NATIONAL STEPMOTHERS' DAY UPDATES

Not YOU, Evil Stepmothers! Only the NICE Ones!

-At the very end of the Friday update, word came down that the House Budget Committee's attempt to bring out the MAGAGOPTrump Make Billionaires Rich and Everyone Else Suffer for Their Amusement Bill - whose official name is the not-making-it-up "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (because MAGA is all about sucking Trump's nub as hard as they can) was met with an embarrassing thud, failing the vote as five MAGA House members voted with all the Democrats to reject it. The news was met with cheer, even though Congress watchers and political nerds knew something other than the vote-down was amiss.

-Sure enough, what came out was that the reason the five MAGAt House members who rejected the bill did not do so out of wishing to protect those being attacked by the bill's savage cutting of Medicaid and food stamp budgets, or even that the deficits the bill will create will fuse with the still-on-for-the-world STUPIDSTUPID GOPMAGATrump tariffs (which were the reasons all Democrats voted NO). No, the MAGAts voted against the bill because they didn't think the cuts were savage enough on the estimated 13.7 million poor and working poor Americans who will lose what coverage they have to make Elon Musk and his buddies more smug than they already are.

-And to give you an idea of the savagery of the cuts that are already in place, note that not only will the current bill cut 6 million off Medicaid because Medicaid itself would be stripped of most of its money, another provision will ensure they cannot find other insurance using the Affordable Care Act, making it all but impossible for them to get anything but emergency room care - which, of course, is both the most desperate attempt to get care to simply keep people alive and by far more expensive than services provided under Medicaid.

-Not to mention internal GOP polling cited by, among others, the Lincoln Project, that shows that passage of any kind of Medicaid cuts would result in another bit of savagery: decimation of any kind of Republican majority in Congress, even with national polling showing the Democratic Party is just as unpopular as the GOPMAGA party (though, as you can guess, the disgust at Democrats is far more about them not fighting Trump and MAGA hard enough than the real damage being done with such glee on the MAGAGOP side).

-The problem, of course, is that MAGAGOP's Dear Leader demands supplication, and the MAGAGOP continues to either cower in utter self-soiling fear of a social media post directed their way, or so evil and/or deluded and/or brain-damaged that they take joy in the damage Trump is doing - a minority within the minority party that MAGAGOP is, but this is the world we are in at the moment.

-So, it is believed Trump lapdog House Speaker Mike Johnson intends to try again as soon as Sunday evening to roll out the over 1,100-page bill - which has had NO public hearings, NO public text in full, NO analysis other than the Congressional Budget Office's report that it would, indeed, be VERY BAD FOR THE COUNTRY (and was a direct reason Moody's dropped the credit rating of the USA for the first time ever) (TRUMP DID THAT) (MAGA DID THAT) (GOP DID THAT) - and try to get it passed to bring it to the floor, where it can only lose a handful of votes (perhaps 5) and then move on to the Senate, where even with only needing 50 votes and the tie-breaker of Presidential Intern JD Vance to pass, will find a Senate that could alter the bill enough to force MAGAGOP to go to a conference and miss Johnson's self-imposed goal of the bill being shoved in front of Trump's face by Memorial Day, which is next Monday.

-One clear message through all that: KEEP MAKING NOISE! Protests have been loud and constant throughout the country, and word is the disgust is absolutely being felt in the halls of Congress. The fact that the MAGAGOP want to try to pass the bill on a weekend night is actually evidence of that, and whatever the status of the bill, it will absolutely be a focal point of what is shaping up to be a very loud and wild June 14.

-That day has been designated Celebrate Trump's Manhood As If It Was a Penis Day (or something along those lines), with Flag Day being desecrated with a military hardware displayed demanded by America's Self-Overcompensation Leader (more on that later) and his 79th birthday - and the rest of the country, if not the world, hitting the streets for No Kings Day, to protest ... (gestures wildly) ... and build demands that Trump step down or be peaceably removed.

-Trump has returned home after his Potentate Tour of Middle Eastern despots and, whether it is jet lag or too much rain to waddlecheat onto one of his golf courses or the aftereffects of his outgoing press conference in Saudi Arabia that was full of so much icky praise for the Sheikhs that it bordered towards the audio equivalent of the volleyball scene in TOP GUN or the weight of all the hideous polling (which, do not mistake yourselves for a second, will ALWAYS be an obsession with Trump and ALWAYS be a primary motivation for what he does even as what he does can change by the second), has went on a social media-posting tear the likes of which have not been seen since those hopeful days when he was continually getting indicted and needing to show up to court after court after court (and seeing little more than a scattering of MAGAts to support him).

-The posts have went far and wide, and among the posts was a 'demand' of Wal-Mart to "make" them not raise prices in the wake of the MAGAGOPTrump STUPIDSTUPID tariffs - which, despite the news of Trump backing off his China tariffs, are still higher and wider than the Great-Depression-worsening Smoot-Hawley Tariffs. Another was a repost of Trump's OG nemesis, Barack Obama, with a phrase saying "All Roads Lead to Obama," likely a parody of Hillary Clinton's correct 2016 analysis of all Trump roads leading to Vladimir Putin - because, well, duh.

-But a subsection of the latest Trump posting orgy continues to center around Bruce Springsteen. Recall on Friday that Trump and MAGA got MADGRRMAD! at The Boss for his angry yet sorrowful monologues in Manchester, England, decrying Trump and Trumpism - and Trump unleased a series of typically infantile taunts, the most hilarious of which called the buff 75-year-old Springsteen "a dried-up prune," apparently still not realizing Trump does not employ anyone to apply his burnt umber paint on his face evenly enough to not see the pale crinkly skin underneath, because Trump looks less like a dried-up prune than a bloated too-long-soaked-in-dirty-water prune.

-Most wildly, however, Trump has also re-posted memes of himself AI-generated to look like Rambo wielding swords and weapons in that overcompensating-thing ... and, in what is apparently another direct ... rebuke? ... of Springsteen, an animation of Trump as a musician in concert, first playing a piano painted like an American flag, in a costume that looks like what Kid Rock thinks he looks like (wearing stars and stripes and toned and talented), then moving to a guitar and drums, all apparently "singing" Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" - and incidentally, if you needed any more proof of how overrated and hack-y that song is, the case is now rested.

-Yes, I both mocked Trump AND went out of my way to take Journey down. I regret nothing.

-Also, if anyone was even moderately concerned about whether Trump's "mocking" and "threats" towards Springsteen was affecting him ... please. Springsteen kept ripping Trump yesterday in his second concert on his European tour. He has also gotten support from Eddie Vedder (who played "Land of Hope and Dreams" and "My City of Ruins" as part of the Pearl Jam show in Pittsburgh yesterday), Neil Young (who sent a note of support to him over the weekend), and Pedro Pascal (who spoke in support of Springsteen and made a plea for all artists to begin resisting more prominently ("Fight back and don't let them win!")) while promoting one of his new films at the Cannes Film Festival.

-If it is May, it is a time for severe and weird weather. Here in Chicago, we experienced a legitimate and very strange dust storm on Friday evening - a wall of dirt thick enough to be traced by radar that ran through the area in about two hours and did, indeed, leave a film on many surfaces afterwards. We wound up being lucky, however, as that same front led to an outbreak of tornadoes that have so far left at least 21 dead in St. Louis, MO, and at least another 18 dead in Kentucky. Reports in Forbes and the Washington Post, among others, report that several of the Kentucky tornadoes may have been more deadly because warnings did not get out in time - and that this was the first front that came through after Musk's DOGE coders cut personnel in weather offices in the area, which they believe may have led to delays in getting warnings out to people in time for them to take cover.

-Such fears were expressed as the cuts were being made, and there are still more warnings being made that FEMA and other disaster relief agencies are also seeing severe cutbacks. Indeed, the state of Arkansas - a state run by former Trump spokesmouth Sarah HUCKABEE Sanders - has still not gotten all the relief it requested (and was approved under the Biden administration) from 2024. It is suspected much of the weather forecasting would be privatized and/or placed under some form of artificial intelligence (because what besides this Substack isn't?), but that apparently hasn't happened yet, and these storms (IF the reports are in fact verified) do not portend ill for the upcoming hurricane season and whatever else happens ...

-But if we want to talk about destruction, there was something else that happened on Friday that is being marked very differently. On Friday evening, a 165-room mansion used for lavish weddings and receptions burned to the ground (with no deaths or injuries reported) in Iberville Parish, LA. The fire did not appear to be deliberately set.

-The property had been renamed Nottaway Resort - but that is not exactly accurate. You see, Nottaway was a plantation house - a plantation house built in 1859 with slave labor and touted as the largest remaining antebellum building in the country. The property had no reference on it to who built it, the slave auctions that took place in it, or any other atrocities that likely occurred even as the Civil War raged. The building is a total loss. And, "black Twitter" and other social media posts and writings by posters and writers of color are talking about what Nottaway was and, yes, taking a little bit of joy in its fate.

-We'll end this update with one more social media kerfuffle, this surrounding former FBI Director James Comey's "cryptic" social media post of seashells arranged in the number "8647." While Comey continues to play coy about its message, MAGAts on the open sewer social media site formerly known as Twitter continue to demand immediate action be taken - as they insist the numbers are code to attempt to kill ("86") the President ("47"). Comey continues to insist that is not the case - BUT, more social media detectives note there may indeed be a secret message embedded in the shells.

-If you are numerologists, you may notice something that happens if you apply the most basic of mathematics to the numbers. Because if you take the 8 and add it to the 6, then add that sum to the 4, and finally to the 7, what do you get? 8+6+4+7 ... equals ... 25. And what is 25? Why, the TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT to the Constitution that allows Congress to remove a President if it is determined the President is somehow incapacitated or unable to serve the rest of his term!!!!!!

-And with THAT, let's have our day's trivia and get to our week!

-EVENTS ON THIS DATE: In 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the Republican Party Presidential candidate (not THIS Republican Party). In 1896, the Supreme Court corruptly ruled "separate but equal" segregation laws were legal in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. In 1917, the Selective Service Act introduced the military draft to the country. In 1974, India became a nuclear power. In 1980, Mount St. Helens volcano erupted. In 2004, Randy Johnson became the oldest pitcher to throw a perfect game.

-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: Montreal (1642), Grauman's Chinese Theatre (1927), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA, 1933), MILLENIUM (1999), SHREK (2001), THE ARCHANDROID (2010).

-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Omar Khayyam, Bertrand Russell, Ezio Pinza, Frank Capra, Richard Brooks, Perry Como, Pope John Paul II, Kai Winding, Jack Whitaker, Pernell Roberts, Don Martin, Robert Morse, Dwayne Hickman, Brooks Robinson, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, Reggie Jackson, Rick Wakeman, Mark Mothersbaugh, George Strait, Butch Tavares, Wreckless Eric, Jari Kurri, Yannick Noah, Rob Base, Tina Fey, Dario Franchitti, Vince Young, and Travis Hunter.

-REST IN PEACE/POWER: Elijah Craig, Gustav Mahler, Ernie Davis, Jeannette Rankin, Daws Butler, Jill Ireland, Alexander Godunov, Elizabeth Montgomery, Davey Boy Smith, Elvin Jones, Jerry Vale, Chris Cornell, Charles Grodin, and the greatest running back in football history, Jim Brown.

-FEED THE WORMS: Sleazebag Fox News founder Roger Ailes bought it on this date.

-THIS DAY IN CULTURE: The number one movie in America on this date ... in 2025, THUNDERBOLTS* ... in 2015, PITCH PERFECT 2 ... in 2005, STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH ... in 1995, DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE ... in 1985, CODE OF SILENCE ... and in 1975, THE HAPPY HOOKER.

-YOUR MUSIC INTERLUDE: Rest in Power to Ian Curtis, the genius and soul of Joy Division.