The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Slippery walk to the train

Chicago got a few millimeters of ice last night, which made my 15-minute walk from my house to Cassie's day camp into a 24-minute walk. The poor girl could not understand my difficulty, but she also can't count all four of her paws, so we work with what we have. Fortunately the temperature has gotten above freezing and promises to stay there at least until late tonight.

Elsewhere in the world:

In other news, I deployed an update to Weather Now last night that corrected a couple of bugs, and I also imported a few thousand places from the US Census Bureau and the US Geological Survey. By the end of February I should have the entire USGS gazetteer imported, plus a vastly expanded search service that will speed up finding places in the world to see their weather. I also hope to (finally!) allow registered users to choose measurement systems and to see where the best and the worst weather in the world is currently reported. Fun!

The OAFPOTUS shuts down the government

I reported earlier that our Once And Felonious President ordered a halt to all loans and grants, but oh my dog what he did is actually so much worse:

As President Donald Trump’s temporary freeze on federal funding to state and local governments seeded disruption and panic throughout the country Tuesday, state officials reported that Medicaid funding in Illinois had shut down.

Trump’s administration announced the pause in federal grants, loans and other financial assistance as they embarked on a sweeping review of spending — a measure aimed at “ending ‘wokeness’ and the weaponization of government,” according to a memo from Matthew Vaeth, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Though Medicare and Social Security would not be affected by the freeze, White House officials initially would not commit to also shielding Medicaid from the administration’s move. “I’ll check back on that,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing Tuesday. Later, the White House stated that Medicaid would not be affected by the freeze, the Associated Press reported.

Nevertheless, state agencies started reporting to Gov. JB Pritzker’s office Tuesday morning issues with accessing federal funding sites and disbursement systems, including Medicaid systems, the governor’s office said. Pritzker has been in communication with the state’s federal delegation, local elected officials, nonprofits and other governors about the matter.

By mid-afternoon, Leavitt had tweeted on X, “The White House is aware of the Medicaid website portal outage. We have confirmed no payments have been affected — they are still being processed and sent. We expect the portal will be back online shortly.”

[Chicago] Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry said she is analyzing what impact the freeze would have on the city’s $17.1 billion budget and on “any existing projects and initiatives.”

The potential impact of even a temporary freeze could be staggering. Budget Director Annette Guzman said an analysis of all federal grant funding received by the city last year, as well as future appropriations enacted by Congress, showed that roughly $4 billion hangs in the balance. That figure represents total grant funding to Chicago; if Trump’s action is allowed to stand, some portion of that amount could be withheld.

The funding freeze appears to affect everything except the military, Medicare, and Social Security. As of half an hour ago, U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan (DC Circuit) has enjoined the funding freeze until Monday. And a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget claimed the funding freeze could last "as short as a day" if an agency finds its spending is "in compliance."

We should note, however, that "compliance" in this case means following an ideological reaction to the previous administration's DEI efforts. One over-reach causing another, as it were. It's just that the Biden administration's DEI efforts didn't keep your neighbors from receiving health care and food, as the OAFPOTUS order has done.

Oh, and the funding freeze blatantly violates the Impoundment Control Act and the OAFPOTUS's oath to see that the laws are faithfully executed.

The Republican Party, and certainly the OAFPOTUS, do not care if this hurts people. In fact, that's the point; they want people to stop looking at the Federal Government as a solution to any problem they have, all the better to privatize everything. This is late-republic bullshit of the kind that led Rome toward dictatorship.

If any elected Democrat fails to hang this albatross around the administration's neck until November 2026, that would be malfeasance.

The good, the bad, and the stupid

First: the good. My friend Kat Kruse has a new book of her short stories coming out. She let me read a couple of them, and I couldn't wait to pre-order the entire collection. I should get it on February 17th.

Still on the good things—or at least the things that don't seem so bad, considering:

Now for the bad:

And, of course, the stupid:

I might as well finish with a good thing. The temperature has gotten all the way up to 6.2°C at Inner Drive Technology WHQ and 7.8°C at O'Hare. It was last this warm at WHQ on December 29th. If O'Hare can get up to 11.1°C, it will eke past December 27th.

Quick links before my 3pm meeting

Just four, plus a bonus:

Finally, in a column from just before the world ended, author Adam-Troy Castro explains, "Why do liberals think all Trump supporters are stupid?":

The serious answer: Here’s what we really think about Trump supporters — the rich, the poor, the malignant and the innocently well-meaning, the ones who think and the ones who don’t ...

That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought “Fine.”

That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, “Okay.”

...

What you don’t get, Trump supporters in 2019, is that succumbing to frustration and thinking of you as stupid may be wrong and unhelpful, but it’s also...hear me...charitable.

Because if you’re NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.

Exactly.

Monarchist anachronisms from the White House

I had a thought about all the executive orders the OAFPOTUS signed Monday and Tuesday. Do they seem to anyone else like a King's Speech at the state opening of Parliament? Remember than an EO only directly affects the Executive Branch, and in many cases, still requires enabling legislation from the other end Pennsylvania Avenue.

I don't like how this reinforces the idea of the President as a monarch—something our founders explicitly said should never happen—but in terms of how an EO actually affects the world, it really could be read out by King Charles and have the same effect in the US.

In any event, it took less than 24 hours for a Federal judge to block the OAFPOTUS's executive order purporting to overturn the 14th Amendment, so our constitutional system hasn't completely collapsed yet.

In other news:

Finally, even though the high temperature today of -3.9°C happened right before sunrise and we're now scraping along at -7.6°C, and even though it hasn't been above freezing since before 8am Saturday, and even though tomorrow will be just as cold...it looks like we might get above freezing by noon this coming Saturday. I can't wait.

Did we pass the 28th Amendment five years ago?

President Biden believes we did:

On January 27, 2020, the Commonwealth of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The American Bar Association (ABA) has recognized that the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution as the 28th Amendment. I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution.

Law professors Lawrence Tribe and Kathleen Sullivan concur:

With three days left in his presidency, Joseph R. Biden ensured that the United States Constitution, the oldest on earth, would finally include an explicit guarantee of sex equality. In truth, the Equal Rights Amendment should have been recognized as part of our Constitution nearly half a dozen years ago, when Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it on January 27, 2020.

By proclaiming, in effect, “Yes, Virginia, you have made history by repairing a glaring omission in our most fundamental law,” President Biden made official a reality that many Americans failed to recognize at the time: that Article V of the Constitution expressly makes any proposed Amendment to that document “Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States.” Nothing in Article V makes the Constitution’s binding contents depend on any further official action by any branch of the federal government, whether Congress or the Judiciary or indeed the Executive.

It is not necessary for the National Archivist to publish the ERA in order for it to be adopted according to the provisions of the Constitution. The President avoided triggering a clash with the Archivist, who recently announced her intention to defy her statutory, and purely ministerial, duty to publish the ERA. The only reason Congress gave the Archivist such a duty nearly a century ago was to ensure that the Nation got word that an amendment was in force, enabling officials at all levels of government to conform their actions to it. In our modern age of broadcast, cable and internet communication, the President’s announcement itself performed that function.

So...now what? How do we test it? When do we put it in school history books?

The midpoint of winter

Today marks the middle of winter, when fewer days remain in the (meteorological) season than have passed. Good thing, too: yesterday we had temperatures that looked happy on a graph but felt miserable in real life, and the forecast for Sunday night into Monday will be even worse—as in, a low of -20°C going "up" to -14°C. Fun!.

(Yesterday's graph:)

Elsewhere in the world:

  • Israel and Hamas have reached a cease-fire agreement, with the US and Qatar signing off.
  • OAFPOTUS Defense Secretary nominee, former Fox News pretty boy, and all-around fundamentalist crackpot Pete Hegseth sat before the US Senate Armed Services committee yesterday, whose Republican members asked him about "your wife that you love" and whose Democratic members asked him about unlawful orders and the numerous allegations of wrongdoing against him. My combat-decorated junior Senator, Tammy Duckworth (D), flatly called him "unqualified." (She was being polite.)
  • Jennifer Rubin calls Hegseth "the greatest DEI disaster ever:" "Considering Hegseth, election denier Attorney General Pam Bondi, WWE exec Linda McMahon for secretary of education, and vaccine denier, brain-worm victim Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Health and Human Services, one must conclude Republicans are not sending us their best. (Or, the more alarming alternative…they are sending their best.)" Ruth Marcus also piled on.
  • Author John Scalzi shares his thoughts on the allegations against and admissions of author Neil Gaiman published in New York this week.
  • Chicago's Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) has proposed $1.5 bn in spending to improve transit for the entire area.
  • Chicago lost another coyote yesterday when a plane taking off from O'Hare ran him over. (Neither the FAA nor United Airlines has confirmed that the coyote died, but I think we can make an inference here.)
  • Last year was the second-warmest on record in Illinois, continuing a long-term warming trend that began after the coldest winters ever in the early 1980s.

Finally, as of today I've had a private pilot certificate for 25 years. When I last posted about this anniversary, I hoped to resume flying later that spring. Alas, something else was in the air. I still want to fly again, though. All I need is a winning lottery ticket.

Avoiding going outside

Yesterday, the temperature at Inner Drive Technology World HQ scraped along at -11°C early in the morning before "warming" up to -7.5°C around 3pm. Cassie and I got a 22-minute walk around then and she seemed fine. Today the pattern completely inverted. I woke up during the warmest part of the day: 7am, -8°C. Around 8am the temperature started dropping and now hovers around -11°C again—slightly colder than the point where I limit Cassie to 15 minutes outside. She just doesn't feel cold, apparently, and would happily stay outside until she passed out from hypothermia.

So, bottom line, I'm in no hurry to take her for her lunchtime walk.

Besides, I've got a lot of interesting stories to read:

  • Former Canadian Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff explains why he's a liberal, and why you should be, too.
  • Jesse Wegman and Lee Drutman have some ideas about how to fix the United States' "two-party problem:" proportional representation.
  • Block Club Chicago lists 10 of its investigations into the Chicago Transit Authority's mismanagement under its outgoing boss, Dorval Carter.
  • Chuck Marohn explains why building tons of new housing in old, dense cities like San Francisco and NYC doesn't work as well as people hope.
  • Two Illinois state representatives introduced a bill in the state House to decriminalize sex work, which would dramatically increase their safety and security.
  • British computer scientist Peter Kirstein died five years ago, and left behind a delightful essay on the beginnings of the Internet—and the Internet's first-ever password.
  • James Poniewozik has a fun history of TV show opening titles that will waste a few minutes of your afternoon (in a good way).

Finally, yet another coyote found his way into a store, this time an Aldi in Humboldt Park. Almost 17 years ago one of his ancestors tried to hide in a Quiznos sandwich shop in the Loop. The result was the same for both: removal and relocation. Block Club says yesterday's incident involved "rescuing" the coyote from the Aldi, but that seems pretty harsh. Like, was the coyote trying to go to Whole Foods instead? They're usually not that bougie.

First significant snowfall of winter

We've gotten about 4 cm of snow so far today, with more coming down until this evening. Cassie loves it; I have mixed feelings. At least the temperature has gone up a bit, getting up to -0.6°C for the first time since around this time on Monday.

Elsewhere:

  • Federal Judge Aileen Cannon (R-SDFL) got overruled again, this time after her corrupt effort to block Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing his report on January 6th.
  • George Will bemoans Congress ceding so much of its authority to the office of the President, especially given who will take that office in ten days.
  • Just three corrupt Chicago cops will cost the city almost $34 million in settlements, making me wonder why we don't pay those settlements out of the police pension fund.
  • Pamela Paul objects to historians opining about politics, which is actually one of the things they've always done.
  • Five years after the pandemic began, we still haven't gotten back in the habit of being out in public, according to Derek Thompson at The Atlantic.

Finally, Maplewood Brewing has started expanding its Logan Square taproom into the other half of the building it occupies. I don't get there often, but I enjoy going back. Can't wait to see what their restaurant looks like when it's done. I also need to get to Cherry Circle Room or the CAA Drawing Room soon, as it looks like the management transition from Land & Sea to Boka may change some things.

Crystal Magnum completely recants Duke lacrosse allegations

In a podcast this week, the woman who accused Duke University lacrosse players of gang-raping her in 2006 has admitted the she made it all up:

“I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong,” she told interviewer Katerena DePasquale on Nov. 13. “And I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me and made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.”

“And that was wrong.”

The case dominated national news for months. But as the months went by, the case against the lacrosse players unraveled. After the state bar association filed ethics charges against the prosecutor handling the case, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, accusing him of withholding evidence and making inflammatory statements, then-North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper took over. Nifong, who resigned, was eventually disbarred and held in criminal contempt for lying to a judge about the case.

Meanwhile, Mangum found herself once again entangled in the criminal justice system. In 2013, she was sentenced to up to 18 years for murdering her boyfriend two years earlier.

The Durham prosecutors absolutely should have taken Magnum's allegations seriously, and initially they did. But when Magnum's story started to fall apart, their emphasis needed to shift from winning a conviction to protecting the rights of the accused. Instead Nifong rode over the men's rights with a steamroller.

The Duke players won millions in settlements from the City of Durham, yet the accusations put them through unbelievable stress and pain for years. Not to mention, false accusations like this put other women at risk of not having their real accusations taken seriously.