3.31 Carolyn Hax in the Washington Post: “Every life has some element of frustration, loneliness, rejection, mistreatment, misunderstanding, raw deals, disappointment, disaster and dream-crushing. And after that comes Tuesday.”
3.30 Ivy and her parents visit for Easter.
3.29 George Will in the Post: “A former local TV news whiz, [Kari] Lake has the sheen of Limoges porcelain, and the manners of Al Capone.”
3.28 Brian Pritchard, a Georgia Republican official who pushed false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen,” was found to have voted illegally nine times and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, as well as investigative costs.
3.26 In Baltimore, the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapses after being struck by a cargo ship.
3.24 Maureen Dowd in the Times, writing about James Carville: “Lately, he has been obsessed with Biden bleeding Black male voters. “A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females” dominating the culture of his party. “‘Don’t drink beer. Don’t watch football. Don’t eat hamburgers. This is not good for you.’ The message is too feminine: ‘Everything you’re doing is destroying the planet. You’ve got to eat your peas.’ “If you listen to Democratic elites — NPR is my go-to place for that — the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election. I’m like: ‘Well, 48 percent of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?’”
3.24 Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay on Montaigne, in Representative Men (1850): “Although knaves win in every political struggle, although society seems to be delivered over from the hands of one set of criminals into the hands of another set of criminals, as fast as the government is changed, and the march of civilization is a train of felonies, yet, general ends are somehow answered.”
3.24 Maria Popova in The Marginalian: You know that the price of life is death, that the price of love is loss, and still you watch the golden afternoon light fall on a face you love, knowing that the light will soon fade, knowing that the loving face too will one day fade to indifference or bone, and you love anyway — because life is transient but possible, because love alone bridges the impossible and the eternal.
3.23 Tim O’Brien in Bloomberg: “Donald Trump, the self-described multibillionaire and “king of debt,” said he doesn’t have enough cash on hand to appeal a $454 million civil fraud judgment against him. Embarrassing, of course. But his empty pockets also raise the possibility that his collection of urban real estate, golf courses and snake oil may be headed for a brutal financial squeeze. Trump’s predicament is also the latest reminder that his financial challenges make him a national security threat — something that has been a reality ever since he was elected president in 2016. He’s always been willing to sell his name to the highest bidder. There’s no reason to believe that Trump, whose businesses collected millions of dollars from foreign governments and officials while he was president, won’t have a for-sale sign out now that he’s struggling with the suffocating weight of court judgments. Trump is being criminally prosecuted for allegedly misappropriating classified documents and stashing them at Mar-a-Lago, his home in Palm Beach, Florida. Without a trial and public disclosure of more evidence, Trump’s motivations for taking the documents are unknown, but it’s reasonable to wonder whether he pondered trying to sell them. All of this was troubling enough during and after Trump’s first stay in the Oval Office. He wasn’t under the kind of financial pressure he’s contending with now, however, and it makes all of his current financial maneuvers even more questionable — and certainly much more threatening. . . . Did Trump flip-flop on his support for banning TikTok from the US because Jeff Yass, a huge donor, has a large investment in the Chinese company that owns it? I don’t know. Did Trump meet with Elon Musk, whose automotive, communication and space exploration assets have relied on close business and financial relationships with the federal government, because he needed to raise money quickly? I don’t know. Still, these are good questions to get answers to and should make voters wonder about whose interests Trump will serve should he be reelected in November.”
3.23 Hal Brands in Bloomberg: “[T]he core strategic problem of our moment is ripped from the 1930s, not the 1910s. World War I was caused by tensions within a single region, Europe. But today, like before World War II, the prevailing system is being challenged on multiple fronts, by multiple actors, who are coming together in an awkward, destabilizing embrace. The expansion of these revisionists is, so far, modest compared to the malefactors of the 1930s and 1940s. Their atrocities aren’t yet close to those of Adolf Hitler’s “New Order” or Imperial Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. But perhaps that’s because today’s revisionists have had to operate in an environment long dominated by US power. How ugly might things get if aggressive autocracies were less constrained?”
3.22 Gunmen armed with automatic weapons attacked the Crocus City Hall — a massive shopping and entertainment venue on the outskirts of Moscow — killing 115 and setting the concert hall on fire. The death toll is expected to rise. Eleven have been arrested. Putin implicated Ukraine. Earlier this mont, the U.S. warned Moscow month about a “planned terrorist attack” in the Russian capital. The Islamic Republic has claimed credit for the attack.
3.18 Trump’s lawyers say coming up with the $454 million bond while he appeals his New York fraud case is a “practical impossibility.” His lawyers say they’ve reached out to 30 companies through four brokers, but none will take his real estate as collateral, “only accept cash or cash equivalents.” Trump has until March 25 to pay his fine
3.14 Visited Cathy and Tim.
3.14 Anne Lamott in the Washington Post: “Age is giving me the two best gifts: softness and illumination. It would have been nice if whoever is in charge of such things doled them out in our younger years, but that’s not how it works. Age ferries them across the water, and they will bring us through whatever comes.”
3.13 Yulia Navalnaya in the Post: “To defeat Putin, or at least seriously punish him, one must realize who he is. Unfortunately, too many people in the West still see him as a legitimate political leader, argue about his ideology and look for political logic in his actions. This is a big mistake that breeds new mistakes and helps Putin to deceive his opponents again and again. Putin is not a politician, he’s a gangster. Alexei Navalny became famous in Russia and hated by Putin precisely because, from the beginning of his fight, he openly described Putin and his allies as gangsters. . . . Look at Putin as the leader of a mafia group. You will grasp his brutality, cynicism, penchant for violence, fondness for luxury, and willingness to lie and kill. All his talks about religion, history, culture and politics might mislead Westerners. But in Russia, everyone knows that gangsters have always loved to flaunt large crosses. . . . [W]hy do democratic countries continue to recognize his criminal authority as legitimate? Why do fairly elected world leaders put themselves on the same level as a criminal who has for decades falsified elections, killed, imprisoned or forced out of the country all his critics, and now has unleashed a bloody war in Europe by attacking Ukraine? I’m not promising that refusing to recognize the results of the Russian presidential elections this weekend would lead to the instant collapse of the Putin government. But it would be an important signal to civil society in Russia and the elites still loyal to Putin, as well as to the world, that Russia is ruled not by a president recognized by all, but by someone who is despised and publicly condemned. Only then will those who remain loyal to Putin start to see that the one way to return to normal economic and political life is to get rid of him.”
3.12 Tommy Tuberville on X: “Joe Biden is a garbage human being.”
3.11 Thomas Paine in Rights of Man: “[Man] acquires a knowledge of his rights by attending justly to his interest, and discovers in the event that the strength and powers of despotism consist wholly in the fear of resisting it.”
3.11 Malachy McCourt dies at 92. From the obituary in the Times: “I was a smiley little fella with a raging heart and murderous instincts,” he wrote, adding that relatives and neighbors described him as cute, which “in Ireland meant cunning and devious.” Relatively few entries on his résumé are verifiable (or would be, had he ever actually bothered to compose one). Among Mr. McCourt’s intimates, though, his feats — bona fide, embellished or even fabricated, but by now folkloric — seem perfectly plausible. “Truth is,” he acknowledged, “I knew I couldn’t do anything at all but tell stories and lies.”
3.10 Trump on the Oscars, on X: “Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars,” Trump wrote on truthsocial.com. “His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be. Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up, but cheap, ABC ‘talent,’ George Slopanopoulos. He would make everybody on stage look bigger, stronger, and more glamorous.” Kimmel: “Thank you for watching. I’m surprised you’re still [up] — isn’t it past your jail time?”
3.10 Oppenheimer wins Best Picture. Ryan Gosling steals the show.
3.8 Jennifer Senior in The Atlantic: “Biden gave a stunning speech last night, and it wasn’t just because there was a game on quality to his remarks, the thwapping sound of a gauntlet hitting the ground. It’s because he managed to do that thing he does best, which his aides long ago described to Richard Ben Cramer in What It Takesas “the connect.” Biden’s primary strength has never been formulating policy or grand ideas. It’s been his ability to read a room, to sweep in the energy that’s already there, and to make the most impersonal settings feel deeply intimate, like one-on-one discussions. And last night, in his State of the Union address—generally the dullest and most choreographed of presidential rituals—he did just that.”
3.8 Dana Milbank in the Washington Post: “If Biden’s opponents were hoping that the [State of the Union] address would show him to be tired and feeble, the result was nearly the opposite. Biden was feisty and energetic, often shouting as he took the fight to Trump and the Republicans. . . .Biden had his usual stumbles over words, but those expecting the senile old man of Republican fantasies instead saw a guy who couldn’t wait to mix it up with his foes. . . . He scolded Republicans for rejecting “the toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen,” and though his opponents jeered Biden’s claims about the bill, the man who negotiated the reforms, Sen. James Lankford could be seen in the audience saying “That’s true.” Biden went after his “predecessor” no fewer than 13 times, starting with a brutal contrast between Ronald Reagan telling Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” and Trump’s recent suggestion that he would tell Vladimir Putin’s regime to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO members who don’t contribute sufficiently to the alliance. The president attacked Trump, congressional Republicans or both, for seeking “to bury the truth about Jan. 6,” 2021, for pursuing an abortion ban, for demonizing immigrants as “poison in the blood of our country.” He ridiculed those who opposed the infrastructure bill, saying, “If any of you don’t want that money in your district, just let me know.” It was a ferocious, and partisan, address. The combative Biden lifted the spirits of Democrats in the chamber, who repeatedly erupted in cheers of “Four more years!” And for Republicans who had apparently believed their own nonsense about Biden’s “dementia,” it caught them off guard.”
3.8 Bill Whitworth, “gentle and meticulous editor,” dies at 87. Holly Brubach, quoted in The Atlantic: “I was in my twenties, and, for reasons I found hard to fathom, Bill believed in me—this was long before I believed in myself. The handful of writers I’d encountered claimed that they’d always felt destined for a life dedicated to the making of literature, that they’d begun keeping a journal in childhood; they never seemed to doubt that their ideas were worthy of the reader’s attention. On that basis, I told Bill, I didn’t think I was a writer. He asked me if I trusted his judgment. Of course I did. “Then why don’t you just proceed on faith for a while?” he replied.”
3.7 Steve Lawrence dies at 88.
3.5 Bret Stephens in the Times: “ [Trump] ’s a raised middle finger at all the people whom his supporters see as a self-satisfied, self-dealing cultural elite. The more that elite despises him, the more they love him. That’s why any good analysis of the Trump phenomenon has to begin with an analysis of the Us phenomenon, if you will: Where did those of us who were supposed to represent the sensible center of the country go so wrong that people were willing to turn to a charlatan like Trump in the first place? I have endless theories, but here’s another one: We tried to change the way people are instead of meeting them where they are. Neocons (like me) tried to bend distant cultures in places like Afghanistan to accept certain Western values. Didn’t work. Progressives tried to push Americans to accept new values on issues like identity, equity, pronouns and so on. That isn’t working, either. Trump represents a complete rejection of all that. For every American he scandalizes, another one feels seen, heard, reflected and understood by him.”
3.5 Tom Nichols in The Atlantic: “The decision to leave Trump on state ballots seems (at least to me, as a non-lawyer) sensible enough, which is probably why all nine justices affirmed it. But the Court’s conservative majority is clearly playing games. If hurrying helps Trump, they move with alacrity: They decided the Colorado ballot case in 25 days. If dawdling helps Trump, they slow down: The presidential-immunity case (a crackpot theory they should not have even taken up) won’t be heard until late April. The conservative effort to seize the Court by hook or by crook—one of Mitch McConnell’s greatest and most shameful legacies—has paid off just when Trump needed it most.”
3.5 Mark Cuban to Axios: “It’s the snake oil salesperson vs the incumbent, traditional politician. One will tell you his snake oil will cure everything that ails you. The other will show you the details of his policies through charts, graphs and statements. [Biden] is precise and methodical and wants to sell the steak, not the sizzle. Trump voters are happy with their snake oil whether it works or not. I don’t want a snake oil salesperson as President. I’m voting for Biden/Harris over Trump all day every day.”
3.4 Mark Cuban to Bloomberg: “If . . . it was him versus Trump, and he was being given last rites, I would still vote for Joe Biden.”
3.4 Jason Kelce retires. Conor Orr in SI: “Here’s something we don’t talk a lot about: An NFL facility is not, by default, a helpful place. Regardless of what platitude a coach uses to describe his culture, these are locker rooms of political Darwinism and survivalism. We wonder why more players don’t “watch the film” without the inherent knowledge that almost none of them are taught how to watch film like a professional. Coaches are mostly responsible for the game plan. Players are responsible for themselves. Ask the best how they learned to be the best, and they’ll talk about stumbling into some private session with another all-time great and being extended a lifeline. For how many people was Kelce that lifeline? For how many plays was Kelce the one responsible for not only throwing the key block, but for also ensuring that everyone around him knew where they were going? For how many moments when Hurts was still figuring himself out, and matching up his internal confidence with the stone facade he had constructed for himself to be displayed to the outside world, was Kelce the one who knelt down and allowed Hurts to figuratively stand on his shoulders? For how many internal disputes was he the peacemaker? Again, we are about to find out.
3.4 The Supreme Court unanimously rules that states may not bar Trump from running for another term, rejecting a ruling from Colorado the 14th Amendment prohibits insurrectionists from holding office.
3.4 On katiecouric.com: “Donald Trump’s facing a criminal trial in New York City later this month — and staring down over half a billion dollars in legal debt. Now, some within the GOP are worried the former president will use the Republican National Committee to cover his bills — which could have a disastrous impact on the party. “Trump is going to bankrupt the RNC,” Jennifer Nassour, a former party chair and surrogate of Nikki Haley’s 
presidential campaign, tells us. “I think it’s completely unethical and I cannot imagine that this does not border on fraud,” she says.
3.3 Caitlin Clark of the University of Iowa becomes the all-time top scorer in both women’s and men’s NCAA Division I basketball, breaking Pete Maravich’s record, which stood for more than 50 years.
3.3 Chris Mortenson dies at 72.
3.2 LeBron James becomes the first NBA player to reach 40,000 career regular-season points.
3.1 Jo and Susan come to visit Cathy.
3.1 Greg Sargent in TNR: “First, Democrats should stress that voters need to know before the election whether Trump committed crimes—and this is due to them as a matter of right. Second, Trump is seeking these delays to end all prosecutions of himself if he regains the White House—to corruptly place himself above the law by pardoning himself or having his handpicked lickspittle attorney general do it. Democrats must say clearly that if the court helps delay the trial until after the election, it will be enabling him to do that.”