OLD ROCK DAY UPDATES
It Refers to Geology, Not Music From, Say, the 1960s or Early 1970s (sigh) ...
-Let's say - and I realize this may be a bit uncomfortable, but bear with me - you are Mark Zuckerberg. You are the owner of one of the most powerful media outlets in the world and one of the biggest bazillionaires known to mankind. You have been seeing one of your fellow bazillionaires pretty much buy the American government and now threaten to wreak petty and possibly racist havoc on the world, and another fellow bazillionaire try to horn in on the other bazillionaire by despoiling what was once one of America's greatest newspapers and co-producing a hagiography of a profoundly uninteresting woman who happens to be married to the guy that other bazillionaire helped regain power. What do YOU do to try to differentiate yourself from the horde?
-You could try to do so by championing everything those other bazillionaires aren't. After all, you got their money, you got their influence, heck you got what is still the pre-eminent social media platform right there next to you. Heck, you once purported to do just that with the democratization of your social media platform and decided to de-emphasize conflicts with you other social media platforms you still use. I mean, they're your sandboxes! You can do what you want - what could those folks do to YOU?
-You could have done that ... OR, you could decide to try to twerk your way into the picture by out-defacing and out-humiliating what Bezos and Musk have done to curry favor from the never-gonna-EVER-curry-favor-from-him-because-your-last-name-is-not-Putin orange menace just to show you belong at the Big Boy Bazillionaire Table. It would anger and crush many who pay attention, but at least you can say you made a few more bucks in the process (not that you need them, because you don't, but it's all about the empty bragging rights!).
-Well, you likely know what Zuck decided to do without specifically mentioning it - he made the latter choice, going on Fox and Friends (?!) to announce that Meta's social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram and Threads will no long "moderate" for content, but instead rely on a Wikipedia-esque (at least in theory) "community policing" method to try to moderate misinformation on the outlets. And I know what you're thinking - "There's been moderation of facts on Facebook in the last few years?!" Maybe not, but Zuckerberg is working to get noticed by Trump, so he changed the policy, and with it further announced that content on FB/The 'Gram/Threads will no longer be managed in that woke Hole of California, but the model of free speech, tolerance and decorum and tranquility: Texas.
-Kinda makes some of us wish Zuck and Musk went through with their proposed UFC fight ...
-Oh, and UFC CEO Dana White is now on the Meta board. Can't hedge your bets with the new incoming regime!
-While Zuck prepared to ignite a further exodus to Bluesky (I can be met there @jafedorko.bsky.social), last night Special Prosecutor Jack Smith announced his final reports on the now-ended (ARGH!) January 6 prosecution of Trump and sorta-put-on-carbonite prosecution of the stolen documents case would be going to his boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, for a final okey-doke to be released - as one must do when one is a Special Prosecutor. Naturally, Team Trump's attorneys exercised one of three known talents Trump has, playing the legal system so hard he can (for the most part) avoid any kind of richly-overdue legal comeuppance.*
-Trump's legal reasoning was typically ridiculous, having something to do with hurting Trump's fee-fees while not paying due deference to being a SCOTUS-Designated All-Powerful ManChildBaby That All Must Prostate Themselves for (see "bazillionaires," above). Never mind there is less than zero chance anything other than embarrassment would happen to Trump with the release of the report, it's the playing of the system that counts. If only Trump could SOMEhow find a Judge who would listen to the bleatings of The Man Who Is Above The Law to give him what he wants when he wants it in the way that he wants it ...
-... you know where this is going, don't you? Sure you do ...
-JUST IN TIME, The Lone Justice Who Bows With Joyful Exuberance For Trump Every Single Time, Florida Judge Aileen "ofTrump" Cannon, decided that even though she really doesn't have jurisdiction on the January 6 report, she could step in to give Trump his latest wish and theoretically even block Smith from showing Garland the report (never mind he likely has a copy anyway, and so too - probably - does Trump's attorneys), much less making either report public, at least until Friday and (hopefully for Trump) before January 20. And so she has.
-Now, as much as it pains this Substacker to admit it, she may have a point with the documents case insofar as the other two people indicted in that crime still have an active case (at least until January 20) - but most non-Cannon and non-Trump-sniffing legal observers believe Cannon WAY overstepped her authora-tah on the other report, so what is hoped to be an expedited appeal to her bosses on the 11th Circuit will likely flip that part of the order. And while that might mean a move by Team Trump to SCOTUS, the potential for President Biden to say "I Has Powers TOO, Bee-yotches!" and actually follow the law and release the report to the public is still there.
-Many angry and frustrated Democrats hope so. With the certification of the 2024 election occurring without incident in Congress yesterday, lashing out at Democrats for everything from demanding further certifications of a vote that, like 2020, was (sadly for the good guys) fine to trying for what would have at best been an empty symbolic attempt to invoke the 14th Amendment to block Trump from taking office because of his felony conviction in New York state, voters demanding Congressional Democrats FIIIIIGHT! lashed out at Biden and Vice President Harris for not doing something legal but kind of like what Republicans are still doing with the 2020 results.
-The emotion is understandable and there is much to be concerned about what some Congressional Democrats do - and with some of the focus flipping to the Senate, where the Trump Putz Parade of nominees are about to have hearings (in defiance of the demands of Trump to just let him do whatEVER), I would like to focus on one of those appointees and highlight concerns this Substacker has with two said Senators ... and I think a few people are not gonna like one of the people that will be highlighted ...
-The focus here is on the grotesque Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., nominated despite being actively and horrifically unqualified to run his own life, much less the Department of Health and Human Services, and whose truly insane views on vaccinations and disease should make the suggestion laughable. Alas, there seems to be some belief that this is one nominee that at least two prominent Democratic Senators are actually considering to support, pointing to the lip service RFK Jr. has made towards making America's food supply more organic and pure (never mind that doing so would require an investment in government services most MAGAts would NEVER approve because that would allow people they don't like, mostly with darker skin and in a few cases breasts, a bit of ease to trudge on with their lives).
-One of those Democratic Senators playing footsie with the steroid-eating worm brain is one who has annoyed many on the Left lately: PA Senator John Fetterman. Fetterman's vocal support of Israel and opening of an account on Trump's Truth Social platform is making many rethink their support of him when he defeated the soon-to-be-Trump appointee Dr. Mehmet Oz, currently getting ready to try to screw up Medicare and Medicaid. Okay, sure, Fetterman is on a few Democrats' shite lists ...
-... but what about Liberal/Progressive Hero Bernie Sanders of VT? The performative Bernie (YEAH I SAID IT - point to ONE piece of significant legislation he has passed in the decades he's been in Congress, please!) is also on the record as saying he thinks some of RFK's views are worth listening to, leaving open the potential to voting to confirm him when he comes up.
-Both Bernie and Fetterman have been excoriated by CT Sen. Chris Murphy, who correctly labels any yes vote for RFK Jr. "insane," and this Substacker is bringing this up because (STANDS ON SOAPBOX) NOBODY is pure, and while it's okay to express emotions it needs to stop there. Which is what I'm doing here - venting a little bit, and forgiving where necessary, and picking the fights because there will be too many to pick from, and to burn out and zone out makes it too easy to do nothing and thus become complicit in what Trump and company are going to try to do. (STEPS OFF SOAPBOX)
-Trump was allowed to get in front of a microphone today, and he mumbleslurred his way through saying what we hope are merely asinine things, ranging from threatening to declare war on Denmark to invade Greenland to take it over (this as failson Donald Trump Jr. 'visited' along with Charlie Kirk, who some day may become a man) to hoping to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America because "it has a beautiful ring to it" - and I drop this late to note what he said without amplifying it, because it should be noted and mocked briefly and that's it so we focus on the stuff he and the rest may soon try to do rather than what he says, since he says a lot and we have better things to do with our lives.
-We deserve good news, and there is always good news - and the good news comes from Europe, where Ukraine has launched a new offensive in the Kursk region in a somewhat surprise move designed to continue to hold as much land as possible. A move by the incoming Trump administration to visit the country has been postponed until likely the end of the month, which will mark one of the first Trump promises - to end the conflict in Ukraine "within TWENty-four HOURs of when I take OFfice!" - to be broken. (It won't be the last.)
-SLAVA UKRAINI!
-Okay, venting over and update over. Let's get to some history!
-NEWS ON THIS DATE: In 1610, Galileo discovered three of the moons of Jupiter. In 1785, two men traversed the English Channel via balloon. In 1953, the United States announced the development of a hydrogen bomb. In 1968, the probe Surveyor 7 landed softly on the moon. In 1979, Vietnamese forces ousted the Khmer Rouge and its leader, Pol Pot. In 2015, al-Qaida terrorists killed 12 in the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: The typewriter (1714), the Electoral College voting for President (1789), the filming of the first motion picture ("Fred Ott's Sneeze," 1894), the Harlem Globetrotters (1927), an African-American performing with the Metropolitan Opera (Marian Anderson, 1955), the Gibson Flying V guitar (1958), THE PRETENDERS (1980), the Bill Clinton impeachment trial (1999).
-HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO: Millard Fillmore, St. Bernadette of Lourdes, Adolph Zukor, Zora Neale Hurston, Alan Napier, Charles Addams, Vincent Gardenia, Alvin Dark, Jean-Pierre Rampal, William Peter Blatty, Douglas Kiker, Ben Cropp, Paul Revere (of the Raiders - the band, not the football team), Jim Lefebvre, Tony Conigliaro, Kenny Loggins, Rick Marotta, Erin Gray, Sammo Hung, David Caruso, Katie Couric, Nicholson Baker, Linda Kozlowski, Cathy Valentine, Ron Rivera, Nicolas Cage, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Nick Clegg, Doug E. Doug, Jeremy Renner, Alfonso Soriano, Eric Gagne, Aloe Blacc, Jon Lester, Lewis Hamilton, Lamar Jackson, and Blue Ivy Carter.
-REST IN PEACE/REST IN POWER: Catherine of Aragon, Trevor Howard, Bronko Nagurski, Joe Robbie, Avery Schreiber, Rosemary Kennedy, Rod Taylor, Stephane Charbonnier, Nat Hentoff, Elizabeth Wurtzel, George Perles, Neal Peart, Michael Apted, Tommy Lasorda, Dam Rich, Franz Beckenbauer, and today, Peter Yarrow.
-FEED THE WORMS: Mega-racist Governor Orbal Faubus, Deputy Prime Minister/dictator wife Elena Ceausescu, and Senator Rand Paul (R-Aquabuddah, KY) entered Earth on this date. Emperor Hirohito and (today) Post-World War II Nazi/Fascist Flamekeeper Jean-Marie Le Pen bought it on this date.
-Pioneering rock and roll publisher and virulent sexist Jann Wenner was born on this date. You decide if he gets a Happy Birthday or if he Feeds the Worms.
-TODAY'S MUSIC INTERLUDE: Rest in Power to Nikola Tesla.
* - Besides playing the legal system to its limits, the other two verifiable Trump talents are bullying and finding people who think they can get power and influence by staying downwind of him.