POKING AROUND ON THE FOURTH SATURDAY

My across-the-street neighbor and all-around good guy just returned from producing a commercial in South Africa (his first work in his chosen field in nearly two years, that’s how bad the business is nowadays). He told me while he was there he had a conversation with his South African production manager, regarding what’s going on here. The guy told him, “You people have enough bullshit for the entire rest of the world.” We both agreed the guy was right.

Remember that there are 630 days till the mid-terms, and the fuckwits are giving us ammunition to run with every day.

From the Department of Now They Worry About That: Dilbert sued CBS for $10 billion, charging they “improperly edited” an interview with Kamal Harris for the “60 Minutes” interview she did, claiming it was “election interference.” Given that he went on to win the election, there was the question of how he was “damaged,” not to mention the rest of the bullshit associated the the case. But rather than stand in support of the First Amendment with a case that all observers deemed “eminently winnable,” Shari Redstone - the nepobaby who owns CBS as part of Paramount - and who is in the midst of negotiations to sell Paramount to David Ellison’s Skydance Productions, thereby giving her several billion dollars from the sale, decided to settle with Dilbert in what was obviously a payoff to get him to leave the merger alone and not fuck with it like he did the ATT-Warner Brothers deal back during Maladministration I. But now the word is, from the WSJ, that “Company executives in recent weeks have talked about the risk that paying such a settlement could expose directors and officers to liability in potential future shareholder litigation or criminal charges for bribing a public official,” according to people familiar with the conversations. Some executives have expressed an additional concern that such litigation may not be protected by director and officer insurance, those with knowledge of the discussions said. Some executives have flagged the potential risk that if the company settles and the deal is approved in short order, “the payment could be construed as a bribe." (What gave you morons your first clue?) I think this can also be taken as a sign that these corporate scum can see as well as the rest of us, watching the daily fuckups since Enshittification Day and the subsequent growing realization by the American public that they made a terrible mistake last November 5.

From the Department of We Didn’t Think the Leopards Would Eat Our Faces!: Politico reported yesterday that Republican lawmakers are beginning to ramp up pressure on Dilbert to ease off the drastic cuts, spending freezes, and layoffs in the federal government that directly impact their own states. "Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, a senior appropriator whose district is home to a number of national parks, said in an interview his staff is talking to the administration about how an OMB-directed, government-wide hiring freeze will affect the National Park Service. The park service fired 1,000 full-time staff Friday but said seasonal hiring is resuming, exempting 5,000 seasonal jobs from the hiring freeze," reported Ben Leonard and Hailey Fuchs. Meanwhile, another appropriations lawmaker, Sen. Jerry Moran, "has told the White House that DOGE’s dismantling of USAID will impact constituents who have long relied on selling their crops to a government program that fights hunger abroad." Another senator now jumping into the discussion is Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, whose state has some of the highest percentages of Trump voters in America. She expressed concern that the recent evisceration of the National Institutes of Health could stall biomedical research in West Virginia. “I’m hearing from my institutions concerned about it,” she said. “It’s pretty drastic.” Georgia, which was ravaged by Hurricane Helene with over $5.5 billion in damage, is still counting on billions of dollars in federal aid, but Maladministration II is stonewalling new requests for assistance - and this in a state that voted for him. Dilbert personally ordered FEMA to rebuff a request from Governor Kemp to allow cities more time to apply for assistance in cleanup. This is all due to Kemp’s refusal to enthusiastically endorse Dilbert last year. “Hey! We thought the leopards were only going to eat the Democrats’ faces!”

From the Department of These Fuckwits Really Are Fuckwits: Yesterday, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich claimed that the AP’s continued use of “Gulf of Mexico” showed its “commitment to misinformation,” and announced that the AP would be barred from the Oval Office and Air Force One “until they change their policy.” Bravo to AP and go fuck yourself in your face, repeatedly, Taylor, you fucking worthless dumbass - how does it feel to know that 400 years from now (assuming the things you and the others are doing doesn’t lead to out extinction, a very real possibility) people will read of this time and you will be forever remembered as a Total Shitfuck? And here is how Axios mealy-mouthed their way through this: “Our top priority at Axios is to provide readers with clinical, fact-based reporting. Our standard is to use ‘Gulf of America (renamed by U.S. from Gulf of Mexico)’ in our reporting because our audience is mostly U.S.-based compared to other publishers with international audiences. At the same time, the government should never dictate how any news organization makes editorial decisions. The AP and all news organizations should be free to report as they see fit. This is a bedrock of a free press and durable democracy.”

From the Department of Why Is This Idiot Surprised That The Fuckwits He Supports Are Fuckwits? Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (who led the fight to approve Hegseth as SecDef) pushed back Friday on Hegseth’s “rookie mistake” on Wednesday when he told NATO that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to demand a return to its borders before Russia invaded in 2014, offering to let Russia keep Crimea. Wicker is “puzzled” and “disturbed” by Hegseth’s comments, adding “I don’t know who wrote the speech—it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool. There are good guys and bad guys in this war, and the Russians are the bad guys. They invaded, contrary to almost every international law, and they should be defeated. And Ukraine is entitled to the promises that the world made to it.” Hey Senator, maybe you should have stopped consorting awhile back with scummy traitors in return for keeping your position while losing your honor. You did this, you own it, you unreconstructed Confederate scumbag. Mississippi! Find yourself another country to be part of!

From the Department of Goddamn These Motherfucking Hypocrites: Yesterday, protesters packed Christopher Park near the Stonewall National Monument after Maladministration II erased “TQ+” from the LGBTQ+ on the monument’s website. The Stonewall Uprising of 1969, six days of conflict between police and LGBTQ+ protesters after police raided the Stonewall Inn, was led by Trans activists Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera. Acknowledging their contribution, one protester held a sign that read, “NATIONAL PARK SERVICE: YOU CAN’T SPELL HISTORY WITHOUT A ‘T’” Stuart Stevens posted: “When I see the sexual orientation hate come out of the Republican party under the pretext of just being anti-Trans, I am very tempted to name the Republican operatives and elected officials who are closeted gays. It’s not a short list.”

From the Department of the Little Fuckwit Needs A Baseball Bat To His Face Repeatedly: Dumb fucking hillbilly Corporal Couchfucker didn't get the warmest of receptions at the Munich Security Conference when he entered into a speech attacking the governance of the European Union. One of his grievances appears to be the Romanian High Court voiding the first round of that country's presidential election, after determining that the far-right candidate was influenced by an outside Russian disinformation campaign. “When we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard.”According to Politico's White House reporter Dasha Burns, the anger and derision burst out in the overflow room. The audience reportedly groaned as the Corporal highlighted the "threat from within," and one woman in attendance shouted out, "he's such a puppet!" "In the end, there was palpable shock and anger," Burns concluded. Surprise surprise. Here are the headlines from major German papers following the speech: “JD Vance stuns Munich conference with blistering attack on Europe’s leaders;” “Scholz rebukes Vance, defends Europe's stance on hate speech and far right;” “Scholz slams Vance’s support for far right as ‘interference’ by ‘outsiders’.”

In closing, what kind of country have we become? The kind of country that sends a political leader to a security conference where that leader refuses to meet with the government of the host country and instead very publicly holds a meeting with the leaders of a political party in that country who are Actual Fucking Nazis. And then that leader has the fucking gall to tell leaders of our assembled allies that they need to learn how to practice “real democracy” and not stifle “other voices.” He actually said “If we can put up with ten years of Greta Thunberg, you can put up with a few months of Elon Musk.” As a friend of mine over there, who I have known long enough to know is a long-time believer in the US as the good guys, wrote to me earlier this week: “Fuck the United States.” That’s what we have done to ourselves. Another American friend (also an historian) said, “All the good will we’ve built up since 1918, pissed away in three weeks by a fucking draft-dodging coward.”

It took only four weeks to get where we are, and TAFM covered it all. Doing this is a full-time job on top of my other full-time job. Your support as a paid subscriber really helps, and I hope more of the free subscribers will stepup to do this. It’s only $7/month or $70/year.

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