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TOP OF THE DAY by Howard Polskin

Feb. 25, 2025

Greetings! Song of the week: R.E.M.’s It’s the End of the World as We Know It…Last week’s upside down crash landing of the Delta plane in Toronto is the perfect metaphor for the first month of Donald Trump 2.0…Just askin’: Anyone planning a National Park summer vacation sojourn amidst the DOGE-created bureaucratic chaos that’s shattered nature’s promise of serenity? Also, questioning whether planning a trip to  the Canadian Rockies or to the verdant countryside of any NATO European country is a wise move these days…Time magazine has published a just-the-facts-mam recap of the professional journey through the right wing fever swamps of newly-minted  FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino…Breitbart went overboard gushing about the Dolce & Gabbana tux Melania Trump wore to the National Governors Association Evening White House soiree. Fourteen  photos  of the First Lady are posted on Breitbart. OK, we get the point. She’s great looking presidential arm candy….Foul ball! Real TV journos who collected checks to play themselves in the Netflix political thriller Zero Day did themselves reputational harm.  I’m looking at you Wolf Blitzer, Savannah Guthrie, and Nicolle Wallace.  The six-part series, starring Robert De Niro, centers on a deadly cyberattack that paralyzes a deeply divided nation that has many parallels to the U.S. today.  And therein lies the problem.  TV news stars have had small roles before in movies and series, but never in a show that is similar to situations which they cover on a  daily basis.  To have high-profile news personalities go Hollywood and  play themselves in  “Zero Day” blurs the line between fact and fiction. It damages their credibility in these most serious of times…If you keep reading, I’ll keep Righting. Howard