NATIONAL SORRY I WAS ON A BOAT DAY UPDATES

Seems Like One Of Those Oddly Super-Specific Holidays, But If It Fits … Celebrate by … Staying On Dry Land, I Suppose …

-As I was gearing up to begin today’s Update, a story started to break in fun enough ways that there would be plenty to write about. BUT, the story was also breaking in such a way that I decided to let it simmer for awhile to see what else might happen. So I went and did my little workout (a 50-minute walk!), came back, and OHMYGOD the simmer has exploded all over the stove and the kitchen and is too hot and too insane to account for it! It now touches on a few other issues and may be that rarity of taking up the entire update.

-Only one way to find out … (cracks knuckles) … (stretches arms) … (rolls shouders) …

-… here we GO!

-The story is what we should now properly call The Break-Up. Recall if you will just this past Friday when, in The Oval Office, President Trump had a good-bye ceremony (if you want to call it that) between President Trump and Ex-President Elon Musk. Trump gurgleclapped about how Apartheid Boy would not be far from the Oval, and even gave him a gold (-plated?) key for all the work … whatever it was that was done … that DOGE did and continues to do … and Musk in his mumblecore anti-charismatic way accepted the gift and what appeared to be gratitude.

-But even on Friday, cracks between the alleged friends started to show. Last Friday morning, the New York Times ran a damning article detailing the massive amounts of drugs Musk had been using going all the way back to last October – nearly 20 pills per day in boxes Musk brought to the White House, and reports that he had been doing so much ketamine that his bladder was breaking down. It’s not exactly the kind of encomium one runs when one leaves a place of employment under good terms, and the story certainly did not come from the Musk camp.

-That, and the black eye that Musk sported during the meeting, not to mention (although TRIGGER WARNING) the alleged sexual relationship between Musk, Trump Right Cloven Hoof Stephen Miller, and Miller’s wife Katie – particularly after Katie allegedly quit her White House job to work with Musk after Musk left – all signaled something was amiss in what, since October, felt like a relationship determined to rule the world. (Quite literally, actually.

-The trip wire that really started to make these former friends potential enemies turn the episode into can’t-miss spilled tea was the Big Bill O’Crap, which at this time is in the Senate being reworked at enormous peril to the entire edifice. Already this week, multiple Senators have come out against many of its provisions – and a number of House members have also begun making open declarations that the initial passage of the 1,100 page monstrosity has stuff nobody really wants outside of the Project 2025 freaks.

-Most hilariously, MAGA Party Leader Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Z-Q-R-MAGA, GA) expressed her horror that a provision of the Big Bill O’Crap includes a 10-year freeze on any AI regulation, and she said that she would have absolutely voted against the bill the first time had she known it was in it! That, however, would have required her READING THE BILL BEFOREHAND, or at least have someone in her office read it, which of COURSE didn’t happen …

-Anyhoo, as those reports erupted, the Congressional Budget Office released its report on the Big Bill O’Crap – and to the surprise of nobody, they reported the cost of the MAGA House bill would be brutal – upwards of 16 million people losing health care (via Medicare, cancelled Affordable Care Act subsidies, and additional bureaucratic burdens, among other poison pills), upwards of $2.1 billion going upwardly to rich jagoffs like Musk, and upwards of a $6 trillion plus deficit over its 10-year “life span.”

-The reports led many GOP Senators, led by Senate Majority Leader John “No I Am NOT Mitch McConnell” Thune, to try to explain the report away by essentially saying “Pay no attention to the figures behind that authority!,” and they may very well have succeeded were it not for that meddlesome multi-billionaire!

-For all of a sudden, Elon Musk took to his garbage scow social media site X to begin to tear up the Big Bill O’Crap as being too big, too filled with “pork,” too much to be of use to the country, and telling people to call their CongressMAGAts to oppose the deal. That last bit is important. Folks who read this Substack may no longer think of Musk as all that and a bag of chips, but to MAGA, he is the SOOPER-GEENIUS tormenting us liberals by turning heel and becoming part of the Trump stable.

-That Musk also charmingly described the Big Bill O’Crap with such adjectives as “outrageous,” “a disgusting abomination,” that all who wrote it should feel “shame” (adding “you know you did wrong!”) and ended with the threatening-sounding “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people” is Not Helpful to MAGA or Trump of course. Even a call to Musk by the acting-very-spurned House Speaker Mike Johnson (or is it that the guy who vacuumed up all that data knows what kind of porn Mikey is into??) was not making Elon back off.

-So if nobody else was there to stop Elon, that meant only one person could: TACO Man himself! But something else was not happening that had been happening … that Oval Office thingy was Trump’s last public appearance Trump had made through this week. Trump wasn’t even all that active on social media, save for an appearance at one of his golf clubs (whether it was the Bedminster, New Jersey club that got hammered with 18 health code violations earlier this week is unknown but hoped for!) and a speech to new White House interns that he made from a balcony of the Oval Office very EVITA-style.

-Even a slew of late-night proclamations, including a “ban” on student travel visas, a ban on 12 countries Trump decided were somehow connected to Sunday’s Colorado Molotov-bombing of Jewish protestors against the Gaza Incursion (the man arrested for the incident is from Egypt, but Egypt was oddly not one of the 12 countries in the Trump “ban”), and approval of some sort of something something Biden signing things with Hunter’s laptop because Jake Tapper says BIDEN B OLD or some such shite) still did not include any remarks against Elon. Was Trump finally starting to show a little bit of discipline and let whatever happened between him and Elon go?

-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

-This morning, in Trump’s first public appearance – a joint appearance with Germany’s new Prime Minister Friedrich Merz in which Trump tried to invoke tomorrow’s D-Day anniversary (you don’t want to know) – Trump finally opinecrapped about Elon and his social media posts and all the nastiness. Trump was “very disappointed” in Musk, claimed it was a lack of electric vehicle tax breaks that was motivating Musk, claimed that Musk knew that provision was in the Big Bill O’Crap, and then added “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if he will anymore.”

-OH SNAP – IT WAS ON NOW!!!

-What followed was the sound of massive scratching of records and throwing them at the White House, because while the meeting between Trump and Merz continued, Musk took to the X and replied to Trump. “… This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” (See Greene, above.)

-Musk continued “Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!) but ditch the MOUNTAIN OF DISGUSTING PORK in the bill” (CAPS WERE ELON’S!).

-One more dig: “In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that (was) both big and beautiful. Everyone knows that! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way!”

-Putting aside that neither Musk nor Trump know anything about big, slim, or beautiful (no comment on “ugly”), this was the point at which I went and did my thing, wondering and imagining that there would be no WAY Trump would keep quiet now, and that what would follow would be, if nothing else, likely nominees for the Petty and Vindictive Hall of Fame. Did it? YOU be the judge …

-After Musk’s posts above, he followed it up with this gem: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election. Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.” And after that came this follow-up: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?”

-The clear implied answer, I think we can deduce, is yes – making the scattering of Congressional MAGAts away from anything resembling a microphone clear, gutless, and hilarious at the same time – and leading to a semi-decent quote from pseudo-hayseed (he went to Oxford) Sen. John Kennedy: “I never get between a dog and a fire hydrant.” (Unclear as to if Trump was the hydrant or the dog, although he does hate dogs …)

-Well, THOSE comments FINALLY got Trump to the interoobz, and with a threat that former Trump fixer Michael Cohen floated half a dozen posts ago as the ultimate response of Trump to Musk: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it.” That comment fused with a round of further selloffs of Musk’s bedrock stock and company in Tesla, and … was this checkmate? Did the seemingly sleepy Trump finally, well, trump Elon and make Elon lick his wounds?

-THIS …

-JUST …

-IN …

-Elon’s response: “Time to drop the really big bomb: Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. This is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” AND, “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”

-AAAAAAOOOOOONNNOOOHEEEDDDIIDDDN’TTT?!?!

-OOOH YES HE DID!!!

-The Epstein stuff has been percolating, and I hadn’t quite found a place to put some updates on it, but NOW I DO – and the crazy thing is, the story about the Epstein files actually falls into a story category that has been recently quiet: What Is MAGA Mad About TODAY? Because, indeed, there has been a lot of consternation in MAGA-ville about the Epstein files – and for a somewhat surprising reason: MAGA WANTS to see the Epstein files, and are very disgusted that people like Pam Boni and Ka$h Patel and Dan “Bongholio” “Bingo Bango Bongo” Bongino have not released them!

-If you dare listen to MAGA Media, in fact, host upon host upon host upon HOST are extremely aggravated about the Epstein Files not being released – and most hysterically, to a person they are all genuinely, GENUINELY at a total and complete loss as to why people appointed by Donald Trump just can’t seem to find a way to release the files! WHY WON’T THEY, they keep wondering?

-That they cannot make a connection between the now-dead Jeffrey Epstein (and the note from Patel and Bongino that they believe he did, in fact, commit suicide is a central irritant to MAGAmerica) and the man who was his closest confidant for more than two decades … the man who never lived farther than a 10-minute drive from each other in Florida AND New York City … the man who claimed was his only friend … well, it’s almost adorable if if weren’t so gut-wrenchingly vile … but Elon Musk just brought that elephant out in the open, didn’t he?

-As of the end of drafting this Substack, the ball is now in Trump’s court. (Checks social media …) Meanwhile, Musk is talking about decommissioning SpaceX contracts on his own, and whether Musk might actually have some of those Epstein files is unclear – and Trump refused to answer questions from a press gaggle about all of this!

-Whether this is just the biggest social media spat or some sort of collapse will remain to be seen. I would mention that any Democrat that was thinking about getting Musk back (yes, a few were rumbling about that) should BACK THE EFF OFF THAT ACTION NOW, and I will be monitoring this stuff, because this is quite … something … but, I for one did say the Musk/Trump divorce would not be pretty. That is may be SO not pretty that it is gorgeous, but we have two unstable and hateful people potentially destroying each other in public.

-ALSO, remember how many DOGEites are planted all throughout the government and whether they are loyal to Trump … or Musk. And all the data mining that has been done and whether it is controlled by Trump … or Musk (which could depend on Peter Thiel, who we haven’t spoken much of but may soon). Or it could just be a spat.

-If this is where they do it and something happens to make some power tumble, do it! But we do get a chance to enjoy and see what happens next, because this is wild and uncontrolled (Steve Bannon is calling for Musk’s immediate deportation!) and, in the immortal words of Terrell Owens, getcha popcorn ready!

-BUT FIRST, TODAY’S HISTORY NOTES …

-NEWS ON THIS DATE: In 1947, General George Marshall first suggested rebuilding Europe. In 1967, a war between Israel and three other Middle Eastern states began – and would end Six Days later. In 1968, Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In 1981, the first public identification of AIDS was reported. In 1985, Ferris Bueller cut school to spend a lovely day in and around Chicago. In 2013, Edward Snowdon reported on American spy services spying on Americans.

-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: National sports event on television (a boxing match, 1952), Elvis Presley grinding his hips on national TV (THE MILTON BERLE SHOW, 1956), JAGGED LITTLE PILL as a musical (2018).

-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Pat Garrett, Pancho Villa, Federico Garcia Lorca, Salvatore Ferragamo, Richard Scarry, Marion Motley, Art Donovan, Christy Brown, Bill Moyers, Spalding Gray, Matthew Lesko, John Carlos, David Hare, Freddie Stone, Ken Follett, Laurie Anderson, Ellen Foley, Suze Orman, Kathleen Kennedy, Kenny G., Jeff Garlin, Rick Riordan, Mark Wahlberg, Russ Ortiz, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Pete Wentz, and Breonna Taylor.

-REST IN PEACE/REST IN POWER: Stephen Crane, O. Henry, Bill Tilden, Conway Twitty, Ish Kabibble, Alfred Kazin, Mel Torme, Dee Dee Ramone, Ray Bradbury, Kate Spade, Kurt Thomas and Alec John Such.

-FEED THE WORMS: Ronald Reagan, Tariq Aziz and Robert Hanssen bought it on this date.

-John Maynard Keynes and Robert Kraft were born on this date. You decide if they get a Happy Birthday or if they Feed the Worms.

-TODAY’S MUSIC INTERLUDE: Happy Birthday to Psychedelic Furs lead singer Richard Butler!