There is no change of heart in the offing. Trump and the clown car of ass kissers are going to keep after it, going to pile on the distractions and the insane requests for funding. They will not stop, because that’s the whole plan—keeping everyone guessing and off balance, coming close on occasion to appearing coherent and capable but never quite able to pull that off.

We are so far into the weeds now that we need a beacon, we need someone who can stay on the scent, who can anticipate next moves and not just sit in with the next panel of pundits and offer commentary and conjecture after the fact.

Job 1 at this point is to ensure that the November elections come off without a hitch, that there is nothing based in reality that approaches “National Emergency” status and generates the next ill-advised Executive Order.

It would be great if we could all get to take a trip to the far side of the moon and look back at Earth, just hanging there in the blackness of space. We probably wouldn’t have to go that far to get the lay of the land, so to speak. To be awestruck, maybe humbled.

Astronauts returning from such excursions appear to be changed people. Their perspective has been widened and enriched, most likely changed for the rest of their lives, which is totally understandable. I feel differently after just seeing the pictures the Artemis II crew took, though maybe only slightly more convinced of the fragile, wondrous nature of being alive than after seeing the picture Bill Anders took in December 1968.

Ah, the blue marble, the orb that might have many an alien sojourner thinking, “Ooh, now that’s different. Let’s take a closer look.” The aliens I envision speak excellent English.

I guess my point, if there is one, is that the poignancy of this earthly life, its meaning and significance, its mystery, its raucous, ugly, beautiful reality, might be lost on the universe writ large, and on many of us earthbound beings. As I’ve written in a previous post or two, I won’t be surprised if we get to learn that we’re either alone in the heavens, or that we are relative Neanderthals in comparison to other beings from far-off galaxies, whose existence may never be confirmed.

Point 1a is that I wish certain people who call themselves leaders could find, in their scorched earth quest for notoriety and power and wealth, room for humility and awe and gratitude. I wish they could suddenly realize that, more often than not, no one died and left them king, that no one knowingly gave them permission to be tyrannical, self-important scourges of comparable value and usefulness to the average deer tick.

Maybe Jeff Bezos or Elon could arrange for missions that would take Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, J.D Vance, Stephen Miller, Kevin Roberts, Peter Thiel, Russell Vought, and the whole current Cabinet away for a while, on a trip around the moon, in close quarters, where no deals would be cut, only tasks at hand in service of remaining alive and taking a good long look at the planet and its inhabitants they apparently care next to nothing about—except as it, and they, can serve their agendas. I wonder how many would return alive.

A few may already be so dead inside that not even next-level space tourism would move them. Most of ’em probably wouldn’t go, anyway– I can’t imagine there’d be many steely-eyed missile people among that crew.

Five thousand American troops pulled out of Germany, shortly after Trump has a 90-minute conversation with Vladimir Putin.

Anyone else concerned?

Is this just more of Trump being a thin-skinned child in his beef with the German Chancellor, or is there something more sinister going on? Can anyone stop this idiot from doing more damage? And who’s putting him up to it?

Chris Hayes hit the nail on the head, and with some emotion.

Every day we hear about the high price of gasoline and diesel, in the context of the war with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Every day, day in and day out.

Mr. Hayes finally named the irony of it all—that, day in and day out, much is made of high gas prices, but people keep buying gasoline, no matter how high the price goes. They keep complaining, day in and day out, but the price seldom responds to the protest.

As Hayes reminds us, this is not new ground. We’ve been here before, we’ve been complaining off and on about the high cost of fossil fuels for over 50 years, and we just keep paying for it, even as there are viable energy alternatives that have been knocking on the door for decades now. We’ve had unending opportunity to wean ourselves from the fossil fuel teat, but the powers that be won’t let it happen—even though there is a certain inevitability regarding our vulnerability to exactly what’s going on now: political unrest and war. And let us not forget the mounting environmental damage!

The Trump administration is in the pockets of the fossil fuel behemoths, who very well may be seeing writing on the wall but are flush with cash and able to lobby their way out of one tight corner after another.

At some point hopefully soon, one might think we reach a tipping point, a point of no return, when forces and realities conspire to render the fossil fuel hold-outs, well, fossils.