If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have failed at predicting the future.

Veterans Affairs Says They’ve Cut $900 Million After Reviewing Just 2% of Unnecessary Contracts
March 10, 2025

Education Department HQ to Shut Down on Wednesday for “Security Reasons”
March 11, 2025

□ [“House Takes Critical Vote on Budget CR"]

We might have a government shutdown on Friday if the Senate doesn't pass the budget bill.  All we'll have is the POTUS and whatever parts of the executive branch don't shut down, such as the military.  Trump will certainly have to reduce spending but, with no Congress to interfere, can make those decisions as he sees fit.  For some reason there are people opposed to this.

Presumably this budget is supposed to account for a lot of the DOGE cuts, to make them official.  It's not clear how many that will be, since uniparty RINOs will still want their share.  For that matter, so will others, since even if they're not in the uniparty, they probably have people to answer to.  But unless Democrats actually get involved, which they didn't in the House, they'll lose a lot.

Actually, they'll lose a lot either way.  If they take part in the budget discussions, they'll look like traitors to their leftist supporters.  If they don't, the budget will still pass.  Or if it doesn't, if some RINOs skip out, it's still the Democrats who treated this budget like a dark-skinned boy who survived brain cancer, they want nothing to do with it.  But then they'll get blamed for not preventing the government shutdown.  They don't know what they're doing and they don't have any leadership.  You'd think they'd be begging Nancy Pelosi to tell them what to do, or Obama or Bill Clinton or somebody.

At a guess, I'll say the shutdown won't happen.  Democrats will probably just do nothing, assuming that's the way they can get blamed the least.  Probably correct there, but if they do that, their only chance is that the passed budget completely fails.  That's not going to work either, it's rumored that there are some obvious financial benefits already.  I have no idea if the price of eggs has really gone down but filling my car with gas this afternoon was a little bit cheaper than it was last time.  I did say Trump needed to make immediate economic benefits and that's a good start.

And just a sudden thought, this may be was James Carville was referring to about Republicans being defeated in 30 days.  This bill is supposed to fail, the economy collapses and it's all their fault.  Well, that is certainly one possibility.  We'll have to wait and see if there's any others.

Nearly Half of Department of Education Employees Laid Off in Reduction of Force
March 11, 2025

□ [“Ukraine Agrees to 30-Day Ceasefire with Russia"]

A step in the right direction.  Probably wasn't hard, Ukraine doesn't have much of a choice.  They're also not required to stop fighting until Russia agrees to the ceasefire, and the US has immediately restored aid and intel access.  It certainly seems like the right move but I'm still skeptical.  And now it's on Russia to decide how badly they want peace.

Ukraine has totally lost, we know that.  A month or so ago, even they were admitting they wouldn't get back all the land they've lost.  It's possible that won't be difficult either, keeping the land means putting up with Ukraine, so who in their right minds would want that?  Of course they're going to have demands, so we'll see how Trump works as a negotiator.  It will be amusing to see the EU's reaction to this.

□ [“Ontario Backs Down:  Premier Suspends Surcharge on Canadian Electricity Exports to US"]

Then there's this.  I was aware of Ontario making these threats but apparently I hadn't had anything to say about it.  It's Canada, guess it's not that important.  But we just saw this with the tariffs for Canada and Mexico, the left barely has time to make any noise about it before the side they support gives in to Trump's demands.

Don't know if it's related to Ukraine and Russia, but at least here, you can't really make demands without anything to back them up.  Trump does, he's POTUS.  Canada and leftists-in-general, they don't.  The less they have to contribute, the more demands they make.  It's worked for the last few decades but time is running out for that.

Whatever other justified complaints can be made about Trump, he's actually getting rid of multiple problems and we aren't even at the two month mark.  I still think he likes the negotiation process more than he actually likes winning, but there's a reason he's best known for "Art of the Deal."  He's added several new examples of doing just that.

EU Commission Threatens Poland With Legal Action for Noncompliance With ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’
March 11, 2025

□ [“Two Years After Tanking Bud Light, Fake Woman Dylan Mulvaney Speaks on The View"]

Not sure why this thing ever got any publicity but now it appeared on Disney/ABC to promote itself again.  Of course the I-guess-they're-females on the program loved this.  Do they actually think that this is going to get anywhere?  The public is just getting more and more anti-trans and it's all because of the insanity of pushing this mentality.

This creature talks about how it was four years old when it decided not to be male.  Four-year olds are not capable of making such decisions, so this was imposed on it.  It says its parents are deeply-religious, which just sounds strange, because if that was true, they'd be fighting to protect their child from such evil.  According to wikipedia, it had a rich grandfather, so that may be relevant.  The family could afford perversion, as well as access to all the surgeries this creature demands.

But the connection to Disney/ABC just seems bizarre.  This show has been getting a lot of attention recently and it's not clear why.  Could it be perceived by somebody [the producers? the audience?] as the central icon of this *woke* religion?  What does it actually bring in that's worth anything to the corporation?  People with absolutely nothing else in their lives?

USAID Official Orders Remaining Staffers to Shred and Burn All Your Documents, Even Classified
March 11, 2025

□ [“Disney's Snow Woke Expected to Tank at Box Office as Projections Keep Falling"]

Here comes Disney's next disaster.  Unlike the recent Falcon America failure, they can't even pretend this one was actually cheaper.  With the Marvel movie, they could just claim they met the original budget - or the budget for reshoots, it's not clear which they picked - but the live-action Snow White has been going on for too long, too many reshoots and too much cgi to do that.  A reasonable guess is that they've spent over $300 million on this, not counting marketing.

At some level, they do realize it's going to fail, so they delayed pre-ticket sales until now.  But they aren't going well.  Nobody has any incentive to see it except for those who make youtube videos about how horrible it is.  If you have the slightest interest, it's much more likely that you'd just watch the original Snow White, which was one of the three main steps that made Disney what it is.  ["Steamboat Willie" and Disneyworld being the other two.]  Even I'm tempted to see that movie and I've never seen it before.

The lead unlikeable actress is basically being caged up to avoid making things worse.  For some reason, Disney has gone way-overboard on promoting movies years in advance, so she's been able to irritate people immensely.  No idea if she has any acting talent, but no one likes her, as was obvious when her recent movie bombed.  She was the star, it was an extremely cheap movie to make, and it still failed worse than any other movie in recent memory.  Until now.

Other failures are underway.  Apparently there's a new Daredevil tv series which stole its title from the unrelated Frank Miller/David Mazzuchelli comic but has totally bombed.  That one was given a lot of promotion and even skeptics said it might be good, but the audience has quit.  Maybe it's Marvel, maybe it's Disney, maybe they just aren't going to pay for Disney+ but the failures keep coming.  This is quite entertaining to watch.

‘Lost in the Mail!’:  iden’s $3 Billion USPS EV Boondoggle — Just 93 of 50,000 Vehicles Delivered
March 11, 2025