DROWSY DRIVER AWARENESS DAY UPDATES
WAKE UP!!!!!! You’re Welcome! Now, Eyes On The ROAD, Please!
-By whatever measure you want to use, yesterday’s Hands Off! National (and actually international!) rallies to protest All Things Trump were a success – in fact, organizers (and the New York City Police) were surprised at the massive crowds that showed up. And as was true of the other peaceful mass protests of the Trump Era, the 2017 Women’s March and 2020 George Floyd Protests (not to mention the starkly contrasted violent January 6 insurrection – and that’s what it was no matter what your MAGA Uncle says), larger cities like New York City, Boston, Chicago, and Washington DC showed out in massive numbers.
-But what made these protests so surprising was both the sheer number of them – over 1,400 sanctioned events – and how widely they took place. The Chicago area alone had close to a dozen events throughout the city proper and its collar counties, including rock-ribbed Republican cities like Algonquin and Naperville. Photos of massive turnouts in such unusual-for-these-events places like Salt Lake City, UT, rural MS, and even TX, combined to give organizers an estimate of 5.2 million protestors showing up nationally (nearly half of the 11 million threshold, though that number may be closer give those who have helped participate in boycotts, could not show up for various reasons, or are still taking a wait-and-see approach).
-And the protests were nonviolent. Only two known incidents took place – a Trump supporter deciding to drive past a protest in Cleveland with a flag flying from the drivers’ side, and an angry MAGA couple popping up in IN with an assault rifle crying about being assaulted (the gunwielder was taken into custody).
-Organizers were surprised by the turnout, though momentum had been building throughout the week, from the inspiration of Cory Booker’s filibuster (he spoke at a Hands Off rally in New Jersey) and the Wisconsin Supreme Court win that drove Elon “Flop Sweat” Musk away from the spotlight since his $25 million investment was accepted as well as Cybertrucks are, to the still-building fury at what will now simply be known here as The Trump Tariffs and subsequent two-day stock market implosion all fusing together to further boost attendance. Word is the next steps to continue the pressure on Trump and MAGAts is to begin a boycott of WalMart and another mass action, possibly on April 19.
-Back to The Trump Tariffs. Technically, most of The Trump Tariffs do not take effect until Tuesday, though cars have reportedly already been assessed – and if you are looking to see what specifically this means for your wallet, reports show that thanks to The Trump Tariffs, you will not find a car with anything less than a $30,000 sticker price anymore. In addition, Nintendo is reporting the release of the Switch 2 may be delayed in order to assess how The Trump Tariffs will affect price – but, SPOILER ALERT: it will not be good. Expect clothing prices to go up 40%, tennis shoes to go up 50%, and the new Apple iPhones to cost upwards of $2,400 thanks to The Trump Tariffs.
-That’s how much you will personally pay. If you happen to run a business that normally exports goods elsewhere, you’ll be out of luck, too. Retaliatory tariffs are coming up – and the Trump line that The Trump Tariffs will make countries come to Trump with tears in their eyes begging Trump to please let American goods continue to be sold in exchange for assuring Dear Leader he smells like roses and his hair grows like silk from his skull and every woman ovulates whenever he passes them because he is so virile and pay him off like a street-level capo is not landing well.
-Nowhere was this more evident than on CNN today. Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins, whose previous experience as an expert in agriculture was majoring in it 30 years ago and most recently worked as the “ethics secretary” for Texas Governor Rick Perry (INSERT JOKE HERE) pooh-poohed the idea that Europe didn’t want to import American pork because of the chemicals factory farms inject into them as “fake science” while insisting that Team Trump is in total control of things (including putting tariffs on islands fully inhabited by penguins) because “the people that are leading this are serious, intentional, patriotic – the smartest people I’ve ever worked with!” (INSERT SECOND JOKE HERE)
-And let’s talk about one of those “smartest people,” the man Trump designated as his Senior Trade Counselor: convicted felon (for refusing to honor a Congressional subpoena) and January 6 conspirator Peter Navarro. By most accounts he is one of the primary pushers for this entire scheme, from concocting (along with, according to multiple reports, ChatGPT) the tariff formulas (all done reportedly within three hours of the announcement) to pushing the idea that Trade Wars are winnable and always beneficial to the aggressor (uh … no, says most people who are sane and know things, which is most people). Navarro touts expertise with China as his main calling card, and has published two books that talk about China and trade with China.
-To back up his ideas, in his books (titled THE COMING CHINA WARS and DEATH BY CHINA if you really have nothing better in your life to do) he continually cites an alleged China expert by the name of Ron Vara. If you try to look up China Expert Ron Vara, you will not find him. In fact, CNN and NPR tried to in 2019 – and what they found is, “Ron Vara” is an anagram of … NAVARRO!
-That’s right, “Ron Vara” is a fictional character created by Peter Navarro that Peter Navarro used in his allegedly nonfiction objective analysis of trade policy to help buttress his China-bad-must-trade-war-them-we-can-win-USA-USA-USA bilge that was lapped up and hugged by one Donald John Trump – and also by Navarro, who was also on the Legacy Media Sunday Guest List today insisting that the Trump Tariffs will raise so many billions, and empty factories will soon be filled with bustling machines making all those goods we import from evil countries like all of them except Russia and North Korea (note he does not say “workers,” as apparently AI and robotics will fill the voids) that we will have more money than we know what to do with just like Dear Leader says we will!
-Thus endeth today’s Petty Atrocity of the Day!
-Of course, in the real world, the damage the announcement of The Trump Tariffs have created totally debunks all of this. Stock markets have so far lost approximately $6 trillion in worth in two days – and that is exactly the amount Trump shartspitted and insists His Tariffs will raise over a 10-year period. And with reports that aides in the White House describe Trump’s attitude as “He doesn’t give a fck!” it may not be a good idea to think that he will pull the tariffs down at the last minute as he has the first two times he announced tariffs this year. Even if he did, the instability he has shown through this round has already done massive damage to the trust and word of the United States among leaders, which may ultimately be the point Trump is grasping somewhere in the cream soup of his cranial cortex.
-The Trump reaction to all of the above – The Trump Tariff Tumult, the Hands Off! Protests, the return of the bodies of four American soldiers who died in a truck accident while conducting exercises in Lithuania, and continued turn against him by all except his adoring fans (whom he also deeply detests) – has been for Trump to shite post about “strength” (while trying to convince the MAGA hordes that the economic suffering they are about to experience will pay off in the end – the “Trust Me, Bro!” gambit), make appointments with any country willing to wet his beak marvel at the size of his crotch while ignoring the stains meet with him (the first to do so tomorrow – Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu tomorrow) (vomit) has been to do the one thing he has consistently done that does not involve food: golfing.
-It was told by Trump’s PR flacks that he has amazingly won another Senior Golf Tournament held at his golf course this weekend, which itself is hosting a tournament from the Saudi-owned LIV Golf Tour (Saudi Arabia being yet another country that was not assessed tariffs … huh) this weekend.
-That golf tournament gets us to Sportsball News, and a big sports record - THIS JUST IN - has been broken … but that record and that news has been ruined because of Trump.
-You see, the all-time goal scoring record had been held by Wayne Gretzky, and normally all-time records being broken are super-cool and fun and worth celebrating. But dang if Trump can screw that up, too. Because Gretzky has somehow become a full-throated Trump supporter in the last several years, thereby alienating his native Canada since Canada now rightfully thinks of Trump as the biggest hoser ever – and Gretzky seems not to care, as he attended a game Friday where Ovechkin tied his record and did so in a luxury box that included NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and, most odiously, FBI Director and Uber-Trump-MAGAt Ka$h Patel.
-So you may think, okay, The Great One is not great anymore, so it’s cool someone else is breaking his record. And it would be, except for the fact that the new all-time goal scorer in the NHL is the Washington Capitals' Alex Ovechkin. Ovechkin is from Russia … and yes, this is now going exactly where you think it is now going … Ovechkin is a huge, HUGE fan of Russian dictator and Trump daddy Vladimir Putin, having visited him and given him souvenirs. It is a shame because hockey is a great sport, but eff Gretzky and eff Ovechkin and may they both get frostbite on their private parts.
-With another big week coming, including wherever the markets go next, building pressure within the Social Security system amid Apartheid Boy’s coding punks and Project 2025 thugs working to implode the system as an excuse for a full takeover, disturbing reports of an American buildup of military assets within striking distance of Iran, and the ever-present potential of Trump declaring some kind of war to try to stop further protests and threatening the use of the military on non-violent protests, we need some unalloyed Good News – and for me, that came on Friday in the form of an extended preview of the new James Gunn-directed SUPERMAN movie this summer!
-What makes this SUPERMAN seem so special? Well, besides appealing to my cheap hometown boosterism (the film was shot in Cleveland and uses many of my home city’s landmarks to represent Gotham City), the return to the way Superman should be (getting rid of the grime of the Zach Snyder attempt to DARK KNIGHT the story), the appeal of the familiar (the return of J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson – the only role to be played by the same actor over the last 20 years as God intended), and refreshing the series in just the right way (Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane – yowza!), this preview gives us the one character that has not been given the spotlight in these movies he so richly deserves – KRYPTO THE WONDER DOG! The presence of Krypto alone – who in the preview is both the hero and every ounce a dog – alone will put me at the front of the line when it opens on July 11.
-There will be no questions because there is already an answer, and his name is Krypto.
-Let’s get to the highlights of the date!
-NEWS ON THIS DATE: In 1862, the Second Battle of Shiloh began. In 1909, the first American expedition to the North Pole began. In 1917, the United States entered World War I by declaring war on Germany. In 1956, Elvis Presley signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures. In 1994, a plane carrying the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down and was used to begin the genocide in Rwanda.
-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (1830), flexible roll film for still cameras (1889), the modern-day Olympic Games (1896), animated movies (1906), Twinkies (1930), the Tony Awards (1947), Rolling Stones records (1971), the designated hitter (1973), Post-It Notes (1980).
-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Raphael, William Dawes, Joseph Medill, Donald Wills Douglas, Lowell Thomas, Dorothy Donegan, Gil Kaine, Ian Paisley, Gerry Mulligan, Andre Previn, Ivan Dixon, Billy Dee Williams, Merle Haggard, Roy Thinnes, Barry Levinson, Danny Kortchmar, Dennis Eckart, Bert Blyleven, Marilu Henner, Michael Rooker, John Pizzarelli, Warren Haynes, Tim Walz, Frank Black (aka Black Francis), Bret Boone, Paul Rudd, Zach Braff, Candace Cameron Bure, and Oscar Piastri.
-REST IN PEACE/POWER: Richard the Lionheart, Raphael, Bobby Hutton, Dr. Sam Sheppard, Igor Stravinsky, Isaac Asimov, Molly Picon, Greer Garson, Tammy Wynette, Wendy O. Williams, Prince Rainier III, Wilma Mankiller, Mickey Rooney, Merle Haggard, Don Rickles, Fritz Hollings, Al Kaline, James Drury, and Alcee Hastings.
-FEED THE WORMS: Racist former NFL team owner Jack Kent Cooke bought it on this date.
-Actor/Trumper John Ratzenberger was born on this date. You decide if he gets a Happy Birthday or if he Feeds the Worms
-CULTURE ON THIS DATE: The Number One Movie In America on this date … in 2025, A WORKING MAN … in 2015, FURIOUS 7 … in 2005, SIN CITY … in 1995, BAD BOYS … in 1985, POLICE ACADEMY 2: THEIR FIRST ASSIGNMENT … and in 1975, THE GODFATHER, PART II.
-TODAY’S MUSIC INTERLUDE: On this date in 1974, this performance won the Eurovision Song Contest - and the world was never the same …