About Joe Weber

Now the Jerry and Karla Huse Professor Emeritus at the University of Nebraska's College of Journalism and Mass Communications, I worked 35 years in magazines and newspapers. I spent most of that time, 22 years, at BUSINESS WEEK Magazine, leaving in August 2009 as chief of correspondents. So far, I have worked in central New Jersey, New York City, Denver, Dallas, Philadelphia, Toronto, Chicago, Beijing, Shanghai and Lincoln, Nebraska. The adventure continues.

Gordon Gekko is having a moment

Posted on June 13, 2026 by Joe Weber

Where has generosity gone among the megawealthy?

Joseph Weber

Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, source: New York Times

In the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” corporate raider Gordon Gekko infamously praises what some religious thinkers peg as near to the top of the list of the seven deadly sins, one behind only pride.

“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed – for lack of a better word – is good,” says the character, portrayed by Michael Douglas. “Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed … has marked the upward surge of mankind.”

Perhaps Elon Musk is proof that Gekko was speaking truth — or, maybe, he proves something else entirely.

This week Musk graduated from being the world’s richest man to becoming our first trillionaire, logging in with a net worth of about $1.1 trillion thanks to the initial public offering of SpaceX. He owns the lion’s share of the company’s stock – variously calculated at 42 percent or 46 percent – and its shares altogether are now worth $2.1 trillion.

So, given all that wealth, we might expect that Musk might also be the world’s most generous man, right? After all, he has only 14 children and doesn’t currently have a wife. He has plenty of money to give away, of course, and he’s no Gordon Gekko, right?

Curiously, however, it seems Musk routinely makes the stingy lists.

Even before SpaceX’s offering padded his pockets still more, he was reported by Forbes early this year to have given away just 0.06 percent of his net worth over his lifetime so far. Granted, that’s a half-billion dollars out of a net worth then totaling $780 billion, but everything’s relative, right? To Musk, that’s a few coins in one of his no-doubt many sofas.

By contrast, Warren Buffett has donated nearly 32 percent of his $146 billion, or $68.3 billion. And Buffett, who is 95, has pledged to give away 99 percent of his wealth during his life or upon his death. Together with Bill and Melinda Gates, in 2010 he set up the Giving Pledge, an outfit that encourage the megarich to give away most of their money to charity.

“The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude,” Buffett has said. “[T]hat … 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs.”

Musk, it seems, has far bigger needs.

As it happens, Musk is also a signatory of The Giving Pledge – but he seems to have a long way to go to fulfill that. And some friends, such as billionaire Peter Thiel, have been urging the trillionaire to opt out of the nonbinding pledge. In recent transcripts and audio lectures given by Thiel to Reuters, Thiel warned Musk that his donations would go “to left-wing nonprofits that will be chosen by Bill Gates.”

Indeed, Thiel, who has preferred giving his money to Donald J. Trump and JD Vance, has been pressing the 250-plus megamonied on The Giving Pledge list to back away from it. “I’ve strongly discouraged people from signing it, and then I have gently encouraged them to unsign it,” said Thiel, who derides the GP outfit as an “Epstein-adjacent, fake boomer club” – whatever that means.

Musk may be heeding his rich buddy’s advice, as he finds it tough to find needy – and deserving – folks to share the largesse of his namesake foundation with. “The biggest challenge I find with my foundation is trying to give money away in a way that is truly beneficial to people,” he told interviewer Nikhil Kamath. “It’s very easy to give money away to get the appearance of goodness. It is very difficult to give money away for the reality of goodness.”

The Musk Foundation is enormous. Its resources were pegged at $14 billion in a 2025 New York Times report. “But unlike some other billionaires who have dedicated their nonprofits to broader social or political causes, Mr. Musk in recent years used his nonprofit in ways that narrowly track the interests of his for-profit businesses,” the Times noted.

For instance, more than three-fourths of the $474 million the foundation gave away in 2024 – some $370 million — went to a nonprofit in Texas led by Musk’s top aide, the newspaper reported. That nonprofit appears to provide a benefit to Musk’s business empire: It operates an elementary school in a rural area where many of his employees live, near many of Musk’s companies.

Self-interested philanthropy? Perhaps there are other words for it, and they arguably don’t meet his test of “the reality of goodness.” That is, unless goodness is defined as benefitting both some of his workers and himself. It appears it’s not in Musk’s nature to give money selflessly to needy people. Selflessness seems not to be part of his vocabulary.

In some respects, Musk mirrors the times, reflecting a new Gilded Age that – literally – emanates from the Trump White House. It’s as if the megawealthy don’t need to bother with the little people or those in need anymore.

“This is an era of a more voracious capitalism, of billionaires trending right and getting ahead by embracing an administration that is happy to dole out favors,” The New York Times recently reported in a piece headlined The Billionaire Backlash Against a Philanthropic Dream. “Many of today’s ascendant billionaires are dismissive of philanthropy as nothing more than public relations.”

The piece quoted sociologist Aaron Horvath as calling the Giving Pledge a “time capsule” of a bygone era, albeit just 16 years ago. “It feels old school,” he said. Billionaires, he said, now think: “I can keep my head down and keep making money. I don’t have to put up with this charity charade anymore.”

Perhaps they are following Trump’s lead. Recall that the Donald J. Trump Foundation was forced to close down in 2018 after New York’s Attorney General at the time said it functioned “as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,” and engaged in “a shocking pattern of illegality” that included unlawfully coordinating with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The Trump foundation had been charged with “improper and extensive political activity, repeated and willful self-dealing transactions, and failure to follow basic fiduciary obligations or to implement even elementary corporate formalities required by law.” A couple of notable examples cited by the Times: the foundation bought a $10,000 portrait of Trump that was displayed at one of his golf clubs. And one transaction was revealed by a note in Trump’s handwriting that said $100,000 of foundation money should be directed to another charity to settle a legal dispute between the Town of Palm Beach and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

To be sure, there is a reasonable argument that one of the best ways for wealthy people to give back to society is by running successful, growing businesses that create jobs. Some 150,000 or more people work for Musk companies, for instance. With such a job base, it’s not surprising that he has said that his businesses “are philanthropy,” according to the Times.

But where does this leave people who can’t work? People with disabilities, inadequate skills or education, people who aren’t going to be software engineers or, literally, rocket scientists? Where does this leave children in disadvantaged families? Are the rich just blind to them?

Studies have shown that as people get wealthier, they not only lose touch with those on society’s margins, but they lose empathy for them. “Wealthy people are less likely than poor ones, in lab settings at least, to relate to the suffering of others,” The Atlantic reported in 2021, in a piece headlined “Research Proves It: There’s No Such Thing as Noblesse Oblige.”

Researchers hooked volunteers up to ECG machines and showed them two short videos: a “neutral” video of a woman explaining how to construct a patio wall and a “compassion” video of children receiving chemotherapy treatments for cancer, the magazine reported. Compared with wealthier subjects, poorer subjects not only reported feeling greater compassion for the kids but also exhibited a significantly larger slowdown in heart rate from one video to the next. It seems our hearts slow down when people experience compassion.

Yes, wealthy families donate significantly more money to charity on average than poor families do, but they tend to give away a smaller share of their income. “As wealth goes up, the stinginess seems to increase,” one researcher said.

And people such as Musk are unembarrassed by their lack of fellow feeling.

Notoriously, he told podcaster Joe Rogan in 2025 that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” Citing a Canadian marketing professor who has written on the topic, Musk warned against “civilizational suicidal empathy,” explaining “I think you should care about other people, but you need to have empathy for, for civilization as a whole, and not commit to a civilizational suicide.”

Civilizational suicide, it seems, means having too much compassion for the less fortunate. That’s not a problem for Musk and his buddies, especially his on-again, off-again friend in the White House. Even though he’d be committing the worst of the sins, Gekko would be proud.

Paranoia abounds

Posted on June 9, 2026 by Joe Weber

The left has taken up the mantle from the wackos on the right

Joseph Weber

When he was an up-and-coming singer in 1963, but hadn’t hit the big time, Bob Dylan famously walked off the set of the Ed Sullivan Show during a rehearsal because a network exec wouldn’t let him sing the “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues.” Rich with biting cracks about right-wing fear, the tune mocked the anti-Communist sentiments of the day, but CBS feared a libel suit.

Here are a few of the lyrics:

Well, I was feelin’ sad and feelin’ blue
I didn’t know what in the world I wus gonna do
Them Communists they wus comin’ around
They wus in the air
They wus on the ground
They wouldn’t gimme no peace . . .

So I run down most hurriedly
And joined up with the John Birch Society
I got me a secret membership card
And started off a-walkin’ down the road
Yee-hoo, I’m a real John Bircher now!
Look out you Commies!

Now we all agree with Hitler’s views
Although he killed six million Jews
It don’t matter too much that he was a Fascist
At least you can’t say he was a Communist!
That’s to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria

Well, I wus lookin’ everywhere for them gol-darned Reds
I got up in the mornin’ ’n’ looked under my bed
Looked in the sink, behind the door
Looked in the glove compartment of my car
Couldn’t find ’em . . .

I wus lookin’ high an’ low for them Reds everywhere
I wus lookin’ in the sink an’ underneath the chair
I looked way up my chimney hole
I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl
They got away . . .

Today, some of the more troublesome paranoia comes from the left, particularly about the media coverage of Graham Platner, a Senatorial hopeful in Maine. For instance, a very bright progressive friend shared a Facebook post, seemingly oblivious to its paranoia, journalistic ignorance and borderline antisemitism.

Platner, with the tattoo that covers the skull and crossbones; source: WGME

Platner, readers of this Substack may recall, is a deeply flawed Democratic candidate who also is an outspoken critic of Israel. Recall that for years, until he covered it up, he sported a tattoo linked to Nazis, a skull and crossbones image resembling a specific symbol of Hitler’s paramilitary Schutzstaffel, or SS. And he appeared on a podcast whose host had basked in antisemitic conspiracy theories; Platner said he was a longtime fan of the host.

In 2014, combat veteran Platner praised the tactics of a Hamas raid that killed Israeli soldiers.

The Facebook entry, attempting parody or satire, gives us a fictitious letter from the New York Times to “it’s [sic] readership,” explaining the paper’s critical coverage of Platner.

“OK, we sent a team of reporters to Maine, led by crack reporter Katie Gluek [sic, it’s actually Glueck], an ardent Zionist whose parents are part of the Israeli settler movement, to scour the state for anything that might derail the Platner campaign,” the piece begins. “We’ve been there for months and have spent thousands of dollars on the story.

“We are now publishing a lengthy piece of ‘investigative’ journalism which introduces no new facts at all. But we do have some juicy gossip for you. We found three ex-girlfriends that told us he drank too much, was ‘volatile,’ and sexist, even misogynistic at times. We also found bunch of exes that said he was loving and that they felt safe with him.

“The most damning allegation is that he was physically threatening, and that he knew that the skull and crossbones tattoo on his chest was a Nazi tattoo. These allegations come from a Republican political operative, which we mention.”

So, let’s break that down a bit. Glueck, it turns out, has covered politics for more than a decade. By her own description, she wrote “about extraordinary presidential elections, battles for control of Congress and governor’s mansions across the country, and two wild New York City mayor’s races, serving as the chief metro political correspondent in 2021.”

Glueck covered Ted Cruz for Politico in 2016 and was the Biden beat reporter for The Times during the 2020 presidential campaign. She graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, worked in Washington at Politico and in McClatchy’s D.C. bureau before moving to New York. Before joining the Times in 2019 as a politics reporter, Glueck had been published in The Wall Street Journal, Washingtonian magazine and the Austin American-Statesman.

So, in other words, Glueck is a seasoned reporter.

But, to the critic, she is “an ardent Zionist.” The evidence of that? Well, at Northwestern 17 years ago, she was a co-president of Students for Israel. Is she still a supporter of Israel or, more precisely, the Netanyahu government? Guess we don’t really know that, do we? No real evidence there.

Of course, she is a Jew, though. For the critics, that seems to be enough. That’s enough to disqualify her from covering a Maine Democrat, apparently.

As for her parents being part of the Israeli settler movement, well, turns out there’s no evidence of that either, even though this claim and the “Zionist” charge against the reporter have spread across the Net like a virus. In fact, at last report, in 2018, her parents – Dr. Robert M. Glueck, a cardiologist, and Miriam Glueck – lived in Haifa, where he directed the clinical operations at the Technion American Medical Program and Mrs. Glueck was a volunteer fundraiser for a health program.

The critics readily found that info, drawn from the journalist’s marriage announcement years ago. But are the parents settlers? Perhaps in some antisemite’s imagination.

Still, the attacks on Glueck and the Times can be found in a bevy of sites. And some of the posts go well beyond the Facebook poster in their slams, damning Israel and “the Israel lobby” for Glueck’s work on Platner.

The post my friend cited is particularly pernicious in a way that, despite its leftist cast, is reminiscent of the Birch Society attacks from the right. They were fear-filled, laced with unsubstantiated innuendo, and ultimately baseless.

The FB comment contends that Glueck’s reporting on Platner is “basically a gossip column dressed up as news. Shameful,” for instance. It goes on to attack the Times as “a ruling class, pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist institution. Have we forgotten their coverage leading up to the Iraq war, or the [sic] their long record of coverage on Israel-Palestine?”

First, can anyone seriously call the coverage in the Times pro-Israel? Perhaps such folks have missed all the Gaza coverage, as well as the Lebanon coverage of late. Guess they missed headlines such as “Gazans are dying of starvation” and “As Israel Pounds Gaza City, and Overwhelming Exodus.” Maybe they were absent when the paper ran “Israeli Expansionism is Shaking the Middle East.”

Certainly, many of the editors at the Times would consider themselves “pro-capitalist,” as most Americans would. “Pro-imperialist?” That’s a hard one to prove and the poster doesn’t bother to offer any backing for that.

And then, is it gossip when a political journalist digs into a candidate’s background and finds some disturbing stuff? Is it gossip when other media outlets find similar problems, such as the sexually explicit texts Platner exchanged with numerous women while he was married, as the Wall Street Journal reported? Or that various women came to Platner’s former campaign political director to share what she called “their own disturbing stories” about him, as she recounted in The Washington Post.

It’s the job of news outlets to uncover and report on the baggage politicians and would-be politicians carry. That’s not motivated by political bias, by Zionism, by partisanship or by capitalism even. It’s what reporters do so voters can see their candidates, warts and all – some of which Platner has acknowledged.

“Throughout this campaign, I’ve been open about what was a very dark period of my life where I struggled with undiagnosed PTSD, too often self medicated with alcohol, and was a far from perfect boyfriend,” Platner said in a statement to CNN. “I take responsibility for all of that, and wish I had been better. Any characterization beyond that is false, and I believe, politically motivated. I’m not proud of who I was then, but I am proud of the work I’ve done since, and the movement we are building in Maine.”

Despite the flaws slowly becoming apparent, voters very likely will choose Platner in the June 9 primary and he’ll likely run against Susan Collins in the fall. Then, it will be up to Mainers to make yet another choice. Will they see him as a flawed but reformed character? Or will they look at a 41-year-old political naif’s past and be unsettled?

If more voters had looked at Donald J. Trump’s sordid past more critically, would he have become president, twice? Lord knows, that was amply covered by the Times and the other publications. Was that “gossip?”

Some critics have suggested the best course for Democratic leaders would be to put as much distance between themselves and Platner as possible.

“To defend Platner, Democrats will have to choose between two strategies: denouncing as liars a possibly growing number of women—or else accepting the stories, but then arguing that twisting a woman’s arm and locking her in a room is not quite the same as beating her,” David Frum wrote in The Atlantic. “Do they want to haggle over just how inappropriate these romantic relationships were, even as they argue that wearing an SS tattoo throughout most of one’s adult life does not prove that one is a literal Nazi?”

In the meantime, we’ll likely hear lots from the conspiracists who don’t understand the role of the press, who feel free to attack reporters who happen to be Jews, and who warm to baseless information just because it floats around on the Net. To them, no doubt, there are plots everywhere “in the air, on the ground,” as Dylan might have said.

Instead of “gol-darned Reds,” however, the offenders whom these Birchers of the left see are journalists. They are reporters doing their jobs on behalf of voters.

Watch the parkin’ meters

Posted on June 6, 2026 by Joe Weber

Why do so many politicians disappoint us?

Joseph Weber

In 1965, Bob Dylan released “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” a nod to the Beats of the 1950s, particularly Jack Kerouac’s novel, The Subterraneans. The stream-of-consciousness autobiographical book explores a deeply flawed writer struggling in an ill-fated romance.

In Dylan’s hallucinatory, fast and wonderful song, many of the lyrics are memorable, but perhaps none more than these:

Look out kid
You’re gonna get hit
But users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around the
theaters
Girl by the
whirlpool
Lookin’ for a new
fool
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’
meters

Let’s pounce on the “leaders” lines for a moment. When we look at the number of politicians – i.e., leaders – with serious personal flaws, Dylan’s libertarian final lines in that verse seem prescient and, sadly, all too enduring.

From awful presidents, such as Donald J. Trump, to accomplished ones, such as William J. Clinton, to many in lesser offices, we see people who use their power and various professional positions for sexual manipulation and dishonesty of all sorts. In some cases, we see financial misdealings and political malfeasance.

One key question is: why do such deeply flawed people – often individuals with tortured personal psyches — seek public office? What is it that they seek in politics? And, perhaps more important, why do voters elect them (though not always, as we’ll see below)?

Certainly, many of us are not paying mind to Dylan’s caution.

Everyone knows that the dirt in the lives of the people with feet of clay has a way of coming out. Surely, folks in media know that all too well.

Just as Trump and Clinton’s sometimes sordid misadventures with many women were front-page news, so, too, were those of John F. Kennedy (at least, after his presidency and assassination) and Ted Kennedy. Same with former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, whose presidential hopes were shattered by the “Monkey Business” scandal.

More recently, we had former Rep. George Santos, who was expelled from Congress in 2023 after repeated scandals came to light, including colorfully falsifying his background. A prodigious liar, the Republican congressman made up stories about his college education, his employment, his real estate, his religious background, his athletic achievements, his wealth and even his mother’s death (he claimed it was on 9/11). What nailed his career were convictions on wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Santos was sentenced to 87 months for his criminal convictions but served just three months because Trump commuted his sentence. Trump said the fraudster had been “horribly mistreated.” Birds of a feather, perhaps?

Recall that Trump is a felon, convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records. He was also civilly found to be liable for sexual abuse and defamation of the writer E. Jean Carroll, on whom he has sicced his Justice Department for alleged perjury. Trump is on the hook for more than $80 million in the Carroll affair.

Trump also just pardoned the unfortuitously named Stephen Buyer, a former Republican congressman from Indiana who served nearly two years in prison for making illegal stock trades based on inside information after he left office, as The Guardian reported. Buyer was sentenced in 2023 for trades he made while working as a consultant and lobbyist. He was released in 2025, and the Supreme Court in May rejected Buyer’s appeal without comment or noted dissent.

Even though three of the six conservative justices on the court are Trump appointees, the president in effect overruled them in granting a full, complete and unconditional pardon to this convicted felon.

Again, birds of a feather, it seems.

Of course, plenty of Democrats have much to answer for, too. Now, we have a Senatorial aspirant, Maine’s Graham Platner, a 41-year-old political naif who is expected to win the Democratic primary and to run in the fall against the 73-year-old Republican stalwart Susan Collins.

Platner brings a steamer trunk full of personal baggage. Among his offenses are making demeaning social media posts about women, sporting a since-covered up Nazi tattoo and alleged (but denied) reports of physical intimidation of at least one woman he dated. His wife has said he sexted with several women early in their marriage, as she suggested that “no marriage is perfect.”

For his part, Platner has said that recent reporting about him “struggling, not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol,” is something he’s been “very up front since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service,” as Forbes noted. He added there are things in media reports that he “absolutely will take responsibility for…But those serious allegations are just not true.”

Nonetheless, his chances of beating Collins have “plummeted,” as the news outlet reported. “Bettors on Kalshi predict the race is now a toss up with the Democratic candidate’s odds falling from 72 percent last month to 54 percent early on Saturday [June 6]. On the crypto betting platform Polymarket, Platner’s odds have a similar drop, falling from 78 percent on May 23 to 60 percent …”

The stakes in the Maine fight are enormous, though. A win by Platner could tilt the balance in the Senate toward Democrats, putting party officials in a precarious position. Do they hold their noses and support a tainted candidate? Or do they shun him, offended by the stench of a senator sitting with them for the next six years (at least) with much to apologize for?

David Frum, writing in The Atlantic, posed the matter as a choice between “character and power.” He compared the Platner quandary to the choice Republicans faced in 2017 with Roy Moore, a Senatorial candidate from Alabama who, as a 32-year-old assistant district attorney had “initiated sexual contact” with a 14-year-old girl, as well as three other women, whom he pursued when they were underage.

GOP leaders including Sen. John McCain and two dozen other Republican senators as well as then-Senate Leader Mitch McConnell urged Moore to quit the race, even though the Republicans had hung onto the Senate by a thread. Moore refused to quit but ultimately lost the race to a Democrat.

“Not as paragons of moral virtue but as pragmatic politicians, the Senate Republicans of 2017 made and executed a calculation: We are better off sacrificing the Alabama Senate seat for three years than enduring Roy Moore as a Senate colleague for who knows how long,” Frum wrote. “To defend Platner, Democrats will have to choose between two strategies: denouncing as liars a possibly growing number of women—or else accepting the stories, but then arguing that twisting a woman’s arm and locking her in a room is not quite the same as beating her.”

Certainly, the l’affaire Platner knocks the Dems on the back foot.

“Do they want to haggle over just how inappropriate these romantic relationships were, even as they argue that wearing an SS tattoo throughout most of one’s adult life does not prove that one is a literal Nazi?,” Frum asked. “These are not conversations that Democrats should wish to prolong in a year that might otherwise deal with Trump’s abuses of power, corruption, and economic mismanagement.”

Whether Platner could serve as a perfectly fine legislator, despite his dubious past, is an open question. Some argue that personal foibles, especially sexual ones, are irrelevant to an elected official’s ability to do a decent job in office. After all, the argument goes, we’re not choosing someone for sainthood, but just to do a decent job for constituents.

But the problem is that character outs, it seems. It seems likely that the citizens of New Jersey would have been better off if Robert Menendez, now a felon residing in a prison in Pennsylvania, had not been elected. He was convicted in 2024 of multiple corruption and bribery charges involved gold bars, cash and luxury cars and is now serving an 11-year sentence.

And, certainly, the nation would have been better served if Vice President Spiro Agnew hadn’t accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks while serving in various offices before the White House. He resigned in disgrace but avoided jail time even as he paid back hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For Menendez and Agnew, their mendacity didn’t go public before they attained their electoral heights. It took a while for their dirty laundry to get aired. With others, such as Clinton and, certainly, Trump, the flaws were well known and apparently forgiven by the electorate. Now, with Platner, the smudges on his escutcheon are slowly becoming apparent.

But the question remains: why do such flawed people seek the limelight, even when it can sear them? Is there something in their tortured psyches about seeking redemption or justification? Do they turn to public adoration as a way to fill holes in their character and mental makeup?

Perhaps more important, though, why do voters look past their sometimes obvious faults? Have our standards plunged so much that character is irrelevant now?

For Dylan and for plenty of journalists long accustomed to covering political scandal, the lesson is clear. Keep a skeptical eye on all politicians and would-be politicians. Don’t fall in love with them, especially those whose views align with yours. Vote for those who seem to speak for you but recognize that they’ll usually disappoint you in the end.

And, even as you watch their often troubling antics, be sure to watch your parkin’ meters. Perhaps happily, there’s no doubt that the stuff of our ordinary workaday lives deserves more attention than many of the people we choose to represent us.

Moi, moi, moi

Posted on May 31, 2026 by Joe Weber

Trump apes a 17th century king – without his grace or taste

Joseph Weber

In 1655, King Louis XIV of France may or may not have uttered the aphorism widely credited to him: “L’État, c’est moi.” The phrase — meaning “I am the state” — has come to symbolize a national leader’s extraordinary egotism.

Whether he said that or not, there’s little dispute that Louis’s self-regard was exceptional. He saw himself as the direct representative of G-d, the personification of the divine right of kings, and even chose the sun as his emblem. At least in his own mind, he was the omniscient and infallible “Roi-Soleil” (“Sun King”) around whom the entire realm orbited, according to “History.”

But there’s also no doubt that Louis created remarkable monuments during his 72-year reign, the longest in monarchical history (he was anointed at age 4). Among his projects in Paris were the Les Invalides hospital and retirement complex, the Place Vendôme and the Place des Victoires, as well as the tree-lined avenues that later became the Champs-Élysées. He reigned over the creation of the 150-mile Canal du Midi, linking the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. And he built the stunning Palace at Versailles.

Are we hearing echoes today in Washington, D.C., however pallid, thin and embattled they are? Are we seeing a leader’s massive ego (without the substance of a Louis XIV) in a display of cloddishness that looks like a parody of Louis’s grace? Are we seeing a cartoon caricature of a monarch trying to immortalize himself as he dodders toward an 80^th birthday?

It’s not only the gilding of the White House, the construction of a huge ballroom abutting the place or the planned 250-foot-tall Triumphal Arch near the Arlington National Cemetery that seems to be part of a pathetic parade of self-adulation by Donald J. Trump. It’s also festooning his image on passports, on banners that decorate federal buildings, on a proposed $250 bill, on commemorative coins and a national park pass, his name on the Kennedy Center (though that soon seems about to end, thanks to a judge). And, of course, we have the bluing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, as contractors – whom he may or may not have picked — repaint it to look like a swimming pool at Mar-a-Lago.

Now, with a breathtakingly self-indulgent effort, we have Trump’s latest plan to cast his self-admiration across as big a canvas as possible. He plans to turn what was to have been a 250^th celebration of the history of the United States, on the National Mall in D.C., into rallies for himself — opening the fair with a MAGA rally and giving a July 4 keynote speech.

At least seven of nine musical artists have dropped out of the multiday celebration, slated to begin in late June, because of the partisan cast it was taking. So Trump posted this on his Truth Social:

“It’s difficult to read this without laughing, but it’s no joke,” wrote former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who served under Presidents Ford, Carter and Clinton. “His malignant narcissism is ramping up even higher than its usual galactic level.”

But the enduring mystery is why Trump’s devotees apparently see no flaws in their leader’s perverse psychology. To the extent that they are aware of history, why do they not see a man casting himself here as a tacky version of a 17th century French king? Or, more sinisterly, as a Stalin, Mussolini, or Kim Jong-Un, someone desperate to feel and seem all-powerful — but even that in a distorted fun-house mirror way — “a man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime.”

Pathetic? Perhaps the very definition of it. But do his followers really see his image-spreading as signs of strength that they applaud?

Certainly, Trump sucks up attention and flattery like a pampered puppy. Watching a Cabinet meeting, for instance, can be painful because of the way otherwise bright people prostrate themselves before him, as if they are supplicants before Pharoah.

The New York Times reviewed over a dozen hours of Cabinet meeting footage and found that, on average, at least one of every six sentences out of the mouths of his acolytes either flattered Trump, gave him credit or criticized his political opponents.

“You have saved this country,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. “You have changed America and created the golden age,” crowed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. And the arch-flatterer, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking bizarrely of the lingering Ukraine-Russia War, effused “… the country owes you a great debt of gratitude and the world, really, because I mean you’re the only leader in the planet that can bring the two sides together …”

Cynically, one might say that these Cabinet lapdogs are simply doing what foreign leaders have learned to do to try to stay in Trump’s good graces: speaking glowingly of him to his face, and in front of the cameras, in hopes of a friendly pat on the head. Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, told him in February: “I firmly believe it is only you, Donald, who can achieve peace across the world.” Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken of Trump’s “unmatched leadership.”

Indeed, one can imagine that such people — with their spouses or trusted advisers behind closed doors — dismiss Trump as, instead, a horse’s ass. Perhaps one day, when Trump is gone, and the memoirs come out, we’ll hear what they really think.

Certainly, the words some former associates have used are far different than those of today’s toadies.

As The Guardian reported, their terms have been “fascist,” “conman,” “predator” and “cheat.” Former White House Chief of Staff and former Gen. John Kelly called Trump an “idiot” and the head of a “Crazytown” administration. Another former General, Mark Milley, who chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff called Trump a “fascist to the core” who was doing “great and irreparable harm.” And former National Security Adviser John Bolton has said Trump is “unfit to be president” and “hasn’t got the brains” for a dictatorship.

Still, when Trump assembles his crowds at the bizarrely low-end June 14 Ultimate Fighting Championship matches at the White House and later at the Great American State Fair, plenty of MAGA fans will show up. Recall that many showed up on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump beckoned them to the Capitol, where they rioted.

Trump, like monarchs and despots, is drawn to spectacle, especially when he is at the center of it. But, despite the crowds that will show up, there’s plenty of reason to believe that Trump’s act is wearing thin with many Americans.

About 58 percent of Americans now disapprove of Trump’s job performance, according to the latest polls. Just 21.7 percent strongly approve of the job he’s doing, while another 17.2 percent only somewhat approve and 48 percent “strongly disapprove.” As pollwatcher Nate Silver has reported, that’s less popular than Joe Biden was at this point in his term (-13.6) and less popular than Trump himself was during his first term (-10.6).

Whether such distaste for Trump shows up in the November midterm elections remains to be seen, of course. But, for now, with all his desperate self-promotion, this Sun King-wannabe is looking more like someone on whom the sun is going down and pretty fast.

Great Caesar’s Ghost!

Posted on May 29, 2026 by Joe Weber

There’s life in news yet, at least in D.C.

Joseph Weber

For people in the news business – and maybe for the country at large – the news about a brewing newspaper war in Washington, D.C., seems quite welcome.

But this won’t be your father’s journalism duel. Instead, it seems likely to be something of a battle between a very right-wing magnate and a perhaps less hands-on magnate with an ax to grind. And it will be largely digital.

Of course, this refers to The Washington Star, which recently debuted, and NOTUS (a.k.a. News of the United States). As it aims to go inkwell to inkwell, NOTUS plans to rebrand itself as The Star, a far-more newspapery sounding moniker.

Aside from confusing us all with the names, just how this will play out in the Trump era is unclear, though. And whether either publication will be a worthy successor to The Washington Post, much-shrunken as it is, is just as opaque.

But, already, the magnates involved – Politico founder Robert Allbritton and Dovid Efune, the British-born publisher of The New York Sun – are scrapping. Efune filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against NOTUS for its planned use of the Star name. This comes after NOTUS twice engaged in talks with The Washington Star Company to buy the trademark but couldn’t reach a deal. Instead, Allbritton’s team just opted to drop the “Washington.”

Presumably, they will battle one another for scoops, as well.

The Star (should that name prevail) already has a jump on things. It debuted, as NOTUS, in January 2024 and claims that its news site now reaches almost all of the Senate and Congress, as well as the White House. As the Columbia Journalism Review reported, Allbritton says NOTUS’s morning newsletter lands in more than 90 percent of House offices, and 80 percent of the Senate. “I know everybody in the White House reads it,” he told CJR. “I know all the heads of the agencies read it, or their chief of staff or whoever.”

Like Politico, it has focused on politics and inside-the-Beltway news, but it aims to move into local news and sports – voids that staff-cutters at The Washington Post have left. As The New York Times noted, The Post in February abruptly laid off more than 300 of its 800 journalists, pared back its metro section and shuttered its local sports coverage. After those moves, the Times reported, the leaders of NOTUS decided to accelerate their expansion plans.

NOTUS (the perhaps-Star) has hired Post veterans including Jeff Stein, as chief economics correspondent; Dana Milbank, as a columnist; Paul Kane and Kadia Goba, as congressional reporters; and Sam Fortier, as a sports reporter. Other new hires have come from other Washington outlets, such as The Hill, Politico and Axios. It plans to double its newsroom staff to as many as 95 people.

But Efune and the folks at The Washington Star have started publishing on Substack, and are planning to offer a custom website within the next two months and a weekend print newspaper by the end of the year. For now, Efune plans to hire up to 50 fulltime journalists and contributors, but will operate under the oversight and resources of The Sun’s newsroom until it names its own editor in chief.

Like Allbritton, Efune has publishing chops. He is a former top editor of the Jewish newspaper The Algemeiner, and has been reinvigorating The Sun, a once-shuttered outlet that now publishes online and has a weekly print edition. The Sun now counts two million subscribers, “tens of thousands of which are paid,” the Times reported.

“We’re reviving one of the great and epic rivalries of American journalism,” Efune told the Times. “For decades, The Star was The Washington Post’s fiercest competitor and an important editorial and ideological counterweight in the press in our nation’s capital.”

For his part, Allbritton is a billionaire – helped by his sale of Politico for $1 billion to Germany’s Axel Springer. His late father, Joe Albritton, owned The Washington Star, a conservative-leaning alternative to the Post, from 1975 to 1978, according to the Times. The paper folded in 1981. The younger Albritton founded the nonprofit Albritton Journalism Institute in 2023, intending to train young journalists. The institute publishes NOTUS.

Efune has thrust his stake in the ideological ground already. In announcing The Washington Star on May 28, he featured a photo of Ronald Reagan reading the paper and quoted the former president as bemoaning its disappearance. Reagan wrote a personal note of regret, Efune wrote, describing The Washington Star as “one of the most admired newspapers in America.”

The (new) Washington Star’s political bent is also apparent in its headlines and news selections. Among them: “Virginia Released Illegal Immigrant With Long Criminal Record Days Before He Allegedly Sexually Assaulted DC Woman,” “Clarence Thomas Dissents on Supreme Court Refusal to Weigh Illegal-Immigrant Commercial Licenses,” and “The White House Has Seen Worse ‘Desecration’ and Weirder ‘Gimmicks’ Than Trump’s UFC Octagon.”

A Fox News clone online, perhaps? A D.C. version of the New York Post? In Efune’s words, his priority is to “stay true to the editorial legacy of The [Washington] Star.” That means supporting “limited government” and opposing “bureaucratic corruption and federal overreach.”

Allbritton’s inclination at his The Star, it seems, is more middle-of-the-road or perhaps a mite leftish, at least judging by the recent headlines on NOTUS. Among them: “A Judge Has Temporarily Blocked Trump’s ‘Anti-Weaponization’ Fund,” “Judge Orders Removal of Trump’s Name From the Kennedy Center,” and Louisiana Passes a New Congressional Map Leaving Only One Majority-Black District.”

But Allbritton may have long maintained close ties to the pre-Trump Republican establishment, as well. As a writer for The Wesleyan Argus wrote in 2009, the former president of Allbritton-founded Politico, Frederick J. Ryan Jr., served in the Reagan White House for eight years, ascending to the title of Assistant to the President in 1987. Then, from 1989 to 1995, he was responsible for designing, planning and funding the construction of the Reagan Presidential Library.

In Washington’s usually polarized elite ranks, Ryan then served as Publisher and CEO of The Washington Post from 2014-23. He now chairs the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute and is leading the launch of a new Center on Civility and Democracy.

For now, Allbritton’s motivations seem less ideological than Efune’s. As a writer for Puck scathingly described him, “Inside Politico, Robert was seen as an oblivious-but-harmless Mr. Magoo type, the kind of guy who enjoyed owning a news company and the prestige it conferred but wasn’t interested in the management or production of a daily news report—or even wielding the political influence of the institution.”

The Star says it intends to “cover government, politics, policy, local news and D.C. sports with the power of The Washington Post in the 1970s, the punch of Politico in the 2010s and the audience focus required to build a sustainable news organization in 2026.”

And, if hiring liberal columnist Dana Milbank is any indication, it could lean left. Milbank, in a post on X, said he jumped to the Allbritton paper because it presents “an irresistible chance to both to create the hometown publication the D.C. region needs and to build a scrappy and fearless national news organization.”

Just how big a deal this will prove in D.C. – or outside – isn’t all that obvious, though. Despite the travails of The Washington Post, the town is awash with lots of outlets including Politico, Axios, Punchbowl News, and out-of-towners Semafor and Puck News, which regularly dip their toes in. Of course, The New York Times covers the political world in D.C. to a fare-thee-well, too, as does The Wall Street Journal.

“Does the town need another media company? Obviously not. But Robert does, and bless his heart for it,” the Puck writer asked in a piece headlined “Little Allbritton” and bearing a subhed dismissing him as “the son of a yesteryear D.C. media baron.”

The answer may, indeed, prove to be “obviously not.” But, for now, new life in a journalistic landscape that, nationwide at least, has been something of a desert seems as welcome as a spring rain.

“Losers” abound

Posted on May 28, 2026 by Joe Weber

But all of us are suffering for that

Joseph Weber

John Lennon in 1964; source: San Francisco Art Exchange

Sixty-two years ago, the Beatles released a song that, like so many others from that time, speaks to us today.

John Lennon wrote: I’m a loser/I’m a loser/And I’m not what I appear to be

The song resounds today because “loser” is one of Donald J. Trump’s favorite words. He has applied it to Democrats, to Republicans, to generals, to soldiers killed in battle, to CNN and other networks. He uses it for pretty much anyone who crosses him or sees the world differently – i.e., realistically.

For instance, leading members of his own party – including usually loyal toadies – are troubled by a potential deal Trump has tried to cook up to get Iran off his plate. The critics include Senators Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham and Roger Wicker, who all worry about an undefeated Iran posing an ongoing threat to the world.

Trump’s response on Truth Social: “So don’t listen to the losers, who are critical about something they know nothing about.”

Of course, it now appears there is no deal, even though Trump claimed on May 23 — just before the senators raised their concerns — that one had been “largely negotiated.” The following day, in fact, reporters were briefed on the terms of a deal.

But all that gave way to the more recent Trump post: “… nobody has seen it, or knows what it is. It isn’t even fully negotiated yet.”

And then Trump followed up with a line suggesting that he’s a long way from settling anything with Iran. During a Cabinet meeting on May 27, he contended that the leaders of the Islamic Republic “thought they were going to out-wait me, you know. ‘We’ll out-wait him. He’s got the midterms.’ I don’t care about the midterms,” the president insisted, as The Hill reported.

The reality seems to be that the astonishingly self-contradictory Trump, in fact, is the loser in the war he started on Feb. 28. Recall that he initially suggested it would all be over in “four to five weeks,” though it has now stretched to three months with no end in sight.

Indeed, the shooting has continued, albeit at lower levels. And Trump has even now threatened a longstanding U.S. ally, Oman, against partnering with Iran to jointly control the Strait of Hormuz. “Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up,” he said during his Cabinet meeting.

Such bizarre comments reflect the inflated claims and contradictions Trump has made throughout the war.

The New York Times recounted many of them in “The War Is Over. The Strait is Open. We Totally Won. The Iran War According to Donald Trump.” As the piece reported, “[o]ften, there was a wide disconnect” between reality and Trump’s comments. It added: “Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to use extreme force, only to hold his fire. In many cases he has made claims of major diplomatic progress that later proved unfounded, fueling criticism that he is trying to calm markets and relieve political pressure.”

Here’s a sampling of Trump’s remarks:

“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” — Truth Social post on March 6

“… Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal …” — Truth Social post on March 13

“… VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS …” — Truth Social post on March 23

And more recently:

“I am fully aware that my Representatives are having very positive discussions with the Country of Iran, and that these discussions could lead to something very positive for all.” — Truth Social post on May 3

“I’m getting a letter supposedly tonight, so we’ll see how that goes.” — Press gaggle on May 8

“I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” — Truth Social post on May 10

“We were getting ready to do a very major attack tomorrow, and I put it off … because we’ve had very big discussions with Iran …” — Press gaggle on May 18

“Final aspects and details of the Deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly.” — Truth Social post on May 23

“… I have informed my representatives not to rush into a deal in that time is on our side.” — Truth Social post on May 24

“It will only be a Great Deal for all or, no Deal at all …” — Truth Social post on May 25

Feeling a bit whipsawed? And, really, is there ever a reason to believe him?

“Only two questions remain regarding the U.S. war with Iran,” Times columnist Tom Friedman has written. “One, how big a plate of crow will President Trump have to eat to end this conflict with at least some achievements? And two, will he tell us the crow he’s eating is lobster or filet mignon?”

Depressingly, Friedman suggests that the war has just served to entrench “the vile, murderous Islamic republic regime.” His claim: “For starters, Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will all be remembered as the team that gave the Islamic republic a second lease on life just when it was more on the ropes than ever with its own people.”

And David French, a former United States Army Reserve major, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a Harvard-trained military lawyer who was awarded a Bronze Star, summed it up this way in a Times newsletter he writes:

“The Trump administration hasn’t accomplished any of its war aims. The Iranian regime is intact, perhaps even more hard-line than before the war now that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps appears to exert greater control. There has been no unconditional surrender; Iran still possesses substantial stocks of highly enriched uranium; it still possesses a formidable missile arsenal; and it still supports terrorist proxies that wage war against Israel.

“We have weakened the Iranian military, but the regime is unbeaten and unbowed. If anything, its regional and global position may even be stronger than it was before the war. Before the war, Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz was theoretical. Now it’s actual. And we don’t seem to possess a plan — or the will — to open it once again.”

In other words, Trump and his gang have blown it. They are the losers.

Of course, the president will never admit this; his narcissism won’t permit it. His reaction, instead, will be classic “projection,” with him making incendiary claims about his opponents that really apply to him.

His reaction will be consistent, as we can expect from a doddering nearly 80-year-old. Going back to his earliest years, Trump was known as a bully, according to his niece, psychologist Mary Trump. One can easily imagine him strutting about elementary school playgrounds, taunting classmates as “losers.”

When Mary Trump suggested early this year that her uncle was “losing control” and humiliating himself “on an almost daily basis and often in the most public ways imaginable,” the White House reaction was predictable. Parroting his boss, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung issued a statement to The Daily Beast, saying “Mary Trump is a stone-old [sic] loser who doesn’t have a clue about anything.”

Trump’s vocabulary has scarcely improved since his earliest days, it seems, though he has often added vile expletives. The sad reality today is that along with his bullying, cloddish and ill-informed actions in Iran serving as an echo of the John Lennon song, he has turned us all into losers along with him.

Zionism, unembarrassed

Posted on May 25, 2026 by Joe Weber

While Dems tear themselves apart about Israel, this seems a useful reminder

Joseph Weber

John Irving, an American who became a Canadian citizen and lives in Toronto, has long had his finger on the pulse of American culture – sometimes in opposition to trends in his native country. In The Cider House Rules he defends the right to abortion. In A Prayer for Owen Meany he slams conservative notions of patriotism.

So, it’s no surprise that Irving’s key themes in his latest novel, Queen Esther, are antisemitism and anti-Zionism. The book, he told one interviewer, sprang in part from the “criticism and disfavor” Zionism has fallen into. His character reminds readers that Israel is a place where Jews haven’t always been safe but, as he put it, you “could defend yourself.”

Irving, 84 and a non-Jew who has long admired and loved Israel, sets his book partly in the country. We meet his protagonist, the child Esther, however, near early 1900s Portland, Maine, where she is left an unadoptable orphan when antisemites kill her mother, an immigrant from Vienna. As Esther grows up, she makes her way to Europe to help Austrian Jews in the late 1930s and then moves to Israel, where she helps build the state through often-covert military actions that stretch into the 1980s.

For many in America today, particularly liberals, Irving’s book would probably seem ill-timed. Rather than defend Israel as it battles enemies on four fronts – Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen – it’s fashionable in many circles to denigrate Zionism, to deride Israel as a “settler-colonial state” and even to deny its right to exist.

“What began as a drop in support for Israel among younger Democrats has become a vertiginous, across-the-board collapse,” The Christian Science Monitor reported. “Today, an overwhelming majority of Democrats view Israel negatively, and AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is itself a target for progressives seeking to purge the party’s pro-Israel ranks.”

The piece based that reporting on a recent poll by The New York Times and the Siena Research Institute. That poll found that 74 percent of Democratic voters opposed “providing additional economic and military support to Israel,” as the Times of Israel recounted. Only 20 percent of respondents favored continued aid to Israel.

And 60 percent said they sympathized more with the Palestinians, while only 15 percent sympathized more with Israel. The survey also found that 48 percent of Democrats said the party has been “too supportive of Israel,” while 8 percent said the party was not supportive enough, and 34 percent said U.S. backing was “about right.”

Surveys have repeatedly found that Democrats have become increasingly hostile to Israel, the Israeli newspaper noted. Like other recent U.S. polls, the new survey found that younger respondents, in particular, were more opposed to the Jewish state. In a March survey conducted by Pew, 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents expressed an unfavorable view of Israel:

Some of the country’s critics are rallying around candidates such as Michigan’s Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in a party primary set for August. “Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil,” El-Sayed told CNN congressional reporter Manu Raja on the network’s Inside Politics program. “It’s not how evil is this one versus that one — Hamas: Evil, Israeli government: Evil. We can say both.”

While El-Sayed seems to straddle the matter by attacking both sides in the Gaza War, the Egyptian American has also allied himself with Hasan Piker, a fellow Muslim and popular streamer who has made repeated antisemitic comments. As the Forward has reported, Piker’s history of his comments includes denying or downplaying rape that took place during the Oct. 7 attacks and comparing Houthi rebels to Anne Frank.

Then there’s Chris Rabb, the Philadelphian poised to become a congressman. He is backed by Piker and another Israel critic, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He supports a complete embargo on arms sales to Israel, as The Times of Israel reported. Rabb recently posted on X that “the Nakba never ended,” and said he would co-sponsor a resolution with Minnesota Rep. Ihlan Omar and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib to “recognize the Nakba and reaffirm Palestinian refugees’ right to return.”

Disappointingly, Rabb is backed by Rep. Jamie Raskin, one of the brighter lights in Congress who also happens to be Jewish. Raskin, who co-sponsored the Block the Bombs to Israel Act, sided with the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace and other leftist groups, including Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party, as well as groups that work to counter AIPAC, such as Track AIPAC and PAL PAC.

While he says he is committed to Israel, Raskin has split with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the Gaza War.

“I continue to hear each day from my constituents stories of pain from their families and friends in both Israel and Gaza,” Raskin said in a release last fall marking the Oct. 7^th savagery. “They speak of the mutual descent into cruelty and savage violence and pray for the imperative of peace and reconciliation. All parties to the conflict must finally come to the negotiating table and put an end to the vicious and hopeless cycles of terror, occupation and war in the region and create a path towards lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, for the sake of both these desperate peoples and all the people of the world.”

Far less even-handedly, we have Maureen Galindo, a Democratic House candidate in Texas who said she wanted to turn a local immigrant detention center into a facility to imprison and castrate “American Zionists,” as The Washington Post reported. Galindo, a sex therapist who has never held office, came in first in a four-way party primary in March and will compete in a two-person runoff race wrapping up May 26.

Perhaps surprisingly, Democratic leaders have condemned Galindo. Ocasio-Cortez described Galindo’s comments as “bigoted garbage and antisemitism.” She called for voters to support Johnny Garcia, a former sheriff’s deputy who said Republicans had “no shame” about supporting Galindo’s “antisemitic conspiracy theories.”

James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate race in Texas, also backed Garcia and said he would not campaign with Galindo if she won, as the Post reported. So, too, did the Texas Democratic Party and the chairs of the parties in the 35th Congressional District condemn Galindo’s remarks.

Democratic House leader Hakeem Jefferies accused Republicans of secretly supporting Galindo as a way to undercut Democrats’ chances in November, according to The New York Times. Indeed, the GOP seems to be operating underhandedly, with a political action committee with links to Republicans spending nearly $1 million on TV ads and mailers backing Galindo. The PAC dishonestly calls itself Lead Left.

If she prevails, this antisemite wouldn’t be welcomed by all in Congress. Two Jewish members of the House vowed that if Galindo were elected, they would force a daily vote to expel her.

But the tortuous disputes over Israel have made for ugly twists in Democratic politics. For instance, AIPAC opposed the Democratic mayor of Evanston, Ill., Daniel Biss, in the race to succeed retiring U.S. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. Biss, who is Jewish and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, was targeted with negative ads and mailers in a rare instance of AIPAC involving itself in a race with two Jewish candidates, as the Times reported.

Like some others, Biss tries to take a middle ground on Israel, refusing to call Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas a genocide, but saying that he opposes unconditional aid to the country. He defeated a Jewish rival, whom AIPAC supported, who had backed aid without strings. He was supported by Senators Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts; the Illinois attorney general, Kwame Raoul; and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

“This is a guy who can’t possibly be considered anti-Israel — he is the quintessential American Jew,” J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami told the Times. “He is at the 50-yard line of Jewish Americans, and AIPAC doesn’t want them anywhere near policy.”

The lobbying group has gotten such a black eye among some Democrats that it has hidden its name behind front outfits in backing or opposing campaigns. As The Washington Post reported, AIPAC cloaked its spending in Illinois in “a trio of innocuously named organizations” — Chicago Progressive Partnership, Affordable Chicago Now and Elect Chicago Women — and ran ads that attacked candidates including Biss for reasons other than his position on Israel.

What’s more, AIPAC, which some progressive Jewish organizations have labeled a Republican front group, shot itself in the foot in some efforts to back more pro-Israel candidates.

In April in New Jersey, for instance, AIPAC funded ads attacking Tom Malinowski, a moderate Democratic House candidate who supported Israel but – like Biss — said that aid should not be unconditional, as the Times reported. Instead of helping a more pro-Israel opponent, Tahesha Way, the attacks turned voters from Malinowski to a pro-Palestinian progressive, Analilia Mejia, who won the race.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a likely 2028 presidential candidate, said he “never will” accept money from AIPAC, according to the Times. And Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire who once was a major donor to AIPAC, told the newspaper that he “walked away” from the group around 2015, when it began to veer to the right. “I still believe it is significantly MAGA-influenced,” said Pritzker, who is Jewish and a Democrat.

So, while the GOP under Donald J. Trump has given Netanyahu almost carte blanche to move against Israel’s enemies, Democrats are tearing themselves apart over the Israel-Palestine conflict and risk losing some Jewish support with nuanced stances. The progressives want to rein in the Israeli prime minister – as some in Israel also do – even as Hezbollah, Hamas and other opponents similarly backed by Iran refuse to yield.

Nowadays, moreover, as the longstanding hope for a two-state solution seems like an impossible dream, some Democrats seem bent on relegating Zionism to the political dustbin. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, for instance, in effect calls for an end to Israel as a Jewish state. While he has argued that Israel has a right to exist, he contends it should have nothing to do with religion – a repudiation of the state’s founding.

“I’m not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else,” Mamdani said in one TV interview. “Equality should be enshrined in every country in the world. That’s my belief.”

Never mind that the 21 percent or so of Israel’s population is Arab and is entitled to vote in the country, just as Jews do. It’s true that Arab-majority parties have never held more than 15 seats in the 120-seat Knesset and are now down to about 10, but that may have to do more with low turnout among Arab voters.

After reaching peak in 2020, with 65 percent of Arab citizens of Israel casting ballots, the share fell in 2022 to 53 percent, compared to 71 percent of the total Israeli electorate.

In 2021, Ra’am, a conservative Islamist party led by Mansour Abbas, became the first Arab party to join a governing coalition in Israel. And, depending on participation, some in Israel believe Arabs may win as many as 17 seats in upcoming elections. Of course, full representation would mean they would hold at least 24 seats.

But some Democrats would have the Jewish character of the state disappear. Is that not, in essence, antisemitism? Is much of the opposition now to Israel merely a veil for Jew hatred? Or can leaders such as Raskin back the people and the state even as they slam Israel’s current government?

As antisemitism abounds in New York and elsewhere, it is scarcely helpful that Mamdani plans to shun the May 31 Israel Day parade. And slanderous statements the mayor has made, such as in a 2025 release on the second anniversary of the Oct. 7th massacre, do little to move the needle toward peaceful coexistence. “The occupation and apartheid must end,” he wrote then.

Irving’s book doesn’t make such distinctions. The antisemitism that shapes his “Queen Esther” from the time her family flees Vienna, through her times in the U.S. and into her years in Jerusalem turns her into “an uncompromising defender of Jews during a century of violence and oppression against them,” as a New York Times reviewer put it.

In the end, the book is a powerful reminder that Jews – like other peoples in multiethnic states – deserve their own country. Even as they oppose a particular government’s policies, Israel’s critics would do well to heed that. They might find Irving’s latest a useful read.

Just like old times — sort of

Posted on May 18, 2026 by Joe Weber

Are seductive advertiser tactics on YouTube hurting our kids?

Joseph Weber

When radio and TV were in their infancy, it wasn’t uncommon for the line between the shows and their commercial sponsors to be as blurry as the old black and white pictures on a Philco set. For instance, we had the Texaco Star Theater, Philco Television Playhouse, The Colgate Comedy Hour, and the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports.

And the commercial messages were laced throughout the shows. For instance, at the opening of the Texaco show, men dressed in Texaco gas station uniforms – they really once had those – would introduce Milton Berle. And in the Colgate Comedy Hour, Jerry Lewis would sometimes poke fun at the sponsor, which apparently didn’t mind since it drew attention.

Over time, though, as single sponsorship gave way to multiple advertisers, the lines between the show’s content and ads became clearer. Indeed, in the early days, the single sponsors exercised control over the shows’ content, something that faded as multiple advertisers popped up. Product placement, however, still occasionally showed up, with Coke cups appearing on American Idol and Manolo Blahnik shoes being mentioned on Sex and the City, for instance.

But selling things – while entertaining people – seems to be in a new era now — perhaps a throwback time. YouTube shows, especially those pitched towards kids and young people, are marketing vehicles. Not only are advertisers appearing as integral parts of the shows, but there is no need for separate commercials – perhaps where young viewers could see distinctions, could realize they are the targets of pitchmen.

The question is, is this harmless and reasonable, a blend of commercial interests and entertainment that isn’t any different in kind than, say, the Texaco Star Theater? Or is there something insidious at play, especially in kid-oriented programming, that should trouble us? Should we bar our kids from watching the new sponsor-heavy stuff?

The questions occurred to me this weekend, as a six-year-old granddaughter and I watched a video created by YouTuber phenoms Ben Azelart and Hannah Thomas. Ben and a friend build a secret treehouse in which he can watch videogames while seeming to be “outside,” since Hannah harangues him about getting outdoors and away from the games.

The commercial outfits key to the plot include Starbucks, Home Depot, Target and a host of electronics companies, including a couple popular videogames. They all get prominent play and, presumably, paid to appear or at least provided the goods involved.

Azelart is a former skateboarder who has built a lucrative career on YouTube with videos such as the secret treehouse one. The fast-paced piece keeps viewers – young and old – engaged, for sure.

But, all the while, they get unapologetic commercial messages from the characters. They buy sugary drinks at Starbucks. They roam the aisles in Home Depot and Target. And they buy a hefty stack of videogames and electronic gear.

My six-year-old granddaughter was mesmerized. In fact, it was tough to get her to switch Azelart off when the video segued into another similar video. And I couldn’t help but wonder whether this flagrant consumerism had downsides, especially for her. After all, there were no commercial breaks that, perhaps, would allow even a child to make distinctions between the programming and ads. And it was all quite seductive.

Of course, many of us of all ages shop at Target and frequent Starbucks. Some of us pop into Home Depot at times. And lots of people play Fortnite and other games showcased on the show. But should those brands be seared into the heads of six-year-olds? And is there a problem with that?

There has been some research suggesting there are indeed problems.

“Children are extra vulnerable when it comes to this type of native advertising, as their advertising literacy is not fully developed yet,” a trio of academics wrote in a review of pieces about influencer marketing in Frontiers in Psychology in 2019. “This content overload makes it hard for children to focus their attention and discern relevant from irrelevant information, resulting in a depletion of self-regulatory resources and difficulties to critically reflect on commercial messages.”

They pointed to papers by colleagues that suggested that kids could not recognize and critically evaluate the ad messages they were getting. “The embedded nature of influencer marketing lowers both children’s ability and motivation to recognize it as advertising and critically reflect on it,” they noted.

In other words, kids might be drawn to the shops and the products mentioned – as the sponsors would like – without them or their parents realizing they are being sold on them. As the academics report, “… children may fail to recognize influencer content as advertising and cope with such persuasion tactics critically.”

Research into the food-marketing power of video influencers has suggested there’s an unhealthy amount of promotion of sugary, fatty and salty foods. So, YouTube in 2020 banned food and drink advertising in and around content aimed at kids. In the Azelart video, however, that didn’t stop popular teen influencer Salish Matter – who plays a key role – from ordering a very unhealthy appearing Starbucks drink.

The Starbucks drink seems like small potatoes, so to speak. The videogames message might be more concerning, since Azelart celebrates his self-described addiction to such games. And the Target and Home Depot messages in and of themselves seem inconsequential, even if they encourage the kids to pester their parents to go to such places – as some of the research suggests they might.

But the Azelart video raises a separate, more subtle issue — sexist stereotyping. Azelart builds the house because his girlfriend nags him to “go outside.” So, are young girls (and boys) supposed to conclude that playing the scold, the nagging woman, is the normal role for women? That men must resort to clever ways to avoid that?

And, beyond that, these videos seem to deliver a potent message about the dubious joys of consumerism. Building a treehouse might be fun, but maybe it’s even more fun to play videogames and go shopping – at one point, the influencer Matter persuades Hannah Thomas to buy everything for her that she can dump into her cart in a minute. She, of course, grabs up stuff blindly — another sexist cliche.

Do such videos encourage unquestioning consumerism? Do they suggest that happiness is to be found that way? It’s hard to measure that, it seems. But, if so, the Azelart videos do it in ways that are both obvious and, perhaps, insidious.

Maybe they’re not all that different from the Texaco men introducing Uncle Miltie. But they surely are a long way from Sesame Street and, it seems, a long way down from it.

Preferring yesterday

Posted on May 15, 2026 by Joe Weber

To some, progress is so threatening that even bicycles are targets

Joseph Weber

Seventy-one years ago, Yale-educated William F. Buckley, Jr. launched what has been called “the intellectual beacon of the conservative movement,” the magazine National Review. In his publisher’s statement, he wrote of the new weekly: “It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”

The comment is revealing about the nature of conservatism. Many in the movement, it seems, put stumbling blocks in the way of progress, holding that the good old ways are inevitably best.

But what if the old ways really aren’t so good? What if they pollute our waterways and endanger our health? Even conservative darling Richard M. Nixon recognized such problems when he created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.

So why is it that the same EPA is now moving to roll back a three-year-old rule that requires coal-fired power plants to prevent the release of toxic heavy metals into streams and rivers through polluted groundwater? Do conservatives really want our waterways tainted with poisonous heavy metals?

“The AI and data center revolution is creating an electricity and baseload power demand that cannot be met under the overly restrictive policies of past administrations,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement quoted by the Associated Press. “The Trump EPA will continue doing its part to address these burdensome regulations on the coal-fired power plant sector that hold American communities back from the new opportunities presented by this new 21st century energy reality.”

As AP reported, this plan is the latest step that Donald J. Trump’s administration has taken to pull back regulations on coal mining and coal-fired power and to empower fossil fuels as a primary energy source to feed the rapid growth of artificial intelligence data centers. But one wonders: why do the Trumpies so love fossil fuels, despite the planet-wide threat they pose?

Their efforts go well beyond yelling “Stop.” They are assailing environmental progress, turning back the clock.

Whether this involves contempt for electric vehicles, shutting down offshore wind farms or dismantling federal efforts in climate science with such moves as shutting down the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, Trump and his minions are seeking to peel back any gains society has made in going green.

At times, their efforts plunge into the absurd. The Trumpists, for instance, don’t seem to like bikes.

Last year the Trump Administration canceled grants for street safety measures, pedestrian trails and bike lanes in communities around the country. As Bloomberg News reported, the problem for the Trumpies was that the projects weren’t designed for cars.

A San Diego County road project that included bike lanes “appears to reduce lane capacity and a road diet that is hostile to motor vehicles,” a U.S Department of Transportation official wrote, rescinding a $1.2 million grant it awarded nearly a year before, according to the news outlet. In Fairfield, Ala., converting street lanes to trail space on one road was also deemed “hostile” to cars, and “counter to DOT’s priority of preserving or increasing roadway capacity for motor vehicles.”

And in Boston, the administration pulled back a grant to improve walking, biking and transit in the Mattapan Square neighborhood in a way that would change the “current auto-centric configuration.”

With such bureaucratese, one wonders whether the officials also have trouble with basic English.

Sometimes, conservatives justify their moves by arguing the costs of protections are too high or thwart development. But sometimes, they just seem afflicted by a weird nostalgia, such as for gas-powered cars, or animus toward blue states. Such sentiments seem to underlay the recently filed Trump administration lawsuit against California over limits on tailpipe emissions.

“Gavin Newsom is determined to continue pushing Democrats’ radical E.V. fantasy — even if doing so is illegal,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement quoted by The New York Times. He referred, of course, to Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat likely to run for president and a frequent critic of Trump.

As the newspaper reported, the Trump administration has moved to slash federal support for electric vehicles, which do not emit planet-warming pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency has erased limits on greenhouse gases from vehicle tailpipes, and Trump signed a law last year eliminating a tax credit of up to $7,500 that had been available to people who bought a new electric car.

As has long been true, rightists often point to economics justify their defenses of the status quo. The current crew pair that with a loathing for the Biden Administration.

“Oppressive, expensive electric vehicle mandates drive up costs for American consumers and violate federal law,” former Attorney General Pam Bondi said at the time the suit against California was filed. “California is using unlawful policies from the last administration to create exorbitant costs for their citizens.”

But their efforts often fly in the face of common sense and science. For instance, the Omaha Public Power District has long planned to retire three of five power plants in north Omaha and switch the other two from coal-fired to natural gas. Nebraska’s rightwing Attorney General filed suit last fall to block the moves, though.

As reported by the Nebraska Examiner, AG Mike Hilgers said, “we should not be taking one electron off the grid.”

Hilgers’ 46-page lawsuit seeks to stop the changes, as well as prevent OPPD from pursuing any policy that prioritizes considerations other than price or reliability, including “environmental justice.” Residents of predominantly Black north Omaha have long complained of health risks from the plants, including asthma and respiratory issues.

The OPPD is a publicly owned utility that serves more than 900,000 people across 13 counties in eastern Nebraska, a region that includes Omaha.

As the Examiner reported, in 2014 and 2016, OPPD directors agreed to a plan that, by 2023, OPPD would retire the three North Omaha units in operation since the 1950s and switch the other two in operation since the 1960s from coal to natural gas. The oldest three units switched to natural gas in 2016. The plan was delayed in 2022 and then made contingent upon the construction of two new power-producing stations.

Why this conservative attachment to coal? Why this penchant for sticking with the status quo when harms have long been known?

Encouragingly, the power district in overwhelmingly red Nebraska could be in for changes in leadership that could make for progress. Three renewable energy advocates are advancing toward a fall general election and if they win, they and two other like-minded incumbents, would dominate the district board.

As The Downballot reported, the trio includes former state Sen. Carol Blood, the Democrats’ unsuccessful nominee for governor in 2022 who also lost a run for Congress in the conservative 1st District last cycle. The other is education professor Mark Gudgel, who failed in running for Omaha mayor in 2021. The third is attorney and school administrator Sara Kohen, who narrowly lost a bid for the Omaha City Council in 2021.

When they are defeated in high-profile runs, going for lower-profile utility regulatory posts might give such progressives toeholds for bigger offices later on. But, more important in the short run, they also could help restore environmental gains.

Environmentalists cheered in another red state, Arizona, when renewable energy supporters won an election to take charge of a Phoenix electrical utility company. In Georgia, a couple Democrats scored landslide victories last year in special elections for their state’s Public Service Commission, and Democrats now have the opportunity to flip the third seat they need to win control of the body this fall, The Downballot reported.

It will take a couple major elections to unseat those on the federal level who out of sentiment, nostalgia or just ignorance irrationally cling to the often-flawed past. But as the Nebraska, Arizona and Georgia elections demonstrate, grassroots victories in sometimes little-noted posts can help.

Sometimes, people who stand athwart history get steamrolled. Perhaps the time for that is long overdue.

The Revolution is feasting on its own

Posted on May 13, 2026 by Joe Weber

Trump’s penchant for firing his loyalists defines his movement

Joseph Weber

Royalist and anti-revolutionary journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan, writing in 1793 about the French Revolution, coined a phrase that resounds today: “A l’exemple de Saturne, la révolution dévore ses enfants,” which translates to “Like Saturn, the revolution devours its children.”

We see this in Washington, where Donald J. Trump has been ruthless in metaphorically beheading acolytes.

So far, he has bounced three Cabinet members: Attorney General Pam Bondi, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Lower-level career fatalities include Border Patrol “commander at large” Gregory Bovino; Corey Lewandowski, an unpaid special staffer at the Department of Homeland Security, and Navy Secretary John Phelan.

More recently, Dr. Marty Makary quit as head of the Food and Drug Administration amid rumors that Trump was planning to can him. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. urged him to jump beforehand, it appears.

And Trump has pulled out all the stops — including a Justice Department probe — in trying to oust Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell from the Fed board. Powell, whom Trump had appointed during his first term, will be succeeded by Kevin Warsh at the Fed’s helm, but he intends to stay on the Fed board for a couple years yet.

In his first term, Trump loved to wield his guillotine. Casualties included FBI Director James Comey, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, National Security Adviser John Bolton and White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci – all of whom went on to disparage Trump (and some still do so).

Of course, such highly visible executions are nothing compared to over 200,000 firings of federal employees thanks to sometimes-Trump ally Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Makary’s FDA was gutted by the voluntary departures of some 4,000 staffers, apparently out of distaste with the agency’s tumult and redirection under Kennedy and Makary.

In a sorry twist, at least some federal employees who got the ax were very surprised Trumpists.

An attorney advisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, said he was “devastated” after voting for Trump and being assured that his job was safe. As CNN reported, he had moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, with his pregnant wife and toddler for the position. He said, “I was expecting to spend the rest of my life doing it.”

Some felt blindsided.

“I was thinking that there would be changes,” a two-time Trump voter and Department of Agriculture researcher told The Los Angeles Times. “But instead of being focused, this is just going completely off the rails, chopping and slicing up parts of the government that are protecting Americans.”

So much for loyalty. Trump, of course, is notorious for expecting it but rarely returning it.

Even more intriguing, though, is when voters are involved and believe that Trump backers aren’t Trumpy enough. That was the case in the May 12 primary defeat of two-term Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen.

Evnen lost to Omaha businessman Scott Petersen, who challenged the integrity of Nebraska’s electoral system on the Lincoln resident’s watch. The incumbent tried to tie himself to Trump’s national election overhaul efforts, but wound up defending the state’s voting systems – something that apparently doesn’t suit the Trump narrative that many in the state’s GOP seem to buy.

“People don’t trust election systems … and whether right or wrong, it’s a problem,” Petersen told the Nebraska Examiner. “It needs to be addressed.”

Petersen targeted Evnen’s handling of vote counting, the news outlet reported. He questioned whether the ballot-counting machines can access the internet and be hacked, argued that voting by mail should be restricted to only special circumstances and promised to conduct full hand counts of races.

Like other secretaries of state, Evnen regularly audited election results, the news outlet reported. But, by raising the specter of taints — in Trump-like fashion —Petersen undermined the incumbent.

That was so even as Evnen in the past year has tried to tie himself even more tightly to Trump. He handed over data the Trump administration requested to the U.S. Department of Justice that his Republican predecessor didn’t, including parts that critics say are potentially sensitive, according to the Examiner. He also started echoing some of Trump’s concerns over elections.

Evnen had supported a state constitutional amendment in 2022 requiring voter ID, and said he’d like such systems rolled out nationally. He pressed for more efforts to ensure noncitizens aren’t voting – a Trump hobbyhorse, but a nonproblem, according to outfits such as the Brennan Center at NYU. In desperate-seeming emails in recent weeks, Evnen pleaded for votes by arguing that he and Trump were “completely in-sync” on mail-in voting, something Trump has labeled “mail-in cheating.”

But Petersen apparently put Evnen on his back foot with suggestions of flaws in the system, despite providing no evidence. As the Examiner reported, Evnen was cast onto the defensive, describing Nebraska’s elections system as the “gold standard.” And he conducted a “transparency tour” across several counties describing the accuracy testing of Nebraska’s ballot-counting machines.

With a GOP rank and file that has been convinced by Trump and his backers that voting systems nationwide are rigged, such rational approaches are nonstarters, it seems. With people conditioned to be suspicious, those dogs just don’t hunt.

Never mind that Petersen’s approach earned him the title of “President of the TinFoil Hat Club” from outgoing U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, one of many GOP establishment figures to back Evnen. The Lincoln resident had a laundry list of endorsements from Republican elected officials, including Gov. Jim Pillen, Sens. Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts, and all three of the state’s House lawmakers.

Evnen had long paid his dues to the state GOP by serving such figures in one way or another. But Petersen prevailed by out-Trumping him.

In the end, the revolution that Evnen backed devoured him, much as it has gobbled up so many in Washington. And, with 2 ½ years remaining for Trump’s tenure in Washington, still more are likely to fall prey to it.

While some of Trump’s followers paint in him in messianic imagery, perhaps it is Saturn he resembles more.

The Big Picture

Author Archives: Joe Weber

About Joe Weber

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While Dems tear themselves apart about Israel, this seems a useful reminder

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Preferring yesterday

To some, progress is so threatening that even bicycles are targets

The Revolution is feasting on its own

Trump’s penchant for firing his loyalists defines his movement