How can I keep up with all the bad news? by Heather Schieder
Part of living in a kakistocracy is dealing with all the bad news, especially when the kakistocrats’ strategy is “flood the zone,” a strategy provided to them by none other than permanently disheveled former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who recently pleaded guilty for his role in a “give me money, and I’ll build the wall” grift, where he collected the money without any intent of delivering on that wall.
The idea behind the “flood the zone” strategy is to have so many outrageous things going on that people become confused and numbed by the spectacle and misinformation that it’s hard to tell truth from half-truth from outright falsehoods and people just give up on the idea that truth is knowable. It’s basically manufactured nihilism.
Surviving Trump: A guide for Trans and LGBTQ youth
For my LGBTQ friends out there — here’s a guide on surviving the kakistocracy, courtesy of Angry Gay Grandpa. You don’t have to be any of the letters L, G, B, T, or Q to benefit from Angry Gay Grandpa’s advice, but you should be ready to step up for them in these times.
This is NOT Conservatism. This is a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS! by Rick Wilson
Project 2025 Private Training Video: Appointee Survival Guide
ProPublica and Documented got their hands on over 14 hours videos from Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy, whose purpose was to train the next conservative administration’s political appointees “to be ready on day one.” This video is about an hour’s worth of the material, and it’s worth watching to see what they’re being taught.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s noticed the similarities between The Office’s Dwight K. Schrute and the United States’ very own Assistant to the Regional Manager…
Call to action for creative Canadians
Here’s a LinkedIn post from Kevin Newman, Canadian and former anchor/journalist for ABC, CBC, CTV and Global National. He’s putting a call out to social media-savvy Canadians to build a rapid-response anti-mis/disinformation team. Interested? Read on for more.
Does this describe you?
A proud Canadian.
Friend of America.
Someone who has worked in or is retired from television journalism.
Someone with proven creative juice and a laptop loaded with GFX/edit tools.
Ready to act, but not sure how?
Do you believe the best defence is a moral offense?
Do you have half a day here and there to volunteer for the next 6 months?
If we still have your attention, here’s what we’re thinking.
As we’re seeing around the world, the most potent non-combat weapon is increasingly InfoWar.
Our adversaries are using it to soften resistance and make people question truth and facts. We are seeing they can win, even in the United States, yet no one seems to have come up with a defence plan.
Our leaders are not protecting the hearts and minds of Canadians, and winning over more Americans. We are becoming a bigger target for misinformation campaigns against our sovereignty.
So we’d like to propose kickstarting a defence.
We are looking for motivated creative Canadians capable of building rapid-response fact-checking on all the bogus information out there. A social-media-only campaign built for the platforms where misinformation thrives. This is not a partisan endeavor — we only seek to promote truth and verified facts.
So if you’re looking to engage, here is the first step.
Former journalist and historian Jonathan Jackson will be managing our interest and building a database of volunteers. He will need your contacts, any specific skills and areas of interest you can research and write about, your resume and a sense of your time availability.
We need:
Reporters
Graphic artists
Fact-checkers
Video editors
We will not share this information with any outside entity. We aim to eventually pay for the skills you bring. We are already hunting for donors across Canada. If you think you can be a partner in this effort, please DM Kevin directly on LinkedIn.
Thank you for considering this appeal. We hope you feel as we do that its time to fight for Canada in the creative/information space and will share this online to friends in our industry. We’ll keep you updated on our progress here.
To me, Ezra Klein’s pieces are hit and miss, but I think he hit it with this recent podcast piece about The Manchurian Cantaloupe, Don’t Believe Him.
Some key bits:
Why he’s pushing laws through executive orders instead of through Congress
There is a reason Trump is doing all of this through executive orders rather than submitting these same directives as legislation to pass through Congress.
A more powerful executive could persuade Congress to eliminate the spending he opposes or reform the civil service to give himself the powers of hiring and firing that he seeks. To write these changes into legislation would make them more durable and allow him to argue their merits in a more strategic way.
Even if Trump’s aim is to bring the civil service to heel — to rid it of his opponents and turn it to his own ends — he would be better off arguing that he is simply trying to bring the high-performance management culture of Silicon Valley to the federal government.
You never want a power grab to look like a power grab.
Why such a breakneck pace?
The flurry of activity is meant to suggest the existence of a plan. The Trump team wants it known that they’re ready this time. They will control events rather than be controlled by them.
The closer you look, the less true that seems. They are scrambling and flailing already. They are leaking against one another already.
We’ve learned, already, that the O.M.B. directive was drafted, reportedly, without the input or oversight of key Trump officials — “it didn’t go through the proper approval process,” an administration official told The Washington Post.
For this to be the process and product of a signature initiative in the second week of a president’s second term is embarrassing.
Be thankful for the speed
I had a conversation a couple months ago with someone who knows how the federal government works about as well as anyone alive.
I asked him what would worry him most if he saw Trump doing it. What he told me is that he would worry most if Trump went slowly. If he began his term by doing things that made him more popular and made his opposition weaker and more confused. If he tried to build strength for the midterms while slowly expanding his powers and chipping away at the deep state where it was weakest.
But he didn’t. And so the opposition to Trump, which seemed so listless after the election, is beginning to rouse itself.
Three-Ring Government
If you’re too young to have watched Schoolhouse Rock during Saturday morning cartoons, or didn’t live within the broadcast radius of ABC during the 1970s and 1980s, you’ve probably never seen Three-Ring Government, a cartoon musical short explaining the three branches of the U.S. Government.
“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool”
“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity”
“Normalize Indian hate.”
While a few of the DOGE boys are on the young side, Elez is in his mid-twenties. And those posts weren’t made out of the poor judgement of adolescence — many of them were made just last year, when he was 24. I think that’s old enough to know better.
That situation didn’t last long, however. Elon being Elon, he posted a poll on Xitter, and Xitter being Xitter, responded predictably:
Click to read see the original X-crement (tweet).
And you knew that the Manchurian Cantaloupe was going to Manchurian Cantaloupe:
Click to read the article.
For the next part, you need to know that Vice President JD Vance’s wife Usha — of whom he wrote: “The sad fact is that I couldn’t do it without Usha. Even at my best, I’m a delayed explosion — I can be defused, but only with skill and precision” — is of Indian descent, having been born in the U.S. to Indian parents.
So this should have been surprising, but Vance is a weather vane, turning whichever way the wind blows:
Click to read the article.
In fact, he “led the outcry” to reinstate Elez:
Click to read the article.
Vance also Xitted (or is it xhat?):
Click to read the original X-crement (tweet).
Now, getting fired won’t ruin Elez’ life — it happens. And hey, isn’t his administration hell-bent on firing lots of people? He doesn’t seem all bent out of shape about that.
And…
Dude, your wife is Indian! And your kids are of Indian descent! You might want to show a little decency, backbone, and husband-like loyalty, and you know, stand up for them?!
Click to read the article.
I hope the United States Naval Observatory (the official residence of the Vice President) has a comfy couch, because JD might be sleeping on it tonight.
Also: Don’t confuse Marko Elez with this other racist on the DOGE team…
Click to read the article.
The guy referred to in the news story above? Totally different DOGE racist. That particular racist is Gavin Kliger, and like Elez, he can’t be fired because they need him to fire people.
It’s Sunday, which means it’s time for another “picdump!” Here are 100+ memes, pictures, and cartoons floating around the internet that I found interesting or relevant this week. Share and enjoy!
A photograph provided to The New York Times shows a glimpse of some of the changes underway at the F.B.I., specifically the F.B.I. Academy at Quantico on Wednesday.
And in case you needed a list of the words on the mural that’s being covered up:
A “Rights of Woman” tea towel (which you can buy here). Thanks to Frank Paynter for the find!
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about Burns Night,here’s another poem from Robert Burns — The Rights of Woman, an incredibly enlightened bit of verse considering it was written in 1792. We need it now more than ever.
The Rights of Woman
While Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,
The fate of Empires and the fall of Kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
First, in the Sexes’ intermix’d connection,
One sacred Right of Woman is, protection.
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate,
Helpless, must fall before the blasts of Fate,
Sunk on the earth, defac’d its lovely form,
Unless your shelter ward th’ impending storm.
Our second Right – but needless here is caution,
To keep that right inviolate’s the fashion;
Each man of sense has it so full before him,
He’d die before he’d wrong it – ’tis decorum.
There was, indeed, in far less polish’d days,
A time, when rough rude man had naughty ways,
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot,
Nay even thus invade a Lady’s quiet.
Now, thank our stars! those Gothic times are fled;
Now, well-bred men – and you are all well-bred –
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers)
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners.
For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest,
That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest;
Which even the Rights of Kings, in low prostration,
Most humbly own – ’tis dear, dear admiration!
In that blest sphere alone we live and move;
There taste that life of life-immortal love.
Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits , flirtations, airs ;
‘Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares,
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms?
But truce with kings, and truce with constitutions,
With bloody armaments and revolutions;
Let Majesty your first attention summon,
Ah! ca ira! The Majesty Of Woman!
Note: Ça Ira (pronounced “Sah ee-RAH”) is a French term “It will be all right,” and the title of a French Revolution song.
It’s Sunday, which means it’s time for another “picdump!” Here are 136 memes, pictures, and cartoons floating around the internet that I found interesting or relevant this week. Share and enjoy!
I originally wrote that the best translation of “pas grave” (pronounced “pah grav”) in this context is “nothing to concern yourself about,” but my friend AKMA said a better one would be “Nothing to worry your little head about” — and he’s right!
Surviving Trump: A guide for Trans and LGBTQ youth
