THE BIG BREAKFAST DAY UPDATES

Remember When They Called This the Most Important Meal of the Day? Whatever Happened To That?! (Now Pass The Bacon!)

-The first cabinet meeting of the Presidential term happened yesterday, and it was every bit as bizarre and f’d up as you dared imagining it could be. Of course the meeting was run by what sure seems to be the real President, wearing a TECH SUPPORT T-shirt and baseball cap because Elon Musk is an emotional 8-year-old with zero respect for anything he’s doing, while President-in-Name-Only Donald Trump alternatively let Apartheid Boy mumble about how they will make mistakes (no shite Sherlock) while Trump noodled on his phone and, by all appearances, dozed off as if he was in a courtroom rather than the White House – but not before extracting a ‘vow’ from his Putz Parade that they will do as they believe Dear Leader asserts them to do (though we are now slightly unclear as to just which Leader they are to hold Dearest, the man who they fear will send marauding hordes to their office or the man who they fear will send marauding funds and slurs towards them in service to a primary opponent).

-As that was done, Congressional MAGAts in the House were resting and taking “victory laps” on MAGA media after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Jay-EE-Zuz!, LA) drew out the clock, adjourned the House, brought them back moments later, and leaned on threats from whoever is running things on the Hill to eke out a two-vote “overwhelming majority” $880 billion ‘budget’ that would, if fully passed, devastate Medicaid while giving Musk and his cronies the biggest tax cut EVAH (for them)!

-The thing the Housed passed does NOT have the force of law as countless commentators and lib/prog social media posters have been posting about – the House bill now has to go into conference with the Senate, which passed its own version in part because of the delays and dysfunction in the House and in part because even with Republicans in the Senate, they are far less agreeable to the draconian cuts being discussed, to say nothing of the beyond-voodoo economics being proposed to “pay” for the cuts and (more importantly to them) mega-wealthy giveaway to the richiest of the rich.

-All of this is contributing to the ongoing free-falling of approval of Trump and Musk and Congressional Republicans, and has been reflected in the crowded and angry town halls that have taken place in this, the second month of the Trump regime. The numbers are serious enough, particularly in those live appearances, that MAGA appears poised to deal with it the same way they dealt with similar reactions in the first Trump regime in 2017 – by cancelling live town halls so the precious little creatures on the right won’t get yelled at. That the resulting election in 2018 flipped both houses does not seem to phase the right – but make no mistake, Trump and Musk are always – ALWAYS – aware of and super-sensitive to their public perception of themselves.

-Witness what is going on in reaction to all the DOGE BS that continues to gut the Federal workforce, which is the intent of OMB Director and Project 2025 Head Baddie Russ “Inflict Trauma on the Civil Service” Vought. Musk took issue with DAILY SHOW host Jon Stewart on Monday, whose opening monologue on the layoffs in the civil service was so impassioned and so righteously angry that Stewart broke a coffee mug and cut his hand during the rant. Musk went to his garbage scow social media platform to cry about all the mean true things said by Stewart and demanded an appearance on the show – only to do so without the segment being edited, apparently thinking Stewart and company would balk at the demand. Instead, THE DAILY SHOW gleefully accepted the terms on Tuesday night, and they await a response to their acceptance, which Musk surprisingly has not done – at least as of this writing.

-See? Public opinion matters to these snowflakes!

-Then again, Musk might want to try to be careful – or at least watch whatever he’s intaking – wile social media posting. You see, earlier this week Musk happened to see a post made about a mega-wealthy investor from Mexico named Carlos Slim, who invested billions of dollars with Musk and his Starlink satellite internet connection network. The post insinuated that Slim got his monies from narcotrafficking, and Musk responded with an emoji that sure made it look like Musk believed the post. WELL, when Slim saw Musk’s reply, Slim got a little torqued. Within a matter of hours, the $7 billion investment Slim made in Starlink was cancelled – AND, for good measure, Slim then also redistributed another $22 billion from Starlink to satellite internet systems run by and based in companies in China and Europe. So one emoji cost Musk $29 BILLION dollars, on top of the ever-free-falling value of Tesla worldwide.

-Musk is lucky he can now rake in U.S. taxpayer funds into his pockets, eh? Also, maybe juuust maybe, social media posting when you are theoretically running a government is a bad, bad idea?

-We may find the answer to that question on the heels of yet another bizarre and disturbing Trump social media post he made yesterday. This mega-offensive AI-generated “movie” focused on Gaza and the war, and after asking “What’s Next?” in massive block fonts, the video provided a jaw-droppingly disturbing answer: TRUMP GAZA, an animation of a gaudy beachfront playground for the mega-wealthy, complete with casinos, bearded and bikinied belly dancers (?!), and a hideous bare-shirted and three-nippled Trump sipping something on a beach next to an equally unshirted Benjamin Netanyahu. The video was so icky that even MAGAts were ripping it on social media for going too far …

-One AI-generated video that most of us may have also seen that, while disturbing, was disturbing in a way that made many of us secretly happy, was the video that was broadcast on monitors in the Department of Housing and Urban Development of Trump taking off Musk’s shoes and bathing Musk’s feet in the process. The video was being played on a loop in the office courtesy of extremely skilled hackers (take THAT, Big Balls!), and nobody could find its origin, forcing security to simply pull the plugs off any monitor who had the foot-washing video on a loop that could not be turned off. This Resistance will be taking on many forms …

-… and one of the forms this Resistance appears ready to take is economic actions to stop Trump and Musk. February 28 is the “Economic Blackout” being organized throughout social media (unimpeded so far!), and the rules are simple: buy nothing for 24 hours from any national or international organization selling goods and services in the United States – but if you absolutely must, use local neighborhood merchants rather than your Walmarts or Targets or Albertsons or the likes, and pay with those green and silver things we used to use all the time – you know, CASH. Should the impact be noticeable, it is not likely one day’s paralysis of economic traffic will get Musk and/or Trump to notice – but it would signal that the still-building anger nationally over everything Trump is doing would have another outlet, one that could not be met on the streets with force that many MAGAts orgasm over and help bring the country to the 3.5% threshold that could be enough to force major concessions if not nonviolent removal of tyrannical forces running the government into the ground.

-By the way, I alluded to that 3.5% figure on Sunday’s Update, so let me give you the citation for that figure. It comes from Erica Chenoweth, currently a Professor for Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and was the result of a study she conducted in the late 2000s-early 2010s about the success of nonviolent uprisings to topple tyrannical governments and replace them with democratic ones – which she noted were far more successful than violent uprisings – and that the trip wire was 3.5% of the population of a given country actively involved in nonviolent protest and resistance, which can take the forms of marches, rallies, boycotts, and other direct actions that did not involve a brick or a gun. Her Ted talk outlining the results was first shown in 2013, and why am I beating around the bush? HERE IT IS! (It’s about 12 minutes and change long.)

-Consider that a bonus video!

-Just in case you needed even more proof that when we are writing about and working to oppose Musk and Trump we do so because of a moral imperative to do so, THIS JUST IN: Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, currently awaiting trial in Romania for sex trafficking and two of the most vile examples of the sickness of toxic masculinity that makes up a big part of the MAGA foundation, have returned to the United States after having Romania allow them to travel at the insistence of, who else, Donald Trump. It is unclear whether their trial will continue or whether Trump’s bullying – and pressure from pro-toxic-masculine regimes in Russia and Hungary – will ‘convince’ Romania to drop the charges. Nonetheless, a Government whose heads would work on behalf of these pieces of slime any form of comfort can, with plenty of comfort, be called “evil.”

-Another intriguing meeting in DC takes place tomorrow, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy goes to the White House to sign an agreement involving access to valuable minerals Ukraine will allow to American interests in exchange for what news services are calling “vague” security assurances from the United States. Given the utter trash being spewed by Putin through Trump Trump directed at Zelenskyy, there is fear that Ukraine may be giving away the store in the face of Vladimir Putin’s newest drone in DC object of Russian blackmail ally in Trump – but it is also important to remember that if this was a negotiation engaged by Trump, the chances that the agreement is favorable to Trump – particularly since it also involves international diplomacy – is, shall we say, not very likely at all. Zelenskyy has certainly earned our trust, IMHO, so the visit tomorrow could be very interesting, as will this agreement.

-SLAVA UKRAINI!

-Prepare to Not Spend Money (or at least to do so locally) tomorrow as we head to the weekend, y’all – BUT FIRST …

-NEWS ON THIS DATE: In 1933, a fire in the German Reichstag building broke out, giving those Nazis a fig leaf to move faster in seizing power (stay vigilant). In 1968, Walter Cronkite used his anchor chair to tell America that the conflict in Vietnam was unwinnable – a turning point from a respected newsperson that is hard to imagine today. In 1973, two hundred members of the American Indian Movement took control of Wounded Knee, SD. In 1991, George H.W. Bush called a cease-fire and victory in what we now refer to as Gulf War I, aka Operation Desert Storm.

-DEBUTS ON THIS DATE: New Orleans Mardi Gras celebrations in the streets of that city (1827), The Dominican Republic (1844), The 22^nd Amendment limiting Presidential terms to two (HEAR THAT, DONNIE?!, 1951), Saint Kitts and Nevis (1967), Pokemon (1996), a woman inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame (Effa Manley, 2006).

-HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hugo Black, David Sarnoff, William Demarest, Marian Anderson, John Steinbeck, James T. Farrell, Irwin Shaw, John Connally Jr., Dexter Gordon, Joanne Woodward, Elizabeth Taylor, Van Williams, Barbara Babcock, Howard Hesseman, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Mary Frann, Kevin Raleigh, Maggie Hassan, James Worthy, Adam Baldwin, Donal Logue, Chilli Thomas, Marcus Robinson, Chelsea Clinton, Josh Groban, and Kate Mara.

-REST IN PEACE/REST IN POWER: Louis Vuitton, Ivan Pavlov, Frankie Lymon, Jacques Plante, Lillian Gish, J.R. Walsh, Spike Milligan, Fred Rogers, Jessica Lunsford, Duke Snider, Van Cliburn, Leonard Nimoy, Riccou Browning, Richard Lewis, and this morning, Gene Hackman.

-FEED THE WORMS: Roger Stone partner and race-baiting political strategist Lee Atwater and Journey guitarist Neal Schon entered Earth on this date. Myron Cope and William F. Buckley Jr. bought it on this date.

-Consumer safety warrior turned 2000 Election Spoiler who has never apologized for that mess Ralph Nader, and Nancy Spungen were born on this date. You decide if they get Happy Birthdays or if they Feed the Worms.

-TODAY’S MUSIC INTERLUDE: From the album TO BRING YOU MY LOVE, released on this date in 1995 …