever go with "The Disappeared" as our tagline for this week? We were thinking of the disappeared clowns of the Fox News Channel, who our Blue elites have agreed to leave unreported and undiscussed. 

We were also thinking of the disappeared (possible) explanation for the sitting American president's ongoing assault on the world. He makes us flash on "The Boxer," we've said.

As of tomorrow, we expect to change our tag for the week to something derived from "The Week That Was." Yesterday, this is what the president said he plans to do tonight:

“TOMORROW NIGHT WILL BE BIG. I WILL TELL IT LIKE IT IS!”

Was that a promise or was that a threat? Needless to say, it arrived in nothing but capital letters. We advise you to pity the child.

As we noted yesterday. last Friday's Oval Office debacle was likely the start of a Week That Was. It had the look of the start of a week which might change the history of the modern world. 

Tonight, we'll see what the president says. As for us Blues, remember this:

In an array of deeply unfortunate ways, we worked hard to earn our way out.

Also, two key points: It's the greatest thing anyone has ever done in the realm of cable news. We refer to Lawrence O'Donnell's work with the good, decent kids of Malawi.

(Also, with their families.)

In our view, Lawrence has been extremely strong in the current unfortunate circumstance. Other children, children like those in Malawi, will be dying of starvation around the world.

Also this:

"Could it be Satan?" the Church Lady asked. Our answer, of course, is a no. In our view, the actual, unfortunate story seems far more tragic than that.

That said, we had planned to work with that framework today. We may revisit it by the end of the week. For today, the collapse of our ISP briefly hauled us down.

BREAKING: We won't be posting until a bit later!

 TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2025

Meanwhile, riddle us this: We're off very early this morning to address The Surgical Wound Which Would Not Heal.

For that reason, we won't be posting until this afternoon. Meanwhile, riddle us this news report in the New York Times:

What’s Behind Trump’s Love-Hate Relationship With Canada

[...]

As Mr. Trump prepares to push ahead with a new round of tariffs on the United States’ neighbors to the north and south, he has expressed a special brand of loathing for Canada. The bullying of a country whose most prominent stereotype is that its people are “nice” has led to political upheaval in Canada and created both consternation and speculation about why Mr. Trump wants to engage in a trade war with one of America’s biggest trading partners.

“I can’t quite figure it out,” said Stephen Moore, the Heritage Foundation economist and former adviser to Mr. Trump. “Whether it’s some kind of strategic leverage, I don’t know.”

Noting that there is “no love lost” between the president and Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Moore added: “With Trump, politics is personal.”

Mr. Trump has threatened to hit Mexico and Canada with 25 percent tariffs on all imports on Tuesday unless the countries do more to prevent migrants and drugs from flowing into the United States. On Saturday, the president picked another trade fight with Canada, this time over lumber.

Intrigue abounds in Canada about why Mr. Trump has repeatedly belittled a neighbor and threatened to destabilize its economy with tariffs, a process that has brought relations between the two countries to a low point not seen in decades.

Stephen Moore can't figure it out? That may not be a shocker!  But even Moore is prepared to admit that the behavior in question doesn't quite seem to make sense!

In fairness, has the commander really "expressed a special brand of loathing for Canada?" We don't know if he actually has—but in all the strange taunting of the past few months, it isn't real clear that he hasn't.

That Times report fashions Trump as a person engaged in "the bullying of a country whose most prominent stereotype is that its people are 'nice.' "

Is there something strange about that stance? Also, is there a possible (type of) explanation for this behavior—a possible type of explanation which has been disappeared?

What might be going on with President Trump? And have our journalists agreed on this rule of the road:

With respect to one obvious possibility, don't ask—and by all means don't tell!

Why would someone be gripped by a loathing for Canada? Has an obvious type of possibility joined the ranks of The Disappeared?

This afternoon: Our Week That Was seems to get worse

MONDAY: From zero to fury in a matter of moments!

MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2025

What happened in the Oval: Are we in the midst of a Weeke That Was—an historically serious moment?

Concerning that, time will tell. As to what actually happened last week in the Oval, we think a lengthy report by CNN included an admirable degree of detail.

For the record, the actual session on the Oval Office lasted almost exactly 50 minutes. We thought this part of CNN's report was basically accurate, and we found it especially striking:

Inside the 139 minutes that upended the US-Ukraine alliance

[...]

For the first 40 minutes of their talks, Trump did not evince outward bitterness toward Zelensky, instead discussing the minerals deal they were planning to sign later in the day.

Indeed, upstairs in the East Room a long wooden table had been prepared for the signing ceremony, with four chairs ready for the signatories.

It was never to be.

Ignore the time frame stated in the headline. "139 minutes" is the amount of time which elapsed from the moment Zelensky arrived at the White House to the moment he drove away.

As for the Oval Office meeting itself, that lasted almost exactly 50 minutes. You can confirm that fact on the videotape which appears at C-Span's actual site—a piece of tape which didn't seem to be working correctly when we linked elsewhere on Sunday.

At any rate, right there in its lengthy report, CNN says this:

For the first 40 minutes of their talks, Trump did not evince outward bitterness toward Zelensky.

Truer words were never spoken! In fact, we think that passage actually understates the mellow of the ongoing situation that day, along with the suddenness with which the Friday event melted down:

For the first 40 minutes of their talks, Trump didn't evince outward bitterness toward Zelensky? In fact, we'd say the actual number was higher than that, and we'd say that President Trump didn't seem to display any discomfort at all. 

Looking at the C-Span tape, we'd say that President Trump shows no discomfort of any kind until the 43-minute mark.  In fact, it's Vice President "JD" Vance who jumps in at the 40-minute mark with the first sign that someone is unhappy with the way the event is going. 

At that point, Trump says there will be one more question—and just like that, up jumps Vance! By the 41-minute mark, Vance is visibly angry. He's now scolding and lecturing the visiting president about what he perceives to be Zelensky's vast amount of disrespect.

As for President Trump, he doesn't jump in until the 43-minute mark. Only then does he seem to be angry, although he does keeps getting louder and angrier from that fatal moment on.

Repeating:

Right through the first forty-plus minutes, we see no sign that President Trump is unhappy with President Zelensky's attitude or behavior. He doesn't even seem to be bothered by all the eyerolls—by the deeply disturbing eyerolls which in fact never occurred.

The two presidents were, in fact, adopting different points of view about one significant matter. Zelensky was saying that Ukraine will need security guarantees from Europe and the United States to guard against Putin's inevitable decision to violate any ceasefire.

In real time, Trump didn't seem to want to do that. But for 43 minutes, there was no indication that he was about to blow his stack. He's emotionally normal through 43 minutes—and then, the volcano erupts.

To our eye, that's strange and oddly aberrant behavior. But then, what else is new?

Our question would be this:

What could possibly lie behind such erratic behavior? 

What lies behind such behavior? You'll never see a certain type of possibility examined within Blue America's press. Those orgs and those journalists have all agreed that a certain obvious possibility must never be discussed or explained or evaluated.

The behavior by Trump struck us as erratic. Why does this happen with such regularity?

Within the press, the watchword is clear:

Whatever you do, don't ask!

THE DISAPPEARED: What lunacy lies in the heart of man?

MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2025

We're now in a Week That Was: "What evil lurks in the heart of man? Only The Shadow knows!"

In fairness, that wasn't exactly the slogan. The slogan in question belonged to a long-running radio show, way back in the days before TV came along.

The radio show came to be called The Shadow. The leading authority on such shows offers a thumbnail backdrop:

The Shadow

The Shadow is a fictional character created by American magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by Gibson, The Shadow has been adapted into other forms of media...

The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine...

On September 26, 1937, The Shadow, a new radio drama based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue", in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the hypnotic power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow did not become literally invisible.

The introductory line from the radio adaptation of The Shadow—"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"—spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh.

The radio show came to an end in December 1954. It sounds like it was good solid crackpot fun, a bit like our contemporary political / journalistic discourse.

At present, we Americans seem to be locked in what will turn out to be a major Week That Was. That turn of phrase comes from the name of a TV show, That Was the Week That Was, which was hot for a couple of years back in the mid-1960s.

This nation's current probable Week That Was got its start last Friday. On that occasion, President Zelensky's incessant eye-rolling, along with the way he sat in his chair, caused two major American officials to melt down as TV cameras rolled.

As we noted yesterday, that story was told by Karoline Leavitt, but also by an assortment of tools on the Fox News Channel. 

Full disclosure! When we examined the videotape, we couldn't see the many eyerolls. 

In fact, we didn't see even one! That only suggests how slippery President Zelensky was as he engaged in this conduct.

"What evil lurks in the heart of man?" For ourselves, we'd suggest staying away from such triggering terms as "evil." We'd suggest a transition to a slogan like this:

What sources of incomprehension lie in the hearts of us humans? What sources of possible mental dysfunction?

As it turns out. we humans aren't "the rational animal" at every turn of the wheel. Especially at times of vast tribal division, we may tend to believe the darnedest things, if we might be allowed to steal a phrase from that other old TV show:

House Party (radio and TV show)

[...]

The show's best-remembered segment was "Kids Say the Darndest Things," in which [Art] Linkletter interviewed schoolchildren between the ages of five and ten.

Five-year-olds used to say the darndest things. Today, we American adults are strongly inclined to believe such implausible statements!

We adults are inclined to believe the darndest things! As it turns out, that's even true in Red America, as it is over here with us Blues.

We Blues were sure that President Biden was still just as sharp as a tack. We didn't bat an eye when our leaders told us that the southern border was secure.

Those costs of living were all in our heads—or perhaps in the heads of The Others. We even managed to cruise right through the least plausible manifestations of the cultural impulse which came to be known by the unflattering term, "Woke."

Some of those manifestations proved an indisputable point:

There is no apparently good intention which can't be unwisely pursued.

Surely everyone understands that—but at the time, we plowed on through. We Blues couldn't see what everyone else was able to see. 

Last November, we paid the price, with Candidate Trump squeaking out a narrow win, despite his historic lack of popularity among the electorate.

Sources of incomprehension are widespread within the hearts and the heads of us humans! That doesn't mean that we're bad people. According to an array of experts, it means that we're people people, wired as humans are.

Last Friday, right there in the Oval, the latest episode flared. And sure enough, here's what happened next:

As of Saturday night, Joey Johnny Jones was willing to tell viewers of The Big Weekend Show that it was the incessant eye-rolling by Zelensky which triggered the meltdown by Trump and Vance.

Did Jones really believe what he was saying? When Lisa Boothe rushed to agree, did she believe what he'd said|?

We can't answer those questions! But millions of people will believe that the eyerolls did it, in part thanks to what they saw Jones say.

It used to be the butler who did it. Last Friday, to prove our larger point, it turned out that the eyerolls did!

Our larger point is this:

It isn't just we Blue Americans who believe the darnedest things. Over there in Red America, our enemies are inclined to traffic in apparent incomprehension too!

That brings us to the current apparent Week That Was, which got its start last Friday. It started with the meltdown caused by The Body Language Which Wasn't. 

Tomorrow night, right there in the House chamber, the week will continue along with President Trump's major address. It won't be called The State of the Union Address, but that's what it basically is. 

What's the president going to say at that time? Only The Shadow actually knows, but we'll guess that he may not play nice.

In the course of this week, we ourselves are going to focus on The Disappeared. By that, we refer to the disappeared possible explanations for the serial acts of apparent madness which now crowd the American scene.

To what acts of apparent incomprehension do we refer? We refer, of course, to reports about the eyerolls which didn't seem to occur, but also to such acts of apparent madness as these:

Sad! As reported by Mediaite, Joe Rogan has now suggested that CNN aired the speech by Candidate Trump in Butler, Pa. because CNN somehow knew that he would be shot at that day.

Yes, that's what he suggested. What impulse in favor of incomprehension lurks in the heads of us humans? This level of impulse:

This same musclebound flyweight is now one of the leading "influencers" on the American scene! And no, it doesn't end there:

When Rogan suggested that CNN knew, Elon Musk seemed to agree. After that, along came the perpetually furious and wealthy Bill Ackman, and he bought into it too!

These people are all extremely "successful." Beyond that, there seems to be very little they won't suggest or even believe.

In other words, it isn't just Us! The humans over in Red America believe the darnedest things too!

Many parts of the story from last Friday haven't yet appeared on the scene. For example, this:

What was actually in the (revised) minerals deal Zelensky and Trump were supposed to sign that day? 

That seems like an amazingly basic question. As is the norm in our highly sub-rational journalistic discourse, we've seen few attempts to spell that out. For a detailed report from one think tank, you can just click here.

That question has largely been disappeared and so has the possible answer. In our view, though, the principal disappearance involves the answer to the question Scott Pelley asked last night.

Hollywood was offering its annual low-IQ presentation as 60 Minutes aired. Some of Americans, Red and Blue, still watch that annual drivel.

At 7 p.m. in the east, 60 Minutes was competing with the preternatural childishness of Tinseltown itself. But here's one of the questions Pelley asked, along with what he was told:

PELLEY (3/2/25): In these last two weeks we've heard [President Trump] call Zelenskyy a dictator, we've heard him say it was Ukraine that started the war. What is going on?

MCMASTER: Well, President Trump, as we all know, has a tendency to say outlandish things. Sometimes that's to shake the situation up and create some sense of change. But often times what he doesn't consider is how his words could impede his own agenda, or how his words actually can cut against U.S. interests or be received abroad in a way that's much different from the way his political supporters will receive those words in the United States. And so those words were damaging, damaging to the psyche of the Ukrainians. You know, war really is a contest of wills, and I think what you're seeing is Donald Trump delivering a series of body blows to the Ukrainians in a way that could affect, you know, their will to continue to fight.

"What's going on?" Pelley asked. Marvin Gaye is no longer with us, but you can see the way McMaster answered Pelley's question.

For the record, not everyone will agree with that answer. But as Pelley had already explained, here's who he was speaking with:

PELLEY: H.R. McMaster knows. He was national security adviser in Trump's first term. He's a retired Army general, senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, and a CBS News contributor.

That's what Pelley said. In this case, it isn't just The Shadow.  According to Pelley, McMaster also knows!

You can see how General McMaster answered Pelley's question. All this week, we're going to muse on the basics of alleged modern medical science which were absent from what the general said.

We humans! We're actually rather primitive thinkers. All in all, in many arenas, we aren't "the rational animal."

What sources of possible incomprehension may lurk in the minds of us humans?

These sources seem to be widespread on the left and even on the right. These sources are routinely disappeared in our modern discourse, but we disappear them at our own peril.

For the record, none of this is going to change. It's much too late for that,

Meanwhile, w may have embarked on a Week That Was at the present moment. Everything you read and hear will have been edited so you won't be required to think about the possible factors which have been disappeared.

We humans believe the darnedest things. Some people may possibly understand why we do, but by common human agreement, those people have been disappeared.

"What's going on?" Scott Pelley asked. One perfectly plausible answer has been disappeared!

Tomorrow: Though later in the day: One caller to C-Span sounds off!

SUNDAY: Fox News says he should apologize...

SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 2025

...for the way he sat in his chair: Bright and early, at 6:07 a.m., Peter Doocy gave voice to the mandated messaging of his corporate owners.

In his normal role, Doocy serves as the Fox News Channel's "senior White House correspondent." This morning, he was serving as the (temporary) third friend on the four-hour corporate messaging program, Fox & Friends Weekend.

Five minutes into the program, Doocy delivered the mail on behalf of his owners. Perhaps a bit remarkably, this is what he said:

DOOCY (3/2/25): Nothing is going to happen until he apologizes for the way that he acted in the Oval Office. Nothing!

And he keeps— He's now on a world tour where he will not just stand there in front of a microphone and say, "I apologize, I accept responsibility, for my actions in the Oval."

Thus spoke Peter Doocy; the other friends quickly agreed. Thus spoke the senior correspondent—and so speaks the Fox News Channel.

Pull out his eyes, apologize—but Zelensky refuses to do it! For many people, a fairly obvious question might arise at this point:

We're told that Zelensky needs to apologize—but apologize for what? For what specific "actions in the Oval" is he supposed to acknowledge his guilt?

Yesterday, we actually spent a chunk of time trying to puzzle that out. For the record, it seems that the White House has settled on the answer, as described by CNBC in this news report:

Trump objected to Zelenskyy’s tone and body language in Oval Office clash, White House says

President Donald Trump found the tone and body language of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy objectionable during an Oval Office meeting that exploded into a loud argument on Friday, the White House told CNBC.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said there was not a specific thing that Zelenskyy said in the Oval Office to Trump or Vice President JD Vance that the president objected to, but the tone and manner in which he said it.

Leavitt said Friday that Zelenskyy—whose country was invaded three years ago by Russia at the direction of its president, Vladimir Putin—was folding his arms, rolling his eyes and sitting in a way that indicated a lack of respect.

Leavitt also pointed out that Zelenskyy called Vance “JD,” instead of “Mr. Vice President,” during the fiery exchange, which was televised in front of reporters in the Oval Office.

As it turned out, it wasn't some specific thing Zelensky actually said. It was the gentleman's body language, including the way he sat in his chair.

Zelensky had been rolling his eyes, plus he'd been folding his arms. It was these elements of his body language which eventually set Trump and Vance off. 

 If you believe CNBC, that's what Leavitt said. Anthropologically, we would offer this:

When we humans reach "peak tribal war," almost any negative characterization of The Oher will do. An authority figure's characterizations will be accepted as convincing—indeed, as gospel—by the furious members of the angry tribe.

Full disclosure! According to CNBC, Leavitt said that Zelensky had signaled his disrespect in several other ways. The report continues as shown:

The clash occurred when Zelenskyy challenged the idea that Russia could be trusted to honor the terms of any peace deal that would be reached through diplomacy. Vance then accused the Ukrainian leader of being “disrespectful” by “trying to litigate” the terms of such a deal in the Oval Office.

Press secretary Leavitt said that White House officials were also annoyed that Zelenskyy did not wear a suit during his visit Friday, which abruptly ended with a scheduled news conference and meal both canceled after the Oval Office blow-up.

When CNBC noted that the White House did not appear to have a problem with top Trump advisor Elon Musk recently appearing in the Oval Office next to the president wearing a t-shirt and a baseball cap, Leavitt said that was different because the billionaire Tesla CEO is not the leader of a “sovereign nation.”

Trump earlier Friday had greeted Zelenskyy outside the White House by saying, “Oh look, you’re all dressed up.”

Muskwear YES, Zelenskywear NO! At times of peak tribal division, almost any distinction will do.

Yesterday, messengers on the Fox News Channel recited Leavitt's messaging. Last evening, at 7:06 p.m., it fell to Joey Johnny Jones to perform the reading of script.

Jones was co-hosting on The Big Weekend Show, one of the dumbest programs in the history of TV "news." The program features four co-hosts, each of whom will agree with every word the other co-hosts have said.

The program is so preternaturally dumb that Fox has now made it a two-hour show. Early in last night's second hour, Jones told viewers this:

JONES (3/1/25): Zelensky still hasn't apologized for what Trump calls "disrespect." But according to someone inside the room, what really set the fireworks off was Zelensky's body language. Apparently, thirty minutes of head-shaking and eye-rolling was just too much for President Trump and V.P. Vance. 

"According to someone inside the room," Trump and Vance had managed to tolerate "thirty minutes of head-shaking and eye-rolling" from their horrible guest. 

Finally, though, the body language turned out to be "just too much!" It was just too much even for them!

That's according to someone inside the room. As he continued, Jones explained why some people mistakenly thought that Trump and Vance behaved rather badly as the session neared its end:

JONES (continuing directly): Lisa [Boothe], I don't know if you've gone back and looked at the whole forty minutes. I had to do it, because people on X started pointing out that the majority of people in this country that are reacting to this strongly only saw that last ten minutes, maybe, of a forty-minute press conference where Zelensky was eye-rolling, body language, the whole time.

The people who thought Trump and Vance behaved badly hadn't seen the full event! They hadn't seen the initial thirty minutes of incessant eye-rolling, as Jones apparently did when he went back looked at the full tape for himself.

Instantly, Boothe agreed. As she did, here's what the chyron said:

BAD BODY LANGUAGE
ZELENSKYY DISRESPECTED PRESIDENT TRUMP & VP VANCE

Mandated message delivered! Quickly, let's summarize:

According to Jones, many people were reacting to the last ten minutes of Friday's event—to the part of the event where Trump and Vance finally melted down.

According to Jones, those people hadn't seen the first thirty minutes of the event—the part of the session where Zelensky engaged in "eye-rolling" and "[bad] body language" the whole time.

For the record, Jones is very "down home." At one time, he struck us as instinctively honest.

Last night, we were struck by his presentation. Here's why we were surprised:

In fact, we had already watched the videotape of the entire event. We'd been looking for all the eye-rolling that was described in CNBC's report. 

We'd already watched the whole forty minutes—and we hadn't spotted a single instance! On this C-Span videotape, you can give it a try yourself.

Pull out his eyes, apologize! As we noted yesterday, this scary demand was initially made of the very young James Joyce. Over the past forty-eight hours, every messenger in the Fox News / Trump White House universe has been insisting that Zelensky should apologize too.

Zelensky needs to apologize—but what should he apologize for? Right there on the Fox News Channel, Jones and Doocy spelled it out, and the other tools all played along.

He should apologize for his body language—for the way he sat in his chair! He should apologize for the thirty minutes of eye-rolls—for the eye-rolls which don't seem to be there!

Go ahead—search the tape! See if you can spot a single instance where Zelensky rolls his eyes.

 According to Jones, he did it all through the lengthy event. Finally, it was just too much, even for Trump and Vance! 

Has Joey Jones sold his soul to the gods—to the people who sign his checks? In answer to that sensible question, we will only say this:

This bullshit flows all day and all night on the Fox News Channel. Can a very large modern nation really expect to survive this system of corporate deception?

We're inclined to think that the answer is no. That said, Blue America's elites refuse to report or comment on this behavior.

It's a gong-show at the Fox News Channel—an imitation of life. It's a remarkable act of avoidance by the well-schooled elites Over Here.