INTERNATIONAL FUN AT WORK DAY UPDATES
(Applies Only If You Also Have A Thing For Today’s OTHER Big Holiday …)
-As of the drafting of this Substack, NJ Senator Cory Booker is into his 22nd hour (?) of an old-school talking filibuster on the Senate floor. The direct legislative purpose of the move is to delay the vote to approve former Acting Attorney General and Large-Penis Toilet Inventor (NOT AN APRIL FOOL’S JOKE) Matt Whitaker to become the head of NATO (ALSO, ALAS, NOT AN APRIL FOOL’S JOKE), and reports are that the Senate Trump Lemmings elderly MAGA Minions Republicans are getting a little torqued off about the stunt – while online (and the occasional help of other Democratic Senators, most notable CT’s Chris Murphy) are FINALLY thrilled that SOMEone on the Democratic side is trying to “throw sand in the gears” of the staggering but heavy-footed autocratic stomp that seems to be taking place to serve Dear Leader and his Vice President, Donald Trump. (It is unclear when Booker will be done or what happens next, although the Whitaker vote has been tabled for the moment.)
-For many on the other side of the aisle, though, the delay may be a bit of a respite from the still-intense fury at the Putz Parade of Defense and “Intelligence” officials who are still reeling from the Signal messaging app scandal, which is still a scandal and which has yet to find a sacrificial lamb for Trump to take the heat. That Team Trump continues to follow the Roy Cohn School of Scandal (never apologize, never admit blame yourself, always attack others, claim victory no matter what) is not surprising, but with today’s FL special House elections (one of which involves the seat once held by the person who apparently triggered the scandal, Mike Waltz) there is word that if that seat flips blue, Waltz will likely be out of work. We shall see (because while polling has been shockingly bad for MAGA, it’s still Florida, man).
-But with both of these side shows, the main event of this week seems to be geared to erupt tomorrow, when Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announce what they are grandly (and weirdly leftist?) “Liberation Day” – when a new, wide, and deep set of tariffs are set to be assessed to former allies worldwide. Everyone in DC is on edge because literally nobody – NOBODY – knows what the tariffs are going to be, how big they will be, on what products, against what countries – nobody knows nothing about any of them.
-Worse, of course, is that absolutely nobody with any training on basic economics, nobody who knows any history about the economic crashes caused and exacerbated by tariffs in the 1880s-90s and 1920s-30s, nobody who listens to anybody regardless of political affiliations with working intellects, and nobody whose life mission is to be a lickspittle to a smelly and obnoxious oaf, believes that setting tariffs of any kind is smart, or necessary, or will do anything positive to the American economy.
-BECAUSE, the ONLY person who believes tariffs are necessary and good in all of the world Washington DC is Donald Trump. He has apparently had it settled in his mushy sticky brain goo that tariffs are actually fees that companies pay for the privilege of selling their goods in the United States, and that Trump the American government can then shove all that money down his soiled pants to keep use that money to shove down the pants of other mega-wealthy arseholes pay for the American government’s rapidly-being-shuttered Federal agencies tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
-What Trump doesn’t or can’t understand is that in the real world, corporations and countries don’t simply pay tariffs to governments who demand they do so happily – they get the money they need to pay the tariffs by raising prices on the goods and services to the consumers who buy them. That is on top of the goods and services from other countries whose prices are also hiked and who also then raise the tariffs by passing the prices on to consumers, thus negating any potential income to the government while also torquing off all those countries being assessed tariffs (most of whom until around January 20 were considered to be American allies), driving inflation WAY up, causing massive uncertainly in the economies worldwide (as reflected in the worst performance of the stock market since 1980), and even … maybe … potentially … hopefully? … ticking off a few Trump voters who may finally go WHAAAA?!?!?!?! In response to what Dear Leader plodthinks he’s doing …
-Besides, apparently now there will be little else for Congress to do this week, as it appears Booker is aiming for the record single-person filibuster, held by that racist’s racist Strom Thurmond of 24 hours, 18 minutes (which Booker would hit Tuesday night) – and THIS JUST IN: the House has ended its business for the week after nine Republicans broke ranks to join Democrats in blocking a rule that would have prevented new parents from voting by proxy to be with their newborns – a measure proposed by MAGA Rep. Anna Paulina Luna – thereby stopping MAGA from having a majority until next week, and making House Speaker Mike Johnson sad …
-Speaking of House seats, we have elections to watch results flow in tonight (perhaps in between Booker’s flilibuster!) We will find out tonight (Tuesday night) with the Wisconsin Supreme Court election and Florida House elections get tabulated whether the pattern from 2017 holds in which, in past non-Trump-candidacy years, elections where Trump was not at the top of the ballot himself have not gone well for pro-Trump MAGA candidates. The super-deep-red FL districts, and presence of More or Less President Elon Musk throwing literal millions of dollars around for a pro-Trump pro-Elon anti-women anti-democracy candidate (and, TRIGGER WARNING, last November) makes for The Forces of Good to hold our collective breaths to see what they portend with the returns.
-In the meantime, the Trump 2.0 Tour of Cruelty and Idiocy continues. Over 10,000 Federal workers who just yesterday were working for departments focused on health, research, vaccinations, and goofy things like public health were told they were out of work today (some discovering their entrance badges no longer worked) thanks to the bastards running Project 2025 and brainwormed Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for reasons.
-Worse, the Department of Homeland Security admitted at least one of the 200 prisoners sent to a maximum-security Salvadoran jail over a court order that was supposed to stop them was not, in fact, a member of a notorious Venezuelan street gang which was used as the ostensible excuse to deport them – and the White House are simply shrugging their shoulders at the idea that perhaps they should try to get that person back into the United States (and check to see how many others of those 200 may have been deported wrongly, with some indications that “all of them” may be the answer).
-And, I guess we have to address Dear Leader’s prattle about wanting to run for a third term, saying “there are ways” – those “ways” not involving the Constitution but a switcheroo in which Intern JD Vance would run as President, Trump as the formal Vice President, Vance actually winning, then “resigning” after taking the oath so VOILA! Trump 3.0! While it seems pretty clear the Constitution says that scenario is NOT a thing – or that if it were a thing, there may be a different former President named Barack Obama who could try the same thing and perhaps give Trump an arse-kicking he so richly deserves OHMANWOULDN’THATBEAWESOME?! a run for his money in 2028, and yes the “BUT TRUMP BREAKS EVERY RULE WHY WOULDN’T HE?!”, more than likely the entire passage is a way for Legacy Media Inc. to try to take the heat off the brutal Signal scandal. Moving on …
-In a totally unsurprising development, it appears Vladimir Putin has “defied” the “anger” of his son his sub Donald Trump by resuming large-scale bombing of Ukraine despite “agreeing” to a 30-day cease-fire. Those attacks come as military observers note a build-up that portends another offensive in the eastern part of Ukraine as well as reports of Russia drafting another 160,000 men to the front lines. While some in Legacy Media, Inc. (particularly the MAGA leaners) continue to look at that as certain doom for Ukraine, military experts note that Russian forces won’t come close to the numbers they would realistically need to not only win any new invasion or attack, but to hold any potential advances they might win – and the ongoing problems of poor training, worse chain of command issues, even worse still equipment shortages, and a still-steeled Ukrainian defense – making Putin’s dreams of Trump throwing the invasion his way may still be a pipe dream.
-Perhaps that is why, in two interviews over the weekend, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy – who continues to corral support from European countries that may actually balance the offset of Trump’s support of Putin – opined that “(Putin) will die soon, that is a fact, and everything will be over.” Nobody quite knows what to make of that statement – does Zelenskyy have intel on Putin’s (admittedly bad at times) health? Does he have plans to take Vlad out? Is Zelenskyy just goading Pootie-Poo? Who knows?! Whatever that statement meant, it is out there, so let’s keep an eye on that part of the world amid … (gestures wildly).
-In Sportsball Technology News, we have two developments to report! First, football – and if you ever wondered why the all mighty National Football League doesn’t have a better way to measure first downs on the field than those silly yard markers and connected chains, well worry no more! In a rule change announced today, this season the NFL will adopt a Sony-manufactured system called Hawk-Eye that will use eight high-HD cameras to spot balls and determine whether a first down (or “line of gain,” as it’s litigiously called) is a first down or not for all regular-season games. The tech was given a dry run during last year’s pre-season, and it is similar to the tech you see when you watch tennis matches and there is a question about whether a ball hits a line or not. The “chain gangs” will still be on the sidelines as a back-up for this season, and that will be a boon for another major change that could be on its way: an 18-game regular season that would start Labor Day weekend if enacted.
-And in baseball technology, the first week of the regular season has been dominated by talk about “the torpedo bat” – arguably the biggest bat design innovation since synthetic materials to replace wood and the thin tapered handle. This new design, first created by MIT physicist Aaron Leanhardt, takes the thick barrel of the bat and rearranges it so that the thickest part of the bat - the “sweet spot” (like a torpedo! GET IT?!) – is located right where an individual batter (for whom the torpedo bats are specifically designed for) needs it for maximum power. The bats made a huge splash over the weekend when The Old Evil Empire, the New York Yankees, hit 15 home runs in their series against Milwaukee (including three home runs by three different players on the first three pitches of the game on Saturday) and last night, a set of torpedo bats helped Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz to hit two home runs and seven RBIs last night. The bats are technically legal, but in a sport as ruled by tradition as baseball, such tech twists tend to take the sport by storm, so watch for more torpedo bats in the days and weeks to come.
-And to wrap with today’s Petty Indignities, it is one that is likely more coming in the future than in the past, although indignity is always close at hand whenever you mention the name of Mike Lindell. Yes, the weird guy who makes atrociously lumpy pillows and was convinced that bamboo paper led to ballots being thrown out that would have given Trump the 2020 Presidential win (they are wrong – Joe Biden beat Trump handily in 2020) that had been mysteriously left in a lurch when the rest of MAGA Word seems to have gotten White House jobs, Lindell announced yesterday he will run as a MAGAt for the position of Governor of Minnesota! Given how universally loved and respected Walz is, and his higher profile touring red state districts whose MAGAt representative is too a-skeered to have a town hall, let us hope MyPillow becomes MyLosingCampaign and revel in his inevitable ineptitude.
-Cory’s still going! GO Cory GO! Peek at him as he goes for the record, and celebrate with The Day’s Trivia!
-NEWS ON THIS DATE: In 1945, Allied forces landed on Okinawa. In 1970, a law was signed that ended cigarette ads (at midnight). In 1972, Major League Baseball players began its first strike. In 1985, David Lee Roth quit Van Halen. In 2001, The Netherlands become the first country to recognize same-sex marriage.
-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: House of Representatives Speaker (1789), The British Royal Air Force (1918), THE BLUE ANGEL (1930), the Big Bang theory (the actual theory, not the TV show, 1948), The Air Force Academy (1956), GENERAL HOSPITAL (1963), Apple Computer Company (1976), The Buzzcocks (1976), The Islamic Republic of Iran (1979), Nike Air Jordans (1985), WE ARE THE WORLD (1985).
-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Otto von Bismarck, Edgar Wallace, Lon Chaney. Wallace Beery, Alberta Hunter, Abraham Maslow, Eddy Duchin, Toshiro Mifune, George Grizzard, Milan Kundera, Debbie Reynolds, Gordon Jump, Ali MacGraw, Phil Niekro, Rudolph Isley, Rusty Staub, Ronnie Lane, Norm Van Lier, Gil Scott-Heron, Annette Otoole, Barry Sonnenfeld, Jeff Porcaro, D. Boon, Jennifer Runyon, Jim Jeffcoat, Susan Boyle, Kevin Duckworth, Jumbo Elliot, Mark Jackson, Rachel Maddow, David Oyelowo, Randy Orton, Taran Killam, and Brook Lopez.
-REST IN PEACE/REST IN POWER: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Scott Joplin, Helena Rubinstein, Max Ernst, Marvin Gaye (murdered by his father on this date in 1984), Jim “Fibber McGee” Jordan (not the other evil one), Martha Graham, Carrie Snodgress, John Forsythe, Lou Gorman, Jack Pardee, Cynthia Lennon, Steven Bochco, Ed Farmer, Ellis Marsalis Jr., C.W. McCall, and Joe Flaherty.
-FEED THE WORMS: Coach of That School Up North, Bo Schembechler, traitorous woman-abusing political Trumper creep Paul Manafort, anti-Justice SCOTUS Samuel Alito, and toxic masculine online attention whore Logan Paul entered Earth on this date.
-TODAY’S MUSIC INTERLUDE: Rest in Power to the lead singer and songwriter of the 90s/00s rock gem Fountains of Wayne, Adam Schlesinger.