Elmo has left Washington DC and left a wake of destruction – a billionaire who is clueless about how our government and its agencies function.

Things like our drinking water, air traffic control, social security and Medicare benefits, and disaster relief are now in jeopardy. Many careers, lives and countless families’ well-being are in peril because of Elmo’s DOGE chainsaw.

True, our government isn’t as efficient as it could or should be. But because it has operated under constant attack from mostly the Republican Party and their lack of funding government. Our government has had to deal with R-hiring freezes and operating under “continuing resolutions” that “fund” the government at idiotic increments of 90 days.

Even with all of the above, a pill found that 50 percent of Americans think the nation is on the right track.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-new-poll-2078392

Nicole, Marcy,
Fabulous reporting and new story framing perspectives, shared with your readers and listeners today. Leading the way with compassion and evidence and humor. Thank you so much for the opportunity to see you and hear your voices. We are in this together. Peace,
Yogarhythms and family

Thank you, Nicole and Marcy! Your conversations are always enlightening.
Marcy, I hope things went smoothly for you in Paris. <3

Wow-wow-wee, it’s Biden’s fault. https://bsky.app/profile/keithedwards.bsky.social/post/3lqimvunyb22n

Regarding Marcy’s ambivalence toward Harvard, there was an interesting oped last week in the Boston Globe’s Ideas section by a recent Harvard grad from deep red rural Maine:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/28/opinion/harvard-versus-trump-diversity/

Here’s a few ‘graphs of it, as I don’t know of a gift link:
——————————————-
“But by the end of my first day at Harvard, instead of basking in the glow of my accomplishment and building new friendships with brilliant peers and frolicking through the historic campus like I’d imagined, I was holed up in a decidedly unglamorous public bathroom, crying. Everybody else seemed to know one another and where things were, what to do, how to dress, how to act.

The rest of my freshman year didn’t go much better. Everybody else had done amazing stuff — interned for senators, started a nonprofit, published scientific research — while I had just been “well rounded.” Everybody else had friends, while I had none. There was a particular clique of private school kids in my freshman writing class that I followed like a TV show. They were so cool. So shiny. They became a “blocking group.” Translation: They roomed together after freshman year, codifying their cliques. The boys were “punching” final clubs. Translation: They were rushing Harvard’s version of fraternities. The girls were going to final club parties. I wanted so badly to be a part of what they had.
[snip]
I could stop here, say that rural America is outnumbered and outgunned at Harvard. That I was outnumbered and outgunned. This “us against them” narrative, the one I read between the lines of that note my grandparents wrote to me, is tempting — and it’s the one the Trump administration is selling. But it’s neither true nor useful.
[snip]
In other words, when the Trump administration demands “viewpoint diversity” and decries the “woke” culture at Harvard, it either misunderstands the reality at the school or is intentionally flattening the narrative in a bid to achieve its own goals.

The latter seems likely. Which brings me to the most important point, and the reason I am so proud my alma mater has held its ground against the Trump administration: Even if Harvard were simply a bastion of far-leftism, which it is not, were the Trump administration to enforce “viewpoint diversity” at Harvard, it would simply be replacing one political monoculture with another. The administration does not hope to foster real debate and intellectual exchange. It intends to establish the dominance of Trump-style Republican values at Harvard and other elite institutions. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. And — worse — the new boss is operating under a broader plan to strangle other centers of power in America so that it can operate unchecked. Policing thought and discourse, at universities and elsewhere, is a clear step toward authoritarianism.”
—————————
It was an interesting take on what’s going down right now, and snippets of the piece don’t do it justice (I assume copying and pasting the whole thing violates fair-use rules).

Also interesting is the fact that, while I spotted the column in my daily Globe email edition on my phone this morning, I couldn’t find it in the “Ideas” archives when I did a search with my computer to write this comment.

I’m winding-up my three week European honeymoon to my husband. We married last fall in Rio de Janeiro. He is a Brazilian national and we are waiting for approval from the Trump administration for residency in the U.S. for him. He’s never even been to the U.S., his visitor visa was not approved. It’s frustrating.

I want to share an observation. In the European Union, plastic bottle caps are REQUIRED for the cap to be kept attached to the bottle by a tag. In the UK, this is not required.

I suspect this is a result of Brexit – the conservative led exit of Great Britain from the European Union.

I point this out as this is another example of where conservatism fails to meet the needs of society as a whole, for the greater good.

Sure, permanently fixing the cap to the bottle is a small, simple way of helping to save the environment, but its the little things that count.

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/360ed033568a8f499b286867e61010bc14bd4442950d7a2018fe5b812c6d2e45.png

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ff79e190a31a27378f7c13bc9005dfa2fcea4e567c6cd98c6ccdd903c7a9f0a.png

From https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/commodities/2025/06/02/aluminum-premium-for-us-buyers-soars-after-trump-doubles-tariffs/
“Premiums for consumers buying aluminum on the physical market in the United States soared on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he planned to increase tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to 50 per cent from 25 per cent….The new tariffs are due to take effect on June 4….
The U.S. Midwest duty-paid aluminum premium AUPc1 reached $0.58 per lb, or $1,279 a metric ton, on Monday. That was a 54 per cent jump from Friday and 164 per cent growth since the start of 2025.
Part of Monday’s growth was amplified by June 2 being the first trading day of the new month, when regional premiums often make a strong move….
Aluminum production depends heavily on the competitively priced and secure power supply source. It has been forty-five years since anyone built a primary aluminum smelter in the U.S.
Emirates Global Aluminium said in May it would invest $4 billion in construction of an aluminum plant in the U.S. with first metal expected by the end of the decade….”