I guess you heard that Mitch is back. Sort of. Going by this report at The New Republic he is breathing but doesn’t appear to be all there mentally.
Trump’s current obsession appears to be demolishing the Kennedy Center because judges won’t let him put his name on the building. See Photos Spur Speculation About Possible Demolition of Kennedy Center by Shawn McCreesh at the New York Times. Since taking it over last year Trump has just about destroyed it anyway, but if he leaves the building standing there’s always hope it can be a real cultural center again. But if he doesn’t get h is name on the building he’s going to rip it down. A judge has ordered the administration to give he court 30 days’ notice before doing anything to the Kennedy Center, but you know he will ignore that order.
The man destroys everything he touches. But the Kennedy Center also appears to be what is consuming his attention these days. It’s even crowded out the Marie Antoinette ballroom from Trump’s head. Not the war in Iran. Not the economy, except for being on the lookout for a quick fix to his oil prices problem. Can we all admit this isn’t rational?
Over the past several months I’ve read a lot of opinion pieces about how Trump has peaked and it’s all downhill for him from now on. I read these with a grain of salt. But I think now he does seem to be losing it. His old trick was to figure out what people wanted and promise to give it to them. But now he’s lost touch with popular opinion on anything. He’s telling people the economy is great and everybody wants data centers. Um, no. His core base of around a third of voters is still with him. But He’s lost independents. And this appears to be impacting midterm races. See Republicans Reel on the Midterm Map as Deep-Red Areas Come Into Play at the New York Times.
I want to call your attention to Pennsylvania’s Measles Outbreak Is Enormous by Tom Bartlett at The Atlantic. Pennsylvania is getting slammed.
Four deaths in roughly four weeks suggest that the state is in the midst of an enormous outbreak. The Pennsylvania health department lists total cases at 693, with 99 in the past week. But considering that measles kills about one to three of every 1,000 children it infects, the actual number is likely much larger. Milder cases are going unreported. Many who fall ill, particularly in the Amish community, aren’t getting tested; the Amish parents of the infant who died with a ruptured spleen told me that their 13 living children had all caught the virus, but they never got swabbed.
RFK the Lesser’s response is to ignore the problem.
Tomorrow, Kennedy is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the annual conference for Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization that he founded before becoming health secretary. Children’s Health Defense has a long history of ginning up fears about the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella while downplaying the seriousness of the diseases. Kennedy does, too. In July 2021, Kennedy told attendees at an Amish country fair in Pennsylvania, “The cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A.” In fact, no known cure for measles exists; vitamin A has shown some promise in people with severe vitamin A deficiency, which is exceedingly rare in the United States. Since becoming health secretary, he has stated publicly that vaccination is “the most effective way to prevent measles infection,” but as I’ve reported, he also undercut that message by telling the father of a girl who died in West Texas that “you don’t know what’s in the vaccine anymore.” Kennedy has been a stronger advocate for measles itself, which he’s falsely credited with boosting resistance to cancer and cardiac disease, than he has for the vaccine that prevents it.
Some weeks ago I was reading about a measles outbreak in Utah, and people were saying that measles was much worse than they’d been told. They thought people just got a few spots and got over it in a couple of days. That’s true of Rubella, German measles, for most people, but measles can be worse an unpredictably dangerous. I understand rates of vaccination have gone way up in Pennsylvania. Especially as school is starting, the kids really need to be vaccinated.
I am waiting for President Trump to declare that he is having the Washington Monument wrapped in gold foil and renamed.
Since you won't let me put my name on the sandbox, play with the toys I like in the sandbox and play the games I want to play in the sandbox, the sandbox must be torn down. No thanks to what any concerns you might have in this matter.
The ceiling in the Kennedy Center falling is just a bit too convinent for me to swallow. I am not saying I "know' it was an inside job that DJT arranged. But if the concition of the center was so dire, the way to prove it would have been to ask the cultural center who has been suing Trump to hire an engineering firm of their choice to immediately inspect and deliver a report.
Trump assumed personal control of the Kennedy Canter and made himself Grand Poobah. Artists refused to perform for the king. He had a stadium with no fans. He put his name on the Kennedy Center when it was illegal and a judge ordered it removed. He put up a temporary structure to hide the removal of his name and I am still not certain that was done.
Without performers, Trump said he was closing the Kennedy Center for repairs to save face. Which the court is debating. Trump had made clear in one sentence, he will demolish the Center if the courts do not give in to him. I am not at all clear that the USSC will give him this. It's a petty issue compared to war and the economy, but the symbolism of displacing a historical giant to make his legacy yours just reeks.
Some have suggested Trump intended the poster to be photographed to raise the stakes of a bluff. The upshot is that Rome is burning. The Kennedy Center is Trump's violin.
"I am not saying I "know' it was an inside job that DJT arranged"
Doug, your talking about a guy who faked his own assassination attempt?
And a guy in the stands behind Trump died of a real gunshot. The sniper died and I suspect he didn't volunteer for that. Trump's ear showed no sign of an injury as soon as the bandages came off. There was no cosmetic surgery. All of that is circumstantial. I don't think the sniper who died knew he was shooting blanks. He didn't have the background of a stone cold killer who could shoot into a bunch of strangers. So there was a different shooter and it was rigged to make sure if an insider collected the shooter's rifle. I don't think we will ever prove it.
"Universal Is Getting Cold Feet on Releasing the Elon Musk Documentary – The Comcast-owned studio is not yet committing to rolling out Alex Gibney's movie that it paid millions to acquire for non-North American release before the political winds shifted"
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/elon-musk-movie-gibney-canceled-universal-1236704232/
quote of the day:
"Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired." — Jonathan Swift
What's gone somewhat unreported about the Kennedy Center, is that the ex-officio board member, someone Trump did not appoint, a Democrat named Joyce Beatty stood up to the bully when he phoned into the board. In response to his "I am great and you are nothing" strutting, she reminded him that he went bankrupt 7 times, more than anyone at that meeting. She wasn't going to take any crap from this fool.
Heather Cox Richardson also picked up on this, saying that the last time anyone stood up to him was Gov Janet Mills of Maine, in Feb 2025. He has needed this his entire life.
I'm sure he's determined more than ever to destroy the Center. Beatty is the one who's busily filing lawsuits, addendums, etc – in other words, instrumental in getting the court involved to protect the center from the toddler.
Regarding measles etc. I've seen numbers on food borne illnesses – the cyclospora lettuce recall for example – the totals are an order of magnitude greater than earlier years. Congress cut funding on reporting it.