Well, mixed, really. It turns out Cassie isn't entirely healthy, though at the moment she's fine and will remain so for a few years at least without intervention. (I'll get that sorted in a couple of weeks and explain more about it this weekend.)
Also, there's all this crap:
- David Brooks argues that the OAFPOTUS's single strength—his audacity—can be turned into a weakness: "Lacking any sense of prudence, he does not understand the difference between a risk and a gamble. He does daring and incredibly self-destructive stuff — now on a global scale. A revolutionary vanguard is only as strong as its weakest links, and the Trump administration is to weak links what the Rose Bowl parade is to flower petals."
- Anne Applebaum has started a Kleptocracy Tracker on her blog, to catalog as many instances of the theft, grifting, and corruption that animates the Republican Party and this administration.
- Julia Ioffe has "notes on the Rubio re-org scandal."
- Jennifer Rubin celebrates "four undaunted individuals," including recently-resigned 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens and the three SDNY prosecutors who quit rather than apologize for refusing to dismiss corruption charges against New York mayor Eric Adams (I).
- Dana Milbank wishes "there were a Yiddish insult that captured the missteps we’re seeing from the White House." (One comes to mind: putz mit zvey yegen.)
- Former US Representative "George Santos" (R-NY) was sentenced to 87 months in prison and ordered to pay $374,000 in restitution following multiple fraud convictions.
- Andrew Sullivan mourns Pope Francis I, who moved the Catholic Church closer to accepting homosexuality than any previous Pope.
Finally, Illinois has 4 of the highest property-taxing jurisdictions in the US (not including New York), because "we pay over $11 billion in interest on unfunded pension obligations." We don't pay the most in property taxes though, because our property values are lower than in other places. Still, as a percentage of property values, Chicago's property taxes are second-highest in the country. I feel this every February and August.