The Daily Parker

If you've ever played Snakes & Ladders (Chutes & Ladders in the US) with a small child, or really any game with a small child, you have probably cheated. Of course you have; don't deny it. Everyone knows letting the kid win is often the only way to get out of playing again.

It turns out, Japan last week and the European Union this week both demonstrated mastery of that principle while negotiating "trade deals" with the world's largest toddler:

[I]f the US-EU trade relationship was more or less OK last year, why did Trump impose huge tariffs and leave many of them in place even after the so-called deal? Because he felt like it. You won’t get anywhere in understanding the trade war if you insist on believing that Trump’s tariffs are a response to any legitimate grievances. And he failed to gain any significant concessions, mainly because Europe was already behaving well and had nothing to concede.

So was the US-EU trade deal basically a nothingburger? No, it was a bad thing, but mainly for political reasons.

Two less discouraging aspects of what just happened: First, Trump appears to have backed down on the idea of treating European value-added taxes as an unfair barrier to U.S. exports (which they aren’t, but facts don’t matter here.) So that’s one potentially awful confrontation avoided, at least for now.

Second, if this trade deal was in part an attempt to drive Epstein from the top of the news, my sense of the news flow is that it has been a complete flop.

Still, if I were a European I’d be very angry at anything that even looks like Trump appeasement. The EU is an economic superpower, especially if it allies itself with the UK. It needs to start acting like it.

Oh, it will, I reckon. But for now, all the OAFPOTUS has done is to impose a 15% tariff on the United States in Europe and Japan.

Meanwhile:

• Dan Rather calls out the OAFPOTUS for (once more) enriching himself at taxpayer expense, and not just for spending $63 million on golf trips.
• Explaining to the Republican Party that we'll put down our guns when they put theirs down, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) warns that several large Blue states can also go full-Gerrymander, so maybe Texas should leave well enough alone.
• Crime has fallen dramatically in Chicago and other big cities across the US since 2020, and no one really knows why.
• Pro-Ukrainian hackers crippled Russian civil airline Aeroflot over the past weekend.
• Auto and traffic-safety writer Josh Max suggests that upping training and safety standards could reduce the 38,000 annual US traffic deaths, while ignoring the roles that road and city design play.
• The continued destruction of our environment under Republican administrations has led to the reddest districts in some places playing host to huge, noisy, climate-destroying AI data centers.
• On-premises Microsoft SharePoint Server installations suffered a catastrophic data breach in a zero-day attack starting Friday, which researchers say means any network with an on-site SPS instance exposed to the Internet must consider their user credentials compromised.

Finally, the New York Times has a look at Sesame Street's set design and how it has reflected changes in urban life over the last 56 years. "The show’s designers intentionally made the original set appear grungy, with garbage on the street, the brownstone spotted with soot and the color scheme appearing dull and muted. ... During a major redesign in the ’90s, the set introduced a new hotel and apartment building. The brownstone remained, and one of the show’s designers said it 'was meant to look like a survivor of gentrification.' After the show struck a deal to stream on HBO in 2015, the set appeared even shinier, newer and brighter." There's even a recycling bin next to Oscar's trash can. Sic transit, et cetera.

Historian Timothy Ryback, writing in The Atlantic, takes us through a short history of a not-so-long-ago German Chancellor's war with his country's apolitical civil service:

A memorandum was circulated to all state civil servants demanding blind loyalty to the Hitler government. Anyone who did not feel they could support Hitler and his policies, [future war criminal Hermann] Göring added, should do the “honorable” thing and resign. The Berliner Morgenpost observed that Hitler was clearly working to “transform the state bureaucracy from the most senior positions down to the administrative levels to align with his political positions.”

Despite Hitler’s heavy-handed assault on the government bureaucracy, he could not touch [central bank president] Hans Luther. According to a 1924 law, the Reichsbank was independent of the elected government; the Reichsbank president served at the discretion of a 14-member board, which included seven international bankers and economists.

[In a meeting with Luther in March 1933,] Hitler acknowledged that, as chancellor, he did not have the legal power to remove Luther as central banker. But, he told Luther bluntly, as the new “boss” of the country, he had access to considerable alternative sources of power that he would not hesitate to employ “ruthlessly” against Luther “if the interest of the state demanded it.” The nature of Hitler’s threats was unmistakable. Luther—who had already been shot once before in protest of his monetary policies—did not need to be warned again.

One hopes the OAFPOTUS and his droogs don't resort to such things. This is the "farce" part of the "first as tragedy" proverb, however, so we might escape going full-on Fascist for the next three years. I hope.

Historian Timothy W Ryback outlines how the Chancellor of Germany used manufactured crises to take over the Bavarian State in 1933. If you hear an echo from the past coming from California this week, that may not be an accident:

Adolf Hitler was a master of manufacturing public-security crises to advance his authoritarian agenda.

The March 5 Reichstag elections delivered Hitler 44 percent of the electorate and with that a claim on political power at every level of government. The next day, 200,000 National Socialist brownshirts stormed state and municipal offices across the country. Swastika banners draped town halls. Civil servants were thrown from their desks.

But not in Bavaria. [Bavarian minister president Heinrich] Held’s solid block of more than 1 million voters, along with the threat of armed resistance by the Bavaria Watch, gave Hitler pause. So did [Bavarian People's Party chief Fritz] Schäffer’s threat to call on Bavaria’s Prince Rupprecht to reestablish monarchical rule.

Hitler huddled with his lieutenants to frame a strategy for Bavaria. Storm troopers would stage public disturbances, triggering a response under paragraph two of Article 48, enabling Hitler to suspend the Held government, and install a Reich governor in its place.

And let's not forget the Reichstag Fire, which Hitler claimed was the start of a Bolshevik revolution even though the lone arsonist who started it was caught in the act.

With a weakened OAFPOTUS unable to win popular support for, well, anything lately, and his plastic-headed defense secretary sending marines to Los Angeles, this does not look good for the United States.

Cassie and I took a 7 km walk from sleep-away camp to Ribfest yesterday, which added up to 2½ hours of walkies including the rest of the day. Then we got some relaxing couch time in the evening. We don't get that many gorgeous weekend days in Chicago—perhaps 30 per year—so we had to take advantage of it.

Of course, it's Monday now, and all the things I ignored over the weekend still exist:

• Josh Marshall digs into the OAFPOTUS's attack on the state of California, noting that "all the federalizations [of the National Guard] during the Civil Rights Era were over the refusal of segregationist state governments to enforce federal law under court order. Trump’s argument is...[that] the President [has the right] to decide when a state government isn’t protecting or enforcing civil order to his liking and to intervene with federalized National Guard or the U.S. military to do it at the point of a bayonet. ... The crisis the administration insisted it needed to solve was a crisis of the administration’s creation."
• Philip Bump puts the encroaching fascism in broader context: "What’s important to remember about the fracture that emerged in Los Angeles over the weekend is that it came shortly after reports that President Donald Trump was seeking to block California from receiving certain federal funding. ... The point was that the Trump administration wanted to bring California to heel...."
• The Guardian highlights how Chicago has led the way in resisting the OAFPOTUS's xenophobic mass-deportation program, as part of our long history of respecting immigrant rights.
• Anne Applebaum looks at last week's election in Poland and feels a chill that "every election is now existential."
• Lisa Schwarzbaum, a former film critic for Entertainment Weekly, likens the OAFPOTUS's style of governing to Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom."
• Ezra Klein expresses surprise at who has objected the most to the recommendations in his recent book Abundance, and the left-wing emphasis on messaging: "Democrats aren’t struggling primarily because they choose the wrong messages. They’re struggling because they fail to solve problems. ... [Brandon] Johnson is the most proudly left-wing big-city mayor in the country. ... He’s also the least popular big-city mayor in the country and may well end up as the least popular mayor in Chicago’s history. Policy failure breeds political failure."
• Oh, by the way, Meta and Yandex have started to de-anonymize your Android device by abusing how your Internet browser works.

Finally, a community group on the Northwest Side has launched an effort to build a 5-km rails-to-trails plus greenway project to connect the Bloomingdale Trail with the North Branch Trail. This would create a direct connection between the southern flank of Lincoln Park and the Chicago Botanic Garden in suburban Glencoe. It's still early days, though. I'd love to see this in my lifetime. I'm also waiting for electrified railroads around Chicago, but this project would be a lot cheaper.

I have had no more than 15 consecutive minutes free at any point today. The rest of the week I have 3½-hour blocks on my calendar, but all the other meetings had to go somewhere, so they went to Monday.

So just jotting down stories that caught my eye:

• Ukraine's masterful and crippling strike against the Russian Air Force over the weekend has changed warfare forever, writes Max Boot.
• Jen Rubin wants to end the creeping normalization of the OAFPOTUS and his droogs because, as she says, they're all nuts.
• Because they want to nominate obviously unqualified people to the Federal judiciary, the Justice Dept will no longer ask the American Bar Association to vet them.
• Michael Tomasky explains why the Republican Party runs up massive deficits while complaining about massive deficits.
• Why does the MAGA right hate New York City, wonders Paul Krugman?
• Writer Anne Lamott cautions against "putting Biden's head on a spike."
• The oldest company in North America, the Hudson's Bay Co. founded 355 years ago, will permanently close its doors this summer.

Finally, the Illinois House failed to pass a budget bill that included funding the Regional Transportation Authority. Despite regional transport agencies facing a $770 million funding shortfall later this summer, the House couldn't agree on how to pay for it, in part because downstate Republicans don't want to pay for it at all. The Legislature could return in special session this summer, but because of our hippy-dippy 1970 state constitution, they need a 3/5 vote to pass a budget after June 1st. If they can't pass the budget soon, the RTA may have to cut 40% of its services, decimating public transport for the 7 million people in the area.

My party wants to govern, and understands that government needs to provide a service that millions of people who depend on even if people who don't use the service have to contribute. I mean, some of my taxes go to Republican farm subsidy programs, and I accept that's part of the deal. Republicans no longer think our needs matter. They need to be careful what they wish for.

We've had a run of dreary, unseasonably cold weather that more closely resembles the end of March than the middle of May. I've been looking at this gloom all day:

We may have some sun tomorrow afternoon through the weekend, but the forecast calls for continuous north winds and highs around 16°C—the normal high for April 23rd, not May 23rd. Summer officially starts in 10 days. It sure doesn't feel like it.

Speaking of the gloomy and the retrograde:

• Former US judge and George HW Bush appointee J. Michael Luttig argues that the OAFPOTUS "is destroying the American presidency, though I would not say that is intentional and deliberate."
• In a case of "careful what you wish for," FBI Director Dan Bongino can't escape his past conspiracy theorizing but also can't really escape the realities of (or his lack of qualifications for) his new position.
• Writer Louis Pisano excoriates Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez for their "idea that billionaires can buy their way into virtue with just enough gala invitations, foundation launches, and pocket-change donations" in Cannes this week.
• Adam Kinzinger shakes his fist at the OAFPOTUS-murdered Voice of America, now "subsidized by taxpayer dollars [to broadcast] Trump-aligned propaganda in 49 languages worldwide."
• Jen Rubin, vacationing in Spain, explains how the country's centuries-long Catholic purges of Jews and Muslims drove their globe-spanning empire into irrelevance. "The notion that national defense required ethnic and religious homogeneity not only resulted in mass atrocities, it also deprived Spain of many of the people and ideas that had helped it become a world power," she concludes. (Not that we need to worry here in the US, right?)
• Chuck Marohn shakes his head at the Brainerd, Minn., city council for ignoring his advice and building massive infrastructure they can't afford to maintain.
• Metra has formally taken control of the commuter trains running on Union Pacific track, including the one that goes right past Inner Drive Technology WHQ.
• The village of Dolton, Ill., has informed potential buyers of Pope Leo XVI's childhood home that it intends to invoke eminent domain and work with the Archdiocese of Chicago on preserving the building. Said the village attorney, "We don't want it to become a nickel-and-dime, 'buy a little pope' place."

Speaking of cashing in on the Chicago Pope, Burning Bush Brewery has just released a new mild ale called "Da Pope." Next time Cassie and I go to Horner Park, we'll stop by Burning Bush and one of us will try it. (Un?)Fortunately, we won't have time to get there by 11pm Friday, so we'll miss the $8 Chicago Pope Handshake special (a pint of Da Pope and a shot of Malört). Dang.

I spent a lot of time outside over the weekend until the temperature started to slide into the single digits (Celsius) last night, so I put off reading online stories in favor of reading real books. I also failed to mention that we had an honest-to-goodness haboob in Northern Illinois on Friday, the first significant one since 1934. Because hey, let's bring back the 1930s in all their glory!

• Adam Kinzinger rolls his eyes at the world's oldest toddler: the OAFPOTUS himself, the biggest champion of the 1930s we have right now.
• Josh Marshall shakes his head at the people in our party who think the electorate is waiting with bated breath to find out which nonessential policies we're going to go with in 2026.
• Jeff Maurer draws similar parallels, this time between HBO/Max/HBO Max/whatever's branding problems and those of the Democratic Party.
• Paul Krugman slaps the GOP hard for its "incredibly cruel" budget—which is their point: "Its cruelty is exceptional even by recent right-wing standards."
• Speaking of cruelty, Jack Goldsmith picks apart Stephen Miller's trolling about habeas corpus, and pleads with journalists to stop falling for this stuff.
• Michael Tomasky says that Kamala Harris's race and gender weren't the problem with her candidacy—it's that the party stopped all conversation about her fitness for the presidency because of her race and gender.
• Tyler Austin Harper agrees, saying that the King Lear analogy with President Biden postulated in Jake Tapper's Original Sin doesn't quite work: his core advisers and his wife bear a lot more responsibility for our 2024 loss than they get credit for.
• Oh, and hey, did anyone in North America notice that the PKK lay down their arms and have ended their 40-year insurgency against Türkiye? It's kind of a big deal.
• In one bit of good news, the critically-endangered piping plovers nesting at Montrose Beach a few hundred meters to the east of where I'm sitting have laid an egg. Good luck, Imani and Sea Rocket!
• The UK has asked if the US Federal Aviation Administration might possibly do their jobs a bit better regulating the Clown Prince of X's rockets, which keep blowing up over the UK's Caribbean territories and littering their beaches with debris.

Finally, Scottish writer Dan Richards looks across the Atlantic and sees that the infrastructure choices we've made have driven us to having only two bad options: slow cars or polluting airplanes. Europe made investments throughout the last 30 years that gave them sleek and comfortable overnight trains.

I last took an overnight European train in September 2013, on what may be my best visit to the UK ever. The Caledonian Sleeper leaves London Euston at 22:30 and gets to Edinburgh at 08:00, for about £250 per person. Put that price against a flight and a hotel, or even an daytime express train and a hotel, and it's not a bad deal. Plus you get a wake-up call with hot tea before arriving.

I had a lot going on today, so I only have a couple of minutes to note these stories:

• Not only is the OAFPOTUS's "new" (actually quite well-used) Qatari Boeing 747-8 a huge bribe, it will cost taxpayers almost as much as one of the (actually) new VC-25B airplanes the Air Force is currently building, as it completely fails to meet any of the requirements for survivability and security. (“You might even ask why Qatar no longer wants the aircraft," former USAF acquisitions chief Andrew Hunter said. "And the answer may be that it’s too expensive for them to maintain.”)
• The Economist analyzes county-level data and finds that Republican areas are outperforming Democratic areas on a couple of measures—for now.
• Rolling Stone criticizes Ezra Klein's Abundance for playing into the oligarchs' plans, though I wonder if I'm reading the same book they did? (I'll have more to say when I finish the book.)
• Elaine Kamarck and William Galston, on the other hand, have some pretty good ideas about how the Democrats can get their mojo back, and "oligarchy" doesn't come up once. (For the record, I think Kamarck and Galston have a better take than Rolling Stone.)
• Times reporter Molly Young went to the "world's happiest country" in February and was not the world's happiest reporter.

Finally, a late-night club in Lincoln Park that the city closed down after shootings and other crime in 2017 will reopen at the end of May as a doggy day spa. Pup Social, at 2200 N. Ashland Ave., will offer off-leash play, a coworking lounge (presumably for humans), and a bar (also presumably for humans). The fees will start at $99 per month.

We start this morning with news that US Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), for whom I voted all 5 times he ran for Senate, will not run for re-election in 2026. He turns 82 just after the election and would be 88 at the end of the term. I am very glad he has decided to step aside: we don't need another Feinstein or Thurmond haunting the Senate again.

In other news:

• Vice President JD Vance outlined a proposal to reward Russia for its aggression by giving it all the land it currently holds in the sovereign nation of Ukraine, despite the crashing illegality of the war.
• Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D), rocking a 7% approval rating and having long ago made me regret voting for him, has gone into meltdown-panic mode now that it looks like former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel might challenge him in 2027.
• Chicago landlords have moved away from taking refundable security deposits, which come with some strict-liability regulations, and into nonrefundable, unregulated "move-in fees." (I love Block Club Chicago, but I think they might not have quite enough balance in this report. See if you can spot what I mean.)
• Peter Hamby analyzes how the popularity of US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) within the Democratic Party contrasts with her unpopularity with everyone else.
• Greenland, for some reason no one could have predicted, has started looking for allies other than the United States.
• Radley Balko emphasizes the importance of remaining decent to each other during the long, difficult resistance to authoritarianism we've only just started.

Finally, I will say that despite all of the crap going on in Washington, the planet doesn't care (at least as long as the nuclear bombs stay in their silos and submarines). We had lovely spring weather yesterday and might have some tomorrow, while today we're getting rain showers and light jacket weather. I mean, Friday is the perfect date, after all.

After our gorgeous weather Sunday and Monday, yesterday's cool-down disappointed me a bit. But we have clear-ish skies and lots of sun, which apparently will persist until Friday night. I'm also pleased to report that we will probably have a good view of tomorrow night's eclipse, which should be spectacular. I'll even plan to get up at 1:30 to see totality.

Elsewhere in the world, the OAFPOTUS continues to explore the outer limits of stupidity (or is it frontotemporal dementia?):

• No one has any idea what the OAFPOTUS's economic plan is, though Republicans seem loath to admit that's because he hasn't got one.
• Canada and the EU, our closest friends in the world since the 1940s, have gotten a bit angry with us lately. Can't think why.
• Paul Krugman frets that while he "always considered, say, Mitch McConnell a malign influence on America, while I described Paul Ryan as a flimflam man, I never questioned their sanity... But I don’t see how you can look at recent statements by Donald Trump and Elon Musk without concluding that both men have lost their grip on reality."
• On the same theme, Bret Stephens laments that "Democracy dies in dumbness."
• ProPublica describes a horrifying recording of Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek's meeting with senior SSA officials last week in which he demonstrated why the OAFPOTUS pulled him from a terminal job as "the ultimate faceless bureaucrat" to head the agency. (Some people have greatness thrust upon 'em?)
• Molly White sees "no public good" for a "strategic bitcoin reserve," but is too polite to call the idea a load of thieving horseshit.
• Author John Scalzi threads the needle on boycotting billionaires.
• Writing for StreetsBlog Chicago, Steven Vance argues that since the city has granted parking relief to almost every new development in the past few years, why not just get rid of parking minimums altogether?

Finally, in a recent interview with Monica Lewinsky, Molly Ringwald said that John Hughes got the idea for Pretty in Pink while out with her and her Sixteen Candles co-stars at Chicago's fabled Kingston Mines. Cool.