Events

Tonight is the 17th Presidents Day Bash, a tradition that began in 1995 at a friend's apartment in the Murray Hill neighborhood of New York City. He hosted the first 10 Bashes on Sunday nights back when people still got Presidents Day off from work, because (a) there aren't a lot of parties in February, (b) there aren't a lot of parties on Sunday night, (c) it's far enough along from New Year's Eve that people want a party, and (d) why not? The old gang has scattered across the globe since the last NYC...

New York Justice Arthur Engoron just handed the XPOTUS a $350 million fine and barred him and his two failsons from running a business in New York for years: The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron caps a chaotic, yearslong case in which New York’s attorney general put Mr. Trump’s fantastical claims of wealth on trial. With no jury, the power was in Justice Engoron’s hands alone, and he came down hard: The judge delivered a sweeping array of punishments that threatens the former president’s business...

I learned this morning that I have a meeting at 6am Wednesday, because the participants will be in four time zones across four continents. Since I'm traveling to Munich later that day, I'll just comfort myself by remembering it's 1pm Central Europe time. I'm already queuing up some things to read on the flights. I'll probably finish all of these later today, though: Jennifer Rubin highlights four ways in which the XPOTUS has demonstrated his electoral weakness in the past few weeks. Republican pollster...

My team works in the downtown office 3 days a week. Given Cassie's daycare pickup deadline and the Metra schedule, I leave at almost exactly the same time every day: 5:20pm. That makes the rapidly-lengthening days in late winter very noticeable. Yesterday, for example, was the first day since November 2nd that my normal departure time was before sunset. And in just a couple of weeks—March 7th, most likely—I'll pick Cassie up from daycare before sunset. It really makes a difference.

With the news this morning that Ukraine has disabled yet another Russian ship, incapacitating fully one-third of the Russian Black Sea fleet, it has become apparent that Ukraine is better at making Russian submarines than the Murmansk shipyards. Russia could, of course, stop their own massive military losses—so far they've lost 90% of their army as well—simply by pulling back to the pre-2014 border, but we all know they won't do that. In other news of small-minded people continuing to do wastefully...

After posting this morning about all the injured and lame e-Divvy bikes around Chicago, a Daily Parker reader just sent me this story from last November, reporting that Divvy planned to (and presumably did) switch its maintenance subcontractor on February 1st of this year: Periodically we do a [Request for Proposals]," the Lyft staffer said. "We want the best operations and service delivery for our city partners and customers. Motivate's contract was running out on February 1, so we held a competitive...

Divvy, Chicago's bike-share program, seems to have some issues lately. For about two weeks now, almost no electric bikes have shown up on the app. This one, for example, clearly needs some TLC, and it's invisible online: I counted half a dozen in my neighborhood that have dead batteries. My friends in other neighborhoods describe similarly grim situations, or worse: one rack in Lakeview had nothing but broken bikes, and showed 0 available on the app. Divvy's Twitter feed doesn't provide much insight...

I really have a hard time understanding why so many news organizations have trouble covering the substance of politics rather than the game of it. The general reporting on Special Counsel Robert Hur's (R) exoneration of President Biden shows what I mean. I mentioned in passing Saturday that James Fallows called Hur's report "tendentious," but he had more to say: After Biden finished his remarks last night, White House reporters bayed and yelled at him, more aggressively than I can ever recall. They...

Dogs adapt very quickly to new environments when they're comfortable, as Cassie and Butters have done these past few days. Butters has appropriated both of Cassie's beds just as Cassie appropriated my couches: My lungs have also gotten mostly back to normal, meaning I don't need any more Delsym, meaning no more mild cognitive side-effects. In other words, my upcoming week could be completely back to normal. Hosting Butters has been fun; 16 days of bronchitis have not.

In light of the report from special counsel Robert Hur that James Fallows calls "tendentious," Republican pollster and Lincoln Project member Stuart Stephens wonders why Democrats don't crow more loudly about all that President Biden has actually accomplished: A plea to my Democratic friends: It’s time to start calling Joe Biden a great president. Not a good one. Not a better choice than Donald Trump. Joe Biden is a historically great president. Say it with passion backed by the conviction that it’s...