I am going to start a new thing here and see how it goes. While the fascists try to rewrite history, it will be incumbent on those of us who live through it and witness it to make sure that the truth is preserved. I expect a large part of that truth to be the myriad ways that this administration fucks up. It’s going to happen. A lot. Think about it… last time around, they actually had some people who knew what they were doing and still fucked up on the regular. This time around, in a quest to surround Mar A Lago Mussolini with sycophants and yes men, they have had to scrape the bottom of a pretty fetid well. There will be a lot of people in this admin beclowining themselves. And the true opposition needs to point this out, every time, without fail.
Some of these failures will be funny. Some will feed a hunger for schadenfreude that I imagine will last throughout this dark time. Some will be tragic. Nearly all will have a human cost. I will try to document them as fairly as I can. So let’s get to it...
Update: How Could I Forget This One?
Back in the first Trump shitshow, Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson released Everything Trump Touches Dies, a scathing rebuke of all things Trump. The book sparked the #ETTD hashtag, and a meme was born.
Well, last Sunday the Kansas City Chiefs were attempting something that has never happened before: winning their third straight Super Bowl. Problem is, Trump picked them to win. It’s not likely he is a big follower of modern football, but besides disliking Philly for being woke or some shit, he knows that Chief’s QB Patrick Mahomes wife Brittney is MAGA, or at least MAGA curious, while Mahomes’ mother wore a MAGA hat and recorded a pro-Trump video during a Monday Night Football game during the season.
In a move that likely sickened the Chiefs’ faithful, Trump picked the Chiefs to win and praised Mahomes.
The Chiefs got roflstomped by the Eagles, and Mahomes had one of his worst games as a QB, throwing two interceptions (one of which was returned for a touchdown) and getting sacked 6 times. The 40-22 final score belied the extent of the beat down, as the Chiefs scored two late desperation touchdowns against the Eagles’ second and third string defense.
#ETTD
Original article continues below
DOGE Website Geniuses
(Unelected Immigrant) President Elon Musk’s pseudo-government agency finally started to add content to its placeholder website this week in an apparent attempt to be more transparent. Unfortunately, it was so transparent that, well, anyone could add content to the site. These are the folks with unfettered access to basically all data at the departments they have bum rushed, so it’s good to know that they are careful and circumspect with their security.
DOGE Website Geniuses, Part II
(In my best Billy Mays voice:) But wait, there’s more! Aside from allowing anyone to edit the site, the crack team at DOGE followed up by releasing classified information on the site. Turns out that the National Reconnaissance Office is an intelligence agency (they run our spy satellites) and as such information about the Office, such as headcount, budget, and the names of staff are classified.
While the Trump admin tried to handwave it away by claiming that this was public information, the group did not post any data on any other intelligence agency, which makes it look like this crack team of 20 somethings simply had no idea what the NRO did. Shocking.
“Have Another” Hegseth’s European Tour
Yeah, that may be a cheap shot, but as an alcoholic in recovery, sorry if I have my doubts that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has just put the plug in the jug because he got confirmed. But that’s neither here nor there. 80 Proof Pete1 debuted on the world stage this week, traveling to Belgium, Germany, and Poland. While at NATO headquarters in Brussels, the SecDef gave away essentially the entire ballgame when he stated that he did not believe that a peace plan would include a return to pre-2014 borders for Ukraine, nor did he think that Ukraine would be allowed to join NATO.
While Trump loved his speech, others, including American allies and some Republicans, were not entirely thrilled. For example, Senator Roger Wicker said, “I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool”. Hegseth had to walk the comments back the next day, because of course he did.
Nuclear Weapons Don’t Need Security, Right?
In yet another stellar move by the DOGE team, some 300 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration were fired on Thursday night. There was an immediate uproar, because all these folks do is, well, oversee the contractors who build nuclear weapons. That’s not a big deal, right? Classic Big Government overreach?
Naturally, the Trump Admin tried to claim it was only 50 or so folks who were let go, and even they only “held primarily administrative and clerical roles”. These folks were apparently important enough that on Friday morning their terminations started to be rescinded.
Oops.
The Dumbest Way to Cut Jobs
Finally, the Occupational Health and Safety Agency (OSHA) ordered the removal, in both digital and print formats, of 18 publications on safety practices. While the rationale for some were obviously part of the Trump crackdown on the scourge of our nation that is DEI, others seem to have been caught in the thresher due to having certain keywords somewhere in the publication. From the linked article at Judd Legum’s Popular Info:
For example, one of the purged publications is "OSHA Best Practices for Protecting EMS Responders During Treatment and Transport of Victims of Hazardous Substance Releases."
On page 94 of the publication, however, the words "diversity" and "diverse" are used in a context that has nothing to do with race or gender. The publication notes there is a "diversity of state-specific certification, training, and regulatory requirements" for "EMS agencies" and "diverse conditions under which EMS responders could work." Similarly, on page 96, the publication notes, "EMS responders are a diverse group" and "risks vary with their primary and secondary roles."
So obviously the publication had to go. Had the D word in it.
Morons, all of them.
Anyway, as always, Take Care and Stay Strong
Damn. I did it again. Sorry.
Outstanding.