POKING AROUND 12-20-24

From - The Department Of I Fucking Hate My Industry (h/t to “What I’m Hearing” at Puck News): If former Disney C.E.O. Bob Chapek had hair, he’d be pulling it out this week. Remember, Chapek’s demise began when he inflamed employees by publicly flip-flopping on a culture war issue, Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. And now, in just a few days, his predecessor/successor Bob Iger has agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle a very winnable defamation case and publicly defended the axing of a small transgender storyline from “Win or Lose,” a show produced by Pixar - the same Pixar whose employees called out Chapek for not staying “true” to Disney’s “values.” Iger is truly Teflon.

More from the same source: Is anyone else depressed that Barack Obama’s foray into Hollywood has taken a hard turn toward the hackworthy? Per a logline floating around town, the Obamas’ Higher Ground production company is attached to a Fox film project called “Merry Ex-Mas,” whose logline reads: “Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus are heading toward divorce court, including a custody battle over Christmas.” Yeah… So the 44th president, whose company mission statement declared it would be “creating content that inspires and encourages people to think differently about the world,” is now reduced to hoping a second-rate Disney label will greenlight a lame holiday rom-com that sounds like something John Goodman passed on in 1996? Got it.

From the Sub-Department of “But Her Emails!” A Fully-Owned Subsidiary of the Department of Surprise! Surprise! (Via Politico): Federal officials say they’re worried about sharing documents via email with Donald Trump’s transition team because the incoming officials are not using government devices, email addresses and cybersecurity support, raising fears that they could potentially expose sensitive government data. Trump, who attacked Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server for official business in 2016, is overseeing a fully privatized transition that communicates from an array of @transition47.com, @trumpvancetransition.com and @djtfp24.com accounts rather than anything ending in .gov, and uses private servers, laptops and cell phones instead of government-issued devices. The private emails have agency employees considering insisting on in-person meetings and document exchanges that they otherwise would have conducted electronically. This break with tradition stems from the Trump team forgoing federal funding and the ethics and transparency requirements that come with it.

From the Department of You Fucking Scumballs!: Here is what President Elmo and Vice President Felon 34 demanded be taken out of the Continuing Resolution - 1) 7 years of research funding authorization for the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act, for kids with cancer. 2) Give Kids A Chance Act funding for more pediatric research for kids with cancer. 3) Priority Review voucher reauthorization to 2029, for the Creating Hope Act, for kids with cancer. 4) The Innovations in Pediatric Drugs Act, to provide financial penalties when BigPharm companies don’t complete required pediatric studies, for kids with cancer. 5. Accelerating the Access To Care Act to streamline out of state treatment for kids with “medically complex” kids on Medicare who have cancer. (I just want 5 minutes alone in a locked room with Elmo - him, me, and my Louisville Slugger)

From the Department of Why Are You Surprised - It’s Fucking Looserana: Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots. Officials at the the Louisiana Department of Health have been told that advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, an established practice there - and at most other public health entities in the U.S. - must stop. The policy would be implemented quietly and would not be put in writing. This applies to every aspect of the health department's work: Employees could not send out press releases, give interviews, hold vaccine events, give presentations or create social media posts encouraging the public to get the vaccines. They also could not put up signs at the department's clinics that COVID, flu or mpox vaccines were available on site. Public health experts are concerned that if other states follow Louisiana, the U.S. could face rising levels of disease and further erosion of trust in the nation's public health infrastructure. the Louisiana Department of Health told NPR it has been "reevaluating both the state's public health priorities as well as our messaging around vaccine promotion, especially for COVID-19 and influenza."

The statement described the move as a shift "away from one-size-fits-all paternalistic guidance" to a stance in which "immunization for any vaccine, along with practices like mask wearing and social distancing, are an individual's personal choice." (The South gets treated like they’re dumber than shit because they ARE dumber than shit)

From the Department of What The Fuck Did He Expect? (H/t Ha’aretz): Nitwityahoo will not attend the celebration next month of the liberation of Auschwitz because he is afraid Poland would arrest him on the war criminal warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court last month.

From the always-busy Department of Surprise! Surprise! (H/t Politico EU): Elmo is backing the far-right (neo-Nazi) Alternative for Germany (AfD), triggering an outcry in Berlin in the run-up to a critical snap election. He posted on X today that “Only the AfD can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, which also applies to multi-billionaires,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a press conference in Berlin. “But freedom of speech also means you can say things that are not right and do not contain good political advice.” The AfD is polling in second place at 19 percent ahead of Germany’s early election, potentially setting it up to become the largest opposition party in the next parliament. Germany’s conservative alliance leads the race by a wide margin with 31 percent. Elmo wrote in June, “Why is there such a negative reaction from some about AfD? They keep saying ‘far right,’ but the policies of AfD that I’ve read about don’t sound extremist. Maybe I’m missing something.” (Like a brain, you fucking worthless piece of something I scrape off my shoe) The AfD is surging despite its growing radicalism and persistent warnings from mainstream leaders that it is an extremist, even Nazi, party. Growing support for the far right comes despite state-level domestic intelligence authorities classifying some local branches of the party as extremist organizations aiming to undermine German democracy.

Let’s end with good news from Semafor about Felon34: Even if Trump’s party can avoid a government shutdown, an outcome that the president-elect didn’t seem to mind too much as he called for a shutdown to “begin now, under the Biden administration, not after January 20,” Republicans will now enter 2025 in a wounded state. Even before Trump deliveed a last-minute blow to a bipartisan government funding deal, it was clear Republicans’ decision to negotiate over only three months of funding would be damaging. That length of a short-term spending bill will force the GOP to juggle federal spending alongside Trump’s other priorities. Democrats will have leverage when it expires, on funding and the debt limit. Which means this week won’t be the end of Republicans’ internal troubles, no matter how it turns out. The party’s disorganization around a simple 12 weeks of government funding only reinforces how hard it will be for them to get through those tasks during Trump’s first year. And now Republicans know Trump, Vance and Musk can unravel the party’s legislative plan on a dime if they don’t like it – regardless of how much work went into it. Democrats are already starting to get into more of a post-election messaging groove as Republicans juggle orders from Trump and Musk. They see plenty of opportunity to expose the GOP as incapable of governing.

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