With a handful of rare exceptions, headlines in mainstream media are treating the Trump circus as if it’s ordinary politics — as if all presidents pick anti-qualified nominees, and issue blizzards of executive orders to worsen every aspect of American life, or as payback against political enemies.
Nobody in media is allowed to say that THIS IS FRICKIN’ NUTS, unless it’s on the ‘opinion’ page. It’s not an opinion, though. It’s a fact.
However bad you think it is, it’s worse than that.
The Republicans’ strategy is to constantly “flood the zone,” saying and doing so many things that are so outrageous, it’s impossible to keep track or fight back. Certainly, Democrats have no interest or intention of fighting back — there’s been near-complete silence from all of them, except AOC.
America as we’ve known it is under siege, and full-on fascism is underway.
AND NOW THE NEWS
#480
January 26, 2025
Trump grants sweeping clemency to all 1/6/2021 rioters, and pardons two D.C. cops convicted in fatal chase and cover-up, and pardons Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road drug marketplace, and pardons anti-abortion activists who blockaded clinic entrances, and uses executive power to reinstate anti-abortion pacts, and issues “two-gender” executive order denying existence of trans people, and sneaks ‘fetal personhood’ into executive order, and illegally fires at least 17 independent inspectors general, and exits Paris climate agreement, again, and issues a flood of anti-climate orders, and stocks EPA with oil, gas and chemical lobbyists, and dismantles diversity programs, and urges government employees to turn informer, and revokes longstanding ban on discrimination in federal contracting, and deputizes thousands of federal agents to arrest immigrants, and OKs immigration raids at churches, hospitals, schools, and issues executive order ending birthright citizenship, and directs prosecutors to bring criminal charges against state and local officials if they don’t cooperate with mass deportations, and gives ICE power to deport immigrants who came legally under Biden, and cancels travel for refugees already approved to resettle in US, and reinstates FCC complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC for 2024 election coverage, and orders US exit from World Health Organization, and orders freeze on health warnings, social media posts, publishing of scientific reports, and website updates until RFK Jr. takes charge of Health and Human Services Dept, and repeals directives that eased healthcare access for 20-million lower-income and middle-class Americans, and halts funding for supplying HIV treatment worldwide, and takes steps to weaponize Justice Department, reassigning key prosecutors, and orders halt to virtually all foreign aid except for Israel and Egypt, and revokes ethics rules for lobbyists, and revokes Biden’s executive order on responsible AI, and disbands cybersecurity board investigating massive Chinese phone system hack, and ends Fauci’s security detail and says he’d feel no responsibility if harm befell him, and ends security detail for three of his former officials despite threats from Iran, and revokes security clearances of more than four dozen former intelligence officials as payback for opposing Hunter Biden witch hunt, and bans pride, BLM flags from US embassies, and fires heads of TSA, Coast Guard and guts key aviation safety advisory committee, and revokes Biden’s removal of Cuba from US state sponsors of terrorism list, and alarms Denmark in an icy exchange over Greenland, and orders all federal agencies to terminate remote work, and melts down over “nasty” bishop in bonkers midnight rant…
AND ON AND ON AND ON
Interior Department officially renames Mount McKinley, Gulf of America
Key planks of US government grind to halt under hail of Trump orders
Rubio orders State Department to stop issuing accurate passports to trans people
Obeying Trump diversity order, Air Force will stop teaching recruits about Tuskegee Airmen
“Excluding Indians”: Trump admin questions Native Americans’ birthright citizenship in court
Justice Department halts all ongoing and future civil rights litigation
Labor Department halts action on federal contractor discrimination cases
Trump FDA officially withdraws long-delayed menthol cigarette ban
CIA switches to Republican-preferred ‘COVID came from a Chinese lab’ theory
Musk celebrates Trump inauguration with Nazi salutes
That’s the end of the ADL, for me. They’re simply not credible as alleged opponents of anti-Semitism.
Musk makes Holocaust jokes after Netanyahu defends him as “great friend of Israel”
Musk makes surprise appearance at near-Nazi event in eastern Germany
MORE FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF DYSTOPIA
Whistleblower says Mastercard, Visa failed to stop payments for child sex-abuse content on OnlyFans
The news here is that Visa and MasterCard haven’t (yet) blocked all income for OnlyFans and its creators, over unproven allegations of kiddie porn. The key word is unproven, but with just a little more public panic, OnlyFans will be driven out of business, which is the end goal here.
Like the Southern state-by-state ID requirement to access porn online, this is only tangentially about pornography. Mostly, it’s about curtailing freedom of speech.
Once the children have been ‘protected’ from porn, they’ll also need to be ‘protected’ from information about gays and lesbians and trans, and from atheist and ungodly ideas, and from radical politics…
AND MORE AND MORE
MIT shuts down internal grant database after it was used to research school’s Israel ties
UK Ministry of Defence enlists sci-fi writers to prepare for dystopian futures
Ohio pastor faces jail time for opening church up to homeless 24/7
3-peat is a registered trademark
Israeli troops surround hospitals in Jenin, fire on medical workers
MEDIA MALFEASANCE
TV weather forecaster is fired for describing Elon Musk’s Nazi salutes as Nazi salutes
Washington Post‘s new mission statement wants the paper to become “an AI-fueled platform for news”
AOC explains social media [2min VIDEO]
Instagram and Facebook blocked and hid abortion pill providers’ posts
EYE ON AI
Apple suspends error-strewn AI generated news alerts
Knowing less about AI makes people more open to having it in their lives
OUR FRIENDS, THE DEMOCRATS
Every Democratic Senator and even indy Bernie Sanders voted to confirm wingnut Marco Rubio as Secretary of State
And there goes my first waste-of-time angry email to Bernie Sanders’ office.
GOOD NEWS
Trump orders release of thousands of classified files on JFK, MLK, RFK assassinations
Trump is accidentally right on this one, though, of course, all the most embarrassing documents have already been shredded.
Convicted US Capitol rioter turns down Trump pardon: “We were wrong that day.”
Public trust in pastors continues to decline, Gallup poll finds
Hundreds of insurers ‘lose wifi’ as protesters cut fiber optic cables
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE
Lauren Boebert sure is sorry about trying to kick out ‘a guy’ from women’s bathroom at Capitol
Pope hopes Trump’s US will have ‘no room for hatred’
MY BROWSER HISTORY, MINUS THE PORN
AOC interview with Jon Stewart [1hr VIDEO]
The video runs an hour, but it’s worth the time. I have never heard a politician do an interview with this much intelligence, honestly, and even some laughs.
US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), and candidates like her, could win, not just in New York, but anywhere in America — if the Democratic Party would allow it.
This guy went undercover at Auschwitz
Suppose you’re a peasant and you want to improve your life
Requiem for a laundromat: Why I loved watching my clothes drying
FROM MY LEMMY PAGE
And that’s the way it is,
and wow, it sucks.
1/26/2025
Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer. Tip ‘o the hat to the Anderson Valley Advertiser, Bleepity-Bleep, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I’ve stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.
Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Joey Jo Jo emeritus, Jeff Meyer, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn’t always shitty.
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