February 26

https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-fraud-fraud?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=310897&post_id=157957491&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=cfres&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email Cloudy with rain off and on. Most of the snow is gone. The 10-day weather forecast has only two days below 40F. The rest are 40s and 50s. Saturday is the first day of meteorological Spring and, if the forecast is accurate, I should be able to start the garden/patio clean up. I plan to change the arrangements of the pots drastically. Also I have the remains of last year's plants to remove and get the pots filled and fertilized. But I won't be doing it all at once. I have time since I don't intend to plant til middle April or first of May.

Stray thought during the news/commentary shows last night: more talking heads are taking to task those who wish Trump/Musk would "show some compassion" for those whose jobs are either cancelled or at risk or whose health care is at risk if proposed cuts to Medicaid are enacted. They rightly note that the prime movers in the process "don't care." One came out and said bluntly that Trump's "revenge tour" has broadened to include all Americans. I recalled something I read a long time ago that described Hitler's state of mind a short time before he committed suicide. People around him begged him to allow serious negotiations with the Allies, especially the British and U.S.. He supposedly said that if Germans weren't willing to fight to the last person they didn't deserve him and didn't deserve to survive. Around that time he issued the Nero Decree ordering the destruction of German infrastructure and resources. I get the feeling that Trump might feel the same way. He won the first time by capturing enough Electoral College votes but lost the nationwide popular vote. He lost the second time in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. He won both the third time but neither he nor Kamala Harris won 50% of the vote. He didn't really win the landslides he claims and he knows it. I wonder if he isn't intent on burning the whole thing down since he can't get unqualified love. However, my natural tendency to look at different sides lead me to note that the kind of spite described above doesn't look much different from someone absolutely convinced of the righteousness of his beliefs/actions even if people are hurt. You can justify any atrocity if you think the end justifies the means. I forget which Holy Roman Emperor said he would rather rule a desert than a kingdom of heretics and proceeded to try to create a desert. It was called THE THIRTY YEARS WAR.

Timothy has an interesting piece on his substack site describing the heavy lifting the word "fraud" does in the administration's program. Of course the EVIDENCE for fraud of any kind is rather thin or nonexistent.

My mind often makes strange connections. It feels like the Trump/Musk administration is intent on breaking our social/political/economic systems. It is very easy to become depressed at the thought and somehow afraid of what is to come. It can't be good. But I suddenly remembered a video I saw of a Japanese art form, Kintsugi, in which an artist takes broken pottery, some incredibly beautiful before it broke, and recreates it by piecing it back together with glue which includes gold, silver, or platinum dust or dusting the glued seam with the metal dust. You can read about it here. Or take a look at this YouTube piece. I hope that somehow our fractured society can be repaired and become a thing of beauty.

On a sad note: a child has died of measles in the Texas outbreak which is still expanding.

Ed West at WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY posted this article about geography and political attitudes, including voting patterns. I read about the phenomenon in both the Brexit vote and a closely contented election in Germany during Angela Merkel's tenure as Chancellor.