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Tomorrow Belongs To Me: On Boogers and Bullshit
Feb 14, 2025
In a freakish snapshot of the GOP's descent into brutal, gonzo nihilism, this week saw the brash Nazi-Oligarch-in-Chief helming an Oval Office presser to hype his political, economic, cultural demolition of democracy "in compliance with the President’s executive orders" - no more health care or feeding hungry kids, lots of Kid Rock - as his four-year-old son wiped boogers on the Resolute desk where an impassive, discomfited Trump sat in the "most powerless image of a President ever." Nothing to see here.
In a record three weeks - it took Hitler 53 days - the Musk/Trump regime has created, mostly illegally, a Stasi-like state in the name of "right-sizing the Federal inventory," which in their wee twisted minds means slashing almost every government agency to eliminate, according to their Orwellian mantra, "fraud, waste and abuse" Offering no evidence, and with his usual depth and nuance, Trump says they've already eliminated "billions and billions of dollars" that didn't need to be spent, coincidentally, invariably on behalf of helping vulnerable, marginalized, hungry or sick people. "The whole country looks like it's a fraud. It's fraud, waste and abuse," he exclaimed. "What Elon and his group of geniuses have found is unbelievable." Unbelievably brazenly, he has now called on the heads of all federal agencies to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force" with the lofty goal of him and his rich buddies getting ever more ginormous tax cuts.
Meanwhile, countless innocents are being swept up in the Stalin-esque purges. They range from U.S. civil servants losing their jobs for doing their jobs to law-abiding, newly arrived Venezuelans disappeared to Guantanamo as "high-threat illegal aliens" for Michael Jordan tattoos to millions worldwide, Burma to Ukraine to South Africa, losing vital support from the shuttering of USAID, including over 280 million hungry people in 59 countries. Already thousands of aid workers have lost their jobs; over 475,000 metric tons of U.S.-grown food, enough to feed 36 million people, is at risk of going bad; Uganda has ended Ebola screenings; multiple African countries have closed HIV/AIDS clinics, hospitals in war-torn Syria have shut down; millions of Sudanese refugees are at risk of cholera and malaria; hundreds of millions of girls who lost access to schooling may become victims of trafficking. Says one expert, “People will starve, babies will die, poverty will skyrocket."
At home, where Trump vowed he'd bring down prices "on Day One" and protect basic safety net programs, prices are soaring and the House GOP is poised to decimate those programs. On Thursday they discussed a plan to cut $880 from Medicaid and $230 billion from food stamps over 10 years - cuts MAGA Mike expects to pass "unanimously," even though over 80% of voters oppose them, 20 million people could lose their health insurance, and it still wouldn't make a dent in the $4.5 trillion tax cuts they want for fat cats. Meanwhile, Musk just burrowed into New York City accounts to steal $80 million - or per Kristi Noem, "clawed back" the funds from "deep state activists" - allocated for sheltering migrant families in budget hotels the richest man in the world called "luxury." Then he fired four employees who tried to stop him. "If we're going after fraud and abuse," noted one Dem, "maybe go after abuse of power by the two billionaire freaks currently looting the government."
The day before, those freaks put in a "jarring," take-my-presidency appearance in the Oval Office, ostensibly for Trump to sign (another!) executive order to continue the looting and expand the power of Musk's DOGE, never mind the flood of lawsuits and court orders they face for slashing cancer research, kids' education, food for poor people and your Social Security in a flagrantly illegal power grab. In a bizarre spectacle, Trump hunched behind the Resolute desk, mostly silent, hands folded, eyes vague, randomly nodding - and often impotently babysitting Musk's fidgety four-year-old son X while ignoring X's whispered entreaty he had to pee and scowling as he picked his nose and wiped what he found on the sacred desk - as the Nazi native son of South Africa and richest guy in the room stood tall in his heedless black t-shirt and cap and offered up to the gaggle of press a murky load of chutzpah and bullshit to elucidate how American democracy works, or doesn't.
After making broad claims of fraud with no evidence, he babbled about the dangers of a political system run by "unelected bureaucrats," evidently, spectacularly unaware he, too, is unelected. Decisions should be made by "elected representatives, the president, House, Senate," he explained. "If unelected bureaucrats are in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?...We don't live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy." His baffling solution: "So we close that feedback loop, we fix it." Umm, okay. He admitted he made up the claim the U.S. sent $50 million in condoms to Gaza - it was sent to Mozambique to help control HIV - but dismissed it with, "We will make mistakes - not everything I say will be correct." To concerns of transparency or his billions in conflicts of interest, he hilariously disingenuously insisted, "All of our actions are fully public. So if you see anything like, ‘Elon, there may be a conflict,' they are going to say it immediately.” Super convincing.
DOGE's new guidelines demand agencies hire just one employee for every four who depart, and agency heads must "consult with a DOGE Team Lead" for approvals, which isn't Big Brother-ish at all. But Musk argued it's justified: "The people voted for major government reform, and that's what people are going to get." Except they didn't: Trump won about 32% of the vote, Harris 31%, and almost 38% voted for neither. Many felt Musk used his son, 1 of his 11 kids, to deflect questions - "La la la I can't hear you" - which seemed creepy, especially after X's mother, musician Grimes, said she's "made it clear" she considers her kids in the public eye "a personal tragedy." To Lawrence O'Donnell, the spectacle of Musk "doing his billionaire thing" behind Trump as he awkwardly turned to interact was "a picture of presidential subservience the likes of which we have never seen." Musk, he said, "is doing everything he possibly can to tell the world (that) Donald Trump is not the boss of me."
The same day, the House held their first DOGE subcommittee meeting, headed by Klan Mom MTG, who used the occasion to say, "Taxes are collected by law at gunpoint!” “The American people are $36 trillion in debt. Somebody should be fired," and, for fun, “The gentleman’s time is expired." The day's highlight came when California's Dem Rep. Robert Garcia noted the ironic presence of supposed decorum fan MTG: In the last Congress, he said, "She literally showed a dick pic. So I thought i'd bring one as well." Then he hoisted a large photo of Musk, adding, "This of course is President Elon Musk." Cue appreciative chortling in the House. Later he was asked by a wide-eyed pundit if "calling Elon Musk a dick is effective messaging." Garcia didn't blink. "Well, he is a dick," he said. "And he's harming the American public in an enormous way. What I think is really important, and what the public wants, is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is a fight for democracy."
It's also a fight, Zack Beauchamp argues, where both institutional and citizen resistance, most effectively by federal workers, will be needed as a weak president with slim margins of victory continues to depend on "flagrant lawbreaking." For now, too many are being bullied into silence; says one critic, "Profiles in cowardice will be a very thick book." Often, the crimes are thoughts or words - important ones like "diversity" or "inclusion," and really, really dumb ones like "Gulf of Mexico." The Associated Press was banned from the Musk/X debacle because it didn't use the term "Gulf of America" to "align its editorial standards with the President," who is clearly a feckin' moron. Ugly rumors are also floating that other culprits will not get a Happy Meal or Fruit Cup. Juvenile much? Gulf of Idiocracy. The dream of many: For a reporter, thrown out of a press conference for saying something "the whiny one" has forbidden, to yell back, "Would you people fucking grow up??"
Still, heroes have emerged. While Google, Disney, PBS have folded on DEI - the latter, adding a mealy-mouthed assurance to "continue (to) reflect all of America" - Comcast, owner of NBC, has refused; it will now be investigated "to root out invidious forms of DEI discrimination." Manhattan's Trump-appointed, Federalist Society prosecutor Danielle Sassoon just resigned rather than obey a DOJ order to drop corruption charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams; she was then ultimately joined by six more prosecutors under her. "The Department of Justice (says) it will not tolerate abuses of the criminal justice process, coercive behavior, or other forms of misconduct," Sassoon wrote in a fiery resignation letter. "Dismissal of the indictment would be all three.” And U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson reversed and blasted Trump's illegal firing of a top federal watchdog for being "disruptive" with, “It’s as if the bull in the china shop looked back over his shoulder and said, ‘What a mess!’”
Meanwhile, Drop Site News, a new investigative site by The Intercept's Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill, has launched to follow the money trailing Musk and his Nerd Reich. They exposed a federal procurement announcement that the guy squawking about abuse is set to make $400 million for purchases of his armored Tesla Cybertruck, which he claimed was bulletproof though it seems the windows aren't. After Drop Site's story ran, the feds removed the Tesla name, changed the buy to generic "electric armored vehicles," and said the document naming Tesla was "incorrect." As Musk scrambles to hide his profits, Trump stays busyl incomprehensibly yammering. He just raved that Marxists aren't using hydraulics "that go through hurricanes" but are spending "billions and billions of dollars" on magnets - "It's a new theory!" - to "lift up the ships that come into LaGuardia." "Waste, fraud and abuse this country is going through..." he muttered. 'We have to straighten it out."
Between rants, acting on a longtime grudge, he's also taken petty revenge on the uppity Kennedy Center - "We didn't like what they were showing and various other things" - by firing its top officials and Biden-affiliated board members, replacing them with clueless lackeys including his former caddy, and announcing they'd "unanimously elected" an "amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” to launch a "GOLDEN (white) AGE of American Arts and Culture," and "it's not going to be 'woke.'" Instead, it will presumably be Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, WWE wrestling, Lara Trump, The Village People, and Bible salesman Lee Greenwood croaking out God Bless the USA. So we guess it's true: Like shrieky Kimberley Guilfoyle once famously hollered, "THE BEST...IS YET...TO COME!!" Macro carnage, micro carnage, dystopian hellscape, the looming dread of Cabaret's final scene. Orwell: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
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Send In the Attack Corgis: The Good, The Bad and The Winsome
Feb 11, 2025
Okay, obviously the "bad" amidst the apocalyptic shitstorm of our democracy - the lies, crimes, cruelty, idiocy - is unrelenting. But in the name of our collective sanity, rather than plunge back into the muck, we'll kick off a shiny new week by unearthing whatever fragments evince the merest glimmer of light - some righteous speeches, stellar trolling, upright judges, tips from the raccoons of resistance, and (mostly four-footed, but still) tales of hope. All we got.
While our precipitous plunge into "James Madison's nightmare, the very definition of tyranny" has multiple backseat drivers - corrupt courts, greedy oligarchs, Project 2025's Christo-fascist creators - of course it's publicly choreographed by doddering figurehead Almost-King Donald and creepy helpmate Elmo Musk, having such a swell time rampaging through government that last week he randomly posted, "I love (Trump) as much as a straight man can love another man." Umm. As Musk and his juvenile gang of techies run amuck - they just shut down CFPB, an $800-million consumer protection agency that's returned over $21 billion to Americans ripped off by banks and credit-card scammers, which he giddily celebrated with a tombstone emoji - the little idiotic prince jabbers away about all their winning, from the vast "fraud" they're finding and "assaulted" Jan. 6 thugs to his beloved Gulf of America, his right to Zelensky's "rare earth" and Gazan "imperialist acid flashback.”
Before the cameras he's theatrically signed over 80 "executive orders," each more preposterous, most heedlessly punishing the vulnerable. He's shut off billions in aid to abruptly reeling, mostly black and brown people and halting projects from Head Start to community health centers. Stripped billions from medical research, blamed a plane crash on DEI, banned birthright citizenship, terrorized trans people, gutted school libraries, announced a wingnut-filled taskforce to fight "anti-Christian bias,” imposed then lifted witless tariffs to send food prices soaring after vowing to lower them, kept up a revenge tour by removing security for anyone ever mean to him, revoking Biden's classified info access as payback, firing the federal archivist though it was another who called out his classified info thefts, fired the Kennedy Center's board - they "do not share our vision" (sic) - and hired his "amazing" self, and brought back environmentally disastrous plastic straws because he could.
As public discourse descends to whether a "president" daily, brazenly violating the Constitution in a "self coup" with the full support of his party must obey any law or legal edict, we're left wondering what in unholy Hell is next and who'll do what to stop it - when, say, Dem lawmakers charge they've been shut out of the Department of Education and the king's henchman retorts, "No such department exists in the federal government." Having been knocked to the ground by Trump's rampage, Dems are struggling to stand back up and find a way forward. Many lawsuits have been filed, judges have ruled once, twice, thrice that blocking funds, freezing jobs, ending birthright citizenship are all illegal. Yet when, in a fiery speech, Maine Sen. Angus King tried to stop the GOP from putting in charge of our money Russell Vought, whose Project 2025 is "a blueprint for the shredding of the Constitution" - pleading, "Are there no red lines?" - they said duh no and blithely confirmed him.
So that's the bad. Increasingly, though, it's being met with good trouble. Calls, for starters, as Congress' phone system gets deluged by tens of millions of aggrieved constituents calling to demand their representatives do something damnit to stop the abuses. Normally, the Senate's phone network gets about 40 calls a minute; recently, that number has rocketed to 1,600. And in dystopian, gotta-laugh-or-cry times when we often have to ask, Is this real or The Onion? - "The Himmler Institute Says This Is All Legal" - trolling has gotten pretty epic. Happily, Australia's The Shovel - presumably shit? - has offered "News You Can Believe In" since 2012. Thus we know Trump, having clicked on a "CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO PURCHASE GREENLAND!" link, just sent a billion dollars in bitcoin to Nigerian Prince Omar Abacha, who inherited Greenland from his father the king: "But he wanted me to have it, which is nice. He's a great guy. He's coming over for dinner soon."
The Shovel also has extensive coverage of Gaza. Most recently, the White House announced it might pause plans for the U.S. to take over Gaza because "it may have been based on a misunderstanding." "The President heard the words 'Gaza Strip,' and got excited," they explained; he envisioned strippers, porn stars, beauty queens and "felt he needed a piece of the action." But he'd still like to put in a "beautiful" golf course - thanks to Netanyahu's relentless demolition and prep work, “The place is already a hole, so all we'd have to do is add 17 more" - and create "The Adult Entertainment Capital of the World" with multiple casinos, luxury penthouses and a glitzy Gaza-A-Lago resort. "Palestinians will soon get to savor their first taste of the American Dream," .said an enthused spokesman. “Specifically, the bit of the Dream where we deport all the brown people we don’t like to places they don’t want to go.”
In more breaking news from the Middle East, a Palestinian from Gaza has generously offered to take over and redevelop southern California, expel its beleaguered residents to Mexico where they can have "a beautiful life," and turn the fire-ravaged area into "the Riviera of North America."’ "It would be a great service to the world," he argues. "Los Angeles is a soulless, vacuous hell-hole. It's just a big pile of rubble and collagen right now, not a place for people to be living. I believe strongly the only reason they want to go back to their homes is because they have no alternative. Where are they going to go, Nevada?” Also, Trump just caved on tariffs on Australia after he was reminded he relies on face toner from its crushed copper dust - “You can’t get that florescent orange look from just anywhere, mate" - and in the wake of the tragic airline crash in D.C. caused by DEI, he ordered all airplane black boxes be replaced with white boxes.
In Illinois, meanwhile, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker took on Trump's Very Serious Proposal, on behalf of his Very Serious Priorities, to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Standing at a lectern flanked by the usual flags, Pritzker solemnly declared that "the world's finest geographers have concluded a decades-long council, and determined that a Great Lake deserves to be named after a great state." He then issued the proclamation that, "Hereafter, Lake Michigan shall be known as Lake Illinois." Noting the historic news that the U.S. will be purchasing Greenland any day now despite the fact that almost 90% of Greenlanders want nothing to do with us, he announced that, in the same time-honored imperialist spirit and the people be damned, Illinois will likewise be annexing Green Bay to protect itself from marauding outsiders. Next week, he gravely added, he will also have some important news "regarding the Mississippi River."
Given the mess bipeds have made of things, it's gratifying to move on to some real-life glad news - "Something good happened!" - among four-footed critters clearly doing much better than we are. From Australia again, perhaps because Trump hasn't yet figured out it exists, comes an alert from award-winning First Dog on the Moon that Reece the Adventure Dog, a one-year-old Kelpie who for 11 days was missing and stranded on a rocky cliff, was dramatically rescued by a fishing father and son. After Reece went missing from his home on the NSW coast and his owner posted flyers and searched in vain, Rory Deavin and his son Matt were out fishing when they spotted Reece loudly barking - "Clever boy!" - from a ledge. Matt leapt into wild surf, swam to the cliff, climbed up, grabbed Reece, climbed down and both swam, exhausted, back to the boat. Reece was emaciated and cut up, but quickly recovered. The consensus: He should be a movie.
First Dog also made available, viaProject Gutenberg's free digital archives and its own Raccoons of the Resistance, a nifty lesson in fighting fascism as outlined in a World War ll-era Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Released by an Office of Strategic Services that became the CIA, and now Gutenberg's fifth most popular download, the manual was designed to guide ordinary "citizen-saboteurs" to use everyday actions and household objects - salt, nails, pebbles, thread - to bring legal. non-violent, low-level disruption: "Citizen saboteurs were highly effective at resisting the last time there were Nazis, and now it is our turn." Drop tools into machines, hide or lose things, delete text, be a pain - small, accessible acts of resistance to slow a war effort or curtail a draconian government's authoritarian overreach or, the raccoons suggest, otherwise help with "those ever-present 'I'm living in an omnicidal kleptocracy' blues."
Back in the good-guy, four-footed world, where good news also invariably fights off those blues, the Oregon Zoo just proudly announced, and posted many adorbs videos of, its new baby Asian Elephant. Once omnipresent in their often highly populated range countries from Borneo to India, they are now seriously endangered by development, habitat loss, conflict with humans and disease, and their numbers have plunged to perhaps only 50,000. After over 20 months of pregnancy, 30-year-old Rose-Tu gave birth to a healthy female calf weighing in at about 200 pounds. The Zoo is recognized worldwide for its extensive elephant care, conservation work and $1 million endowment fund, all of which, in our new dystopia, could now be threatened. To forget that it might and simply relish the gangly spectacle, watch the hefty calf struggle to stand, briefly wobble, then stagger much like the rest of us into its strange new life. For now, inviolate.
Finally, with apologies to James Agee, let us now praise Fu Zai, China's first Corgi police dog, who just marked a year on the job after being donated by a trainer who "spotted his potential." Last January, at four months old, Fu Zai joined the police force in Weifang, in Shandong Province, as a "reserve explosives-detection operative." His goofy smile, stubby legs, prowess and name - Lucky Boy - quickly made him an Internet star with 384,000 followers, and after a "heavy workload" of training and security tasks, he graduated in October into a full-fledged (if short) police dog. But the pressure of the job got to him: At a year-end review, he was duly praised for passing his Level 4 Assessment and given a red flower and stash of treats as a bonus; then they were cruelly, swiftly swept away for alleged "workplace misconduct" - falling asleep on duty and peeing in his food bowl. Dazed and confused, he looked on as he was told he could keep only the red flower. The Internet could relate.
Fans were outraged. "LEAVE HIM ALONE," one shrieked. Also, "Justice for Fu Zai!" and, "Send in the attack Corgis!" Some worried other dogs would now feel free to bully him. "Critics question his ability to do police work,” one politely noted, and, seeing him scamperr as his fierce, grave German Shepherd colleagues towered over him, "When you get the job via connections." Loyalists argued, even asleep or peeing, "He can stop criminals with his cuteness." And police soon assured them Fu Zai still had a good dog's life. Jan. 29, to mark the Lunar New Year, he was given a new package of treats - herring, dumplings, shark's fin soup, a dog-version of the delicacy Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. "We hope you make more persistent efforts in the future," his trainers said, "and that everyone can be kind to animals." Also, they joked, "We hope Fu Zai will grow taller." Then in grand, or short, poetic justice, they gave him the vaunted Annual Award of Defying Fate.” Man. A scumbag wannabe king is gonna be some pissed.
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All Of It: Mad King Stuff
Feb 05, 2025
Oof. The Trump/Musk "epic weekend bender" has wrought the "rapid tear-down of the nation’s constitutional structures" in a rampaging takeover of the machinery of government - treasury, health care, criminal justice, foreign aid - by an unhinged, unelected oligarch in the name of an idiot boss who (somehow still) has no clue. After years of dread, their coup has left we the people raging, reeling, with mere "tiny levers" to pull. Josh Marshall: "The calamity is upon us." Dig in.
Honestly, we're so gobsmacked by the relentless fascism reigning down we lack the stomach to revisit the nitty-gritty of every theft, abuse, baldly illegal outrage. Heather Cox Richardson does an admirable job of documenting it; so does Robert Reich, repeatedly, and Thom Hartmann. We'll settle for a brief, grim recap; by the time you read this, there'll probably be more. On Tyranny's Timothy Snyder likens today's "government" to a car falling prey to dodgy mechanics: "You might have thought the election was like getting the car serviced," he writes "Instead, when you come into the shop, the mechanics (tell) you they have taken the parts of your car that work and sold them and kept the money, (and) this was the most efficient thing to do."
As promised, the vengeful child-king first lashed out at all the mean law-abiding public servants who did their jobs and exposed his crimes. In a mass purge at the Justice Department, he feverishly fired or shut out scores of Jan. 6 prosecutors, FBI directors and agents, and any of the 6,000 participants in "witch hunts" and thought-crimes against him. As they were warned their names would be released so MAGA goons could doxx them to death - and while Nazi grifter Ka$h Patel was telling Congress he wouldn’t politicize the FBI - remaining agents had to vow, Stalin-like, to root out "subversives." And all that was just to open the door to a mad muskrat to start rooting around in federal agencies to find and gut whatever he personally dislikes, which yes is a coup.
Thus did a weird rich nerd with no authority or experience get handed "the keys to the kingdom," specifically both the data and systems of a Treasury Department that disburses almost $6 trillion a year - almost 90% of all federal transactions - and the financial information of millions of Americans who get it in dribs and drabs through Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, contracts, grants, loans, salaries, tax refunds etc. Musk and his DOGE goons illegally locked former workers out of the system, forced the highest-ranking official to resign when he refused to comply, vowed to unilaterally cancel hundreds of millions of dollars’ in "illegal" government grants, quickly boasted he had, and then moved on to storm and trash multiple other federal agencies.
He was accompanied, Wired eventually reported, by an upstart troop of juvenile former X staffers, arsonists and engineers "barely out of - and in at least one case, purportedly still in - college.” All 19-to-24 year old protégés of duel madmen Musk or Peter Thiel, they've been gleefully taking a wrecking ball to the computers of government agencies while understanding almost nothing of their government functions, surrounding laws or the repercussions of breaking them. In the supremely ironic name of security, his clueless little firestarters have only identified themselves with first names, but Wired did better: Their names are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran. Cool, man: Gamers 'R Us!
With his little band of outlaws, then, Musk moved on from Treasury to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a global behemoth that disburses up to $70 billion a year in humanitarian aid to about 130 countries. They provide clean water, medical supplies, field hospitals, landmine clearance, anti-terrorism programs; they feed hungry babies in war zones, refugee camps, disaster areas. Though their budget is less than 1% of the federal budget, one of Trump's first acts was to freeze almost all foreign aid, 'cause America First! But USAID gets its foreign policy guidance from the State Department, which means any breaching of their security systems or classified information would in turn render national intelligence insecure.
But Musk knows best: USAID is "a criminal organization.. a viper's nest. Time for it to die." Last weekend his delinquents barged in and accessed its classified info and security systems; when two officials tried to stop them, they were put on leave. Then DOGE closed the agency: Staff were locked out or told not to report to work, USAID logos were stripped, website and social media accounts went dark. "Secretary of State" Marco Rubio declared himself acting head of the agency to "ensure spending is in line with the president's agenda"; after an outcry, he may or may have exempted some humanitarian aid from the purge. Musk is unmoved. "We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper," he brayed. "Could (sic) gone to some great parties."
This week, in our new Wild East, Dems tried to enter the USAID building and were denied entry. A furious Jamie Raskin told Musk he may have illegally seized power over U.S. financial systems but, "You don’t control the money of the American people. Congress does...We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk." Not yet. But he's busy: He "deleted" the IRS' Direct File system that let people file taxes free online; he scoped out for purges General Services, Commerce, Education, Small Business and NOAA - to Project 2025, a key part of the Marxist "climate change alarm industry” - and by trashing USAID, expert say he "sabotaged 80 years of U.S. goodwill." Even affable Canada is pissed: At an NBA basketball game, and at several NFL hockey games, fans booed America's National Anthem. Go Canada.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
While Elmo runs rampant, Orange Donald has mostly been golfing, watching Fox News, stubby-fingered-rage-posting and occasionally putting on his oompa-loompa make-up to flamboyantly, leeringly sign a blizzard of largely illegal executive orders for the cameras, often moronically holding them up in vengeful triumph like a deranged eight-year-old showing off his latest rambling crayoned manifesto ordering the Marxist lunch lady to put still more ketchup on his fries like he keeps asking her to dammit. But while a parade of his comic-book Cabinet nominees sidestep or decline the traditional pledge to refuse any illegal presidential orders, he's also been busy obliterating, with a mindless vindictive swoop of his sharpie, decades of social progress.
He shut down the CDC and NIH, effectively halting all cancer and other life-saving medical research vital to millions of people, though it's never done anything for him. He ordered all federal databases dedicated to public health - about 8,000 pages from a dozen websites - to go dark until they'd scrubbed any mention of nasty things like gender, drug use, mental health, sexual assault, disease, proclivities and their connections, from tracking/preventing HIV to treating STIs to prescribing contraception. In response, researchers have been scrambling to salvage information from Malignant Big Brother and archive it through the Wayback Machine. "Science is disappearing from US websites," they charge. "Hiding the facts puts lives at risk."
Then the King of Tariffs launched the “dumbest trade war in history” with Mexico, Canada, and China, slapping 10%-25% tariffs on goods for "virtually every sector of the American economy": produce from Mexico, cars China, energy, alcohol, lumber from Canada at the start of building season amidst a housing crisis. As Fox hosts burbled - "waste and fraud," "saving billions of dollars!" "fix the system so people can afford eggs and gas" - they endlessly scrolled through avocados, beef, bananas, tomatoes, Nissan, steel, beer, lumber - and the Stock Market plunged. "WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE," from the guy who said there wouldn't be, but it will ALL BE WORTH IT for a country RUN WITH COMMON SENSE - "THE RESULTS WILL BE SPECTACULAR!!!"
Spectactularly swiftly, it all backfired. Trudeau slapped $100 billion in retaliatory tariffs on everything - U.S. beer, wine, fruit, juice, produce, appliances, duh lumber - and warned Americans the tariffs would hurt them. Provincial leaders halted massive buys of alcohol, Irving Oil, which heats New England, hiked prices 20%, and abruptly a "pause" for Mexico, then Canada, was announced after Mr. Art of the Deal, who never does his homework, won a pyrrhic victory asboth countries agreeed to do what they'd already done. Mexico would put 10,000 National Guard at the border who are there now via a 2021 deal with Biden, Canada would spend $1.3 billion on border security they agreed to with Joe in December; they'll also appoint a "Fentanyl Czar" for the 0.2% of fentanyl that crosses that border. Chortling Trudeau: "Sure Donnie, whatev." The triumphant idiot king then declared a "flawless victory in a pointless trade war" and, having claimed Biden's achievements as his own, went home to gloat.
In some truly "mad king stuff," Little Donnie also told the Army Corps of Engineers to turn on his magic faucet, open two dams in Central California, and let 2.2 billion gallons of water rush into dry lakebeds, which he celebrated by posting pastoral water images - "Beautiful water is flowing!" - even though experts say it is virtually impossible to move that water several hundred miles to fire-ravaged southern California, and now the water, which is usually needed by farmers in the hot, dry summer, will likely be wasted. "There is absolutely.no connection between this water and the water needed for firefighting in L.A." said one. "There is no physical connection." California's Adam Schiff on Donnie Firefighter's act: "Stupid. Ridiculous. Dangerous. Wasteful.'
Even at "work" in the Oval Office, Donnie King is not quite with it. Staff say to keep him focused in briefings they resort to pictures, bullet points, map and strategic mentions of his name as often as possible "because then he keeps reading." His understanding of governance remains iffy: Asked if he thinks he needs Congress' approval to topple agencies or freeze funding, he said, “I don’t think so. Not when it comes to fraud. These people are lunatics." Speaking of: There is no actual goal or "agenda" at work here, Robert Reich reminds us,, on foreign aid, immigrants, tariffs, "all of it." For a sociopath, "The point is the show. So the world knows he's willing to inflict harm," and, like any chaos agent or abusive spouse, to rule by sadistic unpredictability.
Confoundingly, his grip on a supine GOP remains so strong they've literally turned away from the torrent of abuses. On Musk's boy-raid on USAID and "the tofu-eating 'wokerati' (at USAID) screaming like they're part of a prison riot," Sen. John Foghorn Kennedy says, “My attitude is, if you’re upset by that, call someone who cares. Because that’s why we’re elected - to review the spending.” He added a rant about omelets and sex that likely didn't help businesses scrambling with ransacked data, non-profits closing or people trying to pay rent or swipe a once-secure card for groceries. "It's a hostile takeover of the U.S. happening in full view of the world," writes Tom Sullivan - and of "Democrats down the street just waking up and smelling the accelerants."
Somnambulant Dems need to use the "tiny levers" of power they're left with in what is "fundamentally a battle over public opinion," argues Josh Marshall. The larger political message: "You're about to lose a lot of stuff," from health care to savings, so billionaires can get a tax cut. Very slow and late, Dems in Congress have begun heeding AOC's demand to "stop playing nice." They've demanded the spending freeze be "choked off" before they'll help a fractious GOP meet a March funding deadline to keep government open, passed a bill blocking "unlawful access" to Treasury, placed a "blanket hold" on Trump's State nominees until USAID reopens, refusing to use the Senate's traditional "unanimous consent" power to slow down confirmations.
They've pivoted to messaging that tariffs will just "rip off" taxpayers, joined a protest at Treasury to "stop the corporate coup" and proclaim, "We choose to fight. Nobody elected Elon," vowed to go into Musk-rampaged buildings and "dare them to stop (us)." Federal judges have shut down the spending freeze, unions and Public Citizen have sued Elon to block him from accessing Treasury data, others have sued him for identity theft, and many more legal challenges are reportedly, finally in the works. In L.A. last weekend, thousands of immigrants and advocates turned out to protest ICE deportations and shut down the freeway; they waved Mexican flags and chanted the United Farm Workers' "Si Se Puede" - Yes, you can. Chicago and other citiesheld a day without immigrants, closing businessiness to show, "We’re united, we’re together, we’re strong."
In this loopy dystopia, far behind the Looking Glass, even the FBi is pushing back. Top officials and the FBI Agents Association have told members, “Do NOT resign or offer to resign." They've urged agents to not take McCarthyesque vows to name "subversives," refused to participate in Musk'a gang firings, and sued DOJ to stop the release of names from the Jan. 6/ Trump criminal cases. An assistant director in New York emailed his staff to say he's not quitting, and neither should they. In his impassioned plea, he recalled a time in combat in the Marines when he had to laboriously dig a foxhole with a two-foot folding shovel. "It sucked, but it worked when the bullets flew," he wrote, adding he had a similar feeling in this chaos. "I’m sticking around to defend you, your work, your families, and this team. Time for me to dig in."
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
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Slander and Racists and Unholy Rescindments Oh My
Feb 01, 2025
WTF. In just ten dystopian days, in the name of restoring America to a mythical white guy greatness, a blundering, vengeful, rabidly unfit oompa-loompa has tried to shut down the government, strong-arm the economy, whitewash culture, roll back civil rights, and in a ghastly flourish pass the buck on a fatal crash by luridly scapegoating imagined "others": Look! Over there! A blind, black, dwarf female air traffic controller! Grim fact: "What a horrible, pathetic little man."
Like a malignant, unstrung kid with zero impulse control blithely toying with a live grenade, the Orange Oaf (OOF) has unleashed chaos with a torrent of dodgy, often devastating "executive orders" that often bear little resemblance to governing or even reality: Tossing a blanket pardon to Jan. 6 thugs now startlingly swiftly landing back in prison, purging scores of competent federal workers to install know-nothing lackeys, fecklessly rescinding as much as he can of civil rights progress over the last 60 years. Next fever dream: separate water fountains. His most dazzling debacle was the madcap freezing of trillions in federal grants and loans, essentially shutting down governance to ensure it's consistent with (his) agenda" not "advancing Marxist equity," and after a day of predictable mayhem saying, oops, hmm, never mind.
He's also ordered that any semblance of "dangerous" and "demeaning" DEI efforts to create a level playing field be scrubbed from America's government, business, culture or the military, and enlisted the help of a brass-knuckled coterie of Space Nazis, sycophants and fixers to enforce it. When COSTCO shareholders thunderously rejected the demand to eliminate its diversity initiatives - insisting they are "appropriate and necessary" - the company was set upon by the head of the right-wing National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project, who argued DEI “may sound benign" but is in fact "weaponized language concealing a radical Marxist agenda" that stifles "excellence and innovation." Besides, he added of the whole preposterous project of encouraging fairness and inclusion, "I believe that this is a fad."
More muscle entered the fray when 19 GOP Attorneys General sent an irate letter to COSTCO's CEO warning him to end the "unlawful discrimination" of DEI efforts that "courts and businesses have rejected as illegal" - not - or else. Citing dubious legal precedents, they argue that by doubling down on DEI the company is "doing the wrong thing" and rejecting orange guy's order “steering companies back to their fundamental mission to focus on increasing shareholder value." Eek: Doing social justice not capitalism?! They move from bullying to coaxing to note the "refreshing change" of companies folding to threats - META, Amazon, McDonald’s, Target, Lowes, Ford, Boeing, Walmart and others abandoning DEI to stay “in step with the evolving external landscape" - before reverting to mob-style threats: Repeal in 30 days, explain why not, or a dead horse is in your bed.
In appreciation of backbone, Rev. Al Sharpton led 100 members of his National Action Network in a buy-in through Harlem's Costco; he warned, "If you want to put us back in the back of the bus, we going to do the Dr. King-Rosa Parks on you." And other companies have stood firm on diversity: Apple, Delta, Google, Pinterest, Microsoft, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, Ben and Jerry's. Still, the lure of racism remains strong, even in a military that's over 30% female, black, Hispanic, or LGBTQ and despite the Air Force quickly backtracking when their move to eliminate Tuskegee Airmen and World War II female pilots from history drew outrage. But with drunken, rapey, White Nationalist Pete Hegseth now at the helm, things will only get worse.
For proof, look no further than this week's surreal news from the Defense Department's "Intelligence Agency" that, along with banning all DEI programs, they will "pause" annual observances of 11 "Special Emphasis Program" events, all coincidentally celebrating everyone not a rich white man. So: No more Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Pride Month, Black or Women's History Month, or months honoring Hispanic, Native American, or Asian-American Heritage. Working to "fully implement all executive orders" to make America as racist as possible again, it intones, the military will "receive additional guidance" as we "continue to update our internal guidance.” Most importantly, Hegseth said he's directed staff to create a DEI Task Force to ensure they've killed all traces of DEI; then he snarled, "We're not joking around."
Of course, all this regressive rancor, furious posturing and backpedaling to a dreamily-recalled unequal past is at the behest of an addled, malignant, old white racist, sulky scion of unearned wealth, and dumpster fire of a hollow human being who, fixated on money, power and fictional grievances, has spent his tacky, florid life panicked anyone else might get what he, obscenely, has. But he's not just focused on revenge and greed. He's also "working." He's threatening allies, antagonizing neighbors, halting all medical research, planning to invade Greenland, returned Cuba to a terror state and is, after a Fox talking head suggested it, "building" a 30,000-person detention center at torture-haunted Guantanamo, which "nobody's ever heard of," to hold "high-priority criminal aliens" concentrated into one big secure camp though we're not sure what that's called.
He's hunting down and terrorizing said "aliens," aka "anyone with a tan," including a U.S. veteran, a Puerto Rican toddler, mother and grandmotherdragged off for speaking Spanish at a Milwaukee store, and many innocents. He's sharply spiked the price of eggs and gas, threatened a third term from a welcome grave, tried to steal a canal, left behind "shell-shocked" civil servants and other victims of his vitriolic wrecking ball tour, considered adding his paunchy profile to Mount Rushmore, bragged of turning on a hallucinatory faucet to end fires in California, hawked yet more crap, and named a parade of inept fascists, brain-worm cranks and greedy con-men to help burn it all down as supine Dems who've spent years warning he's Hitler nod and say, "I'm a yes on Goebbels." He's ceaselessly whined, raved, lied, and played golf.
Then, when a military helicopter hit an American Airlines passenger plane en route from Kansas to D.C., killing dozens, he crassly, viciously, moronically demonstrated yet again how infinitely, tragically unfit he is to run, not just a country but a hot dog stand. "This is a bad situation. NOT GOOD!" posted the imbecile who in his first days gutted the government, declared a federal hiring freeze widely deemed "dangerous," fired the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard, removed all members of a security advisory group considered key to aviation safety and, because he'd proposed making Elmo Musk accountable for SpaceX safety failures, fired the head of the FAA days before the worst air crash in decades - all to kick off a horrifically mangled response decried as "one of the biggest scandals in presidential history.”
At a press briefing, his face caked with orange grease paint, he babbled, "Our hearts are shattered...That icy, icy Potomac...Cold water." Then, even as crews began retrieving bodies, before any investigators were on site, he said he had "very strong opinions and ideas” and launched a fact-free, dumbfounding rant about how DEI caused the crash. It was, of course, Obama's fault from nine years ago. "I put safety first...(Dems) put policy (sic) first...They put politics at a level nobody's ever seen." Orange guy "made up very powerful tests." Dems "terminated" them, used "dangerous DEI tactics," hired air controllers with "intellectual disabilities," blindness, blackness, dwarfism, and female-ness. Bullshit: He had his own DEI program, DIVERSITY TAKES FLIGHT; there have been no crashes for almost 20 years, and the number of black controllers is "completely fucking irrelevant."
“There was a lot of vision and people should have been able to see that," he blithered. "You can stop a helicopter very quickly...It had the ability to go up or down...You could go under it or over it...Nobody realized..." Also, Pete Buttigieg is "a disaster" with "a good line in bullshit,” "You have to be naturally talented geniuses,” "This is a major chess game," "You want me go swimming?" and it's DEI's fault "because I have common sense (and) a lot of people don’t." But we bet those watching soon felt way safer. Especially once we learned tower control staffing was "not normal" - one worker doing the job of two - they've long been understaffed by a third - need 30, had 19 - and many had raised alarms that airspace is "uniquely congested." Still, OOF signed another "executive order" blaming DEI and Dems for the crash. His response was judged grotesque, disgusting, vile, monstrous, craven, despicable and “an epic face plant."
Soon after, in a "harrowing fulfillment of Biblical prophecy," panicked customers reported that all the nation's 3,059 Chick-fil-A stores were raptured when "a large burst of God's divine light shone down from the clouds and lifted (them) into the Lord's Eternal Kingdom." One employee said customers fell to the ground and "began screaming in tongues" as her fryers, grills and walk-in freezer hovered in the air; an Atlanta franchise owner theorized, "God has taken His favorite foods up to heaven (and) has left us to die a painful, tortuous death at the hands of Satan...We are doomed to live in a world without Chick-fil-A. May God have mercy on our souls.” Okay, that's from The Onion. In truth, we may or may not be doomed, with or without Chick-fil-A. But we could def use some mercy. Meanwhile, one pivotal, apocalyptic rule: "Do. Not. Comply."
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
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