INTERNATIONAL ZEBRA DAY UPDATES

We're Talking The Majestic Horse-Like Animals, Not Basketball or Football Referees

-Preliminary investigations following the crash of a passenger airliner and a Black Hawk helicopter point to a couple of reasons for the worst airline disaster in the United States since 9/11, with 67 fatalities and no survivors. There are indications the helicopter was flying too high and in commercial air space, perhaps in part because there were not enough air traffic controllers working at Ronald Reagan Memorial Airport at the time of the incident, which has been such a chronic problem that efforts throughout the last several years have been made.

-Among those efforts was an initiative started in 2017 called DIVERSITY TAKES FLIGHT, an effort to try to find individuals not normally thought of (people of color, people with disabilities, women) to get them into the pipeline for the extremely difficult process of becoming air traffic controllers - a process that usually weeds out 20% of any given class in the early part of the training alone and an estimated 2.5%-6% of applicants who start the program finish successfully, thus being readied for one of the most stressful jobs known to exist. AND NOT BEFORE.

-Now, if you are attentive (as I know readers of this Substack are!) (shameless, I know!), you will notice that DIVERSITY TAKES FLIGHT started in 2017, when neither Barack Obama nor Joe Biden were President. That detail was clearly NOT mentioned yesterday when the President who WAS in charge from 2017 to 2020, who is sadly back in charge in 2025, staggerwalked up to the microphones yesterday to spray exactly the same kind of insane stink-spray he always, always, always does, in reaction to Monday night's fatal event. And we won't rehash the main insanities Trump rehashed - but this Substack will note a couple of other things that were said that, at least in this tiny corner of the Cyber-verse, should always be noted and highlighted if nobody else will as examples of this President's Clear Cognitive Decline that ain't gonna get better ...

-For example, amid again Trump showing the psychopathy that results in having no apparent desire or means to genuinely express (much less feel) empathy in favor of continuously show his ego is too wounded to never stop attacking his predecessors, and using "DEI" as his means to express his not-really-subtext-anymore racism, Trump also needed to attack former Transportation Department Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The weird thing that no other reporter pushed hard was, he described Buttigieg as being the CURRENT Secretary of Transportation.

-Trump clearly forgot that Mayor Pete has been replaced with a NEW Secretary of Transportation, ex-Fox commentator and THE REAL LIFE TV star Sean Duffy, whose moment in crisis consisted of helpfully telling the world that planes should not be hitting each other in flight ... good ... and then frantically fleeing from the presser rather than, I dunno, lead ... so maybe Trump is already having appointers' remorse?

-Maybe, but sadly Trump himself was not done desecrating the event. After attacking and misidentifying who is running the Department under whose purview the investigation into the crash happened and try to stop it again, and defending his insane conjecture by getting testy to reporters who dared challenge him and insist that he, Trump, "has common sense" in saying gays and Obama - oh, and dwarves, who were also on Trump's blame list (ain't even gonna speculate) are likely to blame instead of the staff cuts Trump himself accelerated since moving back in to the Oval Office, Trump shufflesharted back behind the Resolute Desk to sign one of his steak house menu cover-ensconced Executive Orders that formally proclaimed Biden and DEI as the reason for the accident, and then being asked if he would visit the site of the accident, responded "You tell me - what's the site? The water? Do you want me to go swimming?" and then promising to visit victims in hospitals, which sadly do not exist as all on both crafts died in the accident.

-When we have tragedies like this, Trump is gonna Trump - and that means demanding a microphone, lamely reading pablum for the first response, then letting his brain damage go fully displayed happy he made himself the center of attention.

-Meanwhile, Trump's and Project 2025's efforts to oust civil servants continues apace. Yes, the attempt for such workers to accept what Trump and Real-President-of-a-Sort Elon Musk called a "buyout" earlier in the week appears to be stalled because it is likely illegal and not funded and backed by Trump which means it's a promise pre-broken - but other officials, under pressure from the private citizen with lots of money and a ton of love for Nazi or Nazi-adjacent (at a minimum) beliefs pulling strings in the last two weeks, continues apace.

-Indeed, the man who had been in charge of the Federal Aviation Administration left office on January 20 after Musk used his garbage-scow social media site X to hound him out - and this morning, the Washington Post reports a Treasury official whose office manages the systems that issue government payments is likely stepping down amid more Musk pressure, which could allow already-appointed-by-the-unappointed Musk to get access to those systems under the not-a-"Department" Government Efficiency commission to do whatever Musk wants analyze the system's efficiency.

-Again, there is much happening - but as we saw by the attempt by Trump to stop paying for everything and being stopped thanks to massive outrage (even though there are reports that some freezes in some departments are still happening despite court orders and the overall retreat), these are still the same doofuses that couldn't run anything four years ago. They are evil and relentless and will keep trying to relentlessly commit evil - but they are also arrogant and incompetent, and the cracks are showing.

-For example, take the arguably signature effort to deport hundreds of thousands of "illegals" and doing so with cameras and live feeds. We already know that thus far the only person apparently filming and broadcasting anything is "Dr." Phil McGraw, who by this point is like a T-level celebrity, and that the desire to make Chicago the centerpiece of fearing Trump is screwing up because of how well Chicago's immigrants and neighbors have educated everyone on how to repel ICE agents. And according to The Daily Beast, it is working - as the first week of Trump's deportation efforts are lagging well behind deportations under Joe Biden. There are horrible mistakes, and the terror that Trump wants to unleash is real in those communities, but the simple fact of the matter is, Trump's desire to make this a show has happily had an embarrassingly feeble rollout. It is a Trump Failure!

-Another area where Shock and Awe is turning into Perplexed and Annoyance ... the vaunted Trump Tariffs, both the centerpiece of Trump wanting to "replace" all the money that he wants to give back to the wealthiest 1% of the taxpayers while giving Stephen Miller the cruel suffering that he has to file into his spank bank. Recall that February 1 was going to be Zero Hour for the massive tariffs to be assessed on Mexico (because The Wall), China (because, well, Chinese) and Canada (because who is Barron's real father?), and that the Trump MAGA Party Line was Trump's threat of tariffs on Colombia made them back off and allow deportees to be dumped in that country in literal chains - y'all remember that?

-Well, now there are contradictory reports on when the Trump Tariffs will be assessed. For starters, the Colombian Trade War was actually a loss for Trump - Colombia has been accepting immigrants but refused to do so if they wore shackles, so Trump backed off (by most reports) and shook off his threats. Now comes word from Reuters that Trump might push off assessing tariffs on Canada and Mexico until March 1 - though that is, as we now know, subject to the whim of Dear Leader (as evidenced by a CNN report moments ago saying the Trump Tarrifs are now ON again for February 1?!).

-Regardless, should Trump go through with the threat, a trade war will begin. Reuters and others report that the Canadian Government were readying retaliatory tariffs against America with a particular focus on tariffs that would hurt MAGA states like agricultural goods and bourbon - threats GOP Senators in those states have been rightfully stressed out about. And at least one report stated Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum floated the possibility that such a move by Trump could arguably end the free trade agreements the three countries have lived under since the days of Bill Clinton and NAFTA - while also expressing doubt tariffs will be assessed tomorrow.

-This is something to keep an eye on heading into the weekend, and THIS JUST IN: Chuck Todd, the mediocrity whose weak-kneed and lazy bothsiderism led to an undeserved seat running MEET THE PRESS and helped set up today's mistrust of the Legacy News Media, is leaving NBC News at long last. Presumably Todd will do something else, but I for one am already forgetting he had the job. You should too, and doing so will constitute the Good News Note to end today's update and head on into the day's trivia.

-NEWS ON THIS DATE: In 1865, the House passed the 13th Amendment ending slavery. In 1943, Nazi forces surrendered to Soviet forces in Stalingrad - an important military turning point in World War II. In 1958, Explorer I was launched into space, bringing the United States officially into the Space Race. In 1966, the Soviet Union landed a spacecraft on the Moon without it crashing onto the surface. In 1968, Viet Cong forces attacked the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam - the apex of the Tet Offensive. In 1990, McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Moscow. In 2020, Great Britain left the European Union after its ill-fated Brexit vote.

-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: THREE SISTERS (1901), U-boats (1917), THE LONE RANGER (1933), television soap operas (1949), the hydrogen bomb (1950), the synthesizer (1955), THE MISFITS (1961), The Pompidou Centre (1977), NEW DAY RISING (1985).

-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Franz Schubert, Zane Grey, Eddie Cantor, Tallulah Bankhead, John O'Hara, Don Huston, Jersey Joe Walcott, Gary Moore, Thomas Merton, Jackie Robinson, Carol Channing, Norman Mailer, Benjamin Hooks, Jean Simmons, Ernie Banks, James Franciscus, Philip Glass, Suzanne Pleshette, Stuart Margolin, Jessica Walter, Richard Gephardt, Derek Jarman, Jonathan Banks, Terry Kath, Nolan Ryan, Harry Wayne "K.C." Casey, Phil Manzanera, John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon, Anthony LaPaglia, Kelly Lynch, Lloyd Cole, Fat Mike, Doug Pederson, Minnie Driver, Portia de Rossi, Kerry Washington, and Justin Timberlake.

-REST IN PEACE/POWER: Guy Fawkes, Private Eddie Slovik, A.A. Milne, Meher Baba, Samuel Goldwyn, Barbara Cowsill, George Abbott, and Mary Higgins Clark.

-FEED THE WORMS: Reagan-era Interior "Secretary" James Watt entered Earth on this date.

-TODAY'S MUSICAL MOMENT: Happy Birthday to Marcus Mumford, who had this stellar moment at the 2023 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival!