At Reuters Steve Holland, Gram Slattery and Erin Banco report:

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump ousted his national security adviser Mike Waltz on Thursday and named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as his interim replacement in the first major shakeup of Trump’s inner circle since he took office in January.
Trump, in a social media post, said he would nominate Waltz to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, adding that “he has worked hard to put our nation’s interests first.”

UN ambassador is a sort of off-again, on-again cabinet position so I guess that’s a demotion but it’s not entirely surprising—he broke a cardinal rule: don’t embarrass the boss. But he wasn’t entirely “ousted” either so I guess it’s more of a slap on the hand.

The editors of the Washington Post call for updating the Endangered Species Act to provide greater incentives for preserving biodiversity:

The Trump administration’s attempt to weaken the Endangered Species Act is easy to criticize. This month, it proposed a rule that would limit what constitutes “harm” under the law to only direct actions against wildlife, such as hunting, wounding or trapping. Destroying their habitats would no longer count.

Anyone who’s ever seen roadkill littering U.S. highways should understand the flaw in this logic: Species can thrive only when they have space to live free from dangers imposed by humankind.

It is not enough to simply defend the status quo, however. An honest assessment of the Endangered Species Act would conclude that, alongside its strengths, it has many weaknesses. As scientists warn that the world is entering a period of mass extinction, lawmakers would be wise to rethink federal conservation strategies. This means reforming the act to better incentivize citizens to protect the country’s precious biodiversity.

concluding:

President Donald Trump and his party are unlikely to embrace these reforms. But Congress in recent years has shown that there is strong bipartisan appetite to strengthen protections for endangered species. The best way forward is to embrace market-oriented strategies.

I materially agree with what they propose but I don’t think they’ve thought it through. Preserving biodiversity whether through bans on hunting, etc. or introducing “market-oriented strategies” increases production costs in the United States which puts us at a competitive disadvantage to countries which subordinate biodiversity to other goals notably China, India, and Brazil. Each of those countries destroys thousands or hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest cover annually, habitats to hundreds or thousands of species. Providing those countries with competitive advantages has the presumably unintended secondary effect of encouraging that activity.

If we are genuinely interested in preserving biodiversity, we need to align the incentives to produce more of what we consume rather than offshoring that production to countries that aren’t concerned about the environmental impact of industrial production.

Yesterday I completed a game of Baldur’s Gate 3 at the Tactician level of difficulty, the second highest supported. According to the developers, Larian Studios, only 5% of players accomplish that. I have no plans to play at the highest level of difficulty, something only a very small number of players have completed successfully. It’s a game not a death march.

I’ve been playing BG3 off and on since it was introduced in pre-release. It is an excellent role-playing game—possibly the best. Pre-release consisted of the first chapter only and I played to the end of the chapter multiple times, at least once for every character class (wizard, rogue, ranger, cleric, etc.). Since the game went into general release in 2023, I have played it through multiple times.

By far the most fun playthrough was as something called “Dark Urge”, a creature subject to and occasionally overwhelmed by violent urges to perform evil deeds. I have a limitation. I cannot satisfactorily roleplay as an actually evil character so my Dark Urge was actively trying to fight his evil nature, something I found very close to home. The ending of that playthrough was very satisfying.

The limitation restricts my ability to play as what are called “origin characters”, pre-built characters with substantial back stories and distinct goals. The origin characters with good orientations are the Gale (wizard), Wyll (warlock), and Karlach (barbarian). I’ve played as Gale; in the game I am just beginning I am Wyll. I have only completed the prologue but I’ve found it very immersing.

I think the editors of the Wall Street Journal have the issue of the Milwaukee judge arrested for aiding an illegal immigrant to avoid arrest correct:

Every dispute between the Trump Administration and the judiciary these days becomes a political morality play about a looming “constitutional crisis.” But the facts of each case matter, and most of the time they don’t support the crisis narrative.

That’s the way it looks to us so far in the case of last week’s arrest by federal agents of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly helping an illegal migrant evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Judge Dugan was charged with obstructing a federal proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent an arrest. A federal magistrate found probable cause for the arrest upon reviewing a 13-page criminal complaint.

The alleged facts as laid out in the complaint by FBI special agent Lindsay Schloemer don’t look good for the judge.

but I do disagree with one particular. We do have a crisis. It’s just not that crisis.

Judges should decide cases based on the text of the law, precedent, and the common law—another way of saying “precedent”—rather than deciding them based on their own politics or ideological preferences. There are far too many judges who want to be legislators rather than judges.

Somewhat against my better judgment I watched ABC journalist Terry Moran’s interview of President Trump on the occasion of the 100th day of his second term in office last night. It wasn’t quite as combative as I expected although I thought that Mr. Trump was primed for a combative interview. I don’t think that Mr. Moran was quite as oppositional as Mr. Trump seemed to think.

I don’t think I heard anything new. President Trump continues to think that the 2020 election was unfairly “stolen” from him. He thinks that the tariffs he’s imposing will be effective with fewer adverse consequences than I do.

I’d be interested in other people’s reactions.

George Friedman weighs in on the attempts to negotiate an end to the conflict produced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:

The war isn’t exactly over because the fighting continues. However, unless the Russian army suddenly evolves into a more effective force, or unless the U.S. or Europe sends massive forces to drive Russia out, the lines on the map are more or less fixed. The new borders are a reality. And everyone needs to accept those realities if they want peace talks to succeed. There are other demands the Europeans can make that Russia will not accept – which shows them to be more honorable than the Americans, who just want the war to end and to do business with a weakened Russia – and there are other issues that can be negotiated. Some of these, such as the size of the Ukrainian military, can and will likely be ignored.

There is one last dimension to be considered. Russia is a nuclear power, and during the Cold War, Russia and the U.S. took every precaution to avoid posing a profound threat to each other. They dueled in the so-called Third World, but aside from the Cuban missile crisis, they never threatened to put each other in an untenable position out of fear of a desperate nuclear response. Eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula are simply not worth going to the brink, as we used to say in the Cold War.

In the 1970s, the U.S. negotiated endlessly with North Vietnam over a war it long knew it could not win. The U.S. has learned from that, I think, that diplomatic pride is not worth the cost of lives. Russia cannot occupy Ukraine, Ukraine cannot force the Russians out, and the negotiations must acknowledge as much. Putin will say he does not need peace, and Europe will be outraged that America admits the inadmissible – that the war is over. But this is all posturing. Those who want the war to continue unless their terms are met are bluffing a busted flush. The war is over, except for the killing.

I disagree with Mr. Friedman only on some particulars. I don’t believe that Russia’s objective was to conquer Ukraine. I believe it was to subordinate Ukraine and, failing that, to, in John Mearsheimer’s words, “wreck it”. I also think that Ukraine’s objective has not just been to retain all of its pre-2014 territory but to create an ethnic state where there has never been one.

As I have said before I think the United States should continue to provide military aid to Ukraine with the objectives of preventing Russia from winning outright and providing Ukraine with the strongest foreseeable position for negotiations. If our European allies are dissatisfied with U. S. objectives, they should send their own troops to fight against the Russians.

I will readily admit that I have never really understood my parents’ finances. 65 years ago our family income was around $17,000—a tidy sum at that time. It put us in the top 5% of households. Digging into their tax returns (they saved everything) I saw that nearly 20% of their income came from rents and dividends. That’s quite a bit of dividend income. The balance came from my dad’s law practice.

Adding to the confusion I have learned that my parents regularly got lines of credit with their bank, secured by the properties and equities they owned, something like a home equity line of credit today. I assume that was their strategy for maintaining liquidity for their ordinary expenses back in those days when credit cards were not nearly as omnipresent as they are today.

One thing I learned about which I had not been aware was that my dad continued his grandfather’s dairy business for more than 20 years after his father and grandfather’s deaths. My grandfather, then my great-grandfather died within months of each other.

The other story the Sunday “talking heads” programs were talking about was the arrest of Milwaukee judge Hannah Dugan by the Department of Justice. Sarah N. Lynch and Andrew Goudsward report at Reuters:

WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) – U.S. officials arrested a Wisconsin judge on Friday and charged her with helping a man in her court briefly evade immigration authorities in an escalating dispute between President Donald Trump’s administration and local officials over immigration enforcement.

In a criminal complaint, the U.S. Justice Department said Hannah Dugan, a Milwaukee County circuit judge, hindered the immigration agents who showed up to arrest the man without a judicial warrant outside her courtroom on April 18, and that she tried to help him evade arrest by allowing him to exit through a jury door. Agents arrested the man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, outside the courthouse after he left with his lawyer.

Although he thought the DoJ’s arrest of Judge Dugan excessively harsh, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had a succinct reaction to the arrest: “What was she thinking?”

Not cooperating with federal officials is one thing but actively impeding them is something else again. IMO it was not a smart move and the reaction of the DoJ undoubtedly was, to quote Voltaire, to encourage the others.

The editors of the Washington Post are dissatisfied with the peace plan the Trump Administration has been promoting to end Russia’s war against Ukraine:

The Russian military’s deadly missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian civilians on Thursday were brazen — even to President Donald Trump, who has been pushing Ukraine to accept a peace deal favorable to Russia. “Vladimir, STOP!” Trump warned President Vladimir Putin in a social media post.

This should help the U.S. president see why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not want to discuss any peace deal until Russia stops bombarding his country. More important, Trump should reconsider the uneven proposal that he has demanded Zelensky accept. As it stands, the deal would largely reward Putin for his unprovoked war against a smaller neighbor. The battle lines would be frozen in place, meaning Russia would keep control of the nearly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory it seized with its February 2022 invasion — though Ukraine would not formally cede sovereignty. What’s more, the United States would implicitly recognize Putin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea, although Ukraine would not have to do so. Though it’s true that Ukraine should be expected to consider such terms, Russia — the aggressor in this conflict — also needs to make concessions.

They propose their alternative:

In a more perfect world, Trump would then demand that Putin restore Ukraine’s pre-2022 borders by withdrawing Russian troops, end support for the separatist militias operating in Ukraine’s eastern regions, agree to a European military force for monitoring compliance in Ukraine’s border regions, disavow any further territorial claims on Ukraine, agree to pay reparations for the damage to Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, and immediately return all prisoners of war and the Ukrainian children who were illegally abducted into Russia.

Trump could promise that, once all these steps were taken and verified, the United States would begin talks on easing some of the sanctions crippling the Russian economy. This sanctions relief would come in phases, and sanctions would return in the event that Russia violated any part of the peace deal. The International Criminal Court might be persuaded to suspend its indictment of Putin if the Ukrainian children were returned. The United States, Ukraine and Russia could begin talks about the future status of Crimea.

which they concede is a non-starter for Russia.

I would ask the editors a series of questions:

• Is Ukraine in a stronger position now than it was last year at this time?
• Was Ukraine in a stronger position in April 2023 than it was in April 2024?
• Was Ukraine in a stronger position in April 2022 than it was in April 2023?

which I would answer “no”, “no”, and “yes”, respectively. April 2022 was the time of the so-called “Istanbul Communiqué”. In that communiqué US, Ukrainian, and Russian negotiators came up with a framework for negotiations to end the war. They were that Ukraine could apply for EU membership, maintain neutrality, limit the size of its military forces, end its attempts to join NATO, forbid foreign military bases, and Western countries (including the US and UK) would act as guarantors of the agreement. Ultimately, the US and UK persuaded Ukraine to reject the deal. Since then things have only gotten worse for Ukraine.

Although I believe the US should continue to offer military aid to Ukraine, I would suggest that at this point it is very unlikely that Ukraine will be in a better bargaining position in April 2026 than it is now. I would also suggest that Russians’ willingness to put up with a poor economy and with military losses should not be underestimated. Russia has had a lousy economy for most of the last 200 years and the Russians are no strangers to casualties in war (6 million military casualties in World War II, 2 million World War I, 70,000 in the Russo-Japanese War, .5 million in the Crimean War, .5 million in Napoleon’s invasion)

What the US should not do is offer troops. Every wargaming of US-Russian direct conflict has resulted in a nuclear exchange and nuclear war would be disastrous not just for Russia and the United States but for Ukraine as well (Ukraine would likely be the first target).

I’m curious as to why no one is proposing that other countries, say, Poland or the UK provide troops in the war? Are they afraid that would provoke the Russians into using nuclear weapons as much as would the direct involvement of the United States?

In the absence of that I sincerely wish that the WaPo’s editors would offer their plans for concluding the war other than the one they acknowledge is a non-starter.