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Today's Crazypants Roundup

The Trump administration continues to produce news where the common theme, at least from where we sit, is "the opposite of good governance." Under normal circumstances, any one of these stories might have gotten its own item. But these are not normal circumstances, as Donald Trump & Co. continue with the rapid-fire approach that has been characteristic of the early weeks of Trump v2.0 (and, for that matter, the early weeks of Trump v1.0). This being the case, all we can do is run down the long list of stuff that's built up in the past few days:

Before we wrap this up, we want to note a couple of things. First, it is entirely possible that we are misreading at least one of these stories, and giving Trump less credit and/or more criticism than is his due. Fair enough, but we're pretty confident we are not misreading ALL of them, or even MOST of them.

Second, we also recognize that every president engages in some behavior along these lines, whether it's pursuing favored initiatives (even if they are trivial), giving boons to supporters, etc. But the extent to which certain themes run through Trump's governance—score-settling, deciding which media are "in" and which are "out," terminating very capable people due to personal grievances, etc.—cannot be denied. It's not normal, and it's definitely not good governance. (Z)

Welcome to New Denmark

We got a late start tonight, and items like the one above actually take a very long time to write. So, we're just going to add a little bit of a palate cleanser to today's posting and call it a night. The other items we had planned, on Gaza, and on J.D. Vance, and some other subjects, we'll do tomorrow.

And so, let us pass on a story that could work for either schadenfreude or freudenfreude if we held it to Friday. In service of a pro-Denmarkification agenda, some folks in Denmark have organized a petition and a fundraising drive meant to raise "$1 trillion (give or take a few billion)." They observe that it should not be too hard to reach this total: "That's just 200,000 kroner from every Dane. Skip a few lattes, and you're golden." In case you are wondering, 200,000 kroner is about $28,000, or roughly 11 Starbucks venti, triple-shot, half-caf, no foam, extra hot, soy milk lattes.

What do they wish to Denmarkify? Why, California of course. They observe that Donald Trump doesn't like the Golden State anyhow, and so speculate that it might be for sale. The Danes promise to send their "bestest negotiators," namely Lego executives and the cast of Borgen. They say that California will be known as "New Denmark" while Los Angeles will be re-christened as "Løs Ångeles." They promise to bring "hygge to Hollywood, bike lanes to Beverly Hills, and organic smørrebrød to every street corner," although they admit that "Rule of law, universal health care and fact-based politics might apply."

What's in it for the Danes? To start, they look forward to trading their "cozy" weather for "300 days of sunshine a year." They add: "Imagine swapping your rain boots for flip-flops!" The organizers also observe, quite correctly, that California grows 90% of the United States' avocados. "That's right," they write, "We'll never run out of avocado toast!" They also look forward to exporting Danish freedom, which they describe as "the best freedom. Colossal freedom." (They seem to have forgotten that it's also bigly freedom). And the crown jewel, of course, is Disneyland, which will become Hans Christian Andersenland. Mickey Mouse will be allowed to remain, even though he's not an Andersen character, but he will have to start wearing a Viking helmet.

All of this seems perfectly reasonable to us, so we bring it to readers' attention, in case anyone would like to toss in a few kroner to help Måke Califørnia Great Ægain. (Z)


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