ANOTHER UNFUNNY WEEKEND

There are 102 days to the midterms.

The “unstoppable force” admits it has run into an “immovable object”: Friday, Paramount-Skydance agreed to delay their $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery amid a pending lawsuit from 12 state attorneys general to block the merger. PSKY and the attorneys general said in a court filing that both sides have agreed to halt the merger until a judge’s ruling or until June 2027 at the latest. The decision follows California District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín’s Monday decision to grant California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s request for a two-week pause on the acquisition while the court weighs claims of antitrust violations. New York Attorney General Letitia James celebrated the pause in a statement: “From the workers and artists who bring stories to life to the families who buy tickets at the box office, Paramount’s illegal takeover of Warner Bros. is a bad deal for all those who count on a competitive entertainment industry. Halting this merger while our case proceeds is a critical victory in our efforts to uphold the law and protect the film and television industries. I look forward to continuing our case to stop this illegal merger.” A PSKY spokesperson called the new agreement “a significant win” in a statement, saying it gives the company “a direct path to a trial based on the evidence. This is the fastest and clearest way to prove that this transaction is good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators, a conclusion dozens of competition authorities around the world have already reached. Plaintiffs’ market definitions bear no relationship to the realities of today’s marketplace and cannot withstand scrutiny. We look forward to proving our case at trial.” Well, yes, that puts the best face on it. No mention of the $6million/day payments they’ll start making in 62 days to WBD stockholders when the merger doesn’t go through. Unfortunately for PSKY, the judge has already held that their defense that they need to be big to compete with Netflixin the streaming wars is not a valid defense to the claim of market disruption made by the AG’s. My bet is Larry Ellison taps the brakes by mid September, which ends Talentless Nepobaby David’s attempt to show himself talented somewhere.

Friday, Trump attempted to pressure Senate Majority Leader John Thune to immediately take up a House-passed budget resolution to advance critical funding for the Iran war - which also contains Dilbert’s “precious,” the SAVE (my fat ass) Act - despite Thune’s Thursday statement that there aren’t the votes to pass in the Senate. Trump turned the screws on the Senate GOP leader to act on the House-passed bill two days after complaining at a rally in Georgia that “the Senate is a place you send things when you want them to die,” posting on Lies Anti-Social Friday that, “I am asking that the Senate adopt a Budget Resolution, which can pass with a simple Majority, before leaving for the August recess. We are ready to work side-by-side with the Senate to get this done for the American People!” Yes, he really is “the most persistent ignoramus” John Kelly described five years ago. Thune told him he doesn’t have enough votes to advance the $95 billion House-passed budget bill, which includes $73 billion in funding for the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, $12 billion for farmers and $10 billion for election-related reforms because there aren’t 50 GOP votes for the whole package in the Senate -

“As I’ve said before, you got to get to 50, and I can’t count to 50 right now on a budget resolution.” That’s not to mention that Dilbert’s Precious can’t survive inside the bill because the Senate Parliamentarian has already ruled it can’t be in a budget reconciliation bill - something Dilbert is too stupid to understand. Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that Trump’s “patience is running out” with Thune, and “the Senate needs to do its job.” “Maybe she or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes. Right? It’s 50 around here,” Thune shot back. “Instead of pointing the finger at Republicans, they might think about going after the people who are stopping it on the floor, which is the Democrats. And if there are Republicans they think are gettable, get on the phone.” GOP senators in the Extremely Stupid Caucus want to offset the cost of the $95 billion package with other spending cuts - which are completely unpopular with legislators just before midterm elections.

The other Persistent Ignoramus has returned to the fight. Former Sen. Joe Manchin is returning to politics by announcing a new organization aimed at recruiting and electing “independent” candidates to Congress. He launched the Independent Leadership Council (ILC), which is focused on building support and infrastructure for candidates running outside the Democratic and Republican parties in congressional races and will lead the group alongside his daughter Heather Manchin, a former pharmaceutical executive. “We’re not trying to start another party,” Joe Manchin said in an interview with CNN. “We’re trying to get a person who can be committed to - and totally committed to - being an independent with an independent voice. They can vote with Democrats and Republicans when they’re right and speak out against them when they’re wrong. I don’t see me getting back into the fray, I really don’t. Now I’m trying to help people around the country that want that same outcome.” He convened prospective candidates and political strategists in the state this week for the group’s inaugural summit. Attendees included Rep. Kevin Kiley (Calif.), who is still a Republican despite announcing he’s an “Independent” as he faces a contentious reelection bid this year in the wake of being gerrymandered out of his district. Attendees also independent Montana Senate candidate Seth Bodnar and Iowa House candidate Michael Bridgford. “The gathering served as both a strategy session and a call to action for Americans who believe the country’s most important problems cannot be solved through partisan warfare alone,” the ILC said in a statement. This is another non-event of clueless morons who are unable to differentiate between being “bipartisan” and collaborating with fascist traitors intent on destroying the democracy these fools think they’re defending.

Friday, Maladministration II admitted in court that Federal green grants canceled last year were selected “solely” based on a state’s political affiliation. Department of Energy (DOE) lawyer Jeff Novak said the department came up with a list of 624 grants slated for potential termination. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) selected 284 of those grants to be included in a tranche of cancellations, of which all except one of the 284 grants had ties to states that voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and had two Democratic-caucusing senators. Novak noted that the other 340 grants have not been canceled.“DOE accepts that the inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state,” he wrote. Last year, OMB Director Russell Vought announced that the administration was cutting nearly $8 billion in green energy-related funding. He particularly touted that grants would be cut in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has repeatedly said in Capitol Hill testimony that while the timing of the announcement may have been political, the actual selection was not. Top energy appropriations Democrats, Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Marcy Kaptur said a joint statement:“This administration has now admitted in court what has long been obvious: it terminated nearly 300 cost-cutting energy projects for no reason other than the fact that the states they were in did not vote for the president in the 2024 election. This is an astounding admission that the president and his team corruptly abused their power to kill good jobs and punish hard-working families because of their political views. Secretary Wright swore up and down for months that these project terminations had absolutely nothing to do with politics, and now his lawyers are declaring that, in fact, politics was the only consideration.” In a similar filing last year, Maladministration II lawyers acknowledged that political affiliation played a role, but the newer filing says that the inclusion of the grants was “based solely” on politics.

Surprise surprise (not): Sophie Cunningham - a WNBA star recently held up by Maladministration II - has a MAGA-friendly social media account, according to a new report.

MeidasTouch News reported that Cunningham’s TikTok account suggests support for Trump’s politics when it comes to immigration, national identity, and political expression by athletes. The Trump administration recently used Cunningham’s statements against transgender athletes playing in women’s sports to advance its own policy agenda. Cunningham’s official TikTok account reposted a video in December by @matrixunni, a creator with MAGA social and cultural commentary, MeidasTouch News reported. In the video, the creator says that immigrants who enter the country illegally should not expect sympathy if immigration enforcement separates their families. The video also dismissed racism and systemic inequality, and attacked critics of the U.S. who support immigration.

Friday, Trump signed an executive order directing warning signs outside the Smithsonian’s history museum. The order accuses museum leadership of “ideological capture” and says the signs must direct visitors to “locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history.” Lawmakers and historians ridiculed Trump, calling the EO the “dumbest” order yet. “He’s insisting on posting these ignorant signs on sidewalks and walkways because he has no control over what is INSIDE the museum,” Yale historian Joanne Freeman wrote on Bluesky. “Notably, this absurd executive order appears to recognize that Trump cannot directly control the Smithsonian,” former Justice Department official Eric Columbus wrote on Bluesky. The signs, Columbus noted, are ordered onto sidewalks maintained by the National Park Service, not on the museum itself. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) wrote on X: “This is one of the dumbest and most bizarre Executive Orders we have ever read. This EO is a clear political overreach, driven by an ideological agenda to rewrite American history. Our Smithsonian institutions do not belong to the president, but the American people, and so does our national story.”

ADMIN NOTE: Unless Trump starts World War III tomorrow, this is the weekend post. See you Monday and I’ll drag myself back to the copyediting on the next book, thank you.

Remember, you are not the crazy ones, and we were made for these times. Regardless of what you may feel right now, act as if you believe that and redouble your efforts.

“Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it.” - Abraham Lincoln

Bastet

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