NATIONAL COOKIE EXCHANGE DAY UPDATES
YUM! (That's it. That's the subheading. That's all you need for today, right?!)
-The United States government did NOT shut down over the weekend. The turmoil triggered by the sudden interest of one Elon Musk spurred a ton of angst, a bit of a reworking of the initial bill to include a provision involving trade to China that just so happened to benefit Musk, stripping out of a handful of pro-consumer provisions (the most prominent involving prescription drug prices), another handful of provisions that Senate Democrats were able to enact (partially restoring funding for pediatric cancer research and restoration of a football stadium in DC), House Democrats protecting a long-fought-for revision to Social Security that will allow teachers and other public sector workers to collect Social Security for the first time since 1983 (thanks, Reagan), and perhaps most prominently blowing off a last-second demand from Donald Trump to suspend or eliminate the debt ceiling in preparation for a new round of tax cuts for the mega-wealthy.
-In other words, Musk flexed like crazy in ways oligarchs do when they have a chunk of the government and in essence became a lobbyist for himself, while doing quite a bit to marginalize the incoming Trump administration (and potentially putting House Speaker Mike Johnson's gavel in deep peril). That Trump was not pleased was confirmed by several reports of Team Trumpers furiously calling reporters to insist that Trump was NOT reacting to Musk's social media posts as if Team Trump had no idea what Musk was doing or that Trump felt the need to insert himself into the discussion - perish the thought!
-That Trump may be feeling a mite insecure may also be one of the reasons that early this morning he began posting his thoughts about ... the Panama Canal?! Yeah, the Panama Canal. No idea, although it is a bit of a cousin to his shite-posting about Canada becoming "the 51st state" after seemingly randomly adding them to his Tariff Hit List two weeks ago. It may also be why reports about all the things he is going to do "on Day One" with executive orders are now starting to circulate (and there will be plenty of time to review those and sort out the ones to worry about from the ones describing things already being done and things being put in front of him to keep him occupied - it is the holiday season, after all).
-But the entire debt ceiling imbroglio over the last several days does seem to point to a few cracks in the MAGAsphere and more than a few issues on that proverbial side of the aisle. There is nothing approaching unity with Republicans in Congress right now. The butting-in of Musk did not sit well with MAGA or institutionalists, concerns abound for the Putz Parade of appointees abound, (now including concussed former GA Senate candidate Herschel Walker as Ambassador to the Bahamas and APPRENTICE Producer Mark Burnett as "Special Envoy" to Great Britain), wife of Trump failson Eric "Eric" Trump Lara "took herself out of consideration" for being appointed to the Senate seat likely opening so Marco Rubio (WateR) can become Secretary of State (and remember, that's one of the most solid Trump Cabinet picks), and what Trump undoubtedly wanted to be thought of as an unstoppable machine is wheezing with a month to go before even getting in power.
-Musk himself is not making as many friends or terrifying as many people with his threats to primary anyone who defied him (if so, he needs to find about 38 Republicans for 2026 as that is how many still refused to vote for the new bill as "revised") because of something else that happened Friday as the debt limit bill was being reworked. That something was Musk posting support for Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The AfD is an anti-immigration, pro-Putin, anti-EU, ultra-nationalist far right party whose social media feeds have embraced Holocaust denialism and called into question whether Western democracies are up to the task of governance in the 21st century - and they may be positioned to gather political power in upcoming German elections early in 2025. Musk posted that "The AfD is Germany's only hope," and reiterated his support for AfD with posts today - and, by the way, so has Trump's appointed Vice President, JD Vance (in a post made yesterday) - and AfD, perhaps with hopes of getting some of that Musk money, has embraced Musk's support.
-The controversy has also become a central part of a terrorist attack on a German Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg last week where five people (including a nine-year-old child) were killed and over 200 injured when a car rammed into the market. The driver was identified as a Muslim immigrant, which checks the AfD boxes - but that same attacker also wrote in social media postings of his admiration for the thoughts and views of one Elon Musk, which tracks with the attacks and attempts and schemes to attack Trump by men who at one point were supporters, adding a lot of disturbing elements to what is already a sad and troubling story.
-Back to Congress, and here's a kind of wild and aggravating story. 81-year-old Kay Granger, a TX GOP Congresswoman who was the Chair of the powerful - House Appropriations Committee, was very prominently a no-show for the last six months of the most recent Congressional term. Why? Nobody seemed to know until this weekend, when a story in a local Dallas newspaper in the state (remember those?) revealed that Granger "has been residing at a local memory care and assisted living home for some time after having been found wandering lost and confused in her former Cultural District/West 7th neighborhood." Granger did give her Chair (or it was released) in April and did not run for re-election, but the fact that her whereabouts were hidden for months during a Presidential campaign season speaks to both the ages of way too many Congresspeople - not to mention Presidents - as well as questions about just how much we know about the physical and mental health of our leaders.
-Not that the above statement is meant to highlight any single individual or two or anything ...
-With the end of the 2024 election season, there is plenty of evening of scores and shifting of allegiances that are going around. On the Left, where the success of non-legacy media sources to drive just enough Trump voters out for him to win on the Far Right has revealed a gap that needs bridging, the post-election sorting has begun, with one activist executing a prominent 'heel turn' and another who has been heading there for a long time likely finally getting there - both of whom used left/progressive credentials to first milk and then backstab the movement that gave them their platforms.
-The first activist in question: Lindy Li, a 34-year-old Democratic Party fundraiser who became a prominent voice in the Kamala Harris campaign and made numerous appearances on MSNBC, Stephanie Miller, and other progressive podcasts up until Election Day. After Election Day, however, Li has now become a regular fixture on Fox News, where she has become a prominent DNC-basher and Democratic Party-attacker, going so far as to now be one of the loudest voices attacking Harris pre-emptively as she is reportedly contemplating running for Governor of California and staying active in national politics. Li's about-face has led to savage attacks on her and Li shutting down her social media channels in response.
-The second activist in question: Cenk Uyghr, the media 'personality' who created The Young Turks, which was created in the early 2000s as an anti-George W Bush, anti-Iraq War outlet that became a favorite of activists at that time. Uyghr and TYT started a shift when he and the outlet became bashers of Barack Obama's Presidency and early supporters of Bernie Sanders' 2016 run, going so far as to essentially telling lefties not to vote for Hillary Clinton, which is one of the primary reasons Trump got to power in the first place. TYT continued by going after Biden full-bore while still milking progressive sentiment, mostly through monologues from TYT host Ana Kasparian that are still circulated by folks on my side of the aisle).
-This is all to set up what may be the finalization of TYT's flipping: Uygur simultaneously rejecting an attempt by TYT staffers to form a union while appearing at this past weekend's Turning Point USA Conference as a guest of perpetually prepubescent far-right "influencer" Charlie Kirk and thanking TPUSA's crowd for being "more welcoming" to him than Democrats.
-YA THINK?!
-Let's close with some well-deserved fun, shall we? As we learned last year with "Steamboat Willie" and that version of Mickey Mouse, we are entering an era where longstanding cultural icons will become part of the public domain - meaning anyone can use the images, words, and (as we now enter a media era) sounds without paying royalties. (Which is why you saw the aforementioned Mickey Mouse, as well as Winnie-the-Pooh, in cheap slasher movies last year!) So that means works released for the first time in 1929 are sorta-kinda free to use now!
-The list of new works now part of the public domain include Great American novels like William Faulner's THE SOUND AND THE FURY, Ernest Hemingway's A FAREWELL TO ARMS, and Virginia Woolf's A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN ... Songs like "Ain't Misbehavin'," "An American in Paris," "Bolero," "Happy Days are Here Again," "Singin' in the Rain" and "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" ... movies like THE COACONUTS (the first Marx Brother movie), the first animated Silly Symphony ("The Skeleton Dance") and Alfred Hitchcock's first movie BLACKMAIL ... and beloved cartoon characters Popeye the Sailor (and, of course, Bluto and Olive Oyl) and Tintin.
-Slasher movie producers and samplers, AWAY!
-On this date in 1978, John Wayne Gacy confessed to being one of America's most notorious mass murderers. On this date in 1984, New York City subway rider Bernhard Goetz shot four African-Americans on a train because of his fear that they would mug him. On this date in 1989, the Brandenburg Gate opened, reuniting East and West Berlin. Also on this date in 1989, Nicolae Ceausecu was ousted as dictator of Romania. On this date in 2001, a British Islamic militant named Richard Reid created decades of inconvenience in airports by trying and (thankfully) failing to detonate explosives he had rigged in his shoes. And on this date in 2010, Barack Obama repealed the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.
-Debuts on this date: Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (1808), the Professional Golf Association (PGA) (1894), THE MUMMY (1932), a gorilla born in captivity (1956), DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965), YOUR ARM'S TOO SHORT TO BOX WITH GOD (1976), PHILADELPHIA (1993).
-Happy Birthday to Jean Racine, Frank Kellogg, Giacomo Puccini, Connie Mack, Lady Bird Johnson, Barbara Billingsley, Gene Rayburn, David Pearson, Hector Elizondo, Matty Alou, Steve Carlton, Diane Sawyer, Lynne Thigpen, Rick Nielsen, Steve Garvey, Maurice Gibb, Ray Guy, Robin Gibb, Jan Stephenson, Susan Powter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ralph Fiennes, Jordin Sparks, Josef Newgarden, DaBaby, and Meghan Trainor.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to George Eliot, Ma Rainey, Nathaniel West, Beatrix Potter, Darryl F. Zanuck, D. Boon, Chico Mendes, Samuel Beckett, Butterfly McQueen, Juzo Itami, Joe Strummer, and Joe Cocker.
-Feed the Worms: Ted Cruz (R-Cancun) entered Earth on this date.
-The Number One Movie in America on this date ... in 2024, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 ... in 2014, THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES ... in 2004, MEET THE FOCKERS ... in 1994, DUMB AND DUMBER ... in 1984, BEVERLY HILLS COP ... and in 1974, THE GODFATHER PART II.