Auchtoon!

My wife and I were on vacation in the UP last week. On Sunday, we were heading east on US-2 nearing St. Ignace. Typically on a nice summer day, it’s easy to get peaks of the bridge on the approach. But even though it wasn’t the worst of the bad air days last week, there was no sign of the Mighty Mac through the haze. A little unsettling. (But then, actually being on the bridge 200 feet above open water is also somewhat unsettling.)

What is infinitely more unsettling is the wholesale rejection of the science behind that haze. Scientists and climate experts uniformly tell us that climate change brought about by fossil fuel usage is a root cause of the Canadian wildfires. Many people — including those in leadership positions in the federal government — find this inconvenient, unacceptable, or (by their own declaration) fake news. But that doesn’t stop it from being true.

I’m on vacation this week, so I’m trying to stay focused on this beautiful (depending on your heat tolerance) Michigan summer. That’s probably just as well because the whole tariff and trade situation, particularly with the automobile industry, is so volatile and so complex, it really doesn’t lend itself to a hot take. But I do feel safe in saying that the only folks I imagine being happy about the situation are the ones receiving payments on those $1,000-per-month-for-84-months auto loans.

This is from the Associated Press:

President Donald Trump’s tax and spending law will add $3.4 trillion to federal deficits through 2034, the Congressional Budget Office reported Monday, a slight increase in the projection that takes into account the final tweaks that Republicans made before getting the legislation over the finish line.

Last week, under Trump’s direction (and threats), the Republican congress took back $1.1 billion previously allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The primary reason offered by Speaker Mike Johnson: the need to reduce the national deficit.

As it turns out, there is a difference between a trillion and a billion. A large difference. A 1,000 times difference. And if you do the math, our Republican representatives and our current president just overspent 3,091 times more than they “saved.”

I have no joke to make or insight to offer. I just wanted to provide visual context for this serious dereliction of duty.

A story broke this week about two Chinese scientists at the University of Michigan’s research laboratories who have been charged with smuggling biological materials into the United States. The U.S. Education Department (at least as far as it exists today) has opened an investigation into U of M’s foreign funding, which is in line with the priority President Trump has cited for increasing transparency in these matters.

It’s no secret that I tend not to agree with the President about much, but, good! Investigate. Find out what happened. Let the legal system (at least as far as it exists today) do its work and release the findings.

But my dear Mr. President, let us not be so selective in our demands for transparency. You and many, many of your appointees rode the Jeffrey Epstein story into office. Release the findings.

If, as Karl Marx is often paraphrased, religion is the opiate for the masses, then major league sports may just be the alcoholic beverage. Think about it. People have always turned to focus on their favorite teams for a refreshing respite, but especially during difficult times. Taking in a ball game as a metaphoric beer or two to relax and escape for a moment from this frightening bizarro world we’re currently experiencing.

And sure (to carry this thread perhaps further than necessary), overindulging in sports fandom is a bad idea and addiction to it can bring ruin. But for the most part, it’s a positive. Sometimes a big positive. The success of the 1968 Detroit Tigers is famously credited for helping the city avoid a repeat of its disastrous 1967 riots.

Right now, it’s a particularly good time to be a Michigan sports fan. To the astonishment of all, the Tigers have the best record in Major League Baseball. The Lions are a popular Super Bowl pick. The Pistons are ascending. Detroit will be getting a WNBA team in a few years. And hopefully the Red Wings will figure it out soon.

So here’s to their success and the feeling of community that their success brings to us. Cheers!

Happy Independence Day to our fragile young republic — here’s to all the good we’ve been and to all the good we hope to be!

Mike Lee: “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way,” in reaction to the fatal shooting of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband.

Joni Ernst: “Well, we are all going to die,” in reaction to likely deaths that will come from Medicaid cuts.

Mitch McConnell: “They’ll get over it,” also in reaction to death and suffering from proposed Medicaid cuts.

It’s not that I’m surprised by the astonishing callousness of these Republican US Senators. In fact, it helps explain the cruelty of the budget bill they are crafting.

But — good news! — some of the billions in the proposed bill for capturing and deporting people will be spent on private, for-profit prisons. This will create jobs in rural communities such as Baldwin, Michigan, which will compensate a bit for the closed medical facilities, reduced food assistance, and increasingly limited education opportunities.

So, on the whole, not actually good news.

It’s easy to say you want transparency in government when you aren’t in government. It’s even easier to say it when you want to get elected. But apparently it’s very difficult to make it happen once you’re elected.

At least, that’s what I gather from observing Michigan state government. Exhibit A: Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Exhibit B: House Speaker Matt Hall. (And seemingly, there is an entire alphabet of additional exhibits.) Perhaps one day, hopefully soon, we will run out of exhibits.

I have the person being bullied in the cartoon as representing NPR. But I could have just as well labeled her CPB, PBS, CDC, FDA, NIH, FEMA, NOAA, University boards, Kennedy Center, or many other public entities, and the cartoon would still make sense.

It’s the same pattern: the Trump administration berates, belittles, and threatens a public agency (while remaining steadfastly incurious about its actual operations or purpose), and then laments that its staff or board aren’t properly populated with their people. Well, duh. If you actively dislike an organization and don’t believe in its worth, why would you expect them to want people like you to be on their team?

This week former University of Michigan President Santa Ono was rejected from taking the position of president at the University of Florida. Ono had quit U of M and proclaimed to “believe in Florida’s vision for higher education” in being their sole finalist for the position. But then the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s universities, voted 10-6 against Ono.

So… a bit of disaster. And yet, also utterly predictable.

What was Ono thinking? It’s Florida. Florida! Did he really think it was going to be a seamless transition from Ann Arbor to (checks notes) the Jim Crow Wannabe Era? I mean, sure, January and February are very nice there. But at what cost?

Look, let’s be honest, there are plenty of things not to like about U of M. There is the air of superiority, the often cloying nostalgia, the tendency to take things a step too far. It can be annoying, to be sure. But the school and Ann Arbor are (and very likely will always be) their authentic selves. Ono was a leader of that for two and half years. Sure, he did bend the knee and promise to align on cultural issues. But still, how was it ever going to be possible for a state ruled by MAGA imperialists to accept him?

Well, they didn’t.