I went to bed at a decent hour Monday night and got a pretty good sleep.
I woke up refreshed Tuesday morning, only to see the news that President Trump seemed to have told a crowd in Nebraska that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Iran attacked Southern California.
“Let ’em take out Los Angeles. Let ’em take out San Diego,” he said in a typically meandering speech, perhaps trying to justify a war he has repeatedly claimed is keeping the U.S. safe, even as gas prices have spiked. “This is a very small price to pay.”
“San Diego is not collateral damage,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.
Such “dangerous” remarks could “potentially compromise our safety,” said L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.
“He is deranged and dangerous,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom.
President Trump throws a pen into the crowd after he signed an executive order during a campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center in Grand Island, Neb., on Oct. 5, 2026.
(Kent Nishimura / AFP via Getty Images)
About 8 a.m., I took my dog Philly out for our morning walk. This is usually a lovely time for us. I clear my head. For Philly, a 3-year-old beagle, these are essentially business trips.
I got to thinking about the similarities in the daily routines of Philly and the president of the United States.
The thing is, I carry bags with me and clean up after Philly. The president to my knowledge has nobody on his staff doing this. We are at a point in American politics at which we must consider posting signs, everywhere Trump travels, that say, “Please Curb Your President.”
Not that it would be easy to clean Trump’s daily messes. You’d need the equivalent of those parade attendants in overalls who run along behind the horses with shovels.
The White House does not use poop bags. Instead, it uses denial and spin.
Critical reactions to Trump’s Nebraska comments were “not rooted in reality,” said White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung, who claimed Trump was misrepresented.
We’ve got to respect Cheung’s opinion. Does anyone in the world have more experience when it comes to analyzing comments not rooted in reality?
Some of you may know there are two topics I often revisit in my column. One is the effects, good and bad, of aging. The other is failure of leadership.
So I feel eminently qualified to psychoanalyze the president.
I don’t mean to generalize, but as people age, it’s not unusual for them to undergo behavioral changes. Some folks mellow, they abide, they lean into the ride. Others can become churlish, combative or grouchy.
Not only is Trump the poster boy for the latter group, but as things go wrong, he becomes more obstinate.
And things have definitely gone wrong.
The war in Iran is a disaster. The president is personally responsible for rising gas prices. He’s ruined the economy with his tariffs. He’s picked a fight with Canada. He may cost his party the House and the Senate because his almost daily outrages have pumped oxygen back into the blood of long-slumping Democrats.
A normal person would have the good sense to scale back or shrink away.
President Trump at the campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds on Oct. 5, 2026, in Grand Island, Neb.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)
Trump keeps doubling down, wants to put his name on everything, and lashes out the way someone does when it’s not clear what’s bigger — their ego or their insecurity.
I’ve been to Nebraska, by the way. Nice place, met a lot of lovely people.
I enjoy corn, on or off the cob.
Popcorn. Caramel corn.
Not wild about “Children of the Corn,” the slasher movie based on Stephen King’s short story. But thank you very much, Nebraska, for Fred Astaire, Johnny Carson and Henry Fonda, who, by the way, was born in Grand Island, where Trump made his cracks Monday about California.
Did it occur to any of the shuckers who cheered Trump’s throwaway line about an attack on San Diego and L.A. that:
A: It wasn’t funny.
B: San Diego has one of the nation’s largest military installations, with thousands of personnel currently deployed to the Middle East because of the war in Iran.
C: Maybe we should expect more from someone serving as president and commander in chief.
In defending Trump, the White House said news outlets had misunderstood and misrepresented the president’s comments in what amounted to a “media freakout.” A White House media post singled out an L.A. Times post that said Trump suggested “letting Iran take out” L.A. and San Diego.
“No, he didn’t, you buffoons,” said the White House. “He was saying the U.S. is fighting to STOP Iran from having the ability to take out LA and San Diego with a nuclear weapon — which they would if they had the chance.”
Please.
This buffoon would like to point out that this is yet another case of Trump using California as a punching bag to prop up support for the war and nail down what’s left of his diminishing base. But even some of his longtime disciples know that he has said on dozens of occasions that the war had ended, was ending, or had been won, and not once were any of those words rooted in reality.
It’s not clear whether we’re any safer in the U.S. as a result of the war, although it is clear that we have paid with lives and higher costs.
So maybe a gratuitous and unfunny line about anyone taking out American cities is better left unsaid.
I’m fresh out of muzzles, but I do have extra poop bags.
Stuttgart, Germany – Minutes after the results of the first exit polls flashed across German screens, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) declared in a televised statement at the party’s headquarters that he was going nowhere.
“It’s a disaster,” he said of the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20. “What needs to be done now requires backbone, steadfastness and patience. I will muster them – as party chairman of the CDU and, above all, as chancellor of our country.”
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But pressure on Merz is mounting.
On Thursday, a survey by Germany’s public broadcaster ARD found that only one in 10 respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with his work. That is the lowest figure for any chancellor since the survey began in 1997.
His party crashed out of the state parliament in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, failing to clear the 5 percent threshold needed to win seats – the first time this has happened since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came first with more than a third of the vote.
On the same day in Berlin’s state elections, the CDU suffered another major setback. It came second after The Left party, which won 25.7 percent of the vote. The Left now hopes to form a government in the capital although it will need coalition partners.
Just two weeks earlier, the CDU suffered another blow. The AfD won the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, receiving more than 40 percent of the vote, compared with 17 percent for the CDU.
No obvious successor
Merz could face a revolt within his own party, but removing him as chancellor would be considerably harder.
Under Germany’s Constitution, the Bundestag can replace a chancellor only by simultaneously electing a successor with an absolute majority.
Wolfgang Schroeder, a professor of political science at the University of Kassel, told Al Jazeera: “The CDU is in a situation where it can’t really get any further with Merz, but it also doesn’t know how things would work without him. There is no attractive replacement, so there is no alternative.”
A former chairman of the BlackRock investment company’s German supervisory board, Merz had long harboured ambitions of becoming chancellor but was sidelined by then-Chancellor and -CDU leader Angela Merkel in the early 2000s. He staged an unexpected comeback, finally taking office in May 2025.
Then-designated German Christian Democratic Party (CDU) parliamentary floor leader, Friedrich Merz (left) is pictured with then-party secretary general Angela Merkel (right). In the centre is lawmaker Rudolf Seiters before a meeting of the CDU parliamentary group in the Berlin Reichstag, February 18, 2000 [Reuters]
At the helm, Merz has drawn criticism for remarks about the country’s “Stadtbild” (cityscape), widely interpreted as a suggestion that there were too many refugees and migrants on the streets. The debate has resurfaced in recent days with prominent CDU figures returning to the issue after the party’s poor election results.
The AfD’s surge is but one factor behind the decline of Germany’s long-dominant conservative party, which has produced six chancellors in its history.
The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, govern Germany in coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The government is struggling amid the rising cost of living, deindustrialisation, crumbling infrastructure and a housing crisis in major cities.
Nils Diederich, a professor emeritus of political science at the Free University of Berlin and a former SPD member in the Bundestag, said Merz has failed to make a good impression but argued he is not the main reason for the CDU’s poor results.
“Overall, I see the coalition itself as the main problem,” he said. “The Social Democrats have worn themselves out in the coalition. They have lost their sense of direction and are putting the brakes on reforms. That, in turn, is dragging the CDU down with them.”
Schroeder told Al Jazeera: “It’s possible that the crisis surrounding the chancellor could develop into a fundamental crisis for the CDU and from there into a crisis for the coalition.”
The reform dilemma
In July, the German government announced a package of 34 measures, including reforms to pensions, taxation, bureaucracy and the labour market. Merz originally intended to push through his repeatedly promised reforms by the end of the year.
But the state elections have put the coalition parties under greater pressure to stake out their own positions.
To ease the burden on people in need of long-term care and to plug multibillion-euro deficits, the SPD is calling for a cap on care costs and for people with private health insurance to share the costs. The CDU firmly rejects both proposals on legal and financial grounds.
State premiers from both major parties and the SPD leadership want to retain the option of retiring without a pension reduction after 45 years of contributions, which they see as a reward for a lifetime of work. The conservative bloc’s business wing, however, insists that the provision be phased out.
Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil of the SPD is planning new revenue measures to consolidate the budget but faces fierce resistance from CDU state premiers and conservative legislators determined to block any tax increases.
Schroeder warned that the coming months could be difficult.
“The CDU is caught in a dilemma. If Merz continues down the path of reforms that place a burden on society, the likelihood of cooperative governance with the SPD will diminish further. If he goes along with the course the SPD is proposing, pressure within the party will increase.”
Diederich said: “If the reforms fall through, then either Merz or the Social Democrats would have to act and let the coalition collapse.”
The next major election test will come in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, where voters elect a new parliament in April.
‘Take out’ L.A. or San Diego? This buffoon thinks Trump was way out of line
I went to bed at a decent hour Monday night and got a pretty good sleep.
I woke up refreshed Tuesday morning, only to see the news that President Trump seemed to have told a crowd in Nebraska that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Iran attacked Southern California.
“Let ’em take out Los Angeles. Let ’em take out San Diego,” he said in a typically meandering speech, perhaps trying to justify a war he has repeatedly claimed is keeping the U.S. safe, even as gas prices have spiked. “This is a very small price to pay.”
The Nebraska crowd cheered.
California electeds scolded.
“San Diego is not collateral damage,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.
Such “dangerous” remarks could “potentially compromise our safety,” said L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.
“He is deranged and dangerous,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom.
President Trump throws a pen into the crowd after he signed an executive order during a campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center in Grand Island, Neb., on Oct. 5, 2026.
(Kent Nishimura / AFP via Getty Images)
About 8 a.m., I took my dog Philly out for our morning walk. This is usually a lovely time for us. I clear my head. For Philly, a 3-year-old beagle, these are essentially business trips.
I got to thinking about the similarities in the daily routines of Philly and the president of the United States.
The thing is, I carry bags with me and clean up after Philly. The president to my knowledge has nobody on his staff doing this. We are at a point in American politics at which we must consider posting signs, everywhere Trump travels, that say, “Please Curb Your President.”
Not that it would be easy to clean Trump’s daily messes. You’d need the equivalent of those parade attendants in overalls who run along behind the horses with shovels.
The White House does not use poop bags. Instead, it uses denial and spin.
Critical reactions to Trump’s Nebraska comments were “not rooted in reality,” said White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung, who claimed Trump was misrepresented.
We’ve got to respect Cheung’s opinion. Does anyone in the world have more experience when it comes to analyzing comments not rooted in reality?
Some of you may know there are two topics I often revisit in my column. One is the effects, good and bad, of aging. The other is failure of leadership.
So I feel eminently qualified to psychoanalyze the president.
I don’t mean to generalize, but as people age, it’s not unusual for them to undergo behavioral changes. Some folks mellow, they abide, they lean into the ride. Others can become churlish, combative or grouchy.
Not only is Trump the poster boy for the latter group, but as things go wrong, he becomes more obstinate.
And things have definitely gone wrong.
The war in Iran is a disaster. The president is personally responsible for rising gas prices. He’s ruined the economy with his tariffs. He’s picked a fight with Canada. He may cost his party the House and the Senate because his almost daily outrages have pumped oxygen back into the blood of long-slumping Democrats.
A normal person would have the good sense to scale back or shrink away.
President Trump at the campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds on Oct. 5, 2026, in Grand Island, Neb.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)
Trump keeps doubling down, wants to put his name on everything, and lashes out the way someone does when it’s not clear what’s bigger — their ego or their insecurity.
I’ve been to Nebraska, by the way. Nice place, met a lot of lovely people.
I enjoy corn, on or off the cob.
Popcorn. Caramel corn.
Not wild about “Children of the Corn,” the slasher movie based on Stephen King’s short story. But thank you very much, Nebraska, for Fred Astaire, Johnny Carson and Henry Fonda, who, by the way, was born in Grand Island, where Trump made his cracks Monday about California.
Did it occur to any of the shuckers who cheered Trump’s throwaway line about an attack on San Diego and L.A. that:
A: It wasn’t funny.
B: San Diego has one of the nation’s largest military installations, with thousands of personnel currently deployed to the Middle East because of the war in Iran.
C: Maybe we should expect more from someone serving as president and commander in chief.
In defending Trump, the White House said news outlets had misunderstood and misrepresented the president’s comments in what amounted to a “media freakout.” A White House media post singled out an L.A. Times post that said Trump suggested “letting Iran take out” L.A. and San Diego.
“No, he didn’t, you buffoons,” said the White House. “He was saying the U.S. is fighting to STOP Iran from having the ability to take out LA and San Diego with a nuclear weapon — which they would if they had the chance.”
Please.
This buffoon would like to point out that this is yet another case of Trump using California as a punching bag to prop up support for the war and nail down what’s left of his diminishing base. But even some of his longtime disciples know that he has said on dozens of occasions that the war had ended, was ending, or had been won, and not once were any of those words rooted in reality.
It’s not clear whether we’re any safer in the U.S. as a result of the war, although it is clear that we have paid with lives and higher costs.
So maybe a gratuitous and unfunny line about anyone taking out American cities is better left unsaid.
I’m fresh out of muzzles, but I do have extra poop bags.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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Just one in 10 Germans thinks Merz is up to the job after election wipeout | Elections News
Stuttgart, Germany – Minutes after the results of the first exit polls flashed across German screens, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) declared in a televised statement at the party’s headquarters that he was going nowhere.
“It’s a disaster,” he said of the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20. “What needs to be done now requires backbone, steadfastness and patience. I will muster them – as party chairman of the CDU and, above all, as chancellor of our country.”
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list of 4 itemsend of list
But pressure on Merz is mounting.
On Thursday, a survey by Germany’s public broadcaster ARD found that only one in 10 respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with his work. That is the lowest figure for any chancellor since the survey began in 1997.
His party crashed out of the state parliament in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, failing to clear the 5 percent threshold needed to win seats – the first time this has happened since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came first with more than a third of the vote.
On the same day in Berlin’s state elections, the CDU suffered another major setback. It came second after The Left party, which won 25.7 percent of the vote. The Left now hopes to form a government in the capital although it will need coalition partners.
Just two weeks earlier, the CDU suffered another blow. The AfD won the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, receiving more than 40 percent of the vote, compared with 17 percent for the CDU.
No obvious successor
Merz could face a revolt within his own party, but removing him as chancellor would be considerably harder.
Under Germany’s Constitution, the Bundestag can replace a chancellor only by simultaneously electing a successor with an absolute majority.
Wolfgang Schroeder, a professor of political science at the University of Kassel, told Al Jazeera: “The CDU is in a situation where it can’t really get any further with Merz, but it also doesn’t know how things would work without him. There is no attractive replacement, so there is no alternative.”
A former chairman of the BlackRock investment company’s German supervisory board, Merz had long harboured ambitions of becoming chancellor but was sidelined by then-Chancellor and -CDU leader Angela Merkel in the early 2000s. He staged an unexpected comeback, finally taking office in May 2025.
At the helm, Merz has drawn criticism for remarks about the country’s “Stadtbild” (cityscape), widely interpreted as a suggestion that there were too many refugees and migrants on the streets. The debate has resurfaced in recent days with prominent CDU figures returning to the issue after the party’s poor election results.
The AfD’s surge is but one factor behind the decline of Germany’s long-dominant conservative party, which has produced six chancellors in its history.
The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, govern Germany in coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The government is struggling amid the rising cost of living, deindustrialisation, crumbling infrastructure and a housing crisis in major cities.
Nils Diederich, a professor emeritus of political science at the Free University of Berlin and a former SPD member in the Bundestag, said Merz has failed to make a good impression but argued he is not the main reason for the CDU’s poor results.
“Overall, I see the coalition itself as the main problem,” he said. “The Social Democrats have worn themselves out in the coalition. They have lost their sense of direction and are putting the brakes on reforms. That, in turn, is dragging the CDU down with them.”
Schroeder told Al Jazeera: “It’s possible that the crisis surrounding the chancellor could develop into a fundamental crisis for the CDU and from there into a crisis for the coalition.”
The reform dilemma
In July, the German government announced a package of 34 measures, including reforms to pensions, taxation, bureaucracy and the labour market. Merz originally intended to push through his repeatedly promised reforms by the end of the year.
But the state elections have put the coalition parties under greater pressure to stake out their own positions.
To ease the burden on people in need of long-term care and to plug multibillion-euro deficits, the SPD is calling for a cap on care costs and for people with private health insurance to share the costs. The CDU firmly rejects both proposals on legal and financial grounds.
State premiers from both major parties and the SPD leadership want to retain the option of retiring without a pension reduction after 45 years of contributions, which they see as a reward for a lifetime of work. The conservative bloc’s business wing, however, insists that the provision be phased out.
Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil of the SPD is planning new revenue measures to consolidate the budget but faces fierce resistance from CDU state premiers and conservative legislators determined to block any tax increases.
Schroeder warned that the coming months could be difficult.
“The CDU is caught in a dilemma. If Merz continues down the path of reforms that place a burden on society, the likelihood of cooperative governance with the SPD will diminish further. If he goes along with the course the SPD is proposing, pressure within the party will increase.”
Diederich said: “If the reforms fall through, then either Merz or the Social Democrats would have to act and let the coalition collapse.”
The next major election test will come in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, where voters elect a new parliament in April.
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