Turning On The Giant Faucet Of Bullshit - US Politics February 2025

At last, a Nugent residency

he's bringing back Phantom of the Opera, but to the Kennedy Center

this will give him a forum to do the YMCA/Double Handjob dance in front of season ticket holders

"Very honored to be selected as the Chairman that I told them I would be selected for.."

Also the new Chairman thinks the Kennedy name is a bit tired and that it might time to update it to someone a little more.. 'contemporary' hint hint

"We don't name centers after presidents who fail to survive the shot, do we folks?"

Well, there IS another Kennedy

would appreciate the grand guignol of a robert f kennedy jr center

https://i.imgur.com/YcKSVfC.jpg

Trump thinks he gets to do a red carpet interview gig as chair of the Kennedy Center right?

Getting to be President and catty about designer gowns might swell his heart three sizes (and kill him)

As someone who goes frequently because I love music this is incredibly depressing. I had thought he had so little interest in the arts that he would just ignore this stuff. Unfortunately, before we make jokes about the Center programming musicals, the KC already subsidizes the hoity-toity stuff with touring musicals, and a corny audience participation play called Shear Madness that has been running for like 40 years.

What I’m saying is, he definitely is not going to be funding a new Ring Cycle but the KC has dumbed itself down a lot already.

Wonder if DOGE is going to trim this obvious example of fraud:

The State Department’s procurement forecast, revised as of late December 2024, lists Tesla as the recipient of the largest expected contract, with Marco Rubio’s department planning to buy $400,000,000 worth of “Armored Tesla.”

The award is targeted for Q4, and is forecast to last for five years.

The procurement forecast is listed as having been modified on December 13, 2024, a month after Donald Trump’s election. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Under the heading, "extent competed," the document reads merely "TBD."

trust me, those cars are gonna work great

;)

Reality is really outrunning fiction extremely quickly

But they're worth every penny

https://itcamefromblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/damnation-alley-vehicle1-e1510037472137.jpeg

the anti-Hilux

Hey Z and others , I have seen North African musicians like Mdou Moctar at Kennedy Center, also have seen dc go-go bands there, Solange with Sun Ra opening, blues and soul bands , Middle East dabke dance, Caribbean acts and more . Their free multiple times a week Milllenium stage shows with roots music , jazz and more are streamed on YouTube and Facebook for those who can’t attend in person. So have fun with the jokes about the elite stuff there and the mainstream musicals , but there is a lot of great programming and what is happening is horrible.

i think i mentioned but i went to the kennedy center several times and it was awesome

who cares about the kennedy center, i guess (i saw some memorable ballet performances there! felt fancy), but yeah

that came off as flippant but i guess i was (overdefensively) preparing for the "who cares about the kennedy center", given the context of the constant barrage of horrible news and things falling apart in an openly corrupt fashion. but in so doing, i ended up being the mouthpiece for what i feared would be the reaction. whoops! sorry

Meanwhile district court judge is allowing deferred resignation to go ahead because he says the union doesn’t have standing to prove already that its members are harmed by it

one argument that the union was making - which I think has merit - is that you can't just pay a bunch of Federal employees to sit around drinking mai-tai's without working, that's taxpayer money

JON STEWART: Where is the Democrats' Project 2025? The New DNC Chair kept saying it's a messaging issue, as though everything is going right, you just don't realize it yet. As opposed to, we've gotten away from New Deal values.

HAKEEM JEFFRIES:  Maya Angelou said it best — people won't remember what you say, they may not even remember what you do, but they will always remember how you make them feel. And I think what we have to do a better job of is making the American people feel that we understand the pain."

Hakeem Jeffries needs to be primaried dropped off a pier into the Hudson.

Hakeem could try not recyling Clinton shit from 30 years ago

Pressed to provide evidence of fraud that Musk has discovered, Leavitt waves around "screenshots of contracts" that go "against the president's policies" (going against Trump's policies is not fraud)

Aaron Rupar tweet had this and the video clip from today’s press briefing

the AP is suing the White House

Looking at that press conference with Elon in the Oval Office, it's so humiliating to Trump. He's like grandpa shuffled off to the side. There's no question who's in charge. Sometimes things are just what they look like, and it's billionaires making their play. Elon's in charge, at least as far as Trump is concerned, and Vance is waiting in the wings for the odd mishap to fell the fading king. Then presumably Elon, Thiel, Zuck, etc. form a kind of council of advisors to the president, and away we go.

Among other scenarios, of course.

The wildcard is that Trump is a very petulant grandpa who literally thinks he is a world-historic genius and sits at the head of the most powerful country on earth, surrounded by dozens of totally amoral sycophants occupying subordinate positions of power, but looking for their main chance to flatter him into yielding them even greater power.

Right now Musk has the pole position, but it remains to be seen how well he can navigate the somewhat unfamiliar and cutthroat corridors of power in DC. His favored position is still precarious and unconsolidated. He's no Lavrentiy Beria, but it's unlikely anyone in Trump's cabinet has those kind of infighting chops.

what the fuck the military is going to spend $400 million on Cybertrucks this is fucking insane not just how corrupt it is but god forbid we actually need them for something

The 2025 January US Politics thread title provides the necessary answer.

apparently Elon's kid told Trump to shut up today? and that he's not the president? and there's video of it?

it was in the press conference yesterday. I only just read something about this and it was hard to find video of it. here it is (sorry it's an FB link and you have to listen to some beardo talk as well, but you can skip around):

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10235738529382648&set=a.1533033204694&type=3

this doesn't seem to be getting as much attention as I would have expected.

I'm not as convinced that it's so clear that's what he's saying, and I don't feel like watching it over and over again, but he's clearly saying something

and yes, I learned about this from a patton oswald post on bsky (I really can't stand Patton Oswald on social media, he's like the comedian version of Occupy Democrats or MeidasTouch). Annoyingly he posted it like everyone knew what he was talking about.

yeah it's such an insane thing I'm surprised this isn't a big story right now, the fact that it's not makes me think I'm just hearing things

like I know this is the dumbest mental exercise on the planet but imagine Soros's 5 year old grandkid saying that to Biden in the Oval Office, it would cause thousands of Trump voters to immediately stroke out

I left a YouTube link about a hundred posts up...

this video captions it as 'i want you to shush your mouth' which does seem to match up better with what he's saying.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1io6e5q/elon_musks_child_saying_i_want_you_to_shush_your/

I don’t think it matters what the kid said. It’s so obvious Trump is checked out and not in charge.

This is seriously starting to feel more like Game of fucking Thrones than a normal first world democratic nation.

It’s definitely going to be part of the legend of our future emperor X Ze-*345te

one thing I've noticed is ever since he was shot at Trump has seemed very much not lucid, like there isn't really a single clip of him off-prompter where he doesn't sound like a nursing home patient, as people pointed out 70 billion times re: Biden this isn't the kind of thing that tends to get better over time

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54323406322_97e98c076a_o_d.jpg

“Hey, Trump..”

the media needs to do their fucking jobs and hammer on this Cybertruck story. this is the most openly corrupt and insane shit, like this puts Russia to shame, like imagine if Putin was visibly braindead and some insanely rich oil guy just stepped in and dismantled as much as possible while funneling a bunch of money into his own companies

I know conservatives are in a cult right now but Elon remains massively unpopular and the Cybertruck is a fucking joke

Rescinding FEMA money allocated to NYC is even more insane. How did they remove this money from a bank account?

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/statement-from-nyc-comptroller-lander-on-the-trump-administrations-illegal-reversal-of-fema-funding/

"and Vance is waiting in the wings for the odd mishap..."

I love that he is totally gone. You never see him. Or I don't. Thank God. I feel like he could just sit in his VP mansion and watch the Food Network for 4 years and nobody would even notice that he wasn't around.