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CSotD: Sweeping Up

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Mike Peterson Published: January 23, 2026 Updated: January 23, 2026 2 minutes 2 comments

I hope we’re done with the Peace Prize foolishness, but I got a laugh out of Sheneman’s take, and, while we don’t grade on quality of art so much as on quality of thought, he did a nice job of both.

But it’s not the only thing happening, so let’s have a

Juxtaposition of the Day

A mountain was in labor, uttering immense groans,
and on earth there was very great expectation.
But it gave birth to a mouse. This has been written for you,
who, though you threaten great things, accomplish nothing.
— Phaedrus

I don’t know that anyone had great expectations for the Trump Health Plan, promised for nearly a decade by him, while the Republicans have been threatening or promising or vowing to replace the Affordable Care Act since it was passed in 2010.

Is the ACA perfect? Well, what is? But it’s head and shoulders above the skeleton of a possible plan that includes giving people money to buy their own policies, a solution that can’t possibly work.

As in the Aesop’s Fable that inspired Phaedrus and Horace and, here, Thomas Nast, it’s much ado about nothing, and let us point out that Horace Greeley, pictured here with everything he knows about geology in his coat pocket, not only lost readily to Grant but then died before the electoral votes were certified.

You can’t get any more not-elected than that.

That Wikipedia article also links this Doré illustration for Don Quixote to the fable, which seems a bit of a stretch though Quixote was a master at promising much and delivering nothing.

Rico found Don Quixote in the Davos speech, mostly because Trump lived up to the classic parallel by repeating one of his hallucinations:

China makes almost all of the windmills, and yet, I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China. Did you ever think of that? That’s a good way of looking at it. They’re smart. China’s very smart. They make them. They sell them for a fortune. They sell them to the stupid people that buy them, but they don’t use them themselves.

Hardly the right audience for that fable.

Meanwhile, Trump’s 90-minute press conference the other day featured, as Buss demonstrates, every rogue but the one at the podium.

I’m pretty sure that you could round up 270,000 people anywhere and find some who were guilty of serious crimes, but I’d like to see the percent of ICE victims guilty of anything greater than traffic tickets or small amounts of marijuana. In fact, what I’d really like to see is the comparative number of felons and of US citizens in the group.

I will neither hold my breath nor stand on one foot awaiting either revelation from this crew.

Juxtaposition of the Day #2

Cousineau and Deering tempt me to once more feature Casey Stengel hopelessly crying “Can’t anybody here play this game?” The administration has lost one or two brilliant legal minds along the way, but surely there must be someone left who could caution them against hoping to arrest people for disloyal speech.

Though Deering’s point seems germane: It doesn’t matter whether the distraction holds water as long as it distracts from something that might.

Wilcox points out one of the emerging hazards of having a man who vowed to “preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution” but hasn’t apparently read it or else demonstrates a willingness to ignore it and a refusal to have anyone around him who might challenge his unique legal viewpoint.

And it’s nice to have Jack Smith finally testifying in public, but the loyalists on the committee are determined to find the truth they seek, not the facts he brings.

Anyway, there’s no reason to think the MAGA crowd who didn’t watch the Jan 6 Committee sessions are watching this.

Telnaes marked the first year of Dear Leader’s second coming with a visual of what he’s managed to pile up, all of which is visible to the public but not if they choose not to look, and if they choose to stay within siloed media that won’t look, either.

As MacKay explains, there seems to be a strong tendency to confuse redecorating and reform, and just as Trump treats the White House as if he were its owner rather than a tenant, so, too, does he treat the entire government, and specifically the rule of law under which we’ve tried to live for 250 years.

Stahler’s cartoon reminded me of a time in the last days of Clinton or perhaps the first days of W, when I had the thought that we’d gotten the flag back, that it no longer stood for unquestioning loyalty and obedience.

Then 9/11 came along and we were inundated with lapel pins and flags flying from trucks and many blatant violations of the Flag Code as it once again came to stand for not questioning our leaders.

There have been calls for people at demonstrations to carry the US flag, to remind people that questioning the government is a vibrant form of patriotism.

But I saw someone on the news who was protesting the ICE raids but carrying a Palestinian flag, and if you add that to the performative act of invading a religious service you get a reminder of another old saying: “Lord protect me from my friends; I can handle my enemies.”

Trump and Bondi are furious that Walz cautioned people to demonstrate responsibly, but the cameras are everywhere, and I’ve watched editors choose the shots that get used. As I’ve said many times, if you have 1500 people listening to speeches and one clown in a bloody Uncle Sam outfit, you know which photo will splash on Page One the next morning.

It’s hard, however, to fault the play actors who love standing out at demonstrations when there are so many turtles with their heads drawn in, making no effort and doing no good.

But to end on a positive note, here’s a final update on Davos: Gavin Newsom did get to speak after all. Here’s a bit of what he said:

And here’s the entire 30 minutes.