NATIONAL ZOO LOVERS DAY UPDATES

Whether Full of Animals, Zany Morning Radio Hosts, or Cincinnati Bengals Fans, HOORAY ZOOS!

-After a historic three-day dip that included whiplash-level highs and lows on Monday (which were triggered by a rumor about relaxing The MAGAGOPTrump Tariffs (so re-renamed on the recommendation of the Hands Off! People who suggest to not just lay blame on the President but all the cowards and loons that could stop it but refuse to do so) on China only to have it struck down hard by Team Trump) and a drop of approximately 10% in all the stock averages since the announcement of The MAGAGOPTrump Tariffs – not to mention Trump now being President during the worst stock market price drops in history (look up the list and THE FIRST 13 listings all have the name “Trump” next to them – so much winning, amirite?), prices are finally rebounding on Tuesday as investors look for ‘bargains’ while tensing up their sphincters at whatever the next level of STUPIDSTUPID MAGAGOPTrump Tariffs might bring have again started plummeting for reasons that will soon become apparent …

-The goal … the hope … the prayer … the delusion? … is that Trump will somehow, someway, get a message through his thick skull and Play-Doh brain matter that The MAGAGOPTrump Tariffs are approaching history-levels of gawdawful, bad, insane, bad, ridiculous, bad, utterly void of any rationality or correctness, bad, and just to be clear … bad.

-How bad? So bad that even Fox News has had to admit despite trying to literally hide their stock ticker (as they did Thursday and Friday for times) that The MAGAGOPTrump Tariffs will likely lead this country to a Recession at best. Even Trumper Extraordinaire Maria Bartiromo had to admit it with what appeared to be tears in her eyes – and not the strong kind …

-How bad? So bad that Trump’s CHY-NUH guru, convicted felon Peter Navarro, is now in open warfare with Elon Musk, a one-time billionaire who once held the title of President-in-Practice until a combination of attempting and miserably failing to use his money to win a Supreme Court seat in the state of Wisconsin, the ongoing collapse of many of his primary businesses, and parading around being an insufferable douche nozzle and moping about it while clearly looped to the gills has his influence and reputation teetering. That Navarro is “truly a moron” as Musk himself posted on his garbage scow social media network is not that disputable – but watching said moron (and his alter ego, the fictional China Trade Expert “Ron Vara”) fight Apartheid Boy with The MAGAGOPTrump Tariffs being the object of their hideous desires gives us the day’s Petty Atrocity, as well as the hope that we all win by watching them fight each other to an ignominious both-lose standoff.

-How bad? So bad that many of Trump’s richest supporters, from Jamie Dimon to Leonard Leo to the still-alive Koch brother, are behind the scenes reportedly working phones and texts and financials to anyone in or near Team Trump trying to tell him to BACK THE EFF OFF on the tariffs, because as the saying goes, Trump is not just throwing immigrants into Central American gulags with the Supreme Court sorta-kinda looking the other way (more on that later, sadly) or working to get more law firms and universities and media outlets to kiss his besoiled arse if they can get around anyone else kneeling down there (EEEEUUUUU), but he is now FKING WITH THE MONEY – EVERYONE’S MONEY – and when someone fks around with their money, that someone finds out ...

-How bad? In short … pretty, pretty bad.

-But bad enough for Trump to end The MAGAGOPTrump Tariffs? PSHAW! While the European Union begins gearing up for retaliatory tariffs and Japan offers up ‘negotiations’ (and while those could basically be flattering Trump enough to suspend their tariffs), Navarro flat rejected a proposal from Vietnam in which Vietnam offered to remove all of its tariffs assessed against the US in exchange for dropping the 54% tariffs on Vietnamese goods (of which there are a LOT) because something something Vietnam gets around them blah blah blah (see “moron” above).

-And China is reportedly preparing a massive retaliatory tariff strike on the US as well – therefore, THIS JUST IN: The STUPIDSTUPID MAGAGOPTrump Tariffs on China will now be 104% as of midnight EDT, with the option to move up to eleventy billion percent because what are numbers anyway?!

-SO, where we stand on the MAGAGOPTrump Tariffs is that the world is hoping Trump will end them, Trump is reveling in everyone begging him, he continues to tell everyone to tell him what a wonderful putter he has, then jacks them up well beyond what everyone has already said were insane, and the world seethes in response (with some indication that there may be more coming at Dear Leader in the days and weeks to come, see “FK WITH MY MONEY” above).

-Turning to a more sobering update, yesterday the Supreme Court again proved five of the SCOTI may be even more enthusiastic about Trump than many on his Cabinet, by ending the order by Judge James Boasberg to stop the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Technically, the 5-4 ruling said those charged did deserve hearings to prevent being shipped to a slave labor gulag in El Salvador, but that the hearings had to be held in the holding prison where the alleged members were being held in Louisiana or Texas, not DC where Judge Boasberg holds court – and it totally ignores the reality that if, as 60 MINUTES and ProPublica claim, more than 90% of those taken into custody by ICE agents are not even Venezuelan much less in the Venezuelan gang Trump has “declared war” on in order to invoke the Alien Enemies Act.

-That the official response to any question about their identities from the White House can seemingly be summarized as “They’re gang members because we said so and fk you that’s how we know,” the ruling essentially tells the White House that, unless a case is so obvious they can’t be ignored, their reasoning is good enough for the five men on SCOTUS (as Amy Coney Barrett joined the other three women to oppose the action).

-In addition to those, reports are now emerging from universities across the country of mass cancellation of student visas as the school year ends. Combined with multiple cancellations of billions of dollars in grants to the largest research institutions in the country, these reveal one of the pet sub-projects of Project 2025: a full-out attack on universities for being everything MAGA hates: multi-ethnic, multi-gender, pro-knowledge, located in large cities who did not vote for Dear Leader, and daring to believe a world not led by heterosexual white Christian males is even possible, much less desired, much less an idea that must be attacked by the government (because small gubmint, y’all!). As an adjunct at three higher education schools and part of the first of my family’s generation to go to college, this terrifies and infuriates me to no end.

-But does it leave me hopeless? It does not, because for one thing massive litigation is, at the very least, gumming up a lot of what the Heritage Foundation wants to do, allowing the time to organize and counter. And the events of last Saturday’s Hands Off! Rallies are another excellent sign, with over 5 million in 1,400 separate events flexing their muscles to start to demand, for starters, the permanent ouster of Elon Musk from a government he was not elected to run, and to not defund the triad of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (even as the thug coders of DOGE continue to reportedly try to make Social Security’s administrative and computer systems more or less inoperable with layoffs and unasked-for data breaches).

-The numbers are impressive, but one weekend is not likely to be enough to get legislators to be swayed or to be clear about what the demands are – and the aforementioned SCOTUS ruling is, without question, an attempt to tamp down protests of any kind. But as has been pointed out by Indivisible and a number of activists who study these things, it may be rather difficult to try to hold back rallies that occur across the nation, are peaceful and kind of fun, and are so decentralized that figuring out where to deploy forces to try to intimidate crowds from gathering – especially when the gatherings themselves are in the thousands - are a challenge even if an administration has the smarts to do it (which, well …).

-So the next round of protests are April 19, and if you consult the websites as to where they will be, it is quite likely one will be very near where you live. In my neighborhood, residents of senior centers who could not get to the main protests lined the streets in front of their residences with signs to support the bigger protests, and if that happens more and more, at some point even Legacy Media Inc. will likely notice …

-Before moving on, an important addendum to the Sunday Substack … in that update, it was mentioned that there was an incident involving a HandsOff! Rally in Indiana where a MAGAt wielded a weapon and that nothing else transpired. That is not exactly true. The incident occurred in Lafayette, IN, where witnesses said a man wearing a Trump shirt left his truck and started screaming at protestors. A confrontation apparently led to the man being head-butted in an altercation, which led him to get his rifle (which was filmed by protestors). The MAGA man was arrested, but Lafayette police later released him claiming it was the protestors who were at fault for starting the confrontation and seeking the head-butter – though at last check the entire incident, including the man who pulled the weapon, was still under investigation. This does still seem to be the worst incident of the 1,400 protests that happened last Saturday, however.

-One group that is noticing all this organizing and resisting energy are - FINALLY! - Democratic legislators in Congress. The protests have combined with Cory Booker’s stirring filibuster to not only get applause, but action from Democrats! No – REALLY! In the Senate, HI Democrat Brian Schatz announced this weekend that his hold on Trump nominees to “head” veterans agencies will expand to all 300 who have been nominated so as not to hire people who will essentially try to kill the agency. Going one better than that, CT Sen. Richard Blumenthal has announced he will place holds on ALL Trump nominees going forward.

-And new Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin has announced the party will create what he calls a “War Room” which is a repackaging of a common British Parliamentary effort in which the party out of power appoints leaders who comment on and propose policies they would put in effect, otherwise known as a “shadow cabinet.” These are all things Democrats have been screaming for since before Trump took power, so better late than never – but with a little momentum on their side.

-Now, Trump is not just golfing and winning tchotchke trophies for mystery tournaments he always seems to win, either. He has events up his sleeve past his wee tiny hand, too! But his are about the Greater Glory of Trump, and working to do all the things professionals who were in the White House from 2017-2021 his ego demands.

-One of the biggest desires he has had is to have a parade held in his honor in which the entire Military ignore his bone spurs ignore his abject disrespect for anyone wearing a uniform ignore his calculated destruction of veterans services honors him with a PARADE just like his daddy Vladimir Putin and his BFF Kim Jong Un gets every year! Thus, Trump has informed the military that a Trump Phallic Symbol Extravaganza Parade take place on June 14, which is Flag Day and the 250^th Anniversary of the U.S. Army, and that said Parade be four miles long.

-That such a parade will cost upwards of $100 million to produce, that it will likely result in the shredding of streets throughout Washington DC (because tanks and trucks do that) and that at least one bridge on the proposed route may not be strong enough to bear the weight of Trump’s ego all those vehicles does not matter (nor, apparently, does the fact that June 14 is also Bastille Day, given what that holiday represents), this is apparently something that is going to happen – and Fox and NewsMax and OAN and all of right-wing media (and, let’s be honest, Legacy Media Inc.) will not let us forget.

-Perhaps we can all retreat to a counter-rally in our locality instead? Who can say? We can and will dream, and let’s end with our trivia and dream those dreams …

-NEWS ON THIS DATE: In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment making Senators directly elected by citizens, was enacted. In 1920, the Venus de Milo statue was discovered on the island of Melos in pieces – it was restored and is now in the Louvre. In 1974, Hank Aaron hit his 715^th home run, bettering Babe Ruth without the use of steroids. In 1975, Frank Robinson became the first black manager in Major League Baseball – and, as a player/manager, hit a home run for the team he managed in Cleveland. In 1983, David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty “disappear” before a live audience on Liberty Island. In 1994, the body of Kurt Cobain was discovered (he had committed suicide three days before).

-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: Buddhism (somewhere between the 4^th and 6^th centuries BC, but observed on this date), the transatlantic steam ship (1838), the Works Progress Administration (WPA, 1935), TOYS IN THE ATTIC (1975), THE CLASH (1977), Jim Abbott pitching in the Major Leagues despite litearally only having one hand (1989), TWIN PEAKS (1990).

-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Mary Pickford, Yip Harburg, Sonja Henie, Betty Ford, Carmen McRae, Edward Mulhare, Shecky Greene, Fred Ebb, Jacques Brel, John Gavin, Kofi Annan, John Havlicek, Peggy Lennon, Vivienne Westwood, Douglas Trumbull, Leon Huff, Michael Bennett, Jim “Catfish” Hunter, Steve Howe, Jim Lampley, Gary Carter, Barbara Kingsolver, Fred Smerlas, Izzy Stradlin, Julian Lennon, Terry Porter, Lisa Guerrero, Robin Wright, Patricia Arquette, Taylor Kitsch, Ezra Koenig, Matty Healy, and CeeDee Lamb.

-REST IN PEACE/POWER: Elisha Otis, Frank Winfield Woolworth, Pablo Picasso, Ford C. Frick, Omar Bradley, J. Fred Coots, Ryan White, Marian Anderson, Laura Nyro, Claire Trevor, Malcolm McLaren, Annette Funicello, The Ultimate Warrior, Michael Lerner, and today, William Finn.

-FEED THE WORMS: Conquering dickhead Juan Ponce de Leon, glory- and story-stealing “journalist” Seymour Hersh, proto-MAGAt House Speaker Tom DeLay, MAGA nimrod Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Putin, WI), MAGA “entertainer” John Schneider, and sad pro-MAGA rapper Biz Markie entered Earth on this date. Margaret Thatcher bought in on this date.

-TODAY’S MUSICAL INTERLUDE: Happy Birthday to Donita Sparks, Guitarist and co-founder of the grunge-metal powerhouse L7!