What Alcohol Does to the Body

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Jim deMaine

From the moment you take a sip, drinking starts to influence your biology. Here’s an inside look.

By Dana G. Smith, Illustrations by Montse Galbany – in the NYT

Dry January has come and gone, but Americans’ relationship with drinking is undergoing a more lasting change. According to one recent poll, just 54 percent of U.S. adults said they consume alcohol, the smallest percentage in nearly 90 years of data collection. That may be because more people are taking alcohol’s negative health consequences seriously.

Drinking alcohol can have profound effects on the brain and body. In the moment, some of those effects can be pleasurable. But in the long term, especially when it’s consumed in large quantities, alcohol can cause serious health harms.

Here’s an inside look at what alcohol does to the body, both while you’re drinking and over time.

In the Brain
Alcohol has a rapid effect in the brain, causing people to feel more relaxed and sociable. That buzzed feeling stems from alcohol’s interactions with several important neurochemicals.

Drinking temporarily increases levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is partly why people feel good when they have a few drinks. It’s also a primary reason why alcohol can be addictive for some.

Alcohol also changes the activity of two neurotransmitters, called glutamate and GABA, that act like the gas and the brakes in the brain. By increasing the effects of GABA (the brakes) and decreasing the effects of glutamate (the gas), alcohol suppresses brain activity.

When brain activity, especially in the frontal cortex, is inhibited, your actions become disinhibited. That’s why you don’t have as much self-control when you drink and may say or do things you wouldn’t otherwise (like that karaoke solo).

It also causes you to have less control over your motor skills, which is why it’s so dangerous to drink and drive. If a person consumes very high levels of alcohol, brain activity can be suppressed to the point of unconsciousness.

Over the long term, alcohol use is associated with changes in brain structure. Some studies have found that middle-aged and older adults who average even one drink a day tend to have slightly less brain volume than people who don’t drink. And the more alcohol someone consumes, the more the brain shrinks. Experts don’t know exactly why that is, but one theory is that alcohol alters the brain’s immune system, ramping up inflammation, which can damage neurons.

In the Mouth and Neck
The tissues that are most at risk from drinking tend to be the ones that come into direct contact with alcohol, including in the mouth and neck.
Alcohol is primarily metabolized in the liver, but the process also occurs in the digestive tract. As soon as alcohol passes through the mouth, it starts to be broken down.

Microbes in the mouth begin to convert alcohol into a compound called acetaldehyde, which then hangs around in the saliva.

Acetaldehyde is nasty stuff. It causes oxidative stress in the cells, which can result in inflammation and tissue damage.

It’s also a carcinogen that can modify DNA, potentially leading to cancer-causing mutations.

Drinking alcohol increases the risk of four types of cancer in the mouth and upper digestive tract: oral, pharyngeal (throat), laryngeal (voice box) and esophageal. The mouth, throat and esophagus are particularly vulnerable since those tissues have some of the greatest exposure to acetaldehyde. According to one analysis, the risk of mouth and throat cancers increases by 13 percent and the risk of esophageal cancer by 26 percent with just one drink per day. For people who have five or more drinks a day, the risk of all three cancers is roughly four times higher.

In the Heart and Chest
A few decades ago, scientists thought alcohol might benefit heart health. But that perspective has changed among some experts in recent years as more research has come to light.Alcohol affects the cardiovascular system in a number of ways, some better understood than others.

While you’re drinking, alcohol causes blood vessels to dilate, bringing blood to the surface of the skin. That’s why people can look flushed and feel warm when they have a cocktail. Dilation is also thought to be one reason heart rate slightly increases and blood pressure slightly decreases, both temporarily, as you imbibe.

Regular alcohol use is associated with higher blood pressure and an increased risk of hypertension. One reason for this could be alcohol’s damaging effect on the cells that line the blood vessels.

Alcohol can also disrupt the heart’s electrical system. Research shows that heavy drinking can cause atrial fibrillation, and some studies suggest that the risk goes up slightly starting at one drink per day. People with atrial fibrillation are more likely to have an arrhythmia event on days that they drink.

For women, regularly having one drink a day increases the odds of developing breast cancer by 10 percent, and two drinks a day raises them by 19 percent. Experts think this may partly be because alcohol increases estrogen levels in the body.

How we choose health experts to talk to. Times reporters often spend weeks interviewing doctors, researchers and other health professionals to help report an article. We seek leaders in their fields, watch out for conflicts of interest and try to get a variety of viewpoints.

Here’s more on our process.
Alcohol’s relationship to heart attack and stroke is more complicated. Heavy drinking (three or more drinks per day) is associated with a higher risk of both. But when it comes to light to moderate drinking (two drinks a day or less), the research is mixed. A few studies suggest a small increased risk of heart attack and stroke starting at one drink a day, but several others report that people who drink in moderation actually have a reduced risk, compared with people who don’t drink at all.

In the Gut
Like the mouth and throat, the stomach and intestines come into direct contact with alcohol and acetaldehyde, making them particularly susceptible to damage.

Alcohol’s effects on the gut range from unpleasant to potentially deadly. When you drink, the valve that separates the stomach from the esophagus relaxes, sometimes resulting in acid reflux.

Alcohol can also cause inflammation in the lining of the stomach, which is why you might have gastrointestinal distress after a night of heavy drinking. Long term, heavy alcohol use can damage the intestinal lining, leading to gastrointestinal bleeding and “leaky gut syndrome,” where food and microbes escape the intestines and enter the bloodstream.

Tissues in the gastrointestinal tract are also prone to alcohol-related cancer. One recent study found that people who consistently averaged two or more drinks per day had a 25 percent increased risk of developing colorectal cancer compared with people who averaged less than one weekly drink.

In the Liver
The liver may be the organ most vulnerable to damage from drinking, and alcohol-related liver disease is the leading cause of death from excessive drinking. After alcohol is digested in the stomach and intestines, it enters the bloodstream and heads to the liver — the primary place alcohol is metabolized in the body.

Enzymes in the liver convert alcohol into acetaldehyde, which wreaks havoc on cells until other enzymes break it down into a more benign compound called acetate. Other organs turn acetate into water and carbon dioxide to be expelled from the body.

In response to the damage caused by acetaldehyde, fat deposits start to build up in the liver, resulting in fatty liver disease, or steatosis.

Those fat deposits can cause an inflammatory response, leading to the second stage of liver disease, steatohepatitis.

If the inflammation goes on for too long, scar tissue, called fibrosis, can develop, which could lead to liver cirrhosis and potentially liver failure.

According to one estimate, 90 percent of people who consume more than four drinks per day have fat deposits on their liver, and 30 percent of people who regularly have three or more drinks a day will develop cirrhosis. The fat deposits, inflammation and early fibrosis can be reversed but advanced liver cirrhosis is permanent.

Like in other parts of the body, heavy drinking also increases the risk of cancer in the liver, because of the DNA damage caused by acetaldehyde.

The facts are sobering, but take note: Experts say that the odds of experiencing health harms from drinking are relatively low if you average one drink a day or less.

The risks go up at eight to 14 weekly drinks, but whether those heightened risks result in an illness often depends on people’s genetics and pre-existing conditions. And if you currently drink heavily, research shows that some of the damage can be reversed if you stop or cut back.


Sources
Dr. Krishna Aragam, the director of cardiovascular genomics at the Cleveland Clinic; Veronika Fedirko, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; Thomas Kash, a professor of pharmacology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Dr. Frances Lee, an assistant professor in the division of liver diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Dr. Gregory Marcus, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco; Dr. Robert Messing, a professor of neurology at the University of Texas at Austin; Anya Topiwala, a senior clinical researcher in psychiatry at the University of Oxford; and Vasilis Vasiliou, a professor of environmental health sciences at Yale University.

Posted in Health | Leave a comment

Twin Cities tow truck driver returns abandoned vehicles to families after ICE arrests

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Jim deMaine

By Ray Campos – CBS Minnesota (thanks to Pam P.)

Juan Leon had only been running his Twin Cities tow truck business, Leo’s Towing, for a few months when he noticed a pattern that kept repeating itself.

Cars were being left behind across the metro area – parked on streets, in parking lots, sometimes for days at a time. The owners were gone, and in many cases, they had been arrested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Seeing there was a need for someone to help out, help clear the streets and get the people back their vehicles. So we stepped up and started doing it,” Leon said.

By late December, Leon and his small towing crew decided to do something about it, all thanks to observers calling in and reporting these vehicles.

“Families reach out to us. If the family isn’t reaching out, we’ll find a way to get inside the vehicle and we’ll bring it back to their house and put it in a safe spot,” Leon said.

They began picking up vehicles and returning them to the families of those arrested, free of charge. 

“We’re able to do this 24/7, so we don’t have to go back to our other jobs,” Leon said.

Donations began pouring in all across the country, supporting Leon’s cause, but not without a cost to their personal safety.

“When they doxxed me, they put all my information out there,” Leon said. “For the last three weeks, we have been getting nothing but death threats.”

Leon sends a “chase” car to check out where these abandoned vehicles are located and arranges discreet drop-offs. Since late December, he estimated they have dropped off 250 cars.

The drop-offs are often emotional for the families and Leon’s crew.

“All I can do is give them a hug and tell them hopefully things will get better,” said Gonzalo Villegas. “Sad isn’t even the word to use. It’s so much stronger than that.”

Despite the emotional strain, the team continues.

“We are going to figure it out day by day if we have to,” Leon said.

Leo’s Tow actively tries to locate family members on their Facebook page and hosts podcasts recapping their weeks returning vehicles.

Leo’s Tow will be hosting a charity event on Sunday at Lito’s Burritos in Minneapolis.

Posted in Immigration, Kindness, Volunteering | Leave a comment

But it’s just a game!

Posted on February 15, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Thanks to Mike Ca.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Dear World, We’re so sorry!

Posted on February 14, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Thanks to John R.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A Valentine’s day tragedy & a reformist President

Posted on February 14, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Commentary by Heather Cox Richardson

Ed note: I’ve loved reading about Teddy Roosevelt–such a unique American personality. If you want a pretty complete picture consider the Edmund Morris Trilogy: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (covers pre-presidency), Theodore Rex (presidency), and Colonel Roosevelt (post-Presidency). Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt (1981) by David McCullough focuses on his childhood, family, and young adulthood.

On Valentine’s Day in 1884, Theodore Roosevelt lost both his wife and his mother.

Four years before, Roosevelt could not have imagined the tragedy that would stun him in 1884. February 14, 1880, marked one of the happiest days of his life. He and the woman he had courted for more than a year, Alice Hathaway Lee, had just announced their engagement. Roosevelt was over the moon: “I can scarcely realize that I can hold her in my arms and kiss her and caress her and love her as much as I choose,” he recorded in his diary. What followed were, according to Roosevelt, “three years of happiness greater and more unalloyed than I have ever known fall to the lot of others.”

After they married in fall 1880, the Roosevelts moved into the home of Theodore’s mother, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, in New York City. There they lived the life of wealthy young socialites, going to fancy parties and the opera and traveling to Europe. When Roosevelt was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1881, they moved to the bustling town of Albany, where the state’s political wire-pullers worked their magic. Roosevelt’s machine politician colleagues derided the rich, Harvard-educated young man as a “dude,” and they tried to ignore his irritating interest in reforming society.

In the summer of 1883, Alice discovered that she was pregnant, and that fall she moved back to New York City to live with her mother-in-law. There she awaited the birth of the child who Theodore was certain would arrive on February 14.

As headstrong as her father, Roosevelt’s daughter beat her father’s prediction by two days. On February 12, Alice gave birth to the couple’s first child, who would be named after her. Roosevelt was at work in Albany and learned the happy news by telegram. But Alice was only “fairly well,” Roosevelt noted. She soon began sliding downhill. She did not recover from the birth; she was suffering from something at the time called “Bright’s Disease,” an unspecified kidney illness.

Roosevelt rushed back to New York City, but by the time he got there at midnight on February 13, Alice was slipping into a coma. Distraught, he held her until he received word that his mother was dangerously ill downstairs. For more than a week, “Mittie” Roosevelt had been sick with typhoid. Roosevelt ran down to her room, where she died shortly after her son reached her bedside. With his mother gone, Roosevelt hurried back to Alice. Only hours later she, too, died.

On February 14, 1884, Roosevelt slashed a heavy black X in his diary and wrote “The light has gone out of my life.” He refused ever to mention Alice again.

Roosevelt’s profound personal tragedy turned out to have national significance. The diseases that killed his wife and mother were diseases of filth and crowding—the hallmarks of the growing Gilded Age American cities. Mittie contracted typhoid from either food or water that had been contaminated by sewage, since New York City did not yet treat or manage either sewage or drinking water. Alice’s disease was probably caused by a strep infection, which incubated in the teeming city’s tenements, where immigrants, whose wages barely kept food on the table, crowded together.

Roosevelt had been interested in urban reform because he worried that incessant work and unhealthy living conditions threatened the ability of young workers to become good citizens. Now, though, it was clear that he, and other rich New Yorkers, had a personal stake in cleaning up the cities and making sure employers paid workers a living wage.

The tragedy gave him a new political identity that enabled him to do just that. Ridiculed as a “dude” in his early career, Roosevelt changed his image in the wake of the events of February 1884. Desperate to bury his feelings for Alice along with her, Roosevelt escaped to Dakota Territory, to a ranch in which he had invested the previous year. There he rode horses, roped cattle, and toyed with the idea of spending the rest of his life as a western rancher. The brutal winter of 1886–1887 changed his mind. Months of blizzards and temperatures as low as –41 degrees killed off 80% of the Dakota cattle herds. More than half of Roosevelt’s cattle died.

Roosevelt decided to go back to eastern politics, but this time, no one would be able to make fun of him as a dude. In an era when the independent American cowboy dominated the popular imagination, Roosevelt now had credentials as a westerner. He ran for political office as a western cowboy taking on corruption in the East. And, with that cowboy image, he overtook his eastern rivals.

Eventually, Roosevelt’s successes made establishment politicians so nervous they tried to bury him in what was then seen as the graveyard of the vice presidency. Then, in 1901, an unemployed steelworker assassinated President William McKinley and put Roosevelt—“that damned cowboy,” as one of McKinley’s advisers called him—into the White House.

Once there, he worked to clean up the cities and stop the exploitation of workers, backing the urban reforms that were the hallmark of the Progressive Era.

[Photo of Theodore Roosevelt’s diary, Library of Congress.]

Posted in Government, History | Leave a comment

A letter to Pam Bondi

Posted on February 14, 2026 by Jim deMaine

by John Pavlovitz – He is an American former youth pastor and author, known for his social and political writings from a liberal Christian perspective. (thanks to John R.)

Dear Ms Bondi,

I’m writing to you as an American citizen, a former pastor, and the father of a daughter.

I spent today, as much of the nation, watching you speak before the House Judiciary Committee in a state of stunned disbelief, which surprised me, as I thought you’d reached a moral bottom many weeks ago.

I witnessed you posturing and protesting, feigning indignation in the face of reasonable questions you repeatedly refused to answer.

I looked on as you deflected and pivoted, performing the wildest verbal gymnastics to keep from providing the simple clarity that our elected representatives asked for and deserved—and wondered why anyone would do that.

I sat incredulous, watching you appear to lie with great ease, even joy, seeming to contradict both irrefutable evidence and your own words in the past. It was a tour de force in distraction, a true masterclass in gaslighting.

And while a thousand thoughts ran through my head, when it was over, I was left with a single question:

How does someone become Pam Bondi?

I’m not speaking about your education, your professional experience, or your career path, which are easily retrieved. I’m talking about the meandering road to losing one’s soul.

I wonder how an apparently intelligent human being finds themselves sitting in that chair in front of the watching world in a moment of such gravity, so completely bereft of empathy, so seemingly unencumbered by other people’s suffering, and so strident in the face of simple accountability.

I try to imagine how you, the person entrusted with stewarding the Law in the highest seat of power here, arrives at a place where that Law has seemingly become irrelevant.

Are the money and the power so intoxicating that they have rendered your conscience inoperable?

Has your journey been filled with a million small moral compromises that burdened you in the beginning, but slowly emotionally anesthetized you to the point that now you feel nothing?

Are you so beholden to the man who enabled your ascension to this lofty space that you are willing to shield him from the litany of heinous sins that you must know well he is guilty of?

Maybe you don’t even have the answers.

Maybe you can’t explain it either, though I’m sure there’s a story you have to tell yourself to keep the self-loathing at bay and let you sleep at night.

I see that you do not have children of your own. Perhaps if you did, you might see this all differently, I don’t know. It certainly shouldn’t take that.

But you are someone’s daughter, and I do wonder how that girl became the woman sitting there at that table today, so dismissive of other women who have survive trauma. I imagine there may be some answers there somewhere.

But as the father of a daughter, I want you to know that I fully detest what you are doing to so many other people’s children right now.

I abhor your callous disregard for the daughters who stood courageously before you today, whose eyes you did not have the dignity to look into; women whose cavernous hell you know full well, because you’ve pored over it countless times in words, photos, and videos.

It sickens me to my core to know that thousands of survivors, girls and young women not unlike my daughter, have experienced unspeakable horrors and are finding in you, not a fierce and willing advocate, not a steadfast warrior who will deliver them justice, but a shame-throwing avatar of the men who brutalized them.

I’m not sure what you believe in, but I am a person of faith, and my religious tradition tells me that we will all face accountability for our misdeeds and transgressions beyond this life, even if we evade them in this one. That possibility does provide a small bit of comfort, but I hope you don’t have to wait that long.

I hope that you will face a legal reckoning for any betrayals of our nation that you are guilty of, for the chaos you are willfully creating, and most of all for the sorrow you are exacerbating for the daughters (and the sons) throughout this nation who feel less safe and less protected.

They are afraid because the Law seems to be refusing to drag the monsters out into the light, because people like you appear so willing to curate the darkness.

I hope whatever you got for your soul was worth it to you.

It sure as hell isn’t for the rest of us.

Sincerely,

John Pavlovitz

Posted in Essays | Leave a comment

Valentine Football

Posted on February 14, 2026 by Jim deMaine
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New Medicare Changes in 2026: Prior Approval Required for These 17 Services — affecting those who have Original Medicare

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Today I received an email from a friend in another CCRC who has need of a steroid injection for a very painful bulging low back disc and a facet joint cyst. Coverage was turned down by Virtix Health, a Medicare contracted reviewing company. I guess we’re in a new world. Thanks to Dr. Oz, Washington is one of those states where specific procedures are being evaluated by artificial intelligence, then quite often rejected for coverage. Here’s the list of conditions and the states involved.

Unfortunately, these reviewing companies are paid by Medicare to review these procedures and receive their compensation from denials. She was told that there is no appeal process when she was denied coverage for her procedure, so I advised her to check with the Washington State Insurance Commissioner.

It should be noted that Medicare Advantage costs the government (taxpayers) 20% more than Original Medicare. The Advantage programs are for-profit and favored by the insurance industry. Original Medicare has a much lower overhead and has patients, not stockholders, first in consideration.



Posted in Health, Insurance | 2 Comments

Sugar, Bad Bunny and the Americas

Posted on February 10, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Commentary by Heather Cox Richardson

Last night’s thirteen-minute Super Bowl half-time show featuring Bad Bunny had more watchers than any other halftime show in history: an estimated 135 million watched live, while millions more have streamed it since. Rapper, singer, and record producer Bad Bunny, whose given name is ​​Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is from Puerto Rico, and rocketed to prominence with the release of his first hit single on January 25, 2016. On February 1, 2026, just a week before the halftime show, Bad Bunny made history by being the first artist to win Album of the Year at the Grammys for an album recorded in Spanish.

Right-wing critics complained about the NFL’s invitation for Bad Bunny to do the halftime show, saying he was “not an American artist.”

In fact, people born in Puerto Rico are American citizens. But Puerto Rico has an odd relationship with the United States government, a relationship born of the combination of late-nineteenth-century economics and U.S. racism.

In the 1880s, large companies in various industries gobbled up their competitors to create giant “trusts” that monopolized their sector of the economy. The most powerful trust in the United States was the Sugar Trust, officially known as the American Sugar Refining Company, which by 1895 controlled about 95% of the U.S. sugar market. Thanks to pressure from the Sugar Trust, in 1890, Congress passed the McKinley Tariff, which ended sugar tariffs and tried to increase domestic production by offering a bounty on domestic sugar.

This privileged domestic producers, and in 1893, sugar growers in Hawaii staged a coup to overthrow the Hawaiian queen and asked Congress to admit the islands as an American state. President Benjamin Harrison, a friend and confidant of tariff namesake William McKinley, cheerfully backed annexation, but before the treaty could be approved, an 1894 law reinstated the duties on sugar and ended the bounties. Voters elected President Grover Cleveland later that year, and with Hawaiians furiously protesting against the machinations of an American business ring, Cleveland insisted on an investigation, and Hawaiian statehood stalled.

When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, the Senate still did not have enough votes to admit Hawaii, so Congress annexed it by a joint resolution and McKinley, now president, signed the measure. As the popular magazine Harper’s Weekly put it in a cartoon with a little boy dressed in the symbols of the American flag eating candy, America was swallowing “sugar plums.” (continued on Page 2 or here)

Pages: 1 2
Posted in Government, History | Leave a comment

I’m the Prime Minister of Spain. This Is Why the West Needs Migrants.

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Jim deMaine

By Pedro Sánchez in the New York Times

Mr. Sánchez is the prime minister of Spain. He wrote from Madrid.

Imagine you’re the leader of a nation, and you face a dilemma. Half a million or so people who are crucial to everyone’s daily lives inhabit your country. They care for aging parents, work at small and large companies, harvest the food that’s on the table. They are also part of your community. On weekends, they walk in the parks, go to restaurants and play on the local amateur soccer team.

But one crucial thing makes these half a million people different from other people in your country: They don’t have the legal documents that allow them to live there. As a result, they don’t have the same rights as your country’s citizens and can’t fulfill the same obligations. They aren’t able to receive a higher education, pay taxes or contribute to Social Security.

What should we do with these people? Some leaders have chosen to hunt them down and deport them through operations that are both unlawful and cruel. My government has chosen a different way: a fast and simple path to regularize their immigration status. Last month, my government issued a decree that makes up to half a million undocumented migrants living in Spain eligible for temporary residence permits, with certain conditions, which they will be able to renew after a year.

We have done this for two reasons. The first and most important is a moral one. Spain was once a nation of emigrants. Our grandparents, parents and children moved to America and elsewhere in Europe seeking a better future in the 1950s and 1960s and after the 2008 financial crisis. Now, the tables have turned. Our economy is flourishing. Foreigners are moving to Spain. It is our duty to become the welcoming and tolerant society that our own relatives would have hoped to find on the other side of our borders.

The second reason we committed to regularization is purely pragmatic. The West needs people. Currently, few of its countries have a rising population growth rate. Unless they embrace migration, they will experience a sharp demographic decline that will prevent them from keeping their economies and public services afloat. Their gross domestic products will stagnate. Their public health care and pension systems will suffer. Neither A.I. nor robots will be able to prevent this outcome, at least not in the short or medium term. The only option to avoid decline is to integrate migrants in the most orderly and effective way possible.

It won’t be easy. We know that. Migration brings opportunities, but also huge challenges that we must acknowledge and face. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that most of those challenges have nothing to do with migrants’ ethnicity, race, religion or language. Rather, they are driven by the same forces that affect our own citizens: poverty, inequality, unregulated markets, barriers to education and health care. We should focus our efforts on addressing those issues, because they are the real threats to our way of life.

Not many governments agree with regularizing migrants today. But more people do than we often assume. The regularization effort underway in Spain actually began as a citizen-led initiative endorsed by more than 900 nongovernmental organizations, including the Catholic Church, and it has the support of business associations and trade unions alike. More important, it is backed by the people: According to a recent poll, nearly two of three Spaniards believe that migration represents an opportunity or a necessity for our country.

MAGA-style leaders may say that our country can’t handle taking in so many migrants—that this is a suicidal move, the desperate act of a collapsing country. But don’t let them fool you. Spain is booming. For three years running, we have had the fastest-growing economy among Europe’s largest countries. We have created nearly one in every three new jobs across the European Union, and our unemployment rate has fallen below 10 percent for the first time in nearly two decades. Our workers’ purchasing power has also grown, and poverty and inequality levels have dropped to their lowest since 2008. This prosperity is the result of Spanish citizens’ hard work, the E.U.’s collective effort and an inclusive agenda that views migrants as necessary partners.

What is working for us can work for others. The time has come for leaders to speak clearly to their citizens about the dilemma we all face. We, as Western nations, must choose between becoming closed and impoverished societies or open and prosperous ones. Growth or retreat: Those are the two options before us. And by growth, I’m not talking only about material gain, but also our spiritual development.

Governments can buy into the zero-sum thinking of the far-right and retreat into isolation, scarcity, selfishness and decline. Or they can harness the very same forces that, not without difficulties, have allowed our societies to thrive for centuries.

For me, the choice is clear. And for the sake of our prosperity and human dignity, I hope many others will follow suit.

Posted in Government, Immigration, Justice, Law, Morality, Social justice | Leave a comment

The Globalization of Canadian Rage

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Jim deMaine

By Stephen Marche in the New York Times

Mr. Marche is the author, most recently, of “The Next Civil War.” He wrote from Toronto, where he lives.

The defiance against America that has consumed Canadian life for over a year now has finally spread to the rest of the West. The message of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos last month — that of a “rupture in the world order” — was not new for Canadians. Just after his election in April, Mr. Carney declared that “our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over.” At Davos, the moment caught up with him, and with Canada.

Throughout last year, the consensus among many European policymakers in the face of Donald Trump’s bombast was to wait out the nonsense and appease when possible. Mr. Carney’s speech arrived at the exact point at which that position proved untenable: Mr. Trump’s intensifying threats to forcibly annex Greenland, not to mention his insults to NATO troops who fought and died alongside U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. “They stayed a little back, little off the front lines” is a statement that will be remembered in Europe alongside “Ich bin ein Berliner” and “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” as a presidential remark that embodies the American spirit of its moment. Suddenly, Mr. Trump’s mindless drive toward territorial expansion and his desire to humiliate and degrade were impossible to ignore.

For Canada, though, America’s disrespect and intimidation are now standard issue. The U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, seems to have been installed primarily as an insult engine, tasked mainly with belittling his hosts whenever and wherever possible. (His advice to Canadians upset by Mr. Trump’s remarks that Canada should be the 51st American state: “Move on.”) Recent revelations that U.S. officials have been meeting with Albertan separatists have indicated that the Trump administration may not have given up on the idea of Canada’s dissolution. Threatening one’s neighbors, as Canada has learned the hard way over the last year, is a hallmark of autocracy-minded leaders.

Mr. Carney’s speech went beyond diagnosis, though. It also gestured toward a way out. The U.S. president left Greenland alone in part because Denmark and its allies put more troops there. He backed off from recent tariff threats in January as the European Union debated deploying the Anti-Coercion Instrument, a tool kit of retaliatory measures also known as the “trade bazooka.” The lesson: America might be pointing a gun at you, but it can be made to behave if you point a gun back. (continued on Page 2 or here)

Pages: 1 2
Posted in Essays, Government, Law, Military, Politics | Leave a comment

A once-in-a-generation moment at MOHAI

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Thanks to Mary M.

This summer, MOHAI is proud to host the Freedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation. This landmark exhibit from the National Archives will bring some of the rarest and most important original documents in American history to eight venues nationwide, including Seattle, for a limited time.

From July 30–August 16, 2026, MOHAI will host this important exhibit featuring original founding-era documents on loan from the National Archives.

Through these extraordinary records, visitors will explore the ideas, ideals, and debates that continue to influence American civic life today. Presented free and open to all, the Freedom Plane National Tour in Seattle invites audiences to experience the nation’s founding in an immediate and tangible way.

Posted in Government, History | Leave a comment

Who‘s Really Behind the MAHA Movement?

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Paul Offit in Substack (thanks to Ed M.)

RFK Jr. rails endlessly against Big Pharm and Big Food. And, in many instances, for good reason. But there is one group that he never criticizes: Big Wellness. There’s a reason for that. No group benefits more from, or has closer ties to, the MAHA movement.

On March 24, 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate published, “The Disinformation Dozen,” which described the 12 people or groups that had provided the most disinformation about vaccines. Virtually all were funded by the wellness industry, which—with its array of vitamins, supplements, and other promised therapies—has for decades served as a counter to mainstream medicine and science. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that when RFK Jr. became Secretary of Health and Human Services, he would resist any attempts to regulate this industry. “Supplements are a $70 billion industry,” wrote the Wall Street Journal, “and RFK Jr. is good for business.” Jonathan Emord, general counsel for the Alliance for Natural Health, saw the appointment of RFK Jr. to head Health and Human Services as a chance to move the wellness industry to the center of public health. “The greatest opportunity of our lifetimes is before us,” he said.

On June 6, 2025, RFK Jr. said that he will “end the war against alternative medicine at the FDA.” Specifically, he wanted to open the door for unregulated, often bogus, and potentially deadly treatments for a variety of chronic problems, focusing on chelation, stem cells, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). The FDA regulates vaccines, drugs, biologicals, and gene therapies among other treatments and preventives. If these products work and are safe, then companies receive a license to sell them. If they don’t work or are unsafe, then companies don’t receive a license. RFK Jr. now wants to limit the FDA’s ability to restrict therapies that are potentially dangerous. For example:

Stem cells. Stem cells divide to become a variety of different cell types that can support the function of many different organs. Usually, they are harvested from the bone marrow, manipulated in the lab, and implanted back into the patient. Stem cells have been used to successfully treat leukemia, lymphoma, neuroblastoma, and multiple myeloma. Sadly, wellness centers are offering stem cells that are drawn from the patient’s body and injected back without manipulation that are claimed to treat autism and Parkinson’s disease, all without evidence. In 2021, the FDA warned the public about these wellness communities.

Chelation. Chelation is the process by which certain chemicals are administered intravenously to remove heavy metals like mercury or lead from the body after massive exposure. The FDA has approved chelation therapy in these situations but only by prescription and only under the supervision of a doctor. But, again, the wellness community has stepped in with their false claims of chelation as a cure for autism, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, high blood pressure, and Parkinson’s disease, all without proof. The FDA has warned that chelation to treat non-approved indications “can lead to serious and life-threatening outcomes.” Indeed, on August 23, 2005, a 5-year-old boy named Tariq Nadama died from a heart attack following chelation therapy.

Hyperbaric oxygen. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), another favorite of the wellness community, is an FDA approved treatment for burns, radiation injury, certain wounds, and decompression sickness encountered by divers. The wellness industry also offers HBOT for variety of unapproved treatments, including autism, arguing that children just need more oxygen to the brain. Although HBOT has never been shown to treat autism, according to RFK Jr., that doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that people believe that it works. In January 2025, a 5-year-old boy was killed in an HBOT chamber in a wellness center in Michigan after static electricity sparked a flash fire inside the chamber. A few months later, in May 2025, RFK Jr. joined a wellness influencer and supplement seller named Gary Brecka for an HBOT treatment as well as some intravenous nutrient drips. When they finished, RFK Jr. joined Brecka for a podcast decrying the undue influence of Big Pharma.

On January 13, 2026, under pressure from RFK Jr., the FDA has now deleted its warnings about the harm of bogus autism therapies. The FDA webpage previously titled “Be Aware of Potentially Dangerous Products and Therapies that Claim to Treat Autism” is now defunct. Kaiser Family Foundation Health News recently reported that Kennedy and his allies have made millions promoting unproven wellness products—a $6.3 trillion worldwide industry. RFK Jr. is not about to let the FDA restrict the industry that supports him and his MAHA movement. He’s not going to bite the hand that feeds him.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Pick your pain

Posted on February 8, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Thanks to Mike Ca.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The hoped for Superbowl!

Posted on February 8, 2026 by Jim deMaine
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Something to think about

Posted on February 8, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Thanks to John R.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

David Brooks moves on to The Atlantic

Posted on February 6, 2026 by Jim deMaine

In his final column in the New York Times, David Brooks sums up the way he views the decline of American culture–without providing much hope going forward.

Here is his new adventure in academia (according to ChatGPT)

As of February 1, 2026, David Brooks has left The New York Times to join The Atlantic as a staff writer and become the inaugural Presidential Senior Fellow at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. His new role includes hosting a weekly video podcast for The Atlantic exploring human decency and institutional roles. 

Key details of his 2026 projects:

  • The Atlantic: He will serve as a staff writer and host a new weekly video podcast focused on the moral, social, and philosophical underpinnings of human decency.
  • Yale University: As the first Presidential Senior Fellow at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, he will convene campus conversations, hold lectures, and develop public-facing programming.
  • Focus: His work will emphasize fostering respectful debate and connecting university scholarship to broader public discourse. 

This five-year appointment follows a 22-year tenure at The New York Times. 

Posted in Media | Leave a comment

Keep Whistling!

Posted on February 5, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Thanks to Mary M.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Keep Whistling!

Report from The Needling

Posted on February 5, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Ed note: The Needling can be accessed here. Noting that they are Seattle’s Only Real Fake News. It’s a fun site, a bit like the Onion.

Hope you all had a happy Geoduck Day and are acclimating well to our ever escalating elevations of dystopia during this beautiful fake spring! We’re looking at headlines for February, so send on over any you’ve been working on by this Sunday, Feb. 8. Obviously, send any timely headlines for stuff like the Super Bowl or Olympics opening ceremonies before not after! Here’s what’s coming up on the calendar:

February – Black History Month

Feb. 6 – Winter Olympics opening ceremony (will run until Feb. 22)

Feb. 8 – Super Bowl (Bad Bunny Halftime Show)

Feb. 9 – National Pizza Day

Feb. 13 – Galentine’s Day/Deadline for Congress to agree to long-term funding for ICE

Feb. 14 – Valentine’s Day

Feb. 15 – World Whale Day/Enchantments Lottery Opens

Feb. 16 – President’s Day

Feb. 17 – Lunar New Year & Year of the Horse/Ramadan/Mardi Gras

Feb. 20 – First Mariners spring training game

Feb. 18 – Ash Wednesday, Lent begins

Feb. 22 – First Sounders game of season at home/Cardi B at Climate Pledge

Feb. 27 – Seattle Torrent (women’s hockey) back in Seattle at Climate Pledge against Toronto Scepters

Local News

Sports

-The Seahawks are in the Super Bowl this weekend against the Patriots

-Kraken are doing relatively well – were at top of their division for a sec.  

-Mariners begin spring training on Feb. 20

-First Sounders game of season comes up on Feb. 22  

– Seattle Torrent (women’s hockey) back in Seattle at Climate Pledge against Toronto Scepters

– Gov. Bob Ferguson is meeting with the NBA Commissioner today (?!)

Politics

– Gov. Bob Ferguson has said he doesn’t support the version of the Millionaire’s Tax that state legislature Democrats support. Legislators are looking to use the tax money to better fund things like public education. Ferguson wants to more directly give the money back to people with lower incomes (which leaves some very big holes in the budget, and he’s choosing to handle that with more cuts than more revenue). If you are in favor of the tax, let it be known by signing PRO on this before it gets its first committee hearing this Friday: https://app.leg.wa.gov/csi/Testifier/Add?chamber=Senate&mId=33844&aId=170067&caId=28047&tId=3

–2 Line light rail “Crosslake Connection” will finally cross Lake Washington on March 28! Seattle and Bellevue will finally be besties. 😉

-If you care about affordable housing, check out the lengths Bainbridge Island is going to block more housing being built over there. Peak NIMBYness!

–Mayor Katie Wilson is a month into being Seattle mayor and so far:

  • She’s starting a mayor’s survey of renters to address policy that will maybe target things like junk fees when applying to rent and paying for it online
  • She’s still facing questions about what she’s going to do to curb or cut surveillance technology ICE has been known to use to target people.
  • She’s mandated that SPD document what’s happening when ICE is reported to be abducting people. Other policies she’s announced include banning ICE from operating on or out of any city property.

Entertainment

-The Crocodile is up for sale.

-Cardi B concert is coming to town!

Posted in Humor, In the Neighborhood, Politics, Satire | Comments Off on Report from The Needling

Friday, February 6 at 11:00am – Health Care Lecture: How to Sleep Better in Retirement by Dr. Branon Peters-Mathews

Posted on February 5, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Ed note: Hope to see you in the MBR Friday (tomorrow). Brandon is back by popular demand for his excellent presentations on sleep disorders and how we can deal with them. In addition to the common sleep disorders like sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome, he has special expertise in insomnia–an often difficult problem to solve.

Brandon Peters-Mathews, MD, FAASM, is board-certified in both neurology and sleep medicine by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and currently practices and serves as the Section Head of Sleep Medicine at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He is the creator of the Insomnia Solved program and author of Sleep Through Insomnia and The Sleep Apnea Hypothesis. He has worked in sleep medicine for 25 years with extensive clinical and research experiences in the field.

Posted in Aging Sites, Health | Comments Off on Friday, February 6 at 11:00am – Health Care Lecture: How to Sleep Better in Retirement by Dr. Branon Peters-Mathews

Finding Dignity, Hope and Healing at the End

Posted on February 5, 2026 by Jim deMaine
Town Hall Seattle and Northwest Center for Creative Aging present
Dr. Jim deMaine with Rebecca Crichton
Finding Dignity, Hope, and Healing at the End 

Science event tag
Mon 3/9 at 7:30PM | $10-$35 Sliding Scale | In-Person

Join Dr. Jim deMaine, a pulmonary/critical care physician, and Rebecca Crichton, Executive Director of Northwest Center for Creative Aging, to discuss our choices when seriously ill. Do advance directives really work? How can we advocate for ourselves and our loved ones? Jim draws from his book Facing Death: Finding Dignity, Hope, and Healing at the End, a memoir about helping us plan for a more peaceful, healing death.

Tickets to this event are free for ages 22 and under. Get Tickets
Posted in Advocacy, Aging Sites, end of life, Health, Hospice, Law | Comments Off on Finding Dignity, Hope and Healing at the End

Blue and Green

Posted on February 3, 2026 by Jim deMaine

David Horsey

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Blue and Green

American Democracy Will Not Die in Darkness

Posted on February 3, 2026 by Jim deMaine

Paul Krugman (thanks to Diana C.)

ICE in Minneapolis: Schools go remote as protests grow
Broad daylight, actually

The Washington Post adopted the slogan “Democracy dies in darkness” in February 2017. Some found it pompous, but it reflected a widespread theory about how authoritarianism could come to America. This theory, based on the experience of democratic erosion in nations like Hungary and the work of scholars like Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, argued that autocracy wouldn’t be imposed by armed men beating and killing the regime’s opponents.

Authoritarian rule, would, instead, be installed through a gradual process of subversion. Key institutions, especially the news media, would be coopted or deprived of financing. Businesses would knuckle under so as not to be shut out of crony capitalism. Dissenters would be marginalized rather than sent to gulags.

The trajectory of the Post itself shows how that could work. The newspaper that broke the story of Watergate and brought down Richard Nixon has been Bezosified, its editorial independence destroyed and its newsroom increasingly eviscerated. Many other institutions, from other media organizations to some universities to law firms, have also become enablers of the regime. Big business has caved almost completely.

But it turns out that predictions of creeping authoritarianism both underestimated and overestimated MAGA. Almost everyone, myself included, underestimated how far MAGA would go in engaging in open violence and abuse of power against those it considers enemies. On the other hand, we overestimated the movement’s impulse control, its ability to mask its tyrannical goals until its power was fully consolidated.

As Steven Levitsky said in a recent interview, comparing Donald Trump with Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban,

Orbán doesn’t arrest journalists. And in Hungary if you walk the streets of Budapest or other Hungarian cities, you will not find heavily armed masked men abducting people. That doesn’t happen in Hungary.

The startling extremism of the Trump regime, even compared with other modern wannabe dictatorships, is obvious to the naked eye. But I always find quantification useful. So I was very pleased to see that the estimable John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times has risen to the occasion, producing an index of democratic backsliding that lets us compare the trajectory of the United States under Trump with those of other nations we used to view as cautionary tales. (I’ve looked at how the index is constructed, and it’s reasonable.) We’re on a uniquely steep descent, at least for modern times:

It’s a horrifying picture. Yet the flip side of the naked extremism of the MAGA power grab is that it has produced a remarkably strong backlash. The size and determination of civil resistance to ICE has been incredible and inspiring, like nothing we’ve seen since the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Republicans are being punished at the polls: On Saturday a deep-red Texas Senate district that went Trump +17 in 2024 voted in a Democrat with a 15-point margin.

I keep asking two questions as ICE runs wild. First, what is the strategy here? How do Trump, Stephen Miller, etc. think this is going to work for them? Maybe their initial belief was that a display of force would shock and awe their opponents into submission. It’s not happening, yet they just keep ramping up the threats and violence, apparently not knowing how to do anything else.

The obvious answer is that there isn’t any strategy. These people aren’t evil masterminds — evil, yes, but masterminds, no. They’re just thugs too crude and undisciplined to control their own thuggishness. They were caught off guard by the strength of the resistance because the very concept of citizens standing up for their principles is alien to them, and they still can’t believe it’s real.

The second question is, how does this end? Most immediately, what will happen during and after the midterm elections? Everything points to a blue wave in November. Yet many people in MAGA simply can’t accept losing power — among other things, their actions over the past year mean that if they lose power, many of them will go to jail.

Trump is now calling for “nationalizing” the midterms, meaning to put voting and the counting of votes under his administration’s control. He can’t do that, but his demand is a clear sign that he will not accept the public’ s verdict in November.

So it’s just being realistic to say that MAGA will try, somehow, to prevent voters from having their say. Will ICE try to prevent blue districts from voting? If that fails, will they reject the results, in a midterm version of Jan. 6? Call me alarmist, but remember: The alarmists have been right, and the people telling us to calm down have been wrong, every step of the way.

A few commenters on this video called it “woke propaganda.” And it’s true that it offers a vision of multi-cultural, multiracial harmony (literally.) I think it’s beautiful.

Posted in Government, Immigration | Comments Off on American Democracy Will Not Die in Darkness

Update from Olympia – House Bill 2384-S

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Jim deMaine

February 2, 2026

On Wednesday January 28th, the House Health Care and Wellness Committee passed on to the full House an amended bill, HB 2384-S, requiring actuarial reporting for some CCRCs to be reviewed by the Office of the Insurance Commissioner (OIC).

The bill also creates a link to the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) website where registered CCRCs are listed. The list will allow residents and prospective residents to access the OIC’s report on a CCRC’s actuarial balance.

The bill was sponsored by Representatives Macri, Reed, Street, Thomas, Ormsby, Scott, Goodman, Hill, Thai, and Bernbaum.

This win is bitter-sweet as the new actuarial requirement will not apply to every CCRC. WACCRA fought to have all CCRCs that provide any extended health care services on any type of discounted basis – whether a set number of days or a discounted rate – to be subject to this new requirement. We did not prevail. The bill only calls for CCRCs that offer contracts that are considered “type A” to be subject to OIC review.

HB 2384-S represents an incremental improvement in financial transparency and potentially acknowledges in law the relevance and importance of actuarial analysis and state oversight. We have asked the committee to continue to work with the stakeholders – WACCRA, LeadingAge of Washington, CCRC management – to identify a mechanism to ensure all CCRCs receive financial reporting oversight during the coming months. Our goal is to bring financial oversight to all CCRCs in Washington.

Next steps are for the bill to be heard by the Appropriations Committee. It will be heard on Thursday February 5th at 10:30.

Posted in CCRC Info | Comments Off on Update from Olympia – House Bill 2384-S

Trump Is About to Find Out What Every Bully in History Has Found Out

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Jim deMaine

The New Republic and Michael Tomasky

Donald Trump walks off the stage past a map.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Getty Images

In 2025, Donald Trump scared people. And institutions. Go back in your mind to the way he came out of the gate, gunning the accelerator on every front. Pardoning the insurrectionists. Dismantling the executive branch. Firing inspectors general and heads and members of independent commissions. Arresting people for writing op-eds. Threatening universities and law firms. Shipping people off to El Salvador.

That was Round One in the Trump boxing match against reality, and for a time, Trump was winning. The shock felt from his attacks on political opponents and institutions left them flat-footed. Some prominent law firms caved to Trump’s threats and agreed to do pro bono work for his pet causes. Universities cut deals to stay out of his gunsights. Media companies capitulated. Amazon decided to make a movie about Melania (it debuts at the end of the month at—you guessed it—the “Trump-Kennedy Center”). Trump’s power reached from the normal political realm down into the culture itself. A number of firms and universities and others fought him, but the general cultural vibe was very much in the direction of trying to stay in line—the better to avoid the tyrant’s attention—or actively trying to win it with embarrassing acts of sycophancy.

Now we’re at the start of Round Two of the boxing match, and I smell something changing. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have been impressively uncompromising—and uncompromised, which is more important—in their public statements since ICE hit town and executed a blameless U.S. citizen. Trump and the cowardly Pam Bondi (does she understand how the history books will treat her?) launched investigations into the two men. Walz and Frey responded by saying, in essence, Bring it on. Said Walz: “Two days ago, it was Elissa Slotkin. Last week, it was Jerome Powell. Before that, Mark Kelly. Weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is a dangerous, authoritarian tactic. The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her.” (Hey, good idea, governor: How about the state of Minnesota or the city of Minneapolis arrest Jonathan Ross?)

Over the weekend, three high-ranking American Catholic cardinals denounced Trump (not by name) and his imperial bullying in what was, for cardinals, a strongly worded statement. “Our country’s moral role in confronting evil around the world, sustaining the right to life and human dignity, and supporting religious liberty are all under examination,” they wrote. That followed statements by Pope Leo criticizing Trump for his treatment of immigrants.

Last Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that his country had made a deal with China that would dramatically drop tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and allow nearly 50,000 of them to be sold in Canada. This is a move to keep a close eye on.

Ever watched a video about a Chinese E.V.? I have. These vehicles are good. Maybe not just good. They look amazing. And they’re cheap, comparatively. That’s why Joe Biden imposed a 100 percent tariff on them in 2024—to keep the competition safely on the other side of the planet. Then–Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau followed Biden’s lead and imposed the same level of tariff. Both were protecting their car industries, and this is one form of protectionism that I’d imagine most Americans support: No one wants to see Detroit die.

But Carney, with elbows clearly up, has different ideas. OK, Trump, make all the fifty-first state jokes you want. You think I’ll just let this happen? Well, try this on for size: I’m going to bring Chinese E.V.s onto North American soil.

Detroit must be in a dead panic over this. And Trump is learning that little Canada with its mere 40 million people actually has some leverage over the mighty United States that the bully didn’t think it had.

And if Canada has leverage, what about the EU? The EU is the world’s third-biggest economy, after the United States and China. Does Trump really think he can impose tariffs on the EU over this Greenland madness and the EU won’t retaliate? Trump is set to speak in Davos on Wednesday. EU leaders are scheduled to meet in Brussels on Thursday. They’re not going to take whatever idiocy he launches lying down.

So, all over the place, and in a range of realms, people have started to confront the bully. There remains, however, one group of people, or two closely related groups, that have yet to join the club: corporate America and Wall Street—the biggest cowards in the country.

Why haven’t they? We know why. They’re mostly Republican, and they voted for Trump. They want their tax cuts. They’re terrified of crossing him. They know they helped elect a president bent on weaponizing the civil service to seek revenge on his enemies—and that he’ll order the Justice Department’s antitrust division or the Securities and Exchange Commission or others to go after them in a heartbeat the moment they end up on Trump’s blacklist.

But this too may be starting to change. Detroit, as noted, has to be worried that Trump is setting off a chain of events that may put them out of business. European countries are beefing up their defense spending, which should get a gravy train rolling for American defense giants—but the EU already started freezing out U.S. contractors last fall, and if Trump tries to seize Greenland, U.S. contractors will lose billions in opportunities. And even some Wall Street figures have been critical of Trump recently over the scandalous investigation of Fed Chair Jay Powell and Trump’s proposed credit card interest rate cap.

I’m not expecting much out of these people. They don’t care about anything, really, except their bottom line. But the king’s madness is starting to affect that. If Trump drives this country into a position where most of the world—save Russia, Hungary, Chile, El Salvador, and a handful of other right-wing dys-fantasy lands—wants to do business with China and the EU, corporate America and Wall Street will miraculously find their backbones. And once that happens, Trump won’t have many friends left.

Trump’s shock troops still scare some people on the streets of our country, and tragically so. Over the weekend, I saw a heartbreaking sign posted on the door of a Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis: “WE ARE OPEN,” the sign said. “Please wait for us to unlock the door. Thank you for understanding.” It’s reasonable that those poor people should be scared. What a ghastly sight to see in the United States of America.

But those of us not facing that kind of direct threat? For that cohort, 2026 will not be a repeat of 2025. And the bully will learn what bullies throughout history have learned. Eventually, people decide they have had enough. And “eventually” is coming.

Posted in Essays, Government | Comments Off on Trump Is About to Find Out What Every Bully in History Has Found Out