NATIONAL STREAMING DAY UPDATES
Here's To Those Apps That Now Have Most of Us Paying MORE for Movies and Sports than Those Cable Days of Yesteryear ...
-As this Substack posted on Sunday, MAGOP House members were gearing up on the regular legislative day known as "Sunday evening" to "pass" out of the Budget Committee the 1,100+ page monstrosity of health care and food stamp slashing legislation known, in appeasement of their Dear Leader, the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act." And when I say "pass," I mean that the bill was allowed to move to another committee on a legislative trick - the bill was stuck on Friday after a 21-16 vote to keep it there, but rather than convince the five MAGAt holdouts who all wanted even more heinous cuts to the social safety net, only one vote flipped, so Trump Lapdog Mike Johnson allowed the other four holdouts to vote "present," thereby getting the bill moving on a 17-16-4 vote - while not securing those other four votes for the bill, critical given the hair-width thin majority Johnson has.
-There is also a bum's rush to get this thing passed, given that what little is known about the savage cuts to Medicaid alone shows an overwhelming majority of Americans will Hate Hate HATE what the bill is doing. Hence MAGA attempting to speed-pass the thing through Congress at, shall we say, odd hours. Witness that the next committee it must pass through, the House Rules Committee, is scheduled to begin their worship of themselves backroom use of the provisions of the bill to attain what little sexual satisfaction they are capable of work on the bill at the everyone-can-see-them time of ... (rechecks the docket) ... 1 AM EDT WEDNESDAY MORNING.
-The avowed goal of Johnson and the MAGAts is to get the bill "passed" by Memorial Day as supplication to President Trump, even though it will then have to be reconciled with a Senate bill that actually will not want to cut Medicaid nearly as horrifically as the current bill does.
-Given the previous problems MAGA has had doing basic Congressional business, one would think they would be concentrating on keeping the 12-15 MAGAts wanting to make the bill worse with the 20 or so Representatives in swing districts whose seats would be severely compromised if this were to become law. But the MAGA Legislative Toolbox has but one blunt-force-trauma-creating tool, and this morning they employed it, as Trump slursharted up to Capital Hill to prattle on aimlessly to claim nobody will lose health insurance under the bill (nearly 14 million would), drone on about the brother of Pope Leo XIV (allegedly a Trumper), randomly name-call (again going after CA Gov. Gavin Newsom - not that he doesn't deserve some grief these days), and ending the gaggle by turning into a wall and walking head-down straight into it until Speaker Johnson managed to stop him and get him to walk away from the offending impediment.
-The near-head-butt-into-a-wall is but the latest in a series of not-being-covered-by-Legacy-Media-Inc. incidents of what sure as heck seems to be indications of cognitive decline of one Donald Trump. Beyond the last several days of unhinged-even-for-Trump social media attacks on all kinds of celebrities (he continued going after Bruce Springsteen but also added Beyonce, Bono, and Oprah Winfrey to his ad hominem attacks and threats to prosecute on people who speak ill of him and supported Kamala Harris), did you know that in his outgoing press conference in the Middle East Trump was allowed to spittleyap for twenty-seven full uninterrupted minutes yammering about everything from drones to air traffic control to attempting to describe how fiber optic cables worked to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy - and that was a mere two minutes worth of that blather-fest? You quite likely did not!
-Even the arguably biggest bit of news that came out of Trump's Potentate Tour - the "acceptance" of a $400 million jet as a "gift" from Qatar that was just bestowed upon Trump by the Sheikhs in that country out of the goodness of their hearts - is now being exposed more and more as bunkum. Reporting at the start of the weekend indicated that the plan was one of three that Qatar had been trying to get rid of since at least 2020, and the so-called "flying palace" is so ostentatious and tacky it could only be seen as cool by Trump. Well, the story is worse even than that ...
-Because yesterday the New York Times published an expose that showed that Qatar actually was not the instigator of getting the plane to Trump ... Trump was. Reportedly upset at having to fly in a 30-year-old Air Force One, and new Air Force Ones being delayed for at least two more years, Trump demandpouted that HE WANT NEW PLANE NOW!, so aides started looking for semi-used planes that could theoretically be retrofitted - HAHAHAHA, used - by Trump as AF1.
-Apparently a listing on Craigslist revealed the Qatari jet as a potential buy for Team Trump, so the Qataris did an aerial Carvana to fly the thing to Mar-a-Lago for a look-see, and the rest is infamy. Never mind that retrofitting the palace jet would run at least $400 M and would not be ready for about two years anyway - TRUMP WANT PLANE! So TRUMP GET PLANE! And don't you dare sass him about the pouting or whether he should "reject" this "gift" ...
-Of course, we all know you - and the overwhelming majority of Americans - are not hearing about Trump's cognitive issues. In large part, that is because a book has come out that has, once AGAIN, decided instead to focus on former President Joe Biden and backstage gossip about Biden's reported cognitive issues. The book was co-written by Jake Tapper, who bloggers have noted first got on the radar of Legacy Media Inc. with a multi-thousand word "essay" about a chance encounter that turned into what he called a "date" with Monica Lewinsky - and I will not bother to give the co-author or name of the book, which he continues to peddle in light of the Biden health news (more on that in a second).
-Instead, I will first note that one of the appearances booked was "inadvertently" cancelled last night when Jimmy Kimmel - who had booked Tapper - cancelled his entire show. But even better was a review of the book published by Biden's granddaughter Naomi, in which she wrote what could very well be a nomination for Quote of the Year, savaging the published BIDEN B OLD screed as, and I quote, "political fairy smut."
-I can't and won't top that, so let's move on ...
-Of course, those of us with decency are putting former President Biden in our thoughts as he revealed on Sunday that he has prostate cancer that has reportedly spread to bone. As the family discusses therapies and treatments, inevitable casting-around in MAGA world began to see who would use the diagnosis to both grind Biden down and/or flat-out mock him. And, of course, the worms came out, led by Trump Failson Donald Trump Jr., who first speculated on a 'cover-up' of the diagnosis (a view spread by many on the right including failed Federal DC Attorney General nominee Ed Martin) while also exposing how huge a moron he is by wondering if "Dr. Jill Biden" helped in the coverup - apparently not realizing Jill Biden's doctorate is in Education and not Medicine.
-The White House ghost-wrote a relatively benign note of good wishes, but Trump could not resist sticking his wee tiny feet into his anus cat butt mouth on Monday by wildly speculating about what doctors knew and when they knew it, while also twice referring to Biden's diagnosis as "9th Stage" cancer (there are only four stages of cancer development) (see "cognitive decline" above).
-Two places where there was grace extended to Biden: shockingly, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who asked for prayers while invoking her father's cancer struggle (he died in 2021); and DILBERT author Scott Adams, who this afternoon revealed he has also been diagnosed with Stage Four Prostate Cancer, with a prognosis he says "might" allow him to live into the summer.
-GET SCANNED, MEN.
-Back to Congress for a second, as various Senate hearings have been popping up with varying degrees of aggravation. Sen. Elizabeth Warren made IRS Commissioner nominee Billy Long so embarrassed about his clear lack of qualifications to add columns in a tax form together, much less run the agency, that her testimony left him a sputtering wreck (though, of course, with the GOP majority in the Senate and lack of spines in their caucus, does not endanger his nomination).
-A series of barbed confrontations also took place with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who continues to lie about the criminal and gang status of Kilmar Abrego Garcia as well as falsely claim CT Senator Chris Van Hollen "had a margarita" with Abrego Garcia (that was based on an AI-generated photo from El Salvador).
-Most shockingly, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem dropped jaws to the floor when she ridiculously tried to claim the 1,000-year-old concept of Habeas Corpus was NOT the right of an accused person to have a hearing before a court of law, but instead was "a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country" - a concept that, in complicated legal analysis, is WWWWWRRRRRROOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG!!!!!!!!!
-Speaking of overreach, while Acting Federal Associate Attorney General for New Jersey Alina Habba (yes, that Alina Habba) announced that she will not be prosecuting Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for legally attempting to enter a facility in his city that is reportedly being used as an ICE detention facility without having been given any inspections by the locality to do so, Habba did decide to indict Rep. LaMonica McIver for "assaulting, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement."
-Video of the incident seems to show that McIver was the person being groped and struck by masked and unidentified men with weapons reportedly members of ICE, and as a member of Congress itis McIver who has more of a right to enter a Federal facility than Baraka. McIver calls the indictment "purely political," as do her Democratic House colleagues.
-Let's end with some entertainment news, shall we?
First, we have two Rock Drummer News items. First, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters announced they were firing Josh Freese, who was hired to replace Taylor Hawkins after Hawkins sadly passed away two years ago, though if we are going to be technical about it, it was actually Freese who made the announcement, calling the firing "confusing." There is belief Hawkins' son Shane may soon be the new drummer for the Foos, as Grohl continues to try to recover from news of an out-of-wedlock child sullying what is otherwise a rather stellar and warm persona.
-Freese could have a gig if he has Pete Townshend's number, though, as in the second Rock Drummer news note, Townshend and Roger Daltry announced that, for the second time in a single month, the duo who still call themselves The Who have fired Zac Starkey (yes, Ringo Starr's son). While to be fair, Starkey has been playing with them since 1996, the cold reality is that The Who for all intents and purposes was no longer The Who after Keith Moon passed in 1978, even as Townshend and Daltry prepare for what they are insisting really will be Their Last Tour Ever.
-Anyway, some very positive news - SESAME STREET has been saved! The venerable series, dropped after two years by HBO/Cinemax/HBOMax/Ma/HBO Max, has been picked up for new seasons by streaming behemoth Netflix. But more importantly, and unlike the previous streaming deal, Netflix announced that new episodes of SESAME STREET will not only be available on their service, but also made available on the same day, on PBS stations across the country. Such a move at a time when PBS is under attack from Trump for being too woke and for the crimes of teaching any child who can tune in how to speak and count and be nice to people, qualifies as being bold and fearless, if admittedly privatized. Nonetheless, I give this a "Y" for "YAAAAY!"
-And now, on to the factoids of the day!
-EVENTS ON THIS DATE: In 1609, William Shakespeare's Sonnets are printed for the first time. In 1927, Charles Lindberg took off from New York on his way to England - the first nonstop transatlantic flight. In 1969, the brutal Battle of Hamburger Hill ended in Vietnam. In 1979, Elton John becomes the first western pop star to perform in the Soviet Union. In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope began sending photographs back to Earth. In 2015, David Letterman stepped down as host of THE LATE SHOW.
-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: Blue jeans (1873), The Homestead Act (1862), Cuba (1902), "Rock Around The Clock" (1954), "Every Breath You Take" (1983), East Timor (2002).
-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Dolley Madison, John Stuart Mill, William Fargo, Adela Rogers St. John, Jimmy Stewart, Bill Hewlett, Moshe Dayan, George Gobel, Bud Grant, Sadaharu Oh, Stan Mikita, Joe Cocker, Bobby Murcer, Cher, Anton Corbijn, Andy Johns, Ron Reagan Jr., Jane Wiedlin, Bronson Pinchot, Nick Heyward, David Wells, Mindy Cohn, Timothy Olyphant, Louis Theroux, Terrell Brandon, Busta Rhymes, Chris Froome, and Trinity Rodman.
-REST IN PEACE/POWER: Marquis de Lafayette, Rudy Lewis, Gilda Radner, Stephen Jay Gould, J.D. Cannon, Hamilton Jordan, Randy Savage, Robin Gibb, Ray Manzarek, Billy Cannon, Niki Lauda, Roger Angell, and today, George Wendt.
-FEED THE WORMS: 1993 World Trade Center bombing planner Ramzi Yousef entered Earth on this date. Swindler extraordinaire Ivan Boesky bought it on this date.
-Christopher Columbus died on this date. You decide if he Rests in Power or if he Feeds the Worms.
-TODAY'S MUSIC INTERLUDE: Happy Birthday to the only daughter and sister in the family, Susan Cowsill!