Closing pot-luck tabbies for the weekend ...

The Associated Press continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America. This decision is not just divisive, but it also exposes the Associated Press' commitment to misinformation. While their right to irresponsible and dishonest reporting is protected…

— Taylor Budowich (@Taylor47) February 14, 2025

Ed: I'm fine with ignoring the AP, especially after its four-year track record of ignoring Joe Biden's senility. They don't seem to care much for the task at hand in the White House press pool. This is a pretty thin complaint, though. 

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Vice President J.D. Vance attended his first bilateral meeting this morning alongside NATO leaders, including Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who appeared to react positively to the Trump-Vance insistence that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs reform, with Rutte stating: “I look forward also from that perspective to our talks and on Europe stepping up, European part of NATO stepping up. You’re absolutely right. It has to be done. We have to grow up in that sense and spend much more.”

Ed: Too bad it took eight years for them to "grow up" and acknowledge it.

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.@VP meets with Zelenskyy in Munich: "We want the war to come to a close. We want the killing to stop, but we want to achieve a durable, lasting peace — not the kind of peace that's going to have eastern Europe in conflict just a couple years down the road." pic.twitter.com/C3TFl50cdU

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 14, 2025

Ed: No one's going to win this war in a WWII sense. The status quo ante will not return, but Kyiv will also never fall to Putin either. So let's figure out a realistic end to the conflict that everyone can live with and stop the killing -- if we can do so legitimately and honorably. 

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Haynes insisted even people who voted for Trump will likely be “quickly disillusioned” over his inability to provide “economic stability.” However, he was more concerned about how this would affect “financiers who are willing to take risk and willing to support strong voices.”

“How the return of the Trump presidency will affect filmmaking is a real question hanging over all American filmmakers,” Haynes said. “And it’s a question that extends beyond the world of filmmaking: how do you maintain your own integrity and point of view and speak out to the issues around us… That remains to be seen.”

Ed: Oh, FFS. Trump won't have any impact on the "integrity" of filmmakers, except in that they will pretend to be oppressed while using every opportunity to insult and demean his supporters. How many of these filmmakers used that "integrity" to explore Joe Biden's obvious senility and the media's refusal to investigate it? What a self-important ass.

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.@KatiePavlich: "@elonmusk is exposing CORRUPTION in Washington DC...The entitlement that you are seeing from the Democratic Party right now to say we have to have these programs, Americans have to work harder so that we can fund our pet projects and our leftist… pic.twitter.com/UYygfgKCsR

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 14, 2025

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“You’d agree that this is antisemitic imagery, correct?” Cataldo, who co-chairs the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, asked Max Page, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA)—the largest union in New England, representing 117,000 members.

“I’m not gonna evaluate that,” Page responds calmly.

Cataldo pressed him. “Is it antisemitic?”

Page continued to sit stoically, before breaking into a smile. “You’re trying to get away from the central point,” Page said, “which is that we provide imagery, we provide resources for our members to consider, in their own intelligent, professional way.”

In fact, this image is referenced in materials recently made available to Massachusetts educators for teaching about the Middle East. 

Ed: This reminds me of the testimony of Claudine Gay, the now-former president of Harvard, in Congress. They never want to talk about actual anti-Semitism, but claim only to be interested in "context" and "conversation." 

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What happened to them?
pic.twitter.com/M9ER0I8Y34

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2025

Ed: They didn't mean it, clearly. They pandered to angry voters but had no intention of dismantling the Democrats' gov't-NGO-activist complex. However, they did set up that expectation, and voters finally got fed up enough to elect Trump to do something about it. Twice. 

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Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter, implied he “didn’t know” they could make government so efficient. 

“Honestly, some of this is pretty annoying because it’s some of the stuff we should’ve done. We didn’t know you could do some of this,” Lovett said. 

Jon Favreau, also a former Obama speechwriter, shared Lovett’s frustration, admitting the Obama administration tried to cut through bureaucracy and create government efficiency, but “it’s hard to do.”

“We all know that government is slow. We all know government can be inefficient. We all know that the bureaucracy can be bloated. We all worked in the f—ing White House. We tried to reorganize the government. We tried to find efficiency. It’s hard to do,” Favreau said. 

Ed: Nonsense. It was easy to do, as Elon Musk is proving. The Obama Bros didn't do it because the Democrats' gov't-NGO-activist complex was essential to the progressive grip on policy no matter who was elected president. That's why the Democrats are screaming bloody murder over audits of the federal bureaucracy and an end to the Left's revenue stream.

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We must continue to spend! Spending more is not helping improve educational outcomes, but spend more we must. It’s the fourth law of motion. It’s the natural way of the world. And if you think there are different answers other than more money, you’re fired, like a teacher the fifth time we catch her drunk.

Here’s the latest from Georgetown’s education data lab:

Much like our nonverbal students, I don’t have words.

Ed: Like Nellie Bowles, I have few words for this, other than res ipsa loquitur. 

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Being an American isn’t about getting things, despite how the global community loves to portray our consumer culture. Being an American is about opportunity. The opportunity is ingrained in the designation. We are privileged simply by virtue of being here. This Republic is the opportunity. How we choose to use that opportunity is up to ourselves.

I think that’s what my young, naive eyes saw when I stepped off that plane that hot, July day many years ago…opportunity. I wanted it. Being in the unique and blessed position to become an American, I took it.

It remains one of the best decisions God has ever led me to make.