NATIONAL PAPER CLIP DAY UPDATES
For Those of You That Still Use Paper, Three Cheers for Paper Clips - YOU Still Need Them!
-If last Thursday was the best day of the Trump II reign (passage of The Big Bill O'Crap, his crypto scam dinner, then yesterday (Wednesday the 28th) could go down as one of the worst days of the Trump II reign, as it started with ridicule, was punctuated by arguably the most devastating (and sticking) court rulings against him, and ending with the exit of one of the biggest symbols of the regime - along with easily some of the most potentially gut-wrenchingly salacious rumors of everyone in this Putz Parade.
-So let's start with the ridicule, because we deserve it and he and his followers REALLY deserve it ...
-The ridicule burbled up in the surface on Tuesday night with a story from the otherwise staid Financial Times of London first published a month ago. In that publication, columnist Robert Armstrong interviewed Wall Street investors about how they were coping with the waves of STUPIDSTUPID MAGAGOPTrump Tariffs, and noted that many traders have learned to cope with the Trump Proclamations that yo-yo'ed tariffs and markets by noting that what stock prices go down after a Trump Tariff announcement inevitably went up days or hours later after Trump would announce some kind of "interim" deal that "allowed" Trump to back off the tariffs. Armstrong's interviewees told him that they have now accepted Trump will not actually go through with a 'tariff' he announces for all kinds of reasons, and that it was time for them to not stress out as much about the markets as their prices went back and forth.
-The article concluded by Armstrong deciding it would be useful to summarize the traders' attitudes about Trump and to do so accurately. The phrase Armstrong came up with is, since Trump seems to be terrified of the impacts of a hardcore full-scale economic depression, that instead of referring to Trump itself he could accurately describe Trump's trade policy by noting that ... "Trump Always Chickens Out" on tariffs. Trump Always Chickens Out - or, for short, TACO!
-Stories about TACO and what it means then started moving through the internets, and by Wednesday afternoon the Trump TACO memes started to be formulated as circulated. Naturally, when Trump came out for a press briefing which was the first time in 48 hours he had been heard from in public (last being the prattleloopdeloop on Memorial Day), nobody in his inner circle briefed him about the stories or what "TACO" meant, and when CNBC's Megan Cassella asked him about it, it took him a rephrasing of the question ("I kick out?" "You chicken out") before triggering one of Trump's biggest meltdowns to date, trying to defend his chickening out as "ThE ARt of ThE deAL!" and naturally attacking the reporter who asked the question as if she was personally insulting Dear Leader. The abject humiliation of Trump, as well as yet another bit of evidence of Team Trump's utter inability to even attempt to do their jobs, was delicious.
-As audio and video of the TACO melt started to happen, another development occurred that may, ironically, kill the nickname - at least if Trump respected the courts. Because, a three-judge panel of an obscure but important court that manages international relations called The U.S. Court of International Trade - the panelists being Judges named by Trump, Obama, and Ronald Reagan (?!) - unanimously ruled that virtually ALL of the MAGAGOPTrump STUPIDSTUPID tariffs were, indeed, stupid and nonsensical and HELLA illegal.
-The particular elements of the TrumpMAGA Tariffs that the Court called Illegal A.F. was (a) Trump's invocation of a 1977 law that allows Presidents to impose tariffs during "wartime" was crap since the U.S. was not in a war; and (b) the whole Constitutionally-mandated rule that it was the legislative branch that had the power to set tariffs, NOT the executive branch or a bunch of pimple-faced malsocialized coders under the thrall and sleep deprivation of a South African richie-rich boy (and HOO BOY is there more on Elon coming!). As a result, the Court took virtually every tariff imposed on Trump's "Liberation Day" and wiped them off the books.
-If you are thinking "Great - but this is Trump and he's gonna do what he wants," fair reaction. But this one, as they say in procedurals, may stick. In part, it would stick because it would be up to Trump to collect any tariffs that could be collected, and with the rest of the world knowing what this ruling is, the likelihood of boats glaring at DOGErs or ICE men or whomever at the border means no tariffs are likely to be offered, much less collected. In large part, any and all side negotiations to "relieve" tariff "burdens" currently taking place are likely stopped in their track, since now there is literally nothing to relieve. And the markets are eating their tacos this morning, as the opening bell fulfilled the futures and are rising at all the news.
-The fact that Team Trump is again caterwauling about "judicial power overreach" further underscores the defeat this is. Because finally, given the primacy of these STUPIDSTUPID tariffs to the Trump budget and the pending-in-the-Senate Big Bill O'Crap, well, the rumblings from GOP Senators (now at least seven who have spoken out against the House giveaway) could bring that bill to a true screeching halt. (Crosses fingers as we tell everyone to KEEP CALLING!)
-Thus far, Trump's response to all of this has been rather quiet for Trump - a long and virtually unintelligible post about some court ruling Trump thinks will result in the revocation of the Pulitzer Prizes awarded to some news agencies for some part of past Trump corruption, and an AI-generated photo of a too-thin Trump wearing an overcoat that fits (fantasy) strolling down a rain-soaked street at night with the caption "HE'S ON A MISSION FROM GOD & NOTHING CAN STOP WHAT IS COMING," which is simultaneously massively delusional and a bit concering since "nothing can stop what is coming" is another one of those phrases that is connected to QAnon (remember them? sigh ...).
-One of the few others who squawked about the court ruling, blabbing about a "judicial coup," was Trump's right cloven hoof, Stephen Miller - but he has a WHOLE LOT MORE to be worried about, as you are about to find out with as many TRIGGER WARNINGS as I can give you once all is revealed ... but to get to that stuff, we first need to get to the other part of the Arguably Worst Day of the Trump 2.0 Regime EVAH.
-That was the announcement made by the apparent former President of the United States, Apartheid Boy himself, Elon Musk. Yesterday, in an apparent culmination of being shown the door by a Trump team that collectively sees Elon as an annoying, loudmouth, unfunny doofus that has done far more bad than good (the only one?! I digress!), Elon said he is done with Trump, done with politics, done with all the stuff he was arguably at the epicenter of since last Fall when he threw his bajillions into the (sadly successful) re-election of Trump.
-E's exit interviews are rather pissy. He has spent most of them dourly mumbling, but still savaging Trump's Big Bill O'Crap as being too big, too wide-ranging, too not good, and that his own efforts to "reduce" Big Gubmint was not successful. We'll put aside whether "reducing government" was the real goal of "DOGE" instead of the vast amounts of data mining they were able to do, the chaos of the arbitrary cuts and firings they created and are still being sorted out by courts and a gleeful Project 2025 Major Domo Russ Voght (who is the more-or-less 'replacement' for Musk with "DOGE"), and the dozens of barely-pubescent coders now embedded in our federal Government doing God knows what.
-We will also note with pride that when Musk says he is done spending money on campaigns, that he may be right. Musk's direct spending on elections from France to Germany to Wisconsin have proven to be utter disasters, with his backed candidates losing and losing badly - and losing in no small part because Musk-backed candidates were forced to wear Musk on their necks, usually on a necklace laced through Musk's Nazi-saluting arm. Musk is now equated with right-wing extremism, Nazism, Trumpism, and just embodying the worst stereotypes of nerd-dom you can conjure (see “doofus” above) and election after election have shown left and center candidates expected to struggle or lose instead winning decisively over Musk and his bucks.
-And we will even table for a moment that the spending-more-time-with-my-companies excuse being used by Musk as a reason for leaving may also be too little too late, as all Musk-associated businesses have been taking it up the giggy recently.
-Multiple countries and companies have been backing away from his Starlink satellite internet access company - including, significantly, Apple - and the only country cutting a deal with it, Germany, are doing it for the benefit of Ukraine (SLAVA UKRAINI!). SpaceX has seen several high-profile space failures, with boosters blowing up and rockets spinning uncontrollably once getting into orbit (which is Not Good when it comes to spacecraft). And Tesla continues to lose massive market share worldwide at a time when other electric vehicle companies and models are doing gangbuster business, further proof that anything associated with the name Musk is now dangerously toxic.
-All of that is true, all of that is bad, and all of that is solely the fault of one Elon Musk - BUT HOLY HELL OMIGOD JFC, the tea that was spilled on the dish with Elon going out the door, and its relationship to Stephen Miller, is what has the DC gossip mills roiling, and TRIGGER WARNING INVOKED!
-You see, once the Musk exit was announced, multiple outlets from Wired to the New York Times began reporting on the steps taken by Team Trump to try to manage Musk (see "doofus" above). One of those whose job it became to try to do that was one Stephen Miller. One of the tactics Miller thought would be useful to manage Musk was for him and his wife, Katie, to befriend Miller.
-It got to the point where Katie started to work with Musk on "DOGE" - but ... for the final time, TRIGGER WARNING ... all the reports indicated what started as a professional arrangement became a "throuple" - a three-way sexual relationship between those three people I GAVE YOU TRIGGER WARNINGS, DIDN'T I?!?
-Icky, icky, icky - but WAIT, there's ONE MORE TWIST!
-Multiple reports confirm Katie has left her White House position - er, job - and ... is now working full-time with … Elon Musk!!! It has been implied but not stated outright that Katie may very well have left Stephen for Apartheid Boy, and given Elon's treatment of women as brood mares and chain of out-of-wedlock babies that are out there AGAIN DO NOT COMPLAIN - YOU WERE WARNED!
-Anyway, ya think Stephen Miller gets the Petty Atrocity Award for today?
-As this Substack is completed and we all need to purge ourselves from that news, it should be noted that Trump has appealed the tariff ruling amid the humiliation, and there is an academic TACO that just got served as THIS JUST IN: the Trump administration is "giving" Harvard 30 days to appeal his demand to stop foreign students from going to the school because Trump hates higher ed and immigrants and smart people (and THIS JUST IN AFTER THIS JUST IN: a Federal Judge has stopped Trump from denying student visas to Harvard anyway), and depending on how the fire hose of news comes we will get to the pay-to-play pardons Trump is doling out and the not-so-petty atrocities being inflicted on America's health by Secretary Worm Head Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but we have some sportsball and sportsball media news of note to wrap up the news portion of the update ...
-The NBA and NHL finals are all but set. Two of the four semi-final series ended last night, with Oklahoma City (NBA) and Florida (NHL) punching their tickets, and the other two series at 3-1, with Indiana (NBA) and Edmonton (NHL) almost there. Should Indiana beat the New York Knicks tonight, it will also then become the last TNT broadcast of INSIDE THE NBA, which is the true ending of an era of both TNT broadcasting NBA games (NBC gets them next year) and the end of what is acknowledged to be one of the all-time pre- and post-game shows in its prime form (even ending on a Thursday).
-True, the show and its hosts - Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neill and Kenny Smith - will continue on ESPN, but it will be more of a stand-alone show than pre- and post-game, and whether it can co-exist with reigning ESPN supermouth Stephen A. Smith remain to be seen, so whether the series ends tonight or whenever IND-NYK ends, savor it!
-You doing okay? Thanks for sticking! Let's get to the rest of the updates for the day and get on with our lives ... perhaps with a batch of chicken tacos!
-NEWS ON THIS DATE: In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled Major League Baseball was not a business, exempting it from antitrust laws. In 1942, Bing Crosby first recorded "White Christmas." In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first humans to successfully scale Mount Everest. In 1999, the space shuttle Discovery successfully docked with the International Space Station for the first time.
-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: "Ain't I A Woman?" (1851), YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942), a transgender woman on the cover of TIME Magazine (Laverne Cox, 2014).
-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Patrick Henry, Bob Hope, T.H. White, Ralph Metcalfe, Tenzing Norgay (!), John F. Kennedy, Paul Ehrlich, Sylvia Robinson, Fay Vincent, Al Unser, Anthony Geary, Rev. Gene Robinson, Danny Elfman, Karla DeVito, Randy Walker, Mars Williams, Mike Porcaro, Larry Blackmon, LaToya Jackson, Annette Benning, Rupert Everett, Melissa Etheridge, Eric Davis, Lisa Whelchel, Laverne Cox (!), Melanie Brown, Howlin' Pete Almqvist, Carmelo Anthony, Riley Keough, and Markelle Fultz.
-REST IN PEACE/REST IN POWER: W.S. Gilbert, John Barrymore, Fanny Brice, James Whale, Mary Pickford, Billy Conn, Margaret Chase Smith, George Fenneman, Jeff Buckley, Archibald Cox, Steve Mizerak, Harvey Korman, Dennis Hopper, Doc Watson, Father Andrew Greeley, Betsy Palmer, B.J. Thomas, and Gavin MacLeod.
-FEED THE WORMS: John Hinkley Jr. entered Earth on this date. Manuel Noriega bought it on this date.
-Oasis lead whiner Noel Gallagher was born on this date. Barry Goldwater died on this date. You decide if they get a Happy Birthday/Rest in Peace or if they Feed the Worms.
-TODAY'S MUSIC INTERLUDE: PRIVATE DANCER was released on this date in 1984. That album, and this single, sparked one of rock and roll's greatest comebacks ...