Number 4. Newsweek. Donald Trump “Most Successful President” since FDR.
By the reporter’s admission, Newsweek relied on ChatGPT, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence creation, to rank 20th and 21st century presidents. Getting results from AI is all about how the prompts are written.
In this case, Newsweek focused on legislative accomplishments — the number of bills passed — and also considered how much party control of Congress each president enjoyed.
The title of “most effective” went to Franklin Delano Roosevelt (no surprise there) as FDR passed 15 different bills, all related to the New Deal, in his first 100 days. Those 15 included the Emergency Banking Act of 1933. That Act closed banks for 4 days, an unprecedented interruption, and according to some sources instituted the first measure on the way to recovering from the then 4-year-old Great Depression.
According to other sources, Roosevelt’s legislative agenda unnecessarily prolonged the Great Depression for another decade and instituted draconian regulations that have stifled the economy ever since.
Trump’s signal accomplishments, according to Newsweek, which is according to the AI platform, are the Laken Riley Act, which tightened constraints on illegal immigrants, and the One Big Beautiful Bill, which the magazine is quick to point out will bury the U.S. in red ink.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, which has been wrong about 2/3 of the time in the last 40 years, Trump’s focus on reforming government and cutting spending will add $3.3 trillion to the national debt.
Given the CBO’s average error rate of 6% in long term revenue projections, it is likely this particular prediction likewise understates revenues by some $4 trillion. Which is why the Foundation for Government Accountability has called CBO’s historical estimates “stunningly inaccurate.”
Nevertheless, Newsweek (and other mainstream outlets) had to write SOMETHING, given the hectic pace of Executive Orders — and now, legislation — implementing Trump’s ambitious agenda. In their Presidential legislative success horserace, they managed to place FDR first, Trump second, and Joe Biden in third place.
The reporter cannot resist a final jab at Trump: The prospect of Republicans losing control of either House in the 2026 midterms will most certainly slow Trump’s winning streak. If Newsweek has anything to say about it.
Number 3. Time Magazine. Trump posts an AI-generated video of Barack Obama’s Oval Office arrest.
This article is an editorial, rather than hard news, so we would not be entitled to balanced reporting. Even so, this reporter speaks of Donald Trump “fantasizing” about throwing Barack Obama in prison.
What prompted the observation was Trump’s Truth Social reposting of an AI-generated TikTok video showing Obama and Trump in the Oval Office. Men in suits appear, drag Mr. Obama from his chair, handcuff him and march him off to a jail cell.
It is outlandish.
So is Trump’s other re-post, showing “The Shady Bunch,” mugshots of eight of Obama’s key advisors in orange jumpsuits.
We might be tempted to say that the President placing such items on a social media platform is in poor taste, but for the non-trivial, non-fictional criminal referrals that Tulsi Gabbard forwarded to the Department of Justice last weekend. The report by Trump’s Director of National Intelligence is named “Obama Administration Conspiracy to Subvert Trump’s 2016 Victory and Presidency.”
The DNI report basically shows that in the run-up to the 2016 presidential contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Obama asked his intelligence staff to ascertain whether there was any illegal Russian involvement in the election. The answer, from such important personages as James Clapper (DNI), James Comey (Director, FBI) and John Brennan (Director, CIA), among others, was, “No, there has been no Russian interference.”
After Trump’s victory, Mr. Obama, according to Tulsi Gabbard, then ordered that staff to re-do the report: “If there is no evidence, then FIND some evidence and bring it to me.”
Apparently, they complied.
The result was the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, now widely publicized by Republicans as the Russiagate Hoax.
Gabbard has publicly called on the Justice Department to issue indictments of those involved. This would include most of Obama’s top deputies, and Mr. Obama himself.
The evidence-backed accusations by the Director of National Intelligence toward the former president and his highest-ranking lieutenants amount to a careful presentation of quite serious charges.
It is early days yet in this latest scandal. At this writing, the water is still murky, but it appears that SOMETHING is stirring not too far below the surface. Stay with us. I expect the news in the next weeks will include a slew of accusations from the left spewing outrage, and labels of un-American, racist politics.
Number 2. CBS News. 1,500 tarantulas found stuffed in sponge cake boxes at German airport.
I may never fly again.
Customs agents at Cologne Bonn airport (Germany) found that boxes of chocolate sponge cake shipped from Vietnam smelled suspiciously unlike chocolate sponge cake. They opened the boxes and discovered 1,500 small plastic containers, each with a juvenile tarantula inside.
This seems like a hard way to make a living, both as a shipper and as a customs agent.
For the tarantulas, it was worse. Most had not survived the flight to Germany. Those still living were turned over to “an expert handler.”
Interesting that the thrust of the article is the inhumane treatment of what the airport spokesman called “animals.”
“It saddens us to see what some people do to animals purely for profit,” said Jens Ahland of the Customs Service.
Meanwhile, the German citizen for whom the arachnids were destined is in big trouble. Improper customs declarations and failure to pay import duties carry fines. Not to mention, there are probably laws against the improper treatment of tarantulas.
The intended recipient is a resident of the Sauerland, a region in the northeast of Germany known as a popular tourist destination for hiking and skiing in the Alps. Imagine the excitement that huge, hairy Vietnamese tarantulas would have added to your picnic lunch on your hiking trip.
In maybe 1965 my parents invited a family from town out to our farm for a picnic by the pond. This was nowhere near as idyllic as it sounds: The pond was muddy from red southern Kansas dirt, there were no trees, and the interminable Kansas wind was with us. Also, we had no picnic tables, so all 7 of their family and 5 of ours sat on blankets in the pasture.
At least we had a scenic overlook from a point of land jutting out into the murky water.
During lunch, a horned toad hopped up onto Mr. Hodges’ paper plate, no doubt scavenging for potato chips or baked beans.
Hodges, unperturbed, gently slid the critter back into the tall grass.
The place was thereafter Horned Toad Point. At a recent high school reunion, one of the Hodges girls commented what a highlight of her young life that memorable occasion had been.
So you see? Like the horned toad, the tarantulas could have added a special treat to family memories. Or could have done, if the poor creatures hadn’t suffocated in the plastic sponge cake boxes on an international flight.
Number 1. Aeon Newsletter. The Golden Ratio: Separate the myths from the facts.
This is neither politics nor satire, but I found it entertaining to be diverted by yet another article about the Fibonacci Sequence.
About 800 years ago an Italian mathematician who became known as Leonardo Fibonacci (names were less precise then) popularized an intriguing sequence of numbers based on simple arithmetic. That sequence appears to guide much — but by no means all — of the processes we observe in nature.
Note the intricate construction of a sunflower, as the seeds are arrayed in a spiral configuration. That design can be reduced to mathematics — I know, you were afraid of that. Once the design is seen, it is hard to unsee.
Most commonly, the Fibonacci Sequence starts with 0 and 1 and involves simple addition. The sum of those is 1. Adding the sum to the number preceding (1+1) results in 2. Adding that sum to the number preceding (2+1) results in 3. Adding that sum to the number preceding (3+2) results in 5.
Keep this going and you find some surprising relationships. The number sequence becomes 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and so on.
Each number in the sequence divided by the number immediately preceding it always tends to the value 1.618. 55/34=1.617. 34/21=1.619. 21/13=1.615.
The larger the numbers become, the closer the ratio gets to 1.6180339887… This has been called the Golden Ratio. People smarter than I have illustrated this by drawing arcs in adjacent Fibonacci squares. Each square has a length and width of the value of a Fibonacci number in order: 1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55.
The resulting sketch is a spiral.
That spiral, when overlaid on a sunflower, perfectly describes the arrangement of the spiraled seeds.
Likewise the chambered nautilus,
A hurricane,
And a galaxy.
Clearly, Mr. Fibonacci did not create the sequence. References to it have been found in writings as early as 800 BC.
There is much speculation, especially among the numerologist community, as to the mystical meaning of this undeniable sequence found in nature.
As is our fallen human proclivity, we have managed to take a pretty obvious evidence of intelligent creation and twist it into witchcraft: “When the Fibonacci sequence begins with 33, it leads to important numbers such as 3, 6, and 9, which are said to represent the ascension of the universe. Mapping these numbers on a grid also forms a pentagram, a powerful symbol in Wicca.”
The Fibonacci Sequence is one more argument for the universe having been created by an omnipotent God. We have the text that explains such creation, and that text not only describes how the world and all that is in it came about, but also explains why most of it is today damaged and ugly. The first 9 chapters of Genesis explain it pretty clearly.
Besides that, both Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Spock couldn’t be wrong.
Holmes: Balance probabilities and choose the most likely.
Spock: When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
They both assert the validity of what has become known as Occam’s Razor: The simplest explanation is probably the one that is correct.
When considering the intricacy with which the world and all that is in it was created, one would do well to recall the words of the Proverb:
The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens. (3:19)
The real challenge for us is how we may find a way to both acknowledge that truth, and also order our own lives in ways pleasing to the Creator.
Meanwhile, it is very cool to see patterns of His handiwork all about us.
Thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, July 25, 2025. I had the privilege of joining the Anthony High School reunion last weekend. I think they do this every 3 years, and I believe the oldest participant was in the class of 1945, 80 years ago. She completed her senior year at about the time of Germany’s unconditional surrender.
In my own case, I spent the first 3 years of high school as an Anthony Pirate, and my senior year as a Chaparral Roadrunner. Those schools made me who I am.
So gimme a break.
Have a good weekend!
