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Every day.

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Afternoon

Busy with stuff

Healthy Workplace

The things people say.

She attributes her ability to work for Mr. Trump to growing up with an alcoholic father, the sportscaster Pat Summerall. “High-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink,” she said. “And so I’m a little bit of an expert in big personalities.” While Mr. Trump does not drink, she said he has “an alcoholic’s personality” and operates with “a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”

...

Ms. Wiles described frustration with Mr. Musk, the billionaire who early in the year was empowered to eviscerate federal agencies and fire employees en masse with almost no process. “He’s an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are. You know, it’s not helpful, but he is his own person.” When he shared a post saying that Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn’t murder millions, their public sector workers did, Ms. Wiles said, “I think that’s when he’s microdosing.” Asked what she meant, she said, “he’s an avowed ketamine” user.

Mr. Musk has acknowledged trying ketamine “a few years ago,” but denied reports of more recent use. In the interview with The Times on Monday, Ms. Wiles took issue with the quote attributed to her about his drug use. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “I wouldn’t have said it and I wouldn’t know.” But Mr. Whipple played a tape for The Times in which she could be heard saying it.

Always Be Posting

This NYT piece does make a minor attempt to highlight that Kash Patel walks around perpetually taking selfies, metaphorically. And not much else.

Also having a real job is too much for Dan Bongino, who is likely leaving.

The Ice Princess

I am just old enough to remember Luke and Laura and the "freezing Port Charles with the superweapon" storyline in General Hospital that managed to briefly be the most important thing happening in the country. 

Hard to imagine a similar cultural phenomenon now.

RIP Anthony Geary.

Morning

Tiny Tuesday

Happy Hour

Get happy.

Horrible End

No clue what led to this, but it's tragic.

In a statement released Monday afternoon, the police said their investigation had revealed that Nick Reiner had killed his parents and that they arrested him around 9:15 p.m. on Sunday night. They said the case would be presented on Tuesday to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for filing consideration. It is unclear whether he has a lawyer.

Mr. Reiner Had It Coming, You See

Ready for another lecture about random nobodies on social media needing to be respectful when conservatives, but only conservatives, are killed.

Ah, Well, Nevertheless

Hopefully he was wearing his special jacket at the time.

FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X on Sunday, touting the FBI's role in bringing in the person of interest in a hotel room in Coventry, Rhode Island by using geolocation capabilities. Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez said in a press conference that the FBI had followed through on a tip to locate the person of interest. .

However, the suspect was released on Dec. 14 after authorities said that there was no evidence linking the person to the crime. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said that the evidence “now points to a different direction” and that it’s “unfortunate that this person’s name was leaked to the public.”

The Great Centrist Hope

Every single person who supported Cuomo in the primary should be making groveling apologies for their momentary (hah) lapse. They could've united around any other anti-Mamdani candidate, if that was their preference, but they went with Cuomo.

New York taxpayers shelled out another $1.3 million since late May to defend former Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state police from a sexual discrimination case brought by a trooper he placed on his security detail, according to new figures released by the state comptroller’s office.

That brings the state’s costs for the case alone to $10.5 million under a law that entitles state employees to reasonable litigation expenses if they are accused of wrongdoing while serving in their positions.

There were dozens of reasons that Cuomo should not have been the candidate/mayor, and precisely one that he should have been: I want my corrupt asshole friend in office for corrupt asshole reasons.

Alternatively, all those people can fuck off forever.

Seems Bad

There's a school of thought in DC which is, roughly, "as long as Matthew Yglesias faces no minor inconveniences from violent actions by immigration agents, then the American people will be strongly supportive of our new 'show your papers to violent thugs' regime," but I suspect this is a somewhat narrow view of things.

Federal agents targeted workers at a construction site in Chanhassen on Saturday, trapping them on a roof amid frigid temperatures, according to witnesses.

Posts on social media showed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at a construction site with two people atop the wooden frame of a house.

RIP Rob Reiner

I was long struck by how his name was barely associated with his movies. Like, people don't think of ROB REINER'S A FEW GOOD MEN, or ROB REINER'S THE PRINCESS BRIDE, or ROB REINER'S STAND BY ME, or even ROB REINER'S WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. Tragic, whatever happened.

Yes film buffs know, of course, but "everyone" knows when a move is a Spielberg movie.

Morning

Just another manic Monday.

Sunday Night

Rock on.

America's Worst Journalist

Bari Weiss.

Sunday Afternoon

Doing some weekending.

America's Worst Democrat

Hakeem Jeffries.

Last week, President Trump issued yet another pardon that’s corrosive to the rule of law — this one to Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who was awaiting trial on federal bribery charges. This pardon was exceptionally brazen. Mr. Trump publicly acknowledged that he had issued it to induce Mr. Cuellar to switch parties, and attacked him for a “lack of LOYALTY” when he declined to do so.

It is notable for another reason. Rather than be critical or perhaps stay silent, the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, welcomed the pardon and engaged in shameful pandering, apparently to maintain Mr. Cuellar’s party loyalty. Most disturbingly, Mr. Jeffries did so by attacking the legitimacy of the criminal case against Mr. Cuellar, publicly dismissing the indictment against him as “very thin.”

As former federal prosecutors who spent our careers rooting out public corruption, we see this for the wagon-circling that it is. The jury’s detailed, 54-page, multicount indictment against Mr. Cuellar was anything but thin, and he should have had to stand trial before a jury of his peers.

No Way To Prevent This

Not that it matters (or that she'd remember me), but I knew Rachel (barely) and her husband (actually) when I was at Brown.

Rachel Friedberg, a Brown University economics professor, said Saturday’s mass shooting at the school happened at a review session for the final exam of her Principles of Economics course.

Friedberg said she was not present during the shooting. The session was led by her teaching assistants, she said, one of whom alerted her.