The Situation: Some Things That Have Happened

The Situation on Sunday dove into the Supreme Court’s lengthy disquisition, and disputations, on universal injunctions.

Some things have happened over the past few days.

Here is a partial but representative list of them:

●      The Senate—“Time’s worst statute, unrepealed”—passed a bill that will increase the national debt by several trillion dollars by taking away millions of people’s health care to fund continued tax breaks for wealthy people, but not taking away enough people’s health care to make the bill revenue neutral. The bill is now back in the House of Representatives for a final round of shadow puppetry and shows of opposition before Republicans bow and pass it.

●      The administration continued its slow-motion abandonment of Ukraine, loosening sanctions on Russia and cutting off shipments of air defense interceptors to Ukraine as it tries to fight off nightly Russian attacks on its cities and civilian infrastructure.

●      Russia’s other major ally in the war against Ukraine, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, publicly mourned North Koreans killed in the conflict—amid reports that he may send as many as another 30,000 North Korean souls to the front.

●      A Jan. 6 rioter, pardoned by the president, is now working at the Justice Department as counselor to the working group on weaponization of government.

●      Paramount has agreed to pay entities aligned with the president $16 million to settle his libel suit against CBS over its editing of an interview with Kamala Harris. The settlement comes with Paramount hoping to secure regulatory approval for a merger.

●      I failed utterly in my efforts to write a funny column about the Supreme Court and universal injunctions.

●      The president has forced the resignation of the president of the University of Virginia—an entity that supposedly does not report to the federal government.

●      More immigration detention cruelty porn: The president toured a makeshift detention facility under construction in the Florida Everglades that is supposedly surrounded by alligators and pythons. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem boasted that what she called “Alligator Alcatraz” will let the government lock up “some of the worst scumbags who entered our country under the previous administration.” She accompanied the statement with mugshots of what she termed “some of the dangerous criminal illegal aliens arrested by ICE in Florida. These are the types of violent criminal illegal aliens who could end up being detained at Alligator Alcatraz.” The White House is also sharing AI-generated meme art on the subject.

●      American national pride has slipped to a record low in Gallup polling, with only 58 percent of Americans expressing pride in being so—down from more than 90 in the early years of the 21st Century and down from 67 percent the past two years. The unaccountable decline has experts shaking their heads in confusion. Gallup explains the change only by noting that “national unity has eroded over the past 25 years due to a combination of political and generational changes” and points out that the erosion has coincided with “greater pessimism about the economic prospects for young people, widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the nation, greater ideological divides between the parties, unfavorable images of both parties, and intense partisan rancor during the Trump and Biden administrations.” No mention of The Situation.

●      A fireworks warehouse in California has blown up, and seven people are apparently unaccounted for. (No, it’s not relevant to The Situation, but there’s some pretty rad footage. And the company that owned the warehouse is apparently called Devastating Pyrotechnics—which gets better the more you think about it. And the accident happened in, of all placed, Yolo County.)

●      A study published in The Lancet concluded that “USAID funding has significantly contributed to the reduction in adult and child mortality across low-income and middle-income countries over the past two decades. Our estimates show that, unless the abrupt funding cuts announced and implemented in the first half of 2025 are reversed, a staggering number of avoidable deaths could occur by 2030.” What is a “staggering number”? Fourteen million, including four and a half million children under five years old.

●      Secretary of State Marco Rubio cheered the end of the USAID, writing on Substack (yes, everyone has a Substack): “This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end. . . . We will not apologize for recognizing America’s longstanding commitment to life-saving humanitarian aid and promotion of economic development abroad must be in furtherance of an America First foreign policy.”

●      The Justice Department has declared as a civil litigation priority the denaturalization and deportation of naturalized citizens who “unlawfully procured citizenship, including those who obtained it through fraud or concealment of material information, do not maintain the benefits of the unlawful procurement.”

●      Tesla sales are way down.

●      A study of ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian DNA has shown that the two civilizations cross-bred quite a bit, neither being quite as anti-immigrant as the current administration. Apparently, immigration is nothing new.

●      The president has actually nominated Alina Habba to be the permanent U.S. Attorney in New Jersey. The state’s two senators, both Democrats, responded with a statement: “In her short tenure as interim US Attorney, she has degraded the office and pursued frivolous and politically motivated prosecutions. It’s clear that Alina Habba does not meet the standard to serve the people of New Jersey.”

●      We are apparently in a mustache renaissance.

The Situation continues tomorrow.