WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 03: U.S. President Donald Trump’s name is seen recently placed on the outside of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) building headquarters on December 03, 2025 in Washington, DC. This addition was made ahead of the Trump administration hosting a deal-signing between the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
President Trump has renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace … for himself. (snip)
“My bet is that all the problems we have right now will be solved if old folks get out of the way and we turn the reins over to this next generation that is coming up, so that they can bring those good old-fashioned American values to new sets of problems,” Obama said.
The former president said that it’s time to “turn the reins over” to a new generation of politicians
Nights and Weekends EditorPublished
It would be easy for former President Barack Obama to get cynical.
The signature achievement of his two terms in office is on the brink of oblivion, and many of the progressive wins of his era have been rolled back by a reactionary presidency and a conservative Supreme Court. Still, the one-time organizer has hope that the next generation of lawmakers can fix the problems that plague the United States. Speaking at Crystal Bridges, the Arkansas art museum founded by the Walton family, he called on the Democratic Party‘s old guard to “get out of the way” of upstarts seeking change.
“My bet is that all the problems we have right now will be solved if old folks get out of the way and we turn the reins over to this next generation that is coming up, so that they can bring those good old-fashioned American values to new sets of problems,” Obama said.
The former president didn’t pretend that righting the ship would be easy. He said the United States is much “more divided” than it was when he left office in 2017.
“I think it is true that we are more divided and that our democracy is more unstable than any time in my lifetime, not in American history, I mean, we did have a Civil War,” he said. “I would not have expected the legitimacy of an election and the peaceful transfer of power to have been challenged. I thought that was not something that would happen today.”
He added that Democrats and Republican lawmakers are discouraged from working together, making compromise a risky proposition.
“You’ll hear voters asking, ‘Why can’t they just get along? Why can’t they get stuff done?’ The truth is, there are a bunch of structures that have been set up that don’t give them an incentive to work together. In fact, the opposite, they get punished,” he said.
Watch the conversation below via YouTube:
It is indeed good to see the NASA Earth Observatory newsletter in my Inbox again, since the shutdown ended. This is one of the things we the people own and pay taxes to maintain, and it’s a wonderful thing, good for all to learn about our world. Even if a person never gets farther than their own downtown, they can still learn about the world with the information we receive from the Observatory. We need to keep the stuff we’ve paid for!
Go and explore here: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/ . There is all manner of stuff! And you, too, can have a newsletter!
Snippet: We are back! After the lapse in appropriations at the beginning of October, and therefore a lapse in our ability to pay for our newsletter platform, the Earth Observatory team is back to publishing our Image of the Day and we are happy to be back in your inbox. We have a slate of new stories to share with you (I will include them all below so you can catch up) and more planned. But in other news…
Satellites Detect Seasonal Pulses in Earth’s Glaciers
Babs wrote that her victory was “proving once and for all that experience matters.”
Proving that there is no age limit to good tongue skills, an 81-year-old woman who competed in a San Francisco lesbian pie-eating contest won Best Technique, per viral social media videos about the event.
Babs Daitch, who joined a crush of pie-eating lesbians in the contest on November 23, posted about her entering the contest, and subsequent title-winning performance, on her social media channels. Though she could not claim the overall victory — a woman named Jenn won, per the Bay Area Reporter — she did win “Best Technique,” per her own social media accounts. She wrote that her victory was “proving once and for all that experience matters.”
One video, posted on Friday, featured Daitch being cheered on by the crowd. Her response: sticking her tongue out in between her middle and index fingers. The clip has garnered over 40,000 views since it hit the internet. (snip-MORE on the page)
Scottie's Playtime 