“I don’t regret the vote”: Why most Trump voters stand by him, even as he ruins their lives

Losing your wife to own the liberals: Sounds like a parody of a Donald Trump voter, but it's turning out to be the story of Bradley Bartell, a Wisconsin man whose wife, Camila Muñoz, is being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Muñoz is a Peruvian immigrant who overstayed a visa, after being trapped in the country during the pandemic. She met Bartell while working illegally in the U.S., but because she married an American and is working on a green card, the couple thought it was safe to go on their honeymoon in Puerto Rico. Now she is sitting in a Louisiana detention center, having been arrested at the airport.

Initially, much of the reaction to this story was framed in terms of "regret," with some outlets claiming Bartell is "questioning" his vote. It's an understandable error. It should be that someone would regret taking an action that led directly to his wife being arrested. Careful reading of the story shows, however, that all Bartell would commit to was saying, "It doesn’t make any sense," without ever saying if he was reconsidering the wisdom of voting for a man who promised to deport everyone like Muñoz, starting "day one." I took to Bluesky and warned people that there was no evidence that Bartell had learned a lesson, gently predicting he would stand by Trump.

Note what is not said: that he regrets his vote or that he will vote differently in the future. Losing your wife to own the libs. Dark, but here we are. www.usatoday.com/story/news/n…

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— Amanda Marcotte (@amandamarcotte.bsky.social) March 17, 2025 at 3:16 PM

On Wednesday, that prediction came true, with Bartell telling Newsweek, "I don't regret the vote," even as he asked people to donate to GoFundMe to raise cash for Muñoz's bond. He twisted himself in knots to argue that this wasn't Trump's fault, insisting, "He didn't create the system, but he does have an opportunity to improve it. Hopefully, all this attention will bring to light how broken it is." This is, of course, delusional. ICE is acting Trump's orders, which his press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified in January: "If an individual is overstaying their visa, they are therefore an illegal immigrant residing in this country, and they are subject to deportation." Bartell would have seen that, if he read the USA Today story about his and Muñoz's plight, but I'd bet he didn't. USA Today is the hated "mainstream media," and MAGA refuses to trust it, even if it has useful, fact-based information, such as how deadly serious Trump is about this deportation agenda.

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None of this is to single Bartell out. On the contrary, the reason it was so easy to predict how he would react is that this is typical of most Trump voters, whose devotion to the MAGA cult reliably outstrips what should be more pressing concerns, such as the safety of their families. We saw this during the pandemic, as Republican voters — unable to admit liberals could be right about anything, including the germ theory of disease — refused to take precautions and even rejected the vaccines that Trump himself had authorized research funding for. The result was also predictable: death rates from COVID-19 among Republicans swiftly outpaced those of Democratic voters.

Trump has only been in office for a few months, but he's already slipping with those voters rapidly in approval ratings.

Being willing to admit you're wrong is hard for most people. In June 2017, I first wrote about the decades of psychological research showing that "buyer's remorse" makes people feel bad about themselves. Most everyone has, at one point or another, tied themselves in rationalization knots to avoid uttering the phrase, "I was wrong." Republicans have been swimming in decades of propaganda telling them liberals are the most loathsome people on the planet, making it all that much harder to admit that liberals were right all along. In addition, the personalities most attracted to Trumpism are hostile to critical thinking and attracted to "my way or the highway" attitudes that make no room to listen to disagreement.

In the years since, Trump and MAGA leaders have employed tactics familiar to anyone who's watched a documentary about cults. The term "Trump derangement syndrome," applied to anyone who criticizes Trump, functions like "suppressive persons," the Scientologist phrase for outsiders. It doesn't just warn members against listening to reason, but contains a threat: this is how you'll be labeled if you leave the fold. Cult members are under a deluge of conspiracy theories and disinformation, degrading their ability to think rationally and making them more dependent on the cult leadership. Above all, they are soaked in an "us vs. them" mentality, told constantly that outsiders are trying to destroy them.

Last month, NPR ran a 3-part series by journalist Zach Mack, about his failed efforts to de-radicalize his father, who had grown addicted to wild MAGA conspiracy theories prophesizing mass arrests of Democrats and the collapse of American cities. In the course of the series, his father loses both his wife and daughter, who end their relationship with him rather than put up with the nonsense. It's an audio format, so the listener gets to hear his father talk about all this, and what's striking is how gratingly arrogant his dad is. He drips contempt for people who are skeptical that an electromagnetic pulse will soon wipe out New York City, or disbelieve Barack Obama is about to be tried for treason. Mack's father's main complaint is he doesn't get the "respect" he feels he deserves. It swiftly becomes clear that preserving an image of himself as someone who knows better than all the annoying liberals matters more to him than anything — even if it costs him all his money and his entire family.

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The quotes from Bartell's interview showcase a similar preoccupation. "I've received a lot of hateful messages, plenty of people saying we deserve this. And a lot of other insults," he complains. One would think that Bartell has bigger things to worry about than being miffed that people are less than gracious about how wrong he is and how right they are. Or that he might consider whether his critics have a point, that voting away his wife's safety was a poor decision. But this need for ego preservation is so strong, especially with loyal Trump voters, that these considerations don't even rate.

Rebecca Watson at Skepchick released a sobering video on this topic a few weeks ago, explaining why it's not as simple as "be nice to Trump voters suffering from their choices, and maybe we can win them over." She agrees that "a lot of Trump voters were victims of an elaborate scam," but notes that doesn't mean they're about to wake up. "I've been studying scams for several decades," she explains. "One of the most obvious ways to know if someone is going to get scammed is knowing that they already got scammed before."

As she explains, even if someone does come around to rejecting the current scam they're in, they have rarely addressed "the root problem that allowed them to be scammed." My research on the topic led me to the same conclusion. Once in a blue moon, a person is willing to do the hard internal work that leads to real, sustainable change. Most people who are radicalized, however, are lost forever. Even if they give up the current cult or conspiracy theory, they will almost always jump right into another.

There are plenty of people who can say, "I was wrong" or "I'm sorry." People who have that skill, however, tend to be empathetic, self-aware, and curious — all traits that prevent ever having voted for Trump in the first place. People who are attracted to Trumpism often have personality flaws, especially thick-headedness, that interfere with ever learning a lesson, no matter how serious the consequences.

Not that readers should give up all hope. Joe Biden won in 2020, by a small but crucial margin of persuadable swing voters. The bad news is most of these folks are low-information voters, which is why they were suckered by lies and social media noise into sliding back to Trump in 2024. The good news is that most of them didn't like Trump that much to begin with, and voted for him impulsively and even reluctantly. That means their ego isn't as wrapped up in the vote as the more hardcore MAGA people. Many may even "forget" they voted for him when that prospect becomes more embarrassing. Trump has only been in office for a few months, but he's already slipping with those voters rapidly in approval ratings. Think of these folks like people who get audited by a Scientologist once, on a lark, but are weirded out by the process and never go back. Not everyone who encounters a cult is sucked into it forever. The key is focusing on those who never put more than a toe across the threshold, instead of those who walked all the way in and shut the door behind them.

“No place for migrants”: Advocates fear expelled Venezuelans “already being tortured” in El Salvador

Amid the public outcry over the Trump administration's decision to deport more than 250 Venezuelan immigrants over the weekend, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a harrowing video on social media of the detainees' arrival at his country's Terrorism Confinement Center, a mega-prison in the town of Tecoluca that holds thousands of gang members — and is known among human rights advocates for its sprawling list of alleged human rights violations. Those advocates fear those expelled from the United States without due process are facing those abuses right now.

"I strongly, strongly fear that they're already being tortured, being mistreated, being screamed at, being forced to perform forced labor, being poorly fed or underfed," said Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America.

The nearly three-minute clip shared by Bukele, edited with dramatic music, shows law enforcement officers nearly dragging the shackled men from the planes, gripping them by their arms and the backs of their heads as they march them to waiting buses. An officer jerks one person's head back to display their face to the low-lying camera before the video clips to the buses; an aerial view shows the motorcade transporting these detainees making its way down a winding road to the maximum security facility. Upon their arrival, the migrants are pulled from the buses and their heads are shaved. From there, officers jostle them through the prison to the holding cell, where they file in one-by-one with their heads down.

The roughly 260 Venezuelan immigrants flown to El Salvador earlier this month will be imprisoned at the CECOT mega-prison for at least one year, Bukele said. In exchange, the Trump administration has paid the El Salvador government $6 million to house them. Though the Trump administration has accused the detainees of being associated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua — and used the allegation to justify their expulsions — family members of some of the men have spoken out to reject those claims. Sworn declarations filed in federal court Wednesday also protest the claims against some detainees, stating that benign tattoos were misconstrued as evidence of gang affiliation.

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Human rights experts told Salon that the maltreatment of the Venezuelans captured in the clip is par for the course for prisoners held at CECOT. Though the exact circumstances of the detainees are unknown, the Salvadoran prison system's documented history of inhumane conditions and guards' torture and abuse of prisoners suggests the migrants will face the same fate — if they haven't already, they said.

Given the breadth of human rights violations alleged to have occurred in the prison, Isacson told Salon that the Salvadoran government should not be receiving payments, citing U.S. law that bars sending money to foreign security force units that grossly violate human rights.

Government officials' acceptance and endorsement of Bukele's "authoritarianism" and approach to handling the deportees is a "stunning" indicator of how the Trump administration sees human rights, he added.

CECOT cells can hold 65 to 70 people, with prisoners spending nearly 24 hours a day inside of them, prohibited from contact with the outside world except for legal counsel they access virtually, according to the BBC. They sleep on metal bunks with only a sheet to cover themselves, and each cell has just two water basins for bathing or washing and two toilets with no privacy. Temperatures in the prison can reach more than 95 degrees under the sweltering Salvadoran heat; the facility has no windows, fans or air conditioning. Salvadoran authorities told CNN in September that CECOT's prisoners will never be released.

Bukele has made the imprisonment of El Salvador's convicted gang members in CECOT something of a spectacle as he's cracked down on rampant gang violence in the Central American nation since his election in 2019. He declared a state of emergency in early 2022 and carried out mass arrests of suspected gang members, lowering the country's homicide rate, which was once the world's highest. Videos and images much like Sunday's depicting manhandled prisoners progressing through the prison system have been shared on his social media ever since.

The World Prison Brief, a UK-based global database on prisons, counts 24 facilities in El Salvador, with a total capacity of 67,289 inmates. The country's prison population has far surpassed that baseline in the past four years, with the number of inmates increasing by nearly 200% between 2020 and 2024 to 109,519. That value is up from just 7,754 inmates in 2000, putting the nation's prison occupancy rate at just under 163%

Bukele's crackdown has also come at a cost, including a number of human rights violations against the country's prison population. Based on interviews with former prisoners, Human Rights Watch documented instances of torture, extreme overcrowding, ill-treatment, malnutrition, and denial of access to adequate medical care on top of the government's flouting of their due process rights, according to Juanita Goebertus, director of the group's Americas division.

"The criminal system in El Salvador is no place for migrants," she told Salon in a phone interview. "It honestly is a place that dehumanizes, that operates under the premise that people being sent there have less rights, and that's that's just how it's addressed by the government itself."

Local human rights groups have reported that at least 349 people have died in El Salvador's prisons since Bukele began his "war on gangs." An early 2024 report from human rights group Cristosal found that, of the 261 deaths it had recorded at the time, 88 "may have been the result of a criminal act," 87 were due to illness and 14 appeared to result from "acts of violence," while the remaining 72 had no immediately identifiable cause.

Complicating matters further is that El Salvador's prison system seriously lacks transparency around its inner workings — a preexisting issue made worse under Bukele's government, which has repeatedly denied accusations of torture.

"It's likely that, given how widespread throughout the Salvador criminal justice system these violations are, the kinds of suffering that we have documented in our jails would be similar to the conditions faced at CECOT," Goebertus said.

Over the three years of Bukele's "state of exception," no adults have been convicted of gang activity, and many have been imprisoned without "enough evidence" or coming before a judge, she added. The HRW has documented, however, hundreds of assertions from former prisoners who denied gang affiliations and instead said they were incarcerated after they facing "potentially forced recruitment" into gangs or and displacement.

"It's a system of mass incarceration without access to justice," added Goebertus, who filed a declaration in federal court Wednesday challenging the U.S. transfer of immigrants to the country.

Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights for Amnesty USA, argued that these Venezuelan detainees' removals to El Salvador are "part of the strategy," where the Trump administration has shipped them to the Central American country precisely because it knows "the conditions of these prisons are terrible and deadly and cruel."

"Really, I think the goal is for this administration to disappear these people into a black hole where they may not be heard from again," she told Salon in a phone interview.

The Trump administration removed the immigrants, who were already in detention, from the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows for their expulsion from the country without a hearing, over suspicions that they have ties to the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua. Counsel for a handful of those migrants, none of whom have been proven to have gang ties in court, accused the Trump administration of violating a federal judge's order blocking the deportations. The administration has denied wrongdoing and President Donald Trump, alongside several allied officials, has called for that judge to be impeached.

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In a statement released Sunday, the White House defended the expulsions and doubled down on its accusations that the detainees were associated with Tren de Aragua.

"Thanks to the great work of the Department of State, these heinous monsters were extracted and removed to El Salvador where they will no longer be able to pose any threat to the American People," Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. "President Trump will always put the safety of the American People first — and he will never allow foreign terrorist enemies to operate on American soil and endanger our people. They will be found, restrained and removed — and their networks will be destroyed."

But these expulsions actually represent a "total destruction" of the principles of the nation's legal system by treating people as though they're guilty "before they have even thought of a crime, Fischer argued.

By removing them from the country under the Alien Enemies Act, The Trump administration flouted these immigrants' rights to go before a judge and have their cases heard before receiving an official removal order, she said.

A number of the immigration attorneys who filed declarations in federal court stated that their clients did not have prior criminal convictions, were in the middle of immigration proceedings and did not have formal removal orders. Many of those lawyers are unsure of their clients' whereabouts but suspect they may have been removed to El Salvador.

"What we know to be true is that many, many, many people on these flights had immigration relief. They had scheduled court hearings. They had no gang affiliation, no criminal record, no legal reason for them to be removed from the country, and yet it was done anyway in the night," Fischer said.

Their treatment, she added, "should make all of us scared that if this administration is successful in disappearing these people into a country in another prison, then that can implicate the rights of all of us."

about Trump's immigration crackdown

Cutting Medicaid could worsen overdose deaths — and erase recent progress in treating addiction

When Kim, a grandmother in recovery, moved to North Carolina to be closer to her son in 2018, she initially had difficulties filling her buprenorphine (Suboxone) prescription because her provider could no longer prescribe her medication across state lines.

“Using Suboxone has greatly helped me not only be free of drugs and alcohol for the whole time being here, but it’s my livelihood,” Kim, who is using her first name only for privacy reasons, told Salon in a phone interview. “I can’t function without it — and I’ve tried.”

Drug overdose deaths may be decreasing — but not for everyone

In the 20 years that Kim has been using buprenorphine, there have been several times where changes in her life, like her move, or changes in policy have abruptly cut her off from her medication. She has been able to access treatment through Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans, uninterrupted for the past couple of years. But she worries that budget cuts being debated by Republicans could take that away.

“This saved my life… and it can save a lot more,” Kim said. “I don't understand why you would try to take it from people.”

"It’s time to double down on all of the things that have been working, not reverse them."

Medications like buprenorphine and methadone are considered the gold standard for treating addiction, according to decades of research, because they can reduce deaths as well as improve social functionality. Increased access to these drugs is thought to be a major factor contributing to the first significant reduction in national overdose deaths to occur since 2018. Although 87,000 Americans still died from overdoses in 2024, a decline of 24% from the previous year, many are concerned this progress could be lost, especially if the federal government makes significant cuts to Medicaid.

“It’s time to double down on all of the things that have been working, not reverse them,” said Stephanie Strong, co-founder and CEO of Boulder Care, a telehealth addiction treatment center. “That’s what I fear will happen if people lose their health benefits.”

President Donald Trump has promised to cut between $1.5 and $2 trillion from the federal budget in the next decade. Although he has said he will not cut Medicaid, Senate Republicans have been debating whether to overhaul the program.

Some are skeptical that the administration will cut Medicaid significantly, but an analysis performed by The Congressional Budget Office earlier this month found that it would be impossible to find enough cuts elsewhere that do not affect Medicaid in some way.

Medicaid, the largest source of insurance for addiction treatment, has demonstrably saved lives and improved access for many people seeking addiction treatment. In one 2020 study, Medicaid expansions were associated with between 1,678 and 8,132 lives saved from an overdose between 2015 and 2017. Another 2021 study found admissions for addiction treatment were 36% in states that had expanded Medicaid four years after the expansion compared to ones that had not.

“Probably the single biggest policy-level change that has benefited addiction treatment has been guaranteeing Medicaid and Medicare coverage for medical treatment of addiction with methadone and buprenorphine,” Dr. Ryan Marino, an emergency medicine physician at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, told Salon. “More people are certainly able to access evidence-based treatment, and lives have been saved.”

Trump’s stance on drug policy seems to largely be focused on the criminalization of drugs rather than treating the overdose crisis like a public health issue, which experts say is not as effective in stemming the overdose crisis. Trump has said that he issued high tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China because “they’ve allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before” and has even threatened war with drug cartels. But this week, the Trump administration also extended an emergency declaration to address the national opioid crisis, first declared in 2017, which allows for some expedited decisions to be made related to substance use disorder treatments.

Massive study of adolescent brains puts “gateway drug" theory into question

Still, if the Trump administration does cut Medicaid funding, regions in which its constituents live could be hardest hit by the decision. In West Virginia and Tennessee, for example, two states where Trump won the vote in the 2024 election, upwards of 20% of the population is on Medicaid. And these two states have some of the highest rates of per-capita overdose deaths in the country.

Medicaid funding not only expands access to medication-assisted treatment like buprenorphine and methadone, but also funds things like group or individual therapy as well as programs that help people find employment and other aspects of recovery in certain states, said Dr. Elizabeth Stone, who researches health services and policy at Rutgers University.

“Recovery is an ongoing process and for people who are stabilized with medication for opioid-use disorder or are seeing their therapist regularly, losing insurance coverage can be a really high-risk time for harm,” Stone told Salon in a phone interview. “Downstream, then you’re also potentially having people even less likely to access care than they already are now.”

If Medicaid access is reduced, Kim worries about the time it would take to switch over to another insurance, if she could even find one she could afford.

"Losing insurance coverage can be a really high-risk time for harm."

“That would be days or weeks from getting any kind of insurance, and if you are sick and going through withdrawals, you’re not going to wait,” Kim said. “You’re going to go and do whatever you can to get to feeling better.”

Policies that cut Medicaid might include taking away coverage from people who don’t meet certain work requirements or limiting payments given to states, pushing the states to make the cuts.

But cutting work requirements, for example, has been tried by some states without success. In Arkansas, a temporary program with these requirements led to the loss of coverage for thousands of people but did not increase employment.

“My perspective is that they're not actually effective in reducing the number of people who are eligible for Medicaid, they just create more hoops and ultimately, more costs and administrative waste,” Strong told Salon in a phone interview. “[We need to be] making sure the resources are going to the right places, and leveraging technology and telemedicine to offer care that's lower cost and more available in rural areas, rather than investing in building more facilities and more beds.”

Nevertheless, whether potential cuts to Medicaid funding would in fact cut costs is unclear. Like with any medicine, reducing access to treatments used for addiction can make people seek care when they have more health care needs, which ends up costing more money. In one 2021 analysis, all forms of medication-assisted treatment (buprenorphine, methadone and naltrexone) were associated with up to $100,000 in lifetime cost savings per person compared to people who were not treated.

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Additionally, because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services covers such a large portion of the population, the center can often negotiate drug prices to be lower, which affects the market and can benefit people on other insurances, Marino said.

“They're saying that they're saving us money by doing these cuts, but there are very few things that are as cost-effective as Medicare and Medicaid,” Marino said. “Not only because of the kind of preventable health benefit and downstream economic benefits, but also because CMS can negotiate down the prices of drugs, and even people who are on private insurance then get benefits.”

Some hospitals and treatment centers are also dependent on reimbursements from CMS, so even a small cut in Medicaid could affect their funding and lead to shutdowns, Marino said.

“That is going to impact not only people who are in addiction treatment,” Marino said. “If the closest hospitals shut down and you now have to drive 30 minutes away when you’re having a stroke or a heart attack or someone is overdosing, that is going to lead to a lot of additional problems.”

These decisions are expected to be made in mid-2025, when Congress faces a deadline for passing Trump’s agenda. For now, the close to 4.9 million people using Medicaid for addiction treatment will have to wait and see if they are impacted.

“We’re trying to get ourselves better and we’re trying to be drug-free,” Kim said. “I would hope that the government could see that.”

about drug policy

“Our country is in very serious trouble”: Trump asks SCOTUS to step in on court orders

President Donald Trump demanded the Supreme Court step in and counter the federal judiciary’s attempts to rein in his administration.

In a set of Thursday evening social media posts, Trump weighed in on “very dangerous and incorrect” court orders that have reversed or challenged his administration's mass layoffs and deportations.

“Unlawful Nationwide Injunctions by Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “These Judges want to assume the Powers of the Presidency…a President has to be allowed to act quickly and decisively.”

Trump took it a step further, calling for action from the Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.

"Impeachment is not appropriate": Chief Justice Roberts slaps down MAGA attacks on federal judge

“If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble,” he said.

Despite his ideological bend towards Trumpism, Roberts rebuked the president’s call for judicial impeachment earlier this week.

On Thursday, Trump also lobbed attacks at James Boasberg. The district court judge is overseeing a contentious case on Trump’s deportation of Venezuelans to an El Salvadoran jail.

“Judge James Boasberg is doing everything in his power to usurp the Power of the Presidency,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post, calling the judge “a Grandstander, looking for publicity.”

Boasberg sparked MAGA uproar last week when he ordered the Trump administration to immediately halt deportations. The White House ignored that order, with Trump's Department of Justice calling the order “not enforceable” on Monday.

about Trump and the Judiciary

“Democracy is at risk”: Schumer says “lawless” Trump has created constitutional crisis

A week after breaking with most Congressional Democrats to pass President Donald Trump's budget, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is ready to acknowledge that has pushed the country into a constitutional crisis.

In a 90-second clip teasing a full interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, the Democratic senator from New York told host Kristen Welker that the president was a “lawless, angry man.”

“He thinks he should be king. He thinks he should do whatever he wants, regardless of the law, and he thinks judges should just listen to him,” he added. “We have to fight that back in every single way.”

Schumer’s comments come amid calls from many within the Democratic Party to remove him from leadership. The long-time power player in the party was one of scant few Dems who broke with the party to push through a Republican budget and avoid a government shutdown.

"He is not the leader for this moment": Protesters rage at Schumer for backing GOP spending plan

The fifth-term Senator canceled a book tour slated to begin earlier this week after demonstrators gathered outside his Brooklyn home to rally against his vote. One demonstrator told Salon last week that Schumer’s vote was a sign the minority leader was “capitulating to fascism.”

Still, Schumer drew at least one red line in terms of Democratic cooperation with Trump. Discussing the president’s recent push to impeach federal judges who’ve blocked portions of his second-term agenda, Schumer promised no compromise.

“Democrats in the Senate will not impeach judges. Full stop,” he said. “We have to watch him like a hawk. Defying court orders is why our democracy is at risk and we’ll have to do everything to fight back in that regard.”

about Chuck Schumer

“Find a character”: Samuel L. Jackson shares lucrative tip he received from Bruce Willis

Actor Samuel L. Jackson revealed a trade secret from Bruce Willis that the actor says kept him sane during his five-decade career in Hollywood.

Speaking to Vanity Fair earlier this week, Jackson said his “Die Hard With a Vengeance” co-star had a surprising reason for returning to the role of John McClane throughout his career.

“He told me, ‘Hopefully you’ll be able to find a character that, when you make bad movies and they don’t make any money, you can always go back to this character everybody loves,” Jackson said.

Jackson says he thought little of the remark at the time but recalled the Willis tip once he took on the role of Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“He said, ‘Arnold’s got Terminator. Sylvester’s got Rocky, Rambo. I’ve got John McClane,’” he shared. “It didn’t occur to me until I got that Nick Fury role—and I had a nine-picture deal to be Nick Fury—that, 'Oh, I’m doing what Bruce said. I’ve got this character now.'”

Samuel L. Jackson on Tarantino's use of the N-word and only allowing 3 takes per scene

Jackson has never been shy about appearing in popcorn flicks. He has starred in several major studio franchises, including the aforementioned Marvel films and the “Star Wars” prequels. He’s been open about his preference for acting in blockbuster flicks over roles that could garner accolades and award recognition.

In 2022, Jackson ruffled feathers when he told the Los Angeles Times that he was “not doing statue-chasing movies” and would “rather be Nick Fury.”

“I want to do the stuff that made me want to go to the movies when I was a kid,” he said at the time.

For both actors, as Willis’s advice suggests, box-office stardom allowed them to chase their true passions.

“I think that he’s basically underrated because he was a big box-office star,” Willis’s “Die Hard” co-star Bonnie Bedelia told Vanity Fair, adding that he didn’t make major distinctions between working on blockbusters and independent films. “I don’t think [Willis] saw, in terms of the work, a lot of difference between them. One was not more important than the other, because he was getting to work with interesting directors, with interesting scripts.”

about Samuel L. Jackson

“Incredible blunders”: Cybertruck recall shows same slapdash approach Musk brings to DOGE

Amid plunging share prices due to poorer-than-expected earnings and the unpopular political activities of CEO Elon Musk, Tesla’s slapdash methods once again caught up with the automaker.

Hours after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick used an interview slot with Fox News’s Jesse Watters to urge Americans to buy stock in Tesla, the company was forced to issue a recall on every single Cybertruck it has sold to date.

More than 46,000 Cybertrucks produced between Nov. 13, 2023, and Feb. 27, 2025, were recalled this week due to a large steel exterior panel’s tendency to detach from the car. A report shared by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the automaker became aware of the problem in January and has no knowledge of any accidents related to the defect.

According to auto industry news site Jalopnik, it’s the eighth recall since release day for the Cybertruck, a car that’s reportedly numerous times more deadly than the infamously explosive Ford Pinto.

The issue stems from an unconventional bit of penny-pinching from the world's richest man. Per Gizmodo, the panels on the vehicle are merely glued together. The NHTSA recall notice confirms the panel is joined to the car with “structural adhesive” and could fall off on the road. Videos obtained by other automotive outlets have shown the piece in question falling off of the vehicle while it was being driven.

The billionaire’s corner-cutting may seem like a minor affair, but it's merely the latest example of Musk's rushed work posing major risks. As Musk holds the reins of DOGE, applying his slash-and-save playbook across wide swaths of the federal government, his issues with quality control could quickly become every American's problem.

"Great difficulty": Musk admits to trouble running DOGE and companies as Tesla stocks tumble

A less-than-stellar record

Tesla has earned a reputation among automotive critics and knowledgable consumers for build quality issues. Gaps between panels, chipping paint, and other manufacturing problems have been found on nearly every model that the electric vehicle giant has released. Even before the full recall of all Cybertrucks, the automaker’s shoddy construction practices and rush-to-market self-driving software netted Tesla four of the top five spots on a list of the country’s most-recalled cars.

Musk's slipshod philosophy extends to nearly every product he owns, with the CEO valuing cost-cutting over the end product to an almost compulsive degree. After purchasing Twitter for $44 billion, Musk sought to bring the cost of operating the platform down exponentially. Layoffs at Twitter, now X, reduced the headcount by roughly 80%, Musk said in 2023.

Staffing shortfalls made widespread outages increasingly frequent and slower to resolve. In early 2023, about six months after the Musk purges began, the New York Times reported that the platform had as many widespread outages in a month as it posted in half a year before the billionaire’s acquisition.

Cybersecurity experts and federal regulators also worried that the staffing reduction made Twitter users less safe than ever.

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In a 2023 court filing, the FTC claimed that former Twitter chief privacy officer Damien Kieran “testified that the firings and layoffs meant no one was responsible for about 37% of X Corp.’s privacy program controls.” Regulators added that the company was “impaired from completing improvements in its data management, access, and deletion practices” following layoffs.

Mr. Musk goes to Washington

And the headcount-slashing, hostile takeover approach is already producing similar results within the federal government.

Musk’s mass layoffs at the Department of Energy made evident the thoughtlessness behind DOGE’s breakneck approach to cost-cutting. In a representative (and nearly catastrophic) example, Last month, DOGE gave a pink slip to Acting Chief of Defense Nuclear Safety James Todd, the American official with the most control over nuclear safety. Todd was axed along with a host of other officials tasked with overseeing America's nuclear security. The layoffs were so catastrophic that the nuclear safety org was forced to plead with employees to come back days later.

Musk’s henchmen also raised eyebrows when they inadvertently revealed the names of some CIA hires, including those potentially placed in dangerous regions, through an unclassified email to the Trump administration last month.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., accused DOGE of making “incredible blunders” under the auspices of Musk’s promise to cut costs.

“These actions don’t just reflect incredible incompetence – they are dangerous. They undermine national security and increase risks for American citizens,” Sen. Reed said on the Senate floor earlier this month. “In any other setting, blunders like these would be grounds for firing. But Musk and DOGE operate with arrogance, impunity, and zero transparency.”

Musk’s burn down first, clean up later strategy has even plagued the very ledger tasked with reporting DOGE’s purported savings.

Per the Times, staffers with little experience working with federal contracts initially massively overstated the agency’s true savings, demanding waves of corrections. And with DOGE being forced by federal judges to double-back on some of its most ill-thought-out firings multiple times per week, the agency could be costing taxpayers.

about DOGE's reversals

Trump officials believe law used to speed up deportations will also allow warrantless searches

Conservative originalists throughout the judiciary have spent decades trying to divine what the Founding Fathers would think about a given law using little beyond vibes and a Ouija board conveniently located behind their eyes.

When it comes to topics on which the Constitution drafters' thoughts are known, like say the right to go about your business without being searched by agents of the state, suddenly the arbiters of cutting-edge 18th-century thought are willing to grant a little leeway.

That's the takeaway from a recent report by the New York Times, which found that lawyers in President Donald Trump's Department of Justice believe federal agents are allowed to enter homes without a warrant under the recently invoked Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

Trump's push for deportations without due process is meant to cause a constitutional crisis

Trump has declared undocumented immigrants a "foreign invasion" under the act, granting himself extensive wartime powers in the process. The use of the act to speed deportations has already been blocked by federal courts, though the Trump administration has reveled in finding ways to not comply with orders.

It is not clear whether the Trump administration's rationale around warrantless searches extends to all agencies or merely those focusing on immigration. The Fourth Amendment protects all people in the United States from unreasonable searches and seizures and generally requires authorities to request a warrant from a judge to enter into a home or business.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been known to use administrative warrants to muddy the waters around Fourth Amendment protections. These warrants, which request the removal of an individual due to civil violations, are not reviewed by a judge and do not grant agents the right to enter a home. If the Trump administration gets its way, even that flimsy protection will be moot.

To be clear, the Trump administration has given no indication that it plans to do away with warrants entirely. With actions like the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil for his pro-Palestinian activism, however, Trump's Department of Justice has shown a frightening willingness to toss aside constitutional protections in service of the president's revenge agenda.

about Trump's deportations

Trump pushes for interest rate cut to “ease” effect of tariffs

Donald Trump wants the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates before the economy feels the effects of his sweeping tariffs.

The president's comments came after Fed Chair Jerome Powell announced Wednesday that rates would remain steady amid an "unusually elevated" uncertainty surrounding the on-and-off tariffs.

"There are no guarantees": Trump acolytes run defense on potential recession

“The Fed would be MUCH better off CUTTING RATES as U.S.Tariffs start to transition (ease!) their way into the economy. Do the right thing,” Trump posted on his social media platform.

Economists, companies and Trump have acknowledged that tariffs could cause U.S. consumer prices to rise. Powell had emphasized the tariffs as playing a pivotal role in the Fed’s wait-and-see approach to rate cuts.

“We think our policy is a good place to react to what comes,” Powell said at a post-meeting news conference. “We think the right thing to do is to wait here for greater clarity about what the economy is doing.”

Powell theorized that while tariffs could raise inflation in the short term, the effects would calm over time. But lower rates combined with tariffs could cause more inflation, CNBC reported.

“Looking ahead, the new administration is in the process of implementing significant policy changes in four distinct areas: trade, immigration, fiscal policy and deregulation,” Powell said. “It is the net effect of these policies that will matter for the economy and for the path of monetary policy.”

Trump also posted that April 2 is “Liberation Day” — a reference to his plan to implement reciprocal tariffs on that day.

“It’s a liberation day for our country because we’re going to be getting back a lot of the wealth that we so foolishly gave up to other countries, including friend and foe,” Trump said to reporters on Monday, according to The Washington Post.

about tariffs

The secret to sky-high biscuits? Treat them like croissants

Biscuits can take a beating. They get shoved into paper fast-food bags, drowned in sausage gravy and yanked from refrigerated tubes with a jarring pop. They’re the workhorses of the American table — dependable, durable, built for grab-and-go breakfasts and those messy, wonderful Sunday suppers. But what if we treated them with a little more care? Not in a fussy, croquembouche kind of way — just enough to give them the structural ambition they deserve. What if, instead of slapping them together and hoping for the best, we thought of them a bit more like croissants?

Now, the biscuits I grew up with were sturdy creatures. There were the buttery drop biscuits my mom made to accompany turkey and mashed potatoes on Sunday afternoons, the thin, almost defiant frozen biscuits my grandmother baked to pair with steak and gravy for holidays and the hand-rolled, slightly salty buttermilk biscuits from Cracker Barrel, a road trip staple on our annual 13-hour slog from Kentucky to South Carolina. All of them built to hold up under the weight of hearty meals, never delicate enough to be anything more than dependable.

But then in 2020 I saw Kelly Fields’ “The Good Book of Southern Baking,” and I did a double take. There, on the cover, was a biscuit unlike any I’d ever made — perched on a cake stand like it knew it belonged there, golden and proud, its layers stacked as neatly as books on a library shelf. I wanted that biscuit. I wanted one that shattered at the edges and peeled apart in crisp, buttery sheets. One that was airy, but could still hold a runny egg without going limp.

With one secret ingredient, you can bake the flakiest pastry crust of all time

And to get there, like in all pastry, Fields taught me that it all starts with ingredients.

Fields writes, “After seventeen years of professional baking and being surrounded by crazy-talented folks like former Willa Jean baker Mike Carmody (one of the most talented bakers I’ve ever worked with, whose influence and passion have made me a better cook and person), I learned that Italian-style 00 flour gives biscuits the strength they need without the chew.” It’s the kind of flour typically used for pizza and pasta, but in biscuits, it creates the perfect balance.

The 00 flour absorbs the butter and buttermilk just right, giving the biscuit delicate, flaky layers without the chew that can sometimes weigh them down.

Then there’s the butter, which must be cold — truly cold. “The New Cooking School Cookbook” says it best: “When pressed with your finger, the butter should be cold and unyielding.” Chilled butter creates little pockets of fat in the dough that melt during baking, leaving behind flaky layers instead of a greasy mass.

Once the dough is ready, Fields has one more temperature trick: freeze the biscuits before baking. “The colder they are, the higher they rise,” she wrote.

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Freezing the dough solidifies the butter and ensures that it melts evenly during baking, leading to biscuits that rise higher and more evenly, with a texture that’s light yet sturdy. “You know what they say,” Fields continued. “The higher the hair, the closer to God.”

Speaking of layers, lamination is the secret weapon of high-end pastry and it’s the technique worth borrowing for biscuits.

The process of folding dough over butter to create multiple layers is nothing short of magic. As you fold and chill, the butter firms up, creating thin pockets between layers of dough. When the biscuits bake, the water in the butter turns to steam, puffing up the dough to form delicate, crisp layers. Each fold introduces more layers, which means more pockets for the steam to lift and more structure to the finished product. Lamination isn’t just about precision, though — it’s about being gentle. The process requires patience and care, and you want to treat the dough as tenderly as possible. The butter needs to stay cold, and the dough shouldn’t be overworked. A heavy hand will ruin what could be a crisp, flaky texture. It’s not fussy, but it’s delicate.

Ronni Lundy, one of the godmothers of contemporary Appalachian cuisine, writes about this in her 2016 cookbook “Victuals.”

“The important thing to remember with biscuits is to use ‘light hands,’” she writes. “I am in favor of using fingers to blend the flour, fat, and liquid, and learning a feel for the dough by making them often — because depending on your flour, the humidity, maybe even the phase of the moon, you may need a little extra of one of the ingredients.”

“But don’t stress too much,” she adds. These are still biscuits, after all.

I started with Fields’ two- to three-turn lamination, the classic biscuit method that’s a good balance of effort and reward. It worked. They were crisp-edged and flaky. But I kept wondering: Could I do more? Could I push the boundaries of a biscuit, make it even more ambitious? So I did. I added a fourth turn. And then a fifth. Each time, I was surprised by how much the texture improved — the layers became more distinct, the biscuit more confident in its structure. Six turns was the sweet spot. Perfectly towering, golden and impossibly layered — each sheet of butter and dough separating just enough to create something with both the rustic satisfaction of a classic biscuit and the precision of a finely made pastry.

But seven? Seven turns was structurally unsound. The biscuit began to buckle under the weight of its own layers, the folds getting too heavy, too thin. It collapsed under its own ambition, a reminder that even biscuits have their limits.

The result of all this care is a biscuit that doesn’t just sit on the plate but demands to be eaten. Crisp-edged, butter-rich, impossibly layered. It still has all the joy of a classic biscuit. The heartiness, the ease, the adaptability — but with a precision that makes it feel just a little bit extravagant. It’s a biscuit that believes in itself.

And if that means putting in a little extra effort, well — biscuits deserve it.

Six-Turn Buttermilk Biscuits

Yields

8-10 servings

Prep Time

45 minutes (including folding and chilling)

Cook Time

18-22 minutes

Ingredients

2 cups 00 flour (plus extra for dusting)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes and frozen

3/4 cup buttermilk, cold (plus extra for brushing)

Ice water, as needed

Directions

In a large bowl, whisk together the 00 flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. This will ensure the leavening and salt are evenly distributed throughout the dough.
Add the cold butter cubes to the flour mixture. Use a pastry cutter, fork, or your fingertips to cut the butter into the flour until it resembles coarse crumbs with pea-sized bits of butter. It's okay if some larger chunks remain—those will help create the flaky layers.
Pour in the cold buttermilk and gently stir with a fork until the dough begins to come together. If it looks too dry, add a tablespoon of ice water at a time until the dough holds together but isn't overly wet. Avoid overworking the dough—just bring it together with a few quick strokes.
Lightly flour your work surface. Turn the dough out onto the surface and gently press it into a rectangle about 1-inch thick. Using a bench scraper or a knife, fold the dough in half, then press it out into a rectangle again. This is your first fold. Repeat the folding process until you've completed six turns, chilling the dough between each fold. I know, I know—it sounds like a pain, but it’s worth it. Chilling the dough between folds ensures that the butter stays cold, which helps those flaky layers form.
After the sixth fold, shape the dough into a rough rectangle about 1-inch thick. Wrap it in plastic wrap and freeze it for at least 30 minutes. Freezing the dough ensures that the butter solidifies, which helps the biscuits rise higher and more evenly.
While the dough is chilling, preheat your oven to 425°F (220°C).
After the dough has chilled, remove it from the freezer and unwrap it. Lightly flour your work surface again, then roll out the dough to about 1-inch thick. Using a round cutter (about 2 to 2 1/2 inches in diameter), cut out the biscuits, pressing straight down without twisting (this helps them rise evenly). Gather the scraps, reroll gently, and cut out the remaining biscuits.
Place the cut biscuits on a baking sheet. Brush the tops with a little extra buttermilk for a golden finish. Pop the biscuits back into the freezer for another 10-15 minutes. This second chill ensures they’ll rise beautifully when baked.
Bake the biscuits in the preheated oven for 18-22 minutes, or until they’re golden brown and have risen to their full, flaky glory.
Let the biscuits cool slightly before serving. These are perfect for breakfast sandwiches, alongside eggs or simply with butter and jam.

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“The Residence” makes its White House mystery quaint and cozy by removing its institutional romance

“The Residence” introduces Uzo Aduba’s Cordelia Cupp from a distance and in the dark, as she stares at a high, faraway point through binoculars, standing on the White House lawn. Cupp, a world-famous detective, is overdue for her latest consulting gig. A murder has taken place during a poorly organized state dinner for the Australian delegation.

But Cordelia is an obsessive birdwatcher, and that always comes first — even at night. A detective in the tradition of Benoit Blanc and other modern descendants of the Agatha Christie whodunnit, she knows she’s usually the smartest person in the room and has no time for idiocy. Besides, all bodies stay put. Most birds only stay still for moments.

Cordelia’s signature quirk keeps the tone featherlight while doubling as a whetstone; she constantly reminds us that training our focus on the tiniest details about elusive creatures unlocks puzzles.

What’s true of falcons and songbirds also applies to murder suspects. On the night of the foul play in question, Cordelia has a giant flock of suspects to sort, including a president, a prime minister, Kylie Minogue (appearing as herself) and Hugh Jackman (frequently referenced, never seen).

At a time when few of us want to think about the White House, this show reduces it to little more than an elaborate stage.

No luminaries figure as prominently in this story as Aduba’s tweedy detective or Edwin Park (Randall Park), the FBI agent she grudgingly relegates to sidekick status. Aduba’s expertise in traveling a broad expressive range within a single stare helps her own this role. Besides Park and the victim, the White House’s chief usher A.B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito), no other character feels especially essential.

Don’t get me wrong – her co-stars are the bonding agents strengthening this whimsical flimsiness. Who doesn’t love seeing Ken Marino be a jerk, Jason Lee portray another loser or Bronson Pinchot do his "loopy foreigner" act again, only this time as a chef from a real country? Wouldn’t we love to see more of Susan Kelechi Watson? Isn’t it nice to see Tilly from “Star Trek: Discovery” (Mary Wiseman) explode and dominate every room she’s in?

Why, sure. Each of these actors brings a special energetic libation to the party, as does Al Franken, who no longer works in Congress but is content to pretend he does on TV.

As for the house itself, it could be any place.

Randall Park reveals his "Shortcomings": "You never got to see Asian Americans in that context"

Maybe that puts “The Residence” in a different category than other shows set at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., including “1600 Penn,” which you have probably forgotten about. (I wish I could.)

At a time when few of us want to think about the White House, this show reduces it to little more than an elaborate stage, thank goodness. Since its creator Paul William Davies based his mystery on Kate Andersen Brower’s “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House,” the narrative features the landmark's support staff instead of the politicians who come and go.

From a TV storyteller’s perspective, this is an opportunity to center workers bound not by loyalty but to a sense of upholding the values and traditions of a famous place — notions the current administration entirely devalues, it bears pointing out.

(L to R) Giancarlo Esposito as A.B. Wynter and Bronson Pinchot as Didier Gotthard in "The Residence" (Jessica Brooks/Netflix)The president does not matter – I repeat, he does not matter, aside from the curious effect he has on his mother-in-law (played by Jane Curtin), who has a reflexive habit of gagging whenever he’s mentioned. But the people who bring his family carafes of vodka and fancy tumblers do. So do its housekeepers, engineers, painting crew and kitchen staff. They are the ones who hold official secrets or, as one explains, uphold the ancient dictum, “the servants have no ears,” and resolve not to hear them.

Instead, they have inner lives, passions and varied senses of humor — whereas the titular executive residence is only special in that it has six levels, 132 rooms and a lot of nooks and crannies to hide a body.

That also makes it just another building to be murdered in, like the Arcona, and that’s fine! Especially if you’ve released the antiquated and false notion of the president being the representative embodiment of America itself. We have certain feelings about every president whether we voted for that person or not, divorcing the concept of who and what we are from an office holder that changes every four years.

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The White House itself is mostly unchanging. Despite its contradictory history as a symbol of democracy built by enslaved people, it is a blameless externalization of America.

That’s how Aaron Sorkin treated the place and its staff in “The West Wing,” the most poignant TV series about the presidency of our time. The White House was to his show what New York is to “Law & Order,” a silent cast member shaping the story.

Sorkin wrote Martin Sheen’s Jed Bartlet as the show’s heart and conscience, and the ‘90s liberal leadership ideal. His president is an erudite considerate man deeply concerned about the poor and marginalized.

Concurrently, the White House of the “The West Wing” is buzzing, frantic, vibrant and disciplined. “Two Cathedrals,” the second season finale, is widely considered one of TV's all-time greatest episodes. In it, a grieving Barlet rages at God in Latin, cursing heaven for sinking a Naval tender ship, for spinning up a deadly tropical storm, for allowing a lifelong friend to be killed in a car accident.

That scene captures a version of leadership that never was but makes us yearn for saner times and a president who valued human life — both foreign and domestic — and could string together a coherent sentence.

Of course, “The West Wing” was born in the waning days of Bill Clinton’s presidency and hit its stride before Sept. 11, 2001, and the dawn of “24.” Nearly every non-period show and movie about the White House since paints the place as a den of conspiracy, home to crisis presidents who either need to be saved or do the saving themselves. That includes Netflix’s other recent release “Zero Day,” starring Robert DeNiro as an ex-president of questionable sanity.

“The Residence” isn’t the first to strip the romance from the place, is what I'm saying. Davies worked with his show’s executive producer Shonda Rhimes on “Scandal,” an Obama-era nighttime soap whose principals were a POTUS and his fixer engaged in a torrid affair spanning years.

Fitzgerald Grant III (Tony Goldwyn) and Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) understood and even respected what the office represents. They still treated the White House like a collection of smash spots.

Maybe Rhimes considered some places in the joint to be sacred, or simply too typical to add spice to their marital transgressions. The latest show in her Netflix deal, though, portrays it as a blank collection of staircases and parlors not unlike others where all-star ensembles marry screwball comedy with murder. Think of the manors in “Clue,” or “Murder By Death.” This one simply has better branding and a reputation, whether accurate or not, that has recently taken a beating for failing to live up to what it stands for.

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The White House isn’t the only American emblem that’s been called out recently on the international stage. Raphaël Glucksmann, a French politician, jokingly proposed that the United States should return the Statue of Liberty to France, the country that gifted it to us in the late 1800s.

Donald Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt, not exactly known for her sense of humor or intellectual discernment, harrumphed that wouldn’t be happening, tossing in the old jab about how the French would be speaking German if not for the United States’ intervention in World War II.

Glucksmann acknowledged that in a thread on X, adding that version of America “was far, so far from what your current president does, says and embodies."

So too were the people living and working inside the Executive Mansion. “The Residence” allows us not to forgo thinking about that for eight episodes as Cordelia Cupp guides us through a tour of clashing personalities, dusty furnishings and a bit of light homicide. It is not at all like the real executive residence. With all the chaos issuing from other parts of the building, we’re fine if whatever is happening in there these days remains a mystery.

"The Residence" is currently streaming on Netflix.

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Health care, housing and wages: Antonio Delgado says New York Democrats need to stand for something

Earlier this year, New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado removed himself from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 2026 ticket and filed with the state Board of Elections himself, saying about his future in politics that, “All options are on the table, and I will be exploring them,” a statement some have taken to mean he’s eyeing the governor’s office himself.

Now, Delgado is urging the Democratic Party to adopt a new vision for the future of New York and the United States, focusing on material concerns like economic security while criticizing his own party as prioritizing the demands of corporations — and the profit motive — at the expense of working people.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I'd like to start by asking you for your read on the state Democratic Party and what you think is behind the Republicans' gains in New York. I'm also interested in what you think the Democrats can do to reverse this trend and win people back over in the state who might have drifted towards Republicans or who may have just stopped voting, period.

I made a point to outline this not long after the election in an op-ed. My belief is the status quo is broken. The Democratic Party has shifted away from centering its focus on economic security and economic freedom. And, as economic inequality has grown in our system — and it has consistently over the years — and as more and more money has been concentrated in the hands of a few, there's been an ability to have that economic power be converted into political power.

And the decision making, whether it's on health care, whether it's on housing, whether it's on wages, you name it, the decision making is biased in a direction that does not reflect everyday folks. It doesn't reflect them. The party, in many respects, has catered too much to one side of the equation, so people, everyday folks who wake up trying to figure out how to cook food on their table; how they are going to make sure that they can have healthcare they can really afford; earn a good living; chase the American dream — more and more people feel like that possibility is less and less likely.

Only Democratic governors — not Joe Biden — can protect the U.S. at this point

And we're the ones who are championing that narrative. We're the ones saying that we are for working families. We're the ones saying that we're about that and yet the conditions on the ground aren't improving. So if the conditions on the ground aren't improving then, of course, it's going to create a void for somebody to exploit, for someone like Trump to step into that void and say, “I know you're anxious, I know you're frustrated, I know you're disappointed in the way this is all going. Let me be the one to fix it for you.” He can leverage that in a way that I think has turned out to be very destructive.

I want to return to New York in just a minute, but you've written, and you've mentioned here, that you think the neoliberal era of the Democratic Party needs to end. However, that's in tension with the party at the national level. I think about this recent Third Way retreat. Many Democrats are talking about becoming more moderate, more conservative, even, and I'm wondering how you square your vision with this trend among Democrats in Washington, DC. I believe it was Jesse Jackson who said the Democratic Party needs two wings to fly. I'm wondering how you think you can navigate this party in which you know there are there is certainly a faction within it that wants to continue the neoliberal order that you've described.

What I would say is I base my views on the trend lines that I'm experiencing and that I perceive based on the direct interactions that I have with the people, with working people. I don't base them on discussions that I have with individuals within the party or elected officials. I base them on the actual people that I'm serving.

In those conversations, when I'm communicating with the people, what I most often hear is nothing is changing as far as my economic conditions are concerned. Things are becoming more and more expensive for me, and there seems to be a scarcity of things, and it then creates an opportunity for folks on the other side of the political spectrum, like a Trump, to demagogue and scapegoat based on that perceived sense of scarcity. You make it a zero-sum game, and then everybody's basically trying their hardest to figure out how to get whatever they can get for themselves. Ultimately, we don't have a unified front where everybody's on the same page about saying, “Hey, wait a second. We're all trying to make a living here. We're all trying to get by, irrespective of race, irrespective of gender and sexual orientation. We're all trying to make a living. Why is it so hard for all of us to make a living?”

We have to be able to address it, because if we don't address it, then we will continue to be in the stock that we're in, because people will not invest in the system. They will stay home; 500,000 Democrats stayed home in New York. So people are staying home. They don't find the system working for them, even when given an alternative that can be as reckless, in my opinion, as what we're seeing now, they're not confident enough that the status quo as it is is all that much better. So it's incumbent upon us to try our hardest as a party to meet those direct frustrations and economic needs.

Thinking about these material concerns and these material demands that people have. What do you see as a policy that could lead the charge in this respect? I think about how in 2016 and 2020 there was a lot of energy around "Medicare for all" that seems to have fallen out of the discourse in some ways, but I think the way that it was able to unify people could be instructive for a future Democratic Party. And I'm wondering what policy or policies you think the Democrats need to prioritize in future elections, regardless of who's delivering that message for the party?

That's a great question. I do believe healthcare is a very, very important issue for us to focus on. The last time we really made transformational change around healthcare was the ACA back in 2009. Back in 2018, I was a big proponent, and I remain a big proponent of a public option. I think there's a broad-based coalition that we can build under the umbrella of a public option where we, for once and for all, decide we are not comfortable with the vast majority of folks being dependent on the insurance marketplace.

That is something that we as a society can make a decision on and having a public option allows us, allows people, to make a transformational change to our healthcare system and treats healthcare like the public good that it actually is. And it enables us to not have it exclusively tied to the profit motive, which it currently is; if you don't qualify Medicaid or Medicare, it is exclusively tied to the profit motive. And so I 100% believe that health care is a defining issue moving forward for us as a party, and I think it's something that can truly galvanize a lot of folks across this country, for sure.

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Returning to New York, I'm wondering what you think the issues are that can help Democrats in New York. Specifically, you've talked about how Democrats and states need to serve as an example of how Democrats can govern and how they can be effective governors and return to their role as the party of a bigger paycheck. What do you think Democrats can do and need to do in New York to win back the trust of voters in the state and show that they can improve people's lives?

I think it is focusing on concrete issues like health care, like housing, like wages, but in doing so, making sure that the solutions are centered around the public good and not entirely informed by the profit motive. I think public-private partnerships are good things to have, but the private aspect of that partnership cannot swallow up the public good.

My sense is is that the balance of power between everyday people and industry and corporations is out of whack, and we need leadership to recenter that balance, to make sure that the solutions we come up with actually are going to deliver in the communities we are trying to help. On the other end of that process, I believe that we have to, as those who believe in government, appreciate the fact that sometimes government can get in the way of itself, that government can be overly bureaucratic, can have too much red tape. So if we're going to recommit to delivering meaningful outcomes to our communities in need, we need to be very clear on streamlining the process in the most effective and efficient way. Review those regulations that ultimately might be more of an impediment than they are protecting the community in a meaningful way.

Not all regulations are smart and good regulations, and I think it's important for us as a party to understand and appreciate that if we're going to invest in our communities, if we want to invest in our communities and invest in public goods, that we make sure that investment actually materializes. That does mean looking at government from a process standpoint that can be more impactful. And the last point that I would make, going back to the imbalance piece, is we have to shy away from this tendency to just give money away to industry and to corporations without having accountability for how that money flows back into our communities.

Do you think there's an appetite for the sort of policy changes that you're describing in New York leadership? I'm thinking about Mayor Adams, and also this upcoming mayoral race, with Andrew Cuomo appearing to be leading in the polls. I'm wondering, if you think that the people leading in the state and in the city have the appetite for the sort of change you think is needed, or if you think that there needs to be new leaders as well.

I know that I have the appetite that that I know I'm not going to speak for other people. I know that I have the appetite to engage on these issues in this way, and I know that for too long, we have been papering over these dynamics and not taking bold enough steps in a way that genuinely reflects what the people want. It is incumbent that those of us in my generation do everything we can to uplift these voices and empower these voices. Because I do think that my proximity to what's going on, by virtue of being in my generation and a younger generation of leaders, puts me in a position to be more empathetic to what is happening on the ground.

I'm raising a family. I have young kids. I'm dealing with childcare issues, you know, so there's a dimension to my real-life experiences that make me even more connected to what's going on on the ground, and I think that is important when it comes to understanding how to chart a new path forward.

Lastly, I'm wondering what's next for you. You've recently removed yourself from the gubernatorial ticket in the state, and you said that all options are open. There's been speculation that you might run for governor yourself. There is dissatisfaction among a significant number of Democrats with the leadership of Senator Schumer, and I'm wondering what you're thinking about in terms of your next steps, politically.

I'm considering all the options that might be available, but I want to be clear, the biggest thing for me right now is meeting this moment and making sure that I am articulating a vision that meets the needs of the folks I interact with every day.

Being lieutenant governor puts me in a position to continue to engage with folks all across the state, to give them voice, based on my engagement with them. Over the course of time I'm able to communicate with folks and build people, start to really name the different directions that we could be going in from a policy standpoint, and push the envelope in a way that I hope is constructive, that I hope creates an appetite for a real, thoughtful innovative approach.

We need to really be uncomfortable with the situation that we're in right now. We should not be comfortable with the dynamics, and that means making sure that there are enough voices in the mix that aren't just saying the same things, that are creating a conversation, that are creating options for folks out there who are trying to figure out what is the best way forward. How do we get through this period of great turmoil? How do we chart a path forward? And I am certainly of the mindset that we are not in a position to keep just doing the same things over and over again. We need people to step up to offer a different direction, a different vision, a different energy. I do think that is important. And for me, so much of what I'm doing right now is fundamentally grounded in doing exactly that.

Do you think there's anyone in the party at the moment who is following the course you've just laid out and who is providing a robust opposition to the administration without sort of falling into comfortable patterns?

What I'm excited about in terms of the future and in terms of future leadership for the party, both in New York, but also outside of New York across the country, is those of us who ran in 2018, who were compelled to run in 2018, many of whom may have been outside of politics, myself included, before 2018 who I think, have stepped into politics with a different orientation to politics.

You know, a lot of us didn't make our way up the ladder or up the food chain, if you will, in the typical political fashion, we were compelled to jump into politics because we were motivated by the times we were in. And so it's more mission-oriented. And I think it's not as wedded to typical party politics.

I believe that a leadership that is not as wedded to typical party leadership and all the different dimensions of that, is exactly the kind of leadership that we need right now in this moment, because I don't believe a lot of people have a lot of faith in either political party, and I think it's important for the next wave of leaders to be able to present themselves in a way that isn't defined just by the fact that they happen to be a Democrat. Who are they on their own terms?

And I think it's particularly helpful when you have individuals like myself who were able to find success in congressional districts where the district was won by Trump in 2016 and you were still able to win over and persuade individuals of all different political outlooks to rally around your vision, to rally around your value set, because you were able to make a genuine connection with those people, irrespective of political differentiation. So that's, to me, what's potentially exciting about this, to see what happens with that crop of leadership that I think is out there across the country.

about American politics

Trump to sign executive order that purports to dismantle the Department of Education

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Thursday to purportedly dismantle the Department of Education after weeks of cutting its staff and funding. While completely eliminating a federal department formed by an act of Congress requires congressional approval, which is far from certain, Trump has not been shy about defying constitutional checks on presidential power.

The pending order directs Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, a former WWE executive, to take "all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States," while also ensuring "uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely," according to a White House summary of the order.

"No future election is going to fix the problem": Trump's war on education is worse than it looks

"President Trump's executive order to expand educational opportunities will empower parents, states, and communities to take control and improve outcomes for all students," White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement Wednesday.

The order's signing will be marked by a ceremony in the White House's East Room, which will be attended by several Republican governors, including Ron DeSantis of Florida, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, Greg Abbott of Texas, Kim Reynolds of Iowa and Mike DeWine of Ohio. Republican lawmakers and leaders from groups like the Heritage Foundation and Moms for Liberty, a group seeking to remake schools in a reactionary image, will also be present to celebrate the death of a department that has long been a target of conservative activists.

Hours after McMahon was confirmed as education secretary, she issued a memo with the subject line: "Our Department's Final Mission." The memo said that "this is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students," which would supposedly leave "American education freer, stronger, and with more hope for the future."

Trump administration officials have said that student loans, Title I, which provides funding for low-income families, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act will not be affected. It's unclear, however, to which federal department these programs will be outsourced and how effective they will be in helping high-need students if the Department of Education no longer exists.

about education policy

Trump’s driving goal of destruction: A Nobel Peace Prize

Donald Trump wants one thing to solidify his legacy: A Nobel Peace Prize.

After years of a cornucopia of abusive life choices – both self-inflicted and parentally initiated, Trump clings to a single strand of cogent thought with the tenacity of Sisyphus; how do I glorify myself?

Money couldn’t fill the hole in his soul. Power only widens it. He is an increasingly desperate man as time catches up with him. All of the makeup, clothes, bronzer and gold toilets cannot slow the march of time that will inevitably make Trump as inert and irrelevant as his poorest victim.

The Trump virus is immune to rational thought and devoid of reality, yet it still thrives.

His instincts are theatrically based. He’s as virulent as he is shallow and his thoughts are no deeper than what he sees on television. His flights to deport immigrants without benefit of due process is a knock-off version of “Con Air.” His central act in the Oval Office is reminiscent of “The Apprentice.” His declarations that he “is the law” evoke memories of Sylvester Stallone’s version of Judge Dredd. Trump only wishes he could wear the helmet and growl out “I AM the Law” with the fury of Stallone. Unfortunately, when he strays into that territory he sounds more like Don Knotts’ Barney Fife screaming at Andy Griffith’s sheriff Andy Taylor. You can almost hear Trump burping out “Nip it. Nip it. Nip it in the bud,” like a corpulent toad with the face and voice of Deputy Fife.

Trump is currently engaged in his latest theatrical release — “Peace Maker” — wherein he pretends to solve the problem of world peace by threatening to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, prompting World War III. Stay tuned. The next day he boasted that he had a great talk with Vladimir Putin and that there’s now a chance for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump and Putin agree an improved bilateral relationship would have a “huge upside.” This includes “enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability when peace has been achieved.”

"Too late": White House mocks judge after Trump admin ignores order against deportations

Trump and Putin have a common adversary; China. And Putin has already stretched his resources to the limit in a vain attempt to increase his resources by conquering Ukraine. Having failed thus far during the last decade to do so, he’s now trying to get what he wants through negotiations. It won’t stop his desire to put back together the old Soviet Union band he so famously covets, but he now does have the advantage of having the United States as a potential primary trade partner.

Putin seeks survival and domination. He’s likely using Trump’s single desire for a Nobel Peace Prize to get it.

Meanwhile, Ukraine, remember Ukraine? This is a war about Ukraine. Ukraine never started it. Didn’t want it — but Ukraine has been fighting it for 11 years. This is a fact Trump conveniently fails to mention as he and his Presidential Pep Secretary Karoline Leavitt spout slogans like, “Biden’s pathetic weakness” caused the war and, if Trump had been in office it never would have happened. It actually began under Obama’s watch, and normally Trump would love to beat up Obama, but he has recently developed a soft spot for the guy. More importantly; to mention it happened under Obama’s watch would also call attention to the fact that Trump did absolutely nothing about the war in Ukraine during his first term.

Since Trump doesn’t mind lying when it comes to accepting responsibility he conveniently forgets that uncomfortable fact as he declares, “There’s a new sheriff in town and his name is Donald Trump.”

Folks that’s not from some B movie. The Pep Secretary actually said those words and followed it up with a warning— no one should “cross President Trump again” – from the White House briefing room.

It sounds like “Howdy Doody” diplomacy a Republican told me – both dating the source and giving me pause to laugh – which I suppose dates myself.

The president’s actions underscore his desire to make a difference on a world stage that laughs at and manipulates him. World leaders who embrace democracy look at him derisively. Some find him to be a joke, while minor and major despots look upon him in a combination of wonder and fellowship. Minor dictators look at him with inspiration while his mentor looks on with approval and wariness.

Donald Trump is, after all, volatile. His stability is transactional. His ability for rational thought is limited to his survival instinct.

In many ways, Trump is a human virus. He’s not unique, but he is an aggressive viral infection.

He infected the Republican Party with his parasitic MAGA proteins. They attached themselves to certain receptors in the party, hijacked those and began replicating themselves. They were able to overcome all rational members of the GOP who were either expelled or fled. Gaining power gave MAGA energy. Expelling opposition gave MAGA safety.

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The Republicans fell quickly. The Trump virus raged. Trump won the presidency in 2016. But the virus had expanded too far and too fast. It couldn’t control all the levers of government yet because there were those unaffected party members still in positions of power. Then came the COVID-19 virus. While Trump was busy preaching fiction, “we’ve got it under control,” and “there won’t be any deaths,” the real virus began killing thousands of Americans.

So, in 2020 the American body politic, with the influence of a real virus, shook off its political virus. But it didn’t end it. The festering virus mutated and became even more virulent

As scientists developed effective vaccines and countermeasures to COVID, the MAGA virus spread — there was no effective vaccine against a cult mentality. Its members denied so many basic facts while pushing Trump's fictions that millions of people became confused — unable to tell fact from fiction. The disinformation helped spread the virus. Biden’s inability to effectively communicate aided and abetted the disinformation.

The sluggish response by the Department of Justice to pursue Trump on a wide variety of crimes, coupled with a complicit or inept judiciary gave the virus time to explode.

The depths of Trump’s depravity are matched only by the shallowness of his soul. Thus to this day, he denies he lost the 2020 election. He claims to support free speech while destroying it. He denies the actual start of the war in Ukraine because he loves pretending that he’s coming to save the day.

The unflinching fact is that the Trump virus is still virulent and viable. It is unaware, like most viruses, of the cost it takes on others and itself.

It is affecting our closest friends and our greatest enemies. It threatens to be all-consuming and unmanageable. Its most cancerous component may be acting Ice Director Tom Homan, a gentleman that political analyst Norm Ornstein calls a “psychopath and Nazi.” Homan recently identified the next, and perhaps, last domestic enemy against the MAGA virus; the judiciary. He doesn’t believe the judiciary is independent and defies any attempt to keep him from deporting anyone he chooses without due process of the law.

“We are going to make this country safe again … I'm proud to be a part of this administration. We are not stopping. I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the Left thinks. We're coming," he said.

The Pep Secretary echoes Homan’s theme but denies the Trump’s administration’s defiance against the courts out of one side of her mouth and defends it out of the other side. Wednesday was just another day of nonsense in the briefing room. “The judges in this country are acting erroneously. They are trying to dictate policy . . . it’s unacceptable,” Leavitt exclaimed.

She defended the concept of co-equal branches of government while at the same time saying that the courts are wrong and can’t do what they did. Not one reporter in the briefing room pushed back against that statement, just like no one pushed back when she claimed Trump had an overwhelming mandate, or the war wouldn’t have started if Trump had been President.

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The virus is indeed strong in that one. “This is lawfare,” The Pep Secretary told us Wednesday. “Partisan activists,” she declared, were behind recent judicial setbacks. The president himself had called for the impeachment of justices who disagree with him. Trump posted on his Truth Social site Tuesday morning after a judge ruled that he couldn’t deport anyone without due process: “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! . . . MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Chief Justice John Roberts attempted to corral Trump within hours of Trump’s social media post. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a Supreme Court-issued statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

The Trump virus is immune to rational thought and devoid of reality, yet it still thrives. Every press briefing begins and ends with blaming Joe Biden for everything Trump claims is going wrong – while genuflecting at Trump’s knees for making things right again.

The virus has overcome the Republicans, laid low the Democrats who seemingly have no answer to Trump other than to cower before him and let him have his way. They may say they are adopting a “F*ck around and find out attitude”, but to millions of voters not currently overcome by the Trump virus the Democrats appear weak and ineffective.

Right now Trump owns the executive and legislative branches of government. He has effectively compromised the press. He thought when he successfully stacked the Supreme Court in his first term that they’d have his back now. So with recent lower court decisions and a rebuke by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, it appears that some attempt to cure the country of this caustic virus is underway.

It is a classic struggle; The courts versus the executives with the legislators sitting on the sidelines ultimately cheering for whoever wins. Trump, so far, has vowed to follow the rule of law and respect the courts, though the actions of his administration demonstrate that is a lie. He currently is nibbling around the edge of judicial authority: testing it to see how stiff the opposition will be. If he senses weakness, the virus will overcome the last remaining guardrail and obstruction to totalitarianism — the judiciary branch of government.

The last stand is underway.

It’s another Donald Trump production brought to you from the mind of the man who just wants a Nobel Peace Prize – no matter who he has to kill to get it.

about Trump's latest antics

“They basically want to kill me”: GOP efforts to turn Musk into a MAGA martyr are backfiring

No one has yearned to call himself a victim of "cancel culture" more than Elon Musk. In one sense, he's succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, becoming a favorite villain of the left, the target of non-stop scorn and mockery. But he keeps failing at the second, equally crucial aspect of becoming an icon for self-pitying fascists: selling himself as a MAGA martyr. Even by the low standards of people who love Donald Trump, Musk is too charmless, self-pitying, and privileged to make a compelling character in the endlessly idiotic drama of right-wing outrage at liberals who commit the high crime of not liking them.

Exhibit #1 of how Musk is bad at this: At a Trump victory rally in January, Musk showily threw two hand gestures that are physically and psychically indistinguishable from the infamous Nazi salute. This generates progressive outrage, which usually provokes a "how dare you call us racist just because we spread neo-Nazi conspiracy theories?!" response on the right. And sure, there were some moribund efforts to stand in solidarity with Musk, such as Steve Bannon also tossing off a stiff-armed salute at a MAGA conference. But Bannon cringed while he did it, and the result was that even the far-right in Europe inched away in embarrassment. Instead of a surge of red hats embracing the "sieg heil" as their new troll-the-liberals-for-Elon gesture, the whole thing has faded away.

Exhibit #2, a little older but still hilarious: In 2022, Dave Chappelle was cashing in on his moment of "cancel culture" martyrdom, packing houses with fans outraged that anyone dared tell the comedian that anti-trans bigotry isn't cool. Musk desperately wanted a piece and joined Chappelle on stage in San Francisco. But instead of a hero's welcome, Musk got booed, so badly that it was reported later that his employees feared he was having a mental breakdown after the show. Even a self-pity party for bigots draws a line at crybaby antics from the richest man in the world.

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In recent weeks, there's been a deluge of protests and other actions geared toward making Musk's car company, Tesla, a toxic brand, in response to the billionaire's often-illegal efforts to gut the federal government from the inside. The movement has been a big success. Tesla's stock price is falling and Tesla owners are trying to sell their cars off, even as the used market value is plummeting. But Trump is infatuated with Musk — even using the White House lawn as space for a de facto Tesla commercial — so the GOP and the MAGA media are, with visible reluctance, doing what they can to turn Musk into their latest martyr offered up for the plebes to weep over.

Things aren't going well. Musk appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show Tuesday for a garment-rending session so pitiful that it barely has any pick-up in the rest of the right-wing press. "I’ve never done anything harmful," Musk whined, alleging he's the victim of a shadowy conspiracy of "larger forces at work." "Who’s funding and who’s coordinating it?" he sniveled, as if it's not possible that millions of Americans see him for what he is and have decided to join in the fun of destroying his brand's reputation. "They basically want to kill me," he declared dramatically, while Hannity made soothing noises.

The melodrama has echoes of Trump falsely claiming that it's illegal not to buy Teslas, which start at $44,000 for the cheapest new model. Why not? "Cancel culture" complaints are usually premised on the notion that liberals are obligated to applaud bigoted statements, date people they don't like, and laugh at jokes they don't find funny. It's only logical that the next argument was, "Buy my crap, or you're murdering me." But these antics are bound to backfire. Teslas are electric cars, which MAGA has been told for a decade now will detach your testicles upon plugging them in. The only real customer base was well-heeled liberals, and having Trump and Hannity endorse the car is kryptonite, and rightfully so.

"No future election is going to fix the problem": Trump's war on education is worse than it looks

The vast majority of anti-Tesla actions have been legal and peaceful, but there are reports of some car vandalism and a handful of incidents of people setting cars on fire. Attorney General Pam Bondi declared it's "nothing short of domestic terrorism." Musk took the high dudgeon even higher on Hannity, falsely accusing "the Democrats" of "burning down cars, firebombing dealerships, they’re firing bullets into dealerships, they’re smashing up Teslas," and complaining "Democrats were supposed to be the party of empathy." Needless to say, Democratic leaders are not setting cars on fire or encouraging this behavior.

But this language is especially rich coming from a man who, only last month, declared that the "fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy." Of course, he was sneering at the empathy people have for retirees whose Social Security checks are threatened, AIDS victims left to die because their drugs were cut off, veterans who are losing health care, and dedicated public servants who have been summarily fired by a billionaire who finds their do-gooder lives to be icky. But Musk has bottomless empathy for cars, which have no feelings. That checks out for a man who speaks often of how he'd like to replace humanity with robots and artificial intelligence programs.

Almost no one propped up by MAGA media as a martyr deserves sympathy. Still, Musk is a hard sell even in the right-wing media ecosystem where "victims" are people who were wished "happy holidays" at Starbucks or tied for 5th place with a trans woman at a single swim meet. The man might as well be wiping away his crocodile tears with $1,000 bills. If anything, making himself the centerpiece of a "woe is me" campaign is backfiring. At town halls across the country, Republican congressmen are finding it nearly impossible to defend Musk from jeering crowds who do not believe Granny should lose her Social Security check so a billionaire can get even richer.

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NEBRASKA CROWD: “TAX THE RICH! TAX THE RICH!”@USRepMikeFlood: “So your proposal to solve (the debt) is tax the rich?”

NEBRASKA CROWD: *CHEERS WILDLY*

(not sure this went quite as he planned 😬) pic.twitter.com/fkZDSKMama

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) March 18, 2025

One of the funnier phenomena online in recent weeks is how the Reddit forum for Joe Rogan fans has turned on the podcaster, mostly because they can't stand how he's cozied up to Musk. Even Rogan fans are leaving comments these days like, "This nerd wants to buy people's approval so badly" and making fun of Trump for his pitiful attempt to sell Teslas. Musk was never a great fit for the dirtbag crowd, which has always been more interested in giving wedgies to self-congratulatory nerds than treating them like heroes. Trump's juice with these guys has always been that he is a proud ignoramus, a man who speaks loudly with great confidence, despite knowing nothing and having no interest in learning.

Musk is also such a man, but he has successfully disguised himself for years as a proper nerd, often bragging about books he's probably not read and implying he's got engineering skills he doesn't have. The crotch-scratching crowd doesn't love a geek and they especially don't like someone merely posing as one. The latter may be their only redeemable quality.

The good news is that Musk is doing a bang-up job helping people understand that Trump was never for the working man, as he has successfully tricked so many into thinking. By tying himself so tightly to this pampered brat, Trump has done serious damage to his approval ratings. That's especially true on the economy, where Trump has usually performed well, buoyed by his unearned reputation as a "businessman" and a lot of public ignorance over how economics works. But Musk is so easy to hate and such an icon of self-dealing that he's finally helping crack the unwillingness some folks have to believe the truth: Trump doesn't care about them, only his rich friends. Even when they're billionaires who can't shut up about what victims they are.

Doctors raise alarm about rise in “sloth fever” infections linked to birth defects

A surge of infections from a tropical virus is raising alarm among public health officials because it appears to be causing birth defects similar to those associated with Zika virus. Known as Oropouche virus, it can trigger a fever that may cause pregnant people to miscarry or their babies to have birth defects known as microcephaly, or smaller than usual heads.

Disease caused by this virus currently has no treatment or vaccine, although most cases are generally asymptomatic or mild and resolve on their own. Epidemics of Oropouche fever have occurred multiple times in the past, with approximately 380,000 infections between 1961 and 2007. Last year, more than 16,000 cases were reported, including four deaths, with 8,600 cases in Brazil alone, many in places where the virus hadn’t been reported before. Over 100 of these cases traveled to the U.S, but there has been no local infections or transmission. All of this indicates that the virus is becoming more prevalent, posing greater risks to the public.

Tuberculosis is on the rise again. We can fight it — if we try

“Case numbers have been steadily increasing this year. In areas with previous Oropouche transmission the number of cases have approximately doubled compared to last year and there have been many reports of cases in new areas,” Dr. Stephen Vaughan, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Calgary, told Salon by email. “Due to the nonspecific presentation and limitations in testing for this virus in most countries, the number of reported cases are an underestimate of the true burden of disease.”

Vaughan co-authored a recent guide published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal warning travelers, especially pregnant people, to take precautions and avoid insect bites that can spread the illness.

“Since late 2023, new outbreaks have been reported in Bolivia, Brazil, Peru and Cuba, including among travelers returning to Canada and the United States,” the report states. Notably, more Canadians are ditching vacation plans in the U.S. and traveling to South America instead, according to a recent Business Insider report, in response to tariffs imposed by the U.S. government. But Oropouche can be hard to detect, and is easily confused with other diseases.

"As this is a recent outbreak, there aren’t any treatments or vaccines available."

“Malaria, Zika, dengue and chikungunya are also endemic in some regions affected by Oropouche virus,” the report notes. Indeed, Oropouche can mimic dengue and chikungunya with similar symptoms of fever, chills, headache and myalgias, which can often cause the infection to be misdiagnosed. It primarily spreads from biting midges such as Culicoides paraensis, but like Zika, it can be transmitted via certain mosquitoes (Culex quinquefasciatus and Aedes serratus.) Non-human primates like howler monkeys, as well as other mammals like sloths, can also be infected with Oropouche, which is why the disease is sometimes nicknamed “sloth fever.”

Infection can be prevented by wearing long-sleeved clothing and using mosquito nets, as well as chemical insect repellents such as DEET.

“As this is a recent outbreak, there aren’t any treatments or vaccines available, and vaccine development pipelines are in their infancy (pre-clinical),” Vaughan explained. But “arbovirus vaccines“ meant to target viruses transmitted by arthropods and insects “have been recently approved in many countries,” he said, including vaccines for dengue and Chikungunya, which are similar but more severe.

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“One of the dengue vaccines has been authorized for use in the U.S.,” he continued, but only for patients with evidence of previous infection. “If Oropouche continues to circulate for a few more years and there is confirmatory evidence of birth defects in pregnant travelers then it is likely a vaccine will be prioritized.” That, however, would take years to move through the approval process.

As with other pathogens, from bird flu to malaria, the increase in Oropouche infections can be explained partially by global heating and the ongoing destruction of the environment.

“Climate change has allowed the expansion of mosquito vectors into new areas exposing more humans,” Vaughan said. “Also, degradation of natural habitats have driven mosquitos into surrounding areas. Ease of travel (airplanes) and the relative lack of symptoms with Oropouche allow infected patients to carry the virus over long distances to new areas without detection, then expose a new population.”

To further complicate matters, surveillance of the Oropouche virus is likely imperiled by recent cuts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the World Health Organization.

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“Decreased funding and inability to collaborate with international organizations will lead to increased threats from emerging pathogens,” including Ebola, mpox and Zika virus, Vaughan said. “Without properly supported surveillance networks, infections (including Oropouche) will continue to enter and circulate in the population prior to being recognized with the possibly of severe consequences.” He said he hoped the CDC would “continue to be the most important organization to identify, monitor and advise the public of ongoing and emerging) outbreaks. It is better to know which infections are going to cause the next outbreak (through surveillance) to act quickly allowing health authorities to make educated decisions.”

One significant outstanding question about Oropouche is whether it can spread via semen, which would effectively make it a sexually transmittable disease. Zika virus can be spread this way, though the viruses are entirely different species. A 42-year-old Italian man who visited Cuba in July 2024 contracted Oropouche fever, with tests revealing he was shedding the virus in his semen, though it’s not yet clear if that means infection can spread from person to person this way. “Our findings raise concerns over the potential for person-to-person transmission of [Oropouche virus] via sexual encounters and may have implications for sperm banking and assisted reproductive technologies,” a report in Emerging Infectious Diseases states, adding that more research is needed.

In the meantime, there have yet to be any reports of Oropouche infections in the U.S. or Canada and it’s still not entirely clear how damaging the virus can be to the health of babies.

“Currently, the number of cases in the U.S. remains low,” Vaughan said. “However, the possibility of infection is greater with travel to the Caribbean and South America. The possible association with birth defects is still under investigation. I would recommend that pregnant travelers discuss their travel itinerary with a travel health professional to determine their individualized risk.”

about public health

Trump’s banking deregulation affects your money

It’s clear the actions undertaken by President Trump’s second administration are going to reshape Americans’ finances in myriad ways. And one less flashy part of his federal government overhaul — banking deregulation — is worth paying attention to.

As of now, the only federal agency that explicitly monitors banks and other depository institutions for abusing consumers is on life support. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cracked down on everything from junk fees to the withholding of credit card rewards before it was effectively gutted by the Trump administration — a move that’s left a wide regulatory hole and sent consumer advocates reeling.

“The cop on the beat is gone,” said Chris Fasano, an attorney who was fired from his position at the CFPB last month amid DOGE's attempts to dismantle the bureau. “There's no one to monitor these credit card companies, mortgage companies, student loan companies. And when they cheat the American public — and they do — there's no one there to stop them and to return that money to the American public."

"Put it in a credit union": TikTokers debate how to Trump-proof their money

Since being signed into law in 2011, the CFPB has recovered more than $19.7 billion in consumer relief payments for an array of violations from banks and financial institutions: things like hidden fees, wrongful foreclosures, erroneous policy cancellations and other potentially illegal conduct.

The agency was created after the Great Recession to patch a regulatory hole in how the federal government policed financial institutions. The Federal Trade Commission has long had a consumer protection division and has operated under the mandate to protect consumers from “unfair or deceptive” business practices. The CFPB’s mandate, though, takes things one step further, empowering the agency to correct and often seek compensation for “unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices” of banks.

“We use that all the time,” Fasano told Salon of the mandate. “There are so many practices where these companies are just skirting the line of statutory regulatory compliance, but ultimately still trying to take advantage of consumers.”

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Part of what gave the CFPB such sharp enforcement teeth was its consumer response team, which last week was ordered by a federal judge to return to work after DOGE sent them home. The team monitors the CFPB’s consumer complaint database “very closely,” Fasano said, tracking similar complaints filed against the same institution, monitoring trends and eventually bundling those complaints into an examination or investigation.

“There's nothing quite like that consumer complaint database,” Faraso told Salon. Without it, he said, “people are gonna be left to their own devices. They're gonna be stuck bringing their own case.”

Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, agreed. “The available, immediate remedies for people who feel they've been treated unfairly will be extremely limited by the fact that the CFPB public databases and response team just aren't available,” he told Salon.

Only Congress can eliminate the CFPB, and some of Trump's efforts to shut it down have been halted by the courts. Even a less ambitious goal of weakening the agency could lead banks to feeling emboldened to “take advantage, because they no longer have to comply with the law," Rheingold said.

But there are things consumers can do to protect themselves — starting with being more aware of how the changes could affect their wallets.

How CFPB rules protected consumers

Overdraft fees. A CFPB rule that would’ve lowered the average overdraft fee charged by banks from as much as $35 to between $3 and $14 is in jeopardy. The GOP-controlled House Financial Services Committee voted this month to repeal the rule, and similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate.

Junk fees. The CFPB has cracked down in recent years on junk fees charged by banks. In 2022, the CFPB levied a record $3.7 billion in penalties and redress against Wells Fargo for applying junk fees and interest charges on customers’ auto and mortgage loans, among other alleged violations. A weakening of the CFPB’s authority could lead to limited enforcement in the future.

Resolving consumer complaints. The CFPB's response unit, created to enforce consumer complaints against their banks, assists people "with their financial institution, with a bank, with a payday lender, with a mortgage company, with a car finance company," Rheingold said.

The CFPB also enforces discrimination laws in lending practices, and it requires banks and credit unions to notify consumers ahead of time if the terms of their accounts will change.

"I would be looking at my bank accounts more closely. I'd be looking at all my transactions more closely"

Enforcement actions. In 2023, the CFPB ordered Bank of America to pay more than $250 million for a list of alleged violations. Over several years, per the CFPB, the bank was “systematically double-dipping on fees imposed on customers with insufficient funds in their account, withholding reward bonuses explicitly promised to credit card customers, and misappropriating sensitive personal information to open accounts without customer knowledge or authorization.”

Earlier this year, the CFPB sued Capitol One for hawking a savings account that allegedly offered one of the “best” and “highest” interest rates in the nation, only to freeze those interest rates at a lower level “while rates rose nationwide,” costing customers $2 billion in owed interest payments.

That suit was dropped after Trump took office, along with a slew of other enforcement actions the CFPB was pursuing against financial services companies like Rocket Homes, Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance and Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.

What consumers can do

Without the CFPB, American consumers have few options for recourse from financial harm caused by their banks and financial institutions, experts told Salon — such as if they’ve been charged hidden fees, had an account wrongly closed or are facing interest rates on a loan or payment that wasn't disclosed when they took out the loan.

Consumers can opt out of overdraft fees or switch to an account that doesn't charge them. Banks often offer text or email alerts letting consumers know when their account balances are low.

Experts also recommend these steps:

Review your accounts. With less enforcement around things like hidden fees, they advise consumers to scan their bank account charges and transactions on a regular basis, as well as their credit card interest rates.“I would be looking at my bank accounts more closely. I'd be looking at all my transactions more closely,” Rheingold said. “I'd be looking at my credit card statements more closely.”

"If somebody approaches me about a loan or some form of credit, I would look very closely at those terms"

File a complaint. Experts say it's still a good idea to file a complaint with the CFPB, even if the agency is barely alive. Consumers can also report a claim to their state’s consumer complaints agency or with the FTC's consumer complaints division, as well as with the company accused of committing the violation.

Read the fine print. In the same way that the Food and Drug Administration mandates that companies print nutritional facts in clear language, the CFPB has enforced similar standards for the language banks use when issuing any kind of lending product. But that enforcement will no longer exist, experts said. “If somebody approaches me about a loan or some form of credit, I would look very closely at those terms,” Rheingold said.

If you know a lawyer or someone who works in finance, it’s not a bad idea to have them look over the terms of any new financial product you’re considering: a mortgage, a line of credit, a new bank account or even how your credit card’s rewards points are being applied.

Advocate for yourself. Bobbi Rebell, a certified financial planner at CardRates.com and the author of several personal finance books, said in the absence of the CFPB’s enforcement authority, consumers could benefit from “being their own advocate.”

“It's a great time for a self audit,” Rebell said. She encouraged consumers to review their regular bills and credit card statements, and look for any unrecognized charges or fees. Setting up alerts on accounts for new charges is a good idea, she said.

Consumers should call their banks if they see something suspicious, Rebell said.

“Your credit card company is going to be there to advocate for you if you get a charge that's fraudulent, right?” she said. “Don't forget that.”

about personal finance

“Fat, dumb, foolish country”: Trump says US has been “pillaged” via trade deals

Donald Trump says he woke up one morning and saw the truth: America's a sucker.

The president shared his unvarnished opinion of the country he leads during a Wednesday night interview on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle." Speaking from the White House, Trump said that the U.S. had been playing the rube in unbalanced deals with its biggest trading partners.

While discussing a potential summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Trump touted his plan to increase tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

"China will pay and other countries will pay. We've been ripped off by every country in the world, friend and foe," Trump said. "April 2, I call it the 'liberation of America.' We've been the fat, dumb, foolish country that allowed everybody to rip us off."

Trump: We’ve been the fat dumb foolish country… pic.twitter.com/u0H94XidmA

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 19, 2025

"They will drive up costs": Tariffs on China may be felt in a wide range of industries

Trump went on to say that the country had been "raped and pillaged" by "our friends" and waved off concerns that a trade war could spark a recession.

"If I didn't get elected, our country would be finished," he said. "We're going to have the strongest economy in the history of the world."

Asked about the possibility of a recession, Trump claims the country was “finished” if he wasn’t elected pic.twitter.com/zlbxEpjHEN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 19, 2025

Trump's interview aired on the same day that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell blamed Trump's tariffs for economic uncertainty and the Fed potentially failing to meet its targets in its fight against inflation.

“With the arrival of the tariff inflation, further progress may be delayed,” Powell said while announcing that interest rates would remain steady. "[The forecast] “doesn’t really show further downward progress on inflation this year, and that’s really due to the tariffs coming in."

about tariffs

“Progress may be delayed”: Powell blames stubborn inflation on Trump tariffs

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell blamed President Donald Trump's chaotic raft of tariffs for the slow progress of the central bank's fight against inflation on Wednesday.

Powell had little to share with reporters, as the Federal Open Market Committee declined to make any adjustments to interest rates following a two-day meeting in Washington, D.C. While defending the decision, Powell noted the "unusually elevated" uncertainty around the U.S. economy in the early months of Trump's presidency. Powell and the Fed have set a target of 2% inflation in 2025 but recent forecasts from the bank's analysts believe that goal is well out of reach.

“With the arrival of the tariff inflation, further progress may be delayed,” Powell said. "[The forecast] “doesn’t really show further downward progress on inflation this year, and that’s really due to the tariffs coming in."

Powell also noted that the tariffs make the Federal Reserve's attempts to track the root causes of inflation more difficult.

“It is going to be very difficult to have a precise assessment of how much of inflation is coming from tariffs and from other [places],” Powell said.

"There are no guarantees": Trump acolytes run defense on potential recession

Inflation on household staples had cooled in February, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, before Trump's plans for tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China spooked the market and members of his administration. Speaking to news outlets on Wednesday, Powell said that the fear in the markets is running ahead of the facts on the ground.

"We do understand that sentiment has fallen off pretty sharply but economic activity has not yet," Powell said. "The economy seems to be healthy."

about the economy

“Partisan activists from the bench”: White House attacks federal judges, promises more deportations

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt continued the Trump administration's attack on the federal judiciary on Wednesday, accusing judges of "acting as partisan activists" in their objections to President Donald Trump's agenda.

Trump admin officials were recently barred from carrying out deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Over the weekend, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ordered the administration officials to halt any future deportations under the archaic and rarely used act, demanding that any deportees in transit be returned to the United States. Trump and associates flouted that order, mocking the judge over the timing of his order and sharing videos of the deportees in an El Salvadoran prison.

While Leavitt said on Wednesday that the Trump administration "will continue to comply" with court orders, she added that "Americans can absolutely expect to see the continuation of the mass deportation campaign."

"The judges in this country are acting erroneously. We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench," Leavitt said, referring to the judiciary's constitutionally granted check on executive power. "They are trying to clearly slow-walk this administration’s agenda, and it’s unacceptable."

Leavitt: "It's incumbent on the Supreme Court to rein in these activist judges. These partisan activists are undermining the judicial branch." pic.twitter.com/PXgLxyh3c6

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 19, 2025

Trump is becoming a bigger problem for the Supreme Court — and John Roberts can't control it

Boasberg has locked horns with Justice Department officials in the days since his temporary restraining order took effect. The DOJ has argued that parts of his order to stop deportations were "not enforceable" and delayed in handing over information about their compliance with his orders.

In a ruling pushing back the DOJ's deadline to turn over the requested info, Boasberg lambasted the executive department for failing to turn over the documents.

“As the Supreme Court has made crystal clear, the proper recourse for a party subject to an injunction it believes is legally flawed — and is indeed later shown to be so flawed — is appellate review, not disobedience,” the judge wrote on Wednesday.

The outright disobedience of federal judges — and calls for impeachment from Trump and his supporters — have inspired rare public statements from Supreme Court justices past and present. A day after Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement calling impeachment "not an appropriate response," retired Justice Stephen Breyer backed his former colleague on CNN.

[The judicial system] doesn’t work by impeaching a judge because you don’t like his decision,” Breyer shared with host Wolf Blitzer.

about Trump and the courts

“Severance” and the horrors of RTO: The case against bringing your best self to work

At some point we’ve all felt like Dylan G.’s "outie" — slumping through our off-hours, barely interacting with family and too tired to socialize. Once Dylan clocks out of his workday at Lumon Industries’ spartan offices on “Severance," he can barely muster enough willpower to tackle whatever it is that his wife is asking him to do.

This isn't because work has mentally exhausted Dylan (played by Zach Cherry) — or, to be specific, his outie. Since his consciousness is surgically divided between the professional life of his "innie" and downtime with his spouse and children, outie Dylan doesn't remember anything about his workdays. He is just, to put it in his innie's words, kind of a loser.

As the second season of "Severance" nears its finale, the show has become more explicit about cracking open the hollowness of bringing our “whole” or “best” selves to our workplaces.

The savviest thing he ever did was marry Gretchen (Merritt Wever), a woman of bountiful patience, although it’s Dylan G.’s innie, a top producer on Lumon’s Macrodata Refinement team, who most appreciates that.

When Gretchen explains to Dylan's innie that his outside self has had problems keeping other jobs, he’s confused.

“He dumb?” Dylan G. asks. No, Gretchen answers gently. It’s just that “he never quite found his thing.”

That is an entirely foreign concept to innie Dylan, who is proud to have earned enough perks through his diligence and skill to be treated to these occasional visits from the stranger to whom his listless other half is married. Gretchen basks in Dylan G.'s admiration, especially their hugs and the kiss they share – all of which amounts to infidelity in the view of his livid outie.

Zach Cherry and Merritt Wever in "Severance" (Courtesy of Apple TV+)For Dylan G. and Mark S. (Adam Scott), work is where they shine. For the rudderless and lost, whether due to ineptitude or deep grief, the office can be an orderly refuge. Co-workers may become a second family, as Dylan and Mark consider Helly R. (Britt Lower) and the recently dismissed Irving B. (John Turturro) to be.

But as the second season of "Severance" nears its finale, the show has become more explicit about cracking open the hollowness of bringing our “whole” or “best” selves to our workplaces, to paraphrase inspirational jargon some companies adopted before the pandemic.

Lumon gets their severed workers’ best selves, but not their whole selves. There is no such thing for its severed workforce since the company markets its controversial procedure as a means of guarding the so-called work-life balance.

Watching Dylan, Mark and other severed workers from the other side of an era that obliterated that supposed boundary underscores the American worker's lack of willingness to give their all to overlords who would dispose of them in a heartbeat if it improves their bottom line.

"Severance" and the important, mysterious job of speaking the language of work

Last week, Apple TV+ announced it has picked up a fourth season of “Ted Lasso.” With the economy teetering on the brink of a recession and our collective mental health careening toward mass depression, the timing couldn’t be better. We will need the new season’s sunshine regardless of when it premieres. Remember how we all felt in late 2020, shortly after the show first debuted? Each of us was some version of low, angry or exhausted from pre-election anxiety and pandemic disillusionment. Backlash would hit the show later, but when it was fresh, that gold and blue reminder to “Believe” was the medicine we needed.

“Ted Lasso” was perfect for the pandemic. “Severance” is a product of it.

Before a microscopic killer shut down offices in the real world, the concept of a work-life balance had already been unmasked.

Chronological tracing may poke holes in this thesis, admittedly. Series creator Dan Erickson and executive producer Ben Stiller have been working on "Severance" in some form since 2015, and Apple picked it up to series in 2019 – well before that nasty novel coronavirus ground life to a halt.

Contemplating COVID-19’s impact five years after the World Health Organization officially declared a global pandemic means measuring all the ways it changed us. For one, confronting death on a mass scale we hadn’t seen up close in a century made us think differently about what we were doing with our single precious existence. That started with the estimated 90,000 hours we spend at work over our lifetimes.

It also transformed our perception of time which, in turn, plays tricks on the memory. When lockdowns forced our regular routines into a holding pattern, workdays and weekends slid together. If you’ve hypothetically wondered, “What is time anymore,” it may be both alarming and a relief to know you’re not the only temporally disoriented person out here. To some degree, everybody is.

As the second season deepens the mystery surrounding Mark S., the show presses into this sensation. What feels like a moment between when Mark S. clocked out for the MDR employees' rule-breaking "Overtime Contingency" mission and his return to the office is, in truth, a pause that lasted months. Then again, what is one workday against the next to those who, by design, never feel like they leave the office?

Patricia Arquette in "Severance" (Courtesy of Apple TV+)From what we’ve seen of those who dedicate their lives to their company like Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman), nothing good comes of merging one’s personal life with one’s workplace. Ms. Cobel was raised in Lumon founder Kier Eagan’s insular cult, one that ravaged entire towns built around its labor force. A natural spark she displayed when she was younger led to her being integrated into its white-collar culture. Like the oddly mature child intern Miss Huang (Sarah Bock), young Harmony had Kier in her, whatever that means.

Being Lumon management, however, is a 24/7 gig. Outie Mark knew Ms. Cobel as his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Selvig, never recognizing that she was also his boss — ever present, always watching. Like corporate spyware.

Bizarre as the sci-fi mechanics of Dylan G. and Mark S.’s situations may be, they are not so far removed from the way workers live in a post-pandemic society.

One stumble reduces her to an outsider, forcing Cobel to return to the desperate company town where she grew up and designed inventions that Lumon stole, including the technology enabling the severance procedure. She gave Lumon her whole self, and they took it.

While “Severance” writers have expanded the show’s mythology well beyond Mark, his outie’s search for his wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) is the second season’s main throughline. Mark’s presumption that she died in a car crash led to him agreeing to undergo the severance procedure since his anguish over her death and the miscarriage that preceded it led him to lose his university job.

The twist is that not only is she alive, but that she and Mark are two sides of Lumon’s grandest experiment. The seventh episode reveals she’s being dropped into an assortment of existences and innie personas while her outie is trapped in a sterile Lumon dormitory. Just like those fancy condos in your local business district advertise, she works at Lumon and, therefore, she’s already home.

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Before a microscopic killer shut down offices in the real world, the concept of a work-life balance had already been unmasked. Many of us are still navigating the division between who we are in the office versus who we are in our personal lives – that is, unless unspoken societal restrictions require a person to master the art of code-switching.

The rest of the culture was already partly there, what with our jokes identifying close co-workers as work spouses and the many TV shows legitimizing the concept of the office family. Insofar as that is true, we should say.

When The Great Resignation kicked off in 2021, a quarter of respondents to a 2022 Pew Research Poll listed a lack of flexible work hours and poor benefits such as no paid time off as their primary reasons for quitting. A majority, 57%, simply had enough of feeling disrespected.

To that end, Milchick’s arc shows that the “whole self” invitation only really extends to certain people. The recently promoted deputy manager of the severed floor lives Lumon’s ideals. Milchick follows the company’s worship of its mysterious founder to the letter. His work and home selves are one and the same.

Dichen Lachman in "Severance" (Courtesy of Apple TV+)For that he’s rewarded with an aggressively negative work review that his supervisor Mr. Drummond (Darri Ólafsson) tries to lord over him, specifically policing his “overly complex” language and inability to control his workers around the clock. There are cultural and racial overtones to an exchange in a recent episode wherein Drummond abusively demands Milchick apologize for using complicated words to . . . apologize.

A traumatized Milchick complies at first until he realizes neither he nor his very best efforts will ever be fully accepted. He visibly straightens and says to Drummond, “Devour feculence,” establishing that this is how he naturally speaks. Then he helpfully tells Mr. Drummond what that means in simpler terms.

“I am manager of the severed floor, which means two things. First, I am owed a measure of respect, even by my superiors. Second, and more obvious, that said floor comprises the whole of my jurisdiction. To put that monosyllabically,” Milchick says, pausing on each beat of that word, “it's not my fault what Mark Scout does when he is not at work. It's yours.”

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Our sourness on living to work predates COVID, but remote work accelerated our rejection of pouring our souls into our jobs since, for more than a year, there was no divide between work and home.

Hence, watching reactions to major companies instituting return-to-office mandates has been enlightening. Turns out people enjoy working from home as long as the rest of the world isn't shut to them. Data from WFH Research indicates that while 13% of full-time employees were remote workers by late 2024, another 61% were back to working full-time at an office, with 26% in hybrid situations. But nearly a third of workers expressed a willingness to strike over work-from-home benefits.

If a company truly wants its employees to bring their whole or best selves to their work, it would welcome them to put in their hours from wherever they feel the most comfortable and transition smoothly into their leisure time.

Don’t just take our word for it (especially since, in the spirit of full disclosure, Salon’s newsroom is fully remote). Business Insider has covered the disgruntled responses from JP Morgan Chase remote and hybrid employees since its CEO Jamie Dimon announced the company's return-to-office mandate earlier this year.

The outlet also spoke with Amazon employees, including a few recommended by the company who, shocker, love being back in the office.

Among those who expressed dismay at the mandate is a man who is a primary caregiver for his disabled spouse and requires the flexibility of a remote commute, and another facing four hours of commuting to and from work every day.

Bizarre as the sci-fi mechanics of Dylan G. and Mark S.’s situations may be, they are not so far removed from the way workers live in a post-pandemic society. Everyone’s expectations of how we work and live are changing, and this show highlights why giving our whole or best selves to a paycheck is folly. People may get extra perks from pouring their all into work but what we lose may be worth much more, because if we take our "best" or whole selves to work, what’s left for living?

The season finale of "Severance" streams Friday, March 21.

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“It pisses me off”: JB Pritzker channels liberal anger at Trump — and his own party

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a rumored contender for the Democratic Party's 2028 presidential nomination, waded into the debate over Democratic resistance and capitulation on Tuesday, name-dropping one member of his state's congressional delegation but conspicuously avoiding mention of the senior Democrat who helped Republicans pass a six-month spending bill.

"I want to commend Tammy Duckworth, who I called to ask how she was going to vote [on the government funding resolution], and she said 'my vote is hell no,'" he told an audience at a forum hosted by the Center for American Progress, a center-left think tank in Washington, DC. "I love her."

Pritzker did not mention Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the 80-year-old senior senator from his state and the Democratic whip who voted with Republicans to keep the federal government open even as President Donald Trump seeks to dismantle congressionally authorized agencies. While the two political heavyweights have already worked at cross-purposes, Pritzker's omission further underscored a frustration at party leaders in Washington who Democrats across the ideological spectrum have criticized variously as feckless, uninspiring and cowardly.

How I successfully defended abortion after Dobbs

While Senate Minority Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democratic "yes" votes have insisted that their party would be blamed for shutting down the government and people would suffer as a result, Pritzker and others, like Minnesota governor and former Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, argue that allowing Trump and Elon Musk to ransack the federal bureaucracy is even worse.

"We have to take any opportunity where we have leverage in order to stand up and fight," Prtizker said Tuesday. "Now, it's not about fighting to no end, so what do you use that fight for? It's to get compromises from this ridiculously quiet Congress that goes along with whatever Donald Trump and Elon Musk are telling them."

The decision by Schumer, Durbin and eight other Democrats to squander "a real opportunity to stand up and speak out and protect people who we have to stand up for," he added, "disappointed" him.

As liberal anger towards the Trump administration and congressional Democrats alike boils over, Pritzker is eagerly claiming a role as both an advocate and example for an all-of-the-above approach towards opposing Trump and enacting a relatively bold policy agenda in his own jurisdiction. First elected to office in 2018, the billionaire heir to the Hyatt hospitality fortune seemed an unlikely figure of progressive hope — and yet, within months of his inauguration, Pritzker signed bills to raise the minimum wage to $15, legalize the recreational use of marijuana, ban so-called "right-to-work" laws designed to hobble trade unions and codify abortion protections into state law.

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While he's still hardly the leader of a class revolution, Pritzker's success in transforming a slew of promises into law has won him some praise from left-wing publications like Jacobin and an X account facetiously called "Socialists for Pritzker," and also helped position him as a leading voice in the Democratic Party. Shortly after the 2024 election, Pritzker formed an alliance of Democratic governors to coordinate their response to any federal government overreach, and less than two weeks into Trump's second term, Pritzker was on the phone with Schumer, urging him to push back more forcefully against the president. Under Pritzker's direction, the Illinois state attorney general has joined a series of lawsuits challenging the Trump administration's policies, some of which have been stalled in federal courts.

To his CAP audience, Pritzker pitched his record as an antidote to the party's problems and a blueprint for its future. "When there's a disconnect between Democratic policies and people's recognition of those policies, we lose," he said, referring to voters who supported progressive ballot initiatives but voted for GOP candidates. "If we want to regain the trust of the voters that we stand for, Democrats have to deliver. For sure, we have to call out the BS that Republicans have been selling. But meanwhile, Democrats have to make people's lives better," he continued, before launching into a story of how he saved a state government that had been "withering away for decades" and vigorously pursued "social and economic justice" for working families and the state's most vulnerable residents.

He also had choice words for Republican allies of Trump, calling them "bootlickers" and "a few idiots who are trying to figure out how to pull off the scam of their lives."

Pritzker's combative, populism-inflected approach not only differs from Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, but also from some fellow governors like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has spent the past two months pinning Democratic losses on transgender rights (which did not feature prominently in the 2024 campaign), bantering with right-wing figures like Steve Bannon on his podcast, and distributing "burner" cell phones to favored tech CEOs. Even so, Pritzker may still need to persuade some activists and voters that his wealth is no hindrance to good politics — a task he alluded to when, in a reversal of Mitt Romney’s 2012 refrain, he said that "I'm a businessman, and I'm the first one to tell you that government shouldn't be run like a business."

Even so, Trump and "President Elon Musk" aren't even running government like a business, he continued. They're running it to the ground.

"I knew when I ran that I'd be dealing with Donald Trump for two years at least. But I did not expect what we are seeing right now in our country," he said. "It pisses me off. And it makes me want to fight even harder."

about JB Pritzker

Trader Joe’s recalls sparkling water over laceration risk

Another recall has been announced — this time, on a beverage sold exclusively at Trader Joe's

Gerolsteiner Sparkling Water has been recalled "due to laceration hazard," as announced in a recall last week, which applies to over 60,000 bottles. The bottles are sold in 750-milliliter glass bottles. The product was sold at Trader Joe's stores throughout 12 states between December 2024 and January 2025.

The product was manufactured in Germany and the product was sold in standalone glass bottles or in 15-bottle cases. As the recall states, "the recalled water bottles can crack, causing a laceration hazard."

Nearly 72,000 tubs of hummus recalled over plastic contamination

According to an announcement on the Trader Joe's website, the store was "informed by our supplier . . . that certain lot codes may have the potential for cracked/damaged bottles." Thus far, there have been "no customer reports or injury or damaged bottles," and the Trader Joe's announcement states that the issue "was identified by research related to bottle breakage during production and potentially affects 1 percent of bottles in the lot codes above."

If you have purchased the product, customers can return the bottles "to the store where they were purchased for a full refund," as per the recall.

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Why apricots belong in your pan sauce

Fruit is often relegated to snacking, breakfasts and desserts — but why limit it? Why not let fruit shine in savory dishes?

Fruit is undeniably versatile and worthy of more attention in the kitchen. Yet, it often occupies a space reserved for quick snacks or sweet endings — a banana on the go, peach cobbler, or a bowl of strawberries. Sometimes, fruit even becomes symbolic: think of the apple on a teacher’s desk.

Rarely, though, is fruit considered as a core ingredient for savory cooking. But why?

24 ways to go savory with apples (because fall's favorite fruit belongs in more than pie)

Fruit brings brightness and complexity to a dish — ranging from subtly sweet to surprisingly pungent. It can elevate a dish, adding both flavor and texture that surprises and delights. Pair it with herbs or spices and it can transform an ordinary meal into something extraordinary.

I still remember my graduation banquet at culinary school, where I paired a pistachio-crusted rack of lamb with blackberry gastrique — essentially a French sweet-and-sour sauce made from fruit and vinegar. That combination was both bold and beautiful, a perfect example of how fruit can take a savory dish to new heights.

There’s also a long-standing cultural and historical precedent for using fruit in savory dishes. Think of classic pairings: sautéed apples with pork chops, applesauce with latkes, or the tangy sweetness of prunes in dishes like Chicken Marbella. In Chinese-American cuisine, orange chicken has long been a favorite, and Palestinian maqluba often features jewel-like pomegranate seeds — both a vibrant color and a burst of flavor. And, of course, we can't forget the much-debated yet iconic Hawaiian pizza.

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Perhaps even more exciting is when fruit is used in ways you wouldn’t expect. A local Italian-American restaurant near me serves a New York Strip steak topped with a vibrant blueberry sauce. I recently had a turkey sandwich with pear, and there’s something about thinly-sliced apple in a grilled cheese that’s undeniably sublime. Roasted grapes — cooked with olive oil and garlic — turn savory in a way that completely defies their sweetness.

From currants and persimmons to kumquats and cherries, each fruit brings its own balance, complexity and a subtle intrigue that can elevate a dish in unexpected ways.

It’s also worth noting that fruit in different forms can have entirely different effects. Raw fruit — whether fresh, dried, or dehydrated — can impart entirely different textures and flavors. A chewy, dried apricot in a salad offers a unique texture, while a pan-roasted apricot in a savory chicken dish with a rich pan sauce lends complexity and depth. Imagine combining fresh apricot, apricot jam and dried apricots all in one dish for a sophisticated play on the same ingredient.

Heat and time transform fruit in remarkable ways. A plum is a plum, but when subjected to heat, it evolves entirely — its flavor deepens, its texture changes and it brings an unexpected richness to the dish.

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This is also a way to enjoy fruit you might have previously avoided due to allergies — some people can eat cooked fruit without issue when raw fruit would cause a reaction (as I’ve experienced with pineapple myself).

So why not challenge yourself to incorporate fruit into some of your favorite savory dishes? See how the flavors meld and balance. If that peach you added to your pan sauce ends up leaning too sweet, balance it with something smoky or spicy. Sometimes, perfecting a dish with just the right combination of flavors can be one of the most satisfying experiences in the kitchen.

In fact, you likely have some fruit in your kitchen right now — so why not start tonight?

Pan-roasted chicken with apricot-cardamom sauce

Yields

4 servings

Prep Time

5 minutes

Cook Time

30 minutes

Ingredients

Neutral oil of your choosing

1 pound of skinless, boneless chicken

Kosher salt

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 stick butter, divided

5 or 6 ripe apricots, pitted and cubed (don't even bother peeling! It's an exercise in futility)

2 shallots, peeled and minced

3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

1 to 2 teaspoons whole grain mustard

1 to 1 1/2 cups chicken stock

1 to 2 teaspoons ground cardamom, depending on your preference (a little goes a long way)

Flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped, for garnish

Directions

In a large, heavy bottomed pan over medium heat, warm oil. Season chicken and place in pan. Let it sit undisturbed for a good 5 to 7 minutes before turning or moving whatsoever. Then cook another 5 minutes or so.
Once the chicken has cooked through, remove from pan and set aside.
Drain pan of oil. Add white wine to pan and reduce until the pan is mostly dry. Lower heat to medium-low, add a pat of butter and saute shallots and apricots for 3 minutes or so.
Add garlic and toast for 30 seconds.
Add mustard, stir well and cook for a minute or two.
Add chicken stock, raise heat to medium, and cook for about 10 minutes, until the stock has reduced by about half.
Lower heat to low and add cardamom and remaining butter. Let melt slowly – do not raise the heat or else your sauce might break. This might take a little time, but don't rush it.
Taste your sauce for seasoning. It might need some salt.
Once the sauce has reduced considerably, add chicken back to the pan to heat back through and coat with sauce.
Garnish with parsley and serve with your favorite veggies, starches or other side dishes.

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