3/17/2025

 Monday, March 17, 2025

D+130/57

1932 German police raided Adolf Hitler's Nazi headquarters

1945 Marine Charles E. Clausen departed Iwo Jima after 27 days

1966 US submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb on the Mediterranean sea floor

In bed at 9, awake at 4, and up at 4:10.  25° outside, high of 46°.   

Prednisone, day 330; 4 mg., day 12/21; Kevzara, day 12/14/  2 mg. of prednisone at 4:45 a.m. and  5 p.m.  Other meds at    .  I still have achy shoulders and hips and I wonder whether this is persisting PMR.  I see in my pill organizer that there are still 2 2mg. pills in the Sunday compartment though yesterday's notes indicate that I took 2 in the morning and another 2 in the afternoon.  Did I make the afternoon notation and then immediately forget to take the pilla?  Something's off.    

Reading scary headlines to start the day and week.  The NY Times:

DOGE’s Cuts Reach Key Nuclear Scientists, Bomb Engineers and Safety Experts: Firings and buyouts have hit the top-secret National Nuclear Safety Administration amid a major effort to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal. 

Social Security Employees Warn of Damage From Musk’s Team: Current and former employees, both Republican and Democratic, are raising alarms about the damage that Elon Musk’s cost-cutting efforts could do.  

With Deportations, Trump Steps Closer to Showdown With Judicial Branch: Planes carrying Venezuelan detainees from the U.S. arrived in El Salvador, even though a federal judge had ordered that the flights not proceed.   

The Washington Post, owned and dominated by Trump/Musk toadie Jeff Bezos, has tamer headlines this morning, especially  about the defiance of a judicial  order that a plane full of deportees turn back:

White House official says 137 immigrants deported under Alien Enemies Act: Trump officials said the deportations don’t violate a judge’s order barring use of the statute for removals — but also questioned the order’s validity.

Timeline: Deportation flights landed after judge said planes must turn around

The 1st Amendment & What Trump said at his DOJ speech Friday:

These networks, and the newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative, and it has to stop.  It has to be illegal.  It's influencing judges, and it's really changing law, and it can't be legal.  I don't believe it's legal, and they do it in total coordination with each other. . .  Now, as the chief law enforcemnt officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred.

"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up."   This quote, anonymously and perhaps apocryphally, is attributed to Barack Obama and refers to Joe Biden.  It came to mind as I read the latest NBC poll about "your feelings toward the Democratic Party"  Negative 55%, Positive 27%, Neutral 18%.  The Democratic Party has been in the toilet since the 2024 presidential election.  One can argue about the myriad 'why's" of this, but it seems clear to me who is the person most responsible for it: Joe Biden.  His decision to run for a second term froze out all the potential Democratic competitors to Donald Trump.  Gavin Newsome, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear, Roy Cooper, J. B. Pritzker, Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Adam Schiff, Chris Murphy, Sheldon Whitehouse, and undoubtedly many more, maybe even Bernie Sanders.  .  Could any of them have defeated Trump in the election?  We will never know because Joe Biden froze all of them out of the running, both by running himself and by anointing Kamala Harris as his heir and successor.  I fear that Trump and his minions will do inestimable damage to the government and the nation during this second term.  Some of the damage will be permanent, or as permanent as anything can be government.  Some will be long-lasting but remediable, but only long after I am dead.  The blame for this lies squarely at the feet of Joseph Robinette Biden.

Cliff Bergin Plumbing  (Peter)was here at 8 a.m.  He connected the drainage hose I bought at Ace last week.  $165.20 for a few minutes of work.  It reminded me of the joke about a lawyer complaining to his plumber about the cost of a service call and saying his fee was more than the lawyer charged for his service, to which the plumber responded, "That's why I left lawyering for plumbing."

Oxycodone, 5 mg., is Geri's latest pain med.  I picked it up at the Mequon Walgreens at 9 o'clock this morning.  Here's hoping it works and helps her regain full functionality of her left leg, without the nasty side effects she's been suffering from the other meds.