NATIONAL TILE DAY UPDATES
Whether On Your Floor, On Your Wall, Inside Your Shower or Matched While Playing Mah Jongg, HOORAY FOR TILES!
-When there are times of political conflict and societal upheaval, the reading this Substacker has done has noted historians and writers looking for particular moments that either did signal a major change in the paths of the conflicts/upheavals, or that in retrospect could be interpreted as such a signal or change. With a lot of the reporting and writing being done this weekend, a shift along those lines is being noted, most notably from ON TYRANNY author Timothy D. Snyder. When people like that note something like that, I for one take notice, as I am happy to concede to actual experts and their actual expertise rather than “doing my own research” and trusting what I find fixes to my own hunches and beliefs (not that I don’t do that, but at least I truly try to lean on aforementioned smart and proven people like Snyder).
-In any event, poll after poll after poll are indicating that the events of the past week from the 2-Headed Shark Attack bad sci-fi enemy duo of (and why write both their names in full anymore?) Trump and Musk are showing public support of them as people (more or less) and leaders (tragically) are falling and falling fast and deeply. To back up those numbers, reports from town halls across the country – particularly town halls in Congressional MAGA and Republican districts – are featuring full houses and furious constituents demanding answers as to why Congress is letting Apartheid Boy run rampant through the U.S. government and simply waiving “hi” as the Trump Putz Parade Cabinet find all their offices to do their worst.
-Let’s first focus on Musk, whose public appearances and social media habits are showing he is having a hard time focusing on anything. His appearance at the Maga trade show Fascist cult cosplay Matt Schlapp live Tinder party Conservative Political Action Committee on Thursday was charitably called “bizarre” by most non-MAGAts. Wearing clownishly thick sunglasses, Musk could barely get a coherent sentence said, much less heard by anyone in the crowd – but he was able to accept the ‘gift’ of a ridiculous metallic-painted chainsaw from Argentine Trump Wannabe (right down to a bitcoin scam that, somehow, is actually being prosecuted in his home country? Can they do that?!) Javier Milei, the better to symbolize what he thinks he and his dudebro coding cadre are doing throughout the government – cuts that are increasingly likely to lead to a significant surge in unemployment and are touching most communities in such a way even those who voted for Vice President Trump are making their voices heard and bodies counted (see “town halls” above).
-One would think that, with the wide swath of indiscriminate cuts already backfiring (as departments handling everything from protecting our nuclear stockpiles to our national parks are scrambling to rehire workers that should never have been fired) it might make Musk back off and do something other normal humans might, like try to take care of his kids (as now at least two Trump baby mamas are suing or hounding him on social media for being a deadbeat dad, essentially) or make better cars so stock in those businesses stop falling as quickly as your approval numbers.
-But you are not so rich you can brag about your drug use and act so bizarrely that witnesses and DC are now openly gossiping about how high you might be all the time like Musk is, so yesterday Musk proceeded with a classic douche-boss move: demanding everyone in the Federal government – that’s 2.1 million people, y’all! – list five things they have done last week at work, with the threat that not doing so will essentially be a resignation.
-Now, putting aside the basic physics of questions like who the Hell is going to read all of these damn emails (likely guess: Musk’s substandard Grok AI program), whether the messages even get to wherever they will go without clogging servers and/or prompting spam and junk email and viruses from infesting the systems, or exactly who is getting the information anyway (we presume Musk, but who knows?!), there is also the question Trump and Project 2025 honcho OMB Director Russ Vought is getting resounding NOs from Federal judges on: can Musk fire people in the Federal system?
-Those continue to be litigated, and indeed reports are percolating that multiple Federal agencies including Defense and, interestingly, the FBI, are telling their people to ignore the message – which, if it happens, would represent a pretty solid slap against the inflated ego and Ketamine-looped (ALLEGEDLY, more or less), which in turn may motivate Musk to post more on his sewer of a social media site known as X (and since the weekend began Musk has posted over 220 times, which I guess is good for someone who does not have a job as he tells others who do to do busy work OR ELSE) …
-Indeed, new FBI director Ka$h Patel (ugh) was not only the first to defy The Ketamine Kid’s directive, this morning it was announced he will also at least temporarily subsume the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms - a department normally part of Defense. That Defense Secretary Pete “Drunky McHoneyPotAnyone?” Hegseth has let that go during the same weekend he got rid of the African-American Pentagon Chief of Staff and only woman on the Joint Chiefs of Staff (while keeping the other six white guys on the Joint Chiefs … huh …) along with all the attorneys (which one observer though over the top since they tend to be pretty conservative anyway) may signal some of that intra-Cabinet friction that the Veep liked so much back in the days he wasn’t having his hand held by a mega-gazillionaire who bought him the White House Trump back in Trump’s first term … or that Ka$h sees himself as the Lead Praetorian (not that Trump or MAGA will know what one of those are).
-As for Trump, the highlight of his weekend was getting the Governor of Maine, Janet Mills, to diplomatically tell Dear Leader to f all the way off after being picked out during a public arglebargle during a Governors meeting on Friday. When Mills dared tell Trump she will “follow the law” and defend transgendered citizens, Trump basically said nuh-UH – to which Mills said “See you in court!” while Trump was still speaking – GASP! Trump tried to threaten her, but as we all should note, as of this writing Trump threatening people is just what Trump does – neither he nor his rancid minions have carried out any mass threats against elected officials (outside of January 6, 2021, of course). He apparently tried to do the same sort of thing at yesterday’s CPAC conference to try to get ahead of at least three other speakers giving Nazi salutes, including most prominently human canker sore Steve Bannon, but it was so boring we don’t need to cover it.
-What we will cover, however, is Trump’s continued attempts to bone Ukraine for its magnificent defense of itself and its multiple humiliations of Vladimir Putin and Russia. With the third anniversary of RUSSIA’S invasion (NOT the other way around – shut the fk up, Donnie) tomorrow, “peace talks” that are excluding Ukraine and Europe are taking place between Russia and doofus Putin’s penis protector allegedly Russian-grooed since 1987 Trump in which the U.S. is attempting to extort Ukraine’s estimated $500 billion in mineral reserves. Trump has enlisted the President for help, and multiple news outlets report Musk is threatening Ukraine with endings its access to Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet access system if they do not sign away their other rights.
-Ukraine of course rejects such ideas outright, and today Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy threw a curve with the kind of counter an actual leader makes: Zelenskyy will give Trump a good deal on those mineral rights and perhaps territorial concessions and resign as Ukrainian President in exchange for peace and Ukraine becoming a member of NATO, thereby likely ensuring some measure of security for his country. At this point Ukraine and the EU are not part of the negotiations, so any agreement between Putin and Trump is likely not worth the digits they are presented with.
-THIS JUST IN: Zelenskyy may have gotten a little help with today’s elections in Germany. Even though the Conservative party won and Frederich Merz will likely become the new Chancellor, the 20% margin that the second-place and Musk-adoring AfP Party was far weaker than expected, particularly as momentum building towards them got thwarted by AfP playing footsie with Musk and Trump’s attempts to shiv Zelenskyy in the last week. It is expected Merz will create what is being called “a grand coalition” with center- and center-left parties knowing and planning on creating a stronger NATO as Trump continues to fellate service support Putin.
-SLAVA UKRAINI!
-In media news, MSNBC – already on sale and still reeling from a precipitous drop in ratings – announced a major shake-up of their daily lineup. Joy Reid’s show will be cancelled this week, replaced with a weekday version of a weekend show co-hosted by Alicia Menendez, Symon Sanders and Michael Steele (and marking the fifth time in its history a solo African-American woman had a show cancelled by the alleged progressive outlet).
-Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow will stay in her slot for a few more months, pushing previous host Alex Wagner into a reporting role and likely holding the prime time seat for Jen Psaki once Maddow backs away from the weekday grind. And the 12 pm weekly slot remains open after the way-overdue retirement of Andrea “Someone Wake Her Up!” Mitchell. Ratings have improved since the start of the Trump term but still lag behind the bootlicking butt-licking newswhores of Fox “News.”
-If you need some good progressive media news, there is some: this week, The Joe Rogan Experience was dethroned as the most popular podcast in America – replaced by MeidasTouch, a progressive/liberal site hosted by three brothers named Meidas who provide unabashed left-wing news and interviews multiple times a day. Whether Reid winds up there may be a question to ask, as well as former MSNBC legal contributor Glenn Kirshner, who is now making his JUSTICE MATTERS podcast available on Substack while going on right-wing media.
-And, in closing and returning to the opening of this update, one thing being openly discussed – and the moment alluded to by Snyder and others as a potential watershed in the fight against Trump and the rest of the gang – is Trump’s self-declaration “I AM A KING!” accompanied by a phony TIME magazine cover of Trump wearing a tiny gold crown amplified by the White House social feed hours after the initial proclamation.
-The Branding Master did it – there, succinctly, is a statement that perfectly captures everything Trump thinks he is, everything Trump is doing to make lives worse, everything wrong with him and his junta, and a perfect rallying cry (“NO KINGS!”) to help continue to bring his approval numbers down (as well as Musk!) and rallying to fight him. Nobody likes kings, especially self-appointed ones with tiny scepters who people are increasingly getting sick of (remember, he’s been around for ten goddamn years already). And he did it to himself, which is also just what Trump does.
-Resist, yes – but also disrupt (don’t buy anything this Friday unless you absolutely have to – and if you do go local), keep the faith, remember that 3.5% of a populace that protests NON-VIOLENTLY has and can topple governments that have proven far more competent, dangerous, and vicious – although perhaps not as blessedly stupid – as this regime is.
-ONWARD (after the trivia of the day)!
-NEWS ON THIS DATE: In 1836, The Alamo was besieged by Mexico – located next to The Gulf of MEXICO. In 1945, the American flag was raised by six U.S. servicemen on the island of Iwo Jima. In 1968, Wilt Chamberlain became the first NBA player to score 25,000 points. In 1980, the U.S. hockey team beat the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, NY in what became known as “the Miracle on Ice.” In 2014, the Mexican druglord known as El Chopo was captured.
-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: The Gutenberg Bible (1455-ish), Boston (1822), The Rotary Club (1905), PINOCCHIO (1940), the polio vaccine across America (1954 – AND IT WORKED), the Daytona 500 (1959), Luciano Pavarotti (1963), Genesis (1968), a GPS satellite (1978), MOOSE MURDERS (the shortest Broadway run in history – one performance, 1983), PABLO HONEY (1993), TRAINSPOTTING (1996), 21 (2011).
-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: George Frideric Handel, W.E.B. DuBois, Victor Fleming, Dante Lavelli, Michael Bilandic, Louis Stokes, Elston Howard, Peter Fonda, Fred Biletnikoff, Johnny Winter, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Viktor Yushchenko, Bobby Bonilla, Michael Dell, Niecy Nash, Robert Lopez, Kelly Macdonald, Charles Tillman, Josh Gad, Emily Blunt, Dakota Fanning and Andrew Wiggins.
-REST IN PEACE/POWER: John Keats, John Quincy Adams, Edward Elgar, Stan Laurel, James Herriott, Howie Epstein, Robert K. Merton, and Katherine Helmond.
-Mayer Rothschild and Aziz Ansari were born on this date. You decide if they get Happy Birthdays or if they Feed the Worms.
-ON THIS DATE IN CULTURE: The Number One Album in America on this date … in 2025, GNX by Kendrick Lamar … in 2015, 1989 by Taylor Swift … in 2005, SEVENTEEN DAYS by 3 Doors Down … in 1995, THE HITS by Garth Brooks … in 1985, LIKE A VIRGIN by Madonna … and in 1975, AWB by Average White Band.
-TODAY’S MUSIC INTERLUDE: Happy Birthday to Howard Jones!