Unintended Consequences
This Country Is Broken
Everything
Fuck Musk
No, Donald Trump Can't Eliminate The Department Of Education
From Palmer Report:
Donald Trump has announced that he's signed an executive order eliminating the Department of Education. But in reality he's done no such thing. The Department of Education can't be eliminated by executive order. Even if it could, Trump's executive order doesn't claim to eliminate it. Only Congress can do that, and it would require sixty Senate votes – which will never happen. So why is Trump lying and claiming that he's eliminating the Department of Education.
Part of this is, obviously, to fire up his anti-government, anti-education, pro-ignorance base. The irony of their anti-education stance is that it makes it very easy for someone like Trump to fool them into believing that he's done something that he hasn't done. And so Trump gets to score points with his ignorant base just by making this false announcement, which they'll accept as fact.
Given Trump's declining cognitive condition, it's even possible that he believes his executive order has eliminated the Department of Education. Trump's babysitters appear to be selling him on all kinds of simplistic imaginary victories in order to keep him happy. But there's more to it than this, and it involves us.
By announcing that the Department of Education has been eliminated, Trump (or whatever babysitter cooked up this scheme) is trying to fool us into believing that it's a done deal. We're not ignorant enough to fall for this kind of thing, But we are busy, scattered, and trying to fight Trump on a dozen fronts at once amidst a confusing haze of disinformation. Accordingly a whole lot of folks on our side came out of this week believing that Trump has eliminated the Department of Education. Which is the point.
As important as the Department of Education may be to you, you're not going to fight to save it if you think it's already gone. And so the Trump regime is very much hoping that Trump's announcement this week has left you with the impression that the Department of Education has been shuttered and that the battle is over. Because then you won't bother to fight him on it.
In reality the Department of Education is very much alive. Trump can't kill it. Nor can this Congress under its current makeup. But they can drastically cut its funding, lay off a large number of employees, and weaken the agency to the point that it's not nearly as effective. In fact they're beginning to do this already this week – and they're hoping you won't notice because you're too busy mistakenly mourning the outright death of the Department of Education.
This is why it's so important to look past Trump's words, which nearly always overstate his abilities and actions, and to look past the media's resulting hyperbole, which nearly always attempts to convince us that we've already lost the battle and that there's nothing left to do but stare at our screen. We have to look at what's actually going on, what is and is not actually possible, what's actually happened. Then we can assess how specifically to fight back.
Right now we should be fighting to save the Department of Education from pending funding cuts and raise awareness about how important it is for all Americans to protect the agency. If all we do is sit around making social media posts that mistakenly mourn the death of an agency that hasn't died, all we're doing is making it easier for Trump to keep harming the agency. So let's go save the Department of Education. It's very much alive, but also very much in need of our immediate support.
But The Internet Does Live On Forever…
Just Sayin'
Because It's True
She Makes A Good Point
Hey Trump/Elon…
You Tell 'Em, Leela!
Vomiting It All Up
The Gay Agenda
THIS
Fucktacular!
From Jeff Tiedrich:
want to construct a clusterfuck? it's easy.
start with the smoking rubble of a burned-out brain in steep cognitive decline. add a dollop of acute megalomania. pour in a generous amount of greed. now add the impulse control of a coked-up squirrel. toss in some ignorance, along with the inability to learn from mistakes, or even admit that mistakes were made.
now take that shitpile of defects, shake well, and bingo! you've ended up with Donny Convict's completely incoherent tariff policies.
on February 2nd, Donny announced he was slapping a 25% tariff on all Canadian and Mexican imports. markets crashed — the Dow dropped 600 points in one day.
the very next day, Donny announced that he was putting a month-long hold on the tariffs, because both Canada and Mexico agreed to his list of demands. the markets calmed down.
but then out of the clear blue, Donny was all fuck it, ima do these tariffs anyway — starting tomorrow. have fun!
markets freaked out all over again. so did business leaders.
Fox Business interviewed the owner of a Pennsylvania auto dealership. the poor schnook is at his wit's end over what's happening.
"I had an order from a customer. $80,000 truck. it's a hundred thousand dollars now. so he's not gonna buy the truck. it's gonna sit on my lot. and you know, the higher interest rates we're paying now for floor space. and nobody's going to buy the truck, because it just had a twenty thousand dollar price increase."
and then, yesterday —
Donald Trump has temporarily spared carmakers from sweeping US tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, one day after an economic strike on the US's two biggest trading partners sparked warnings of widespread price increases and disruption.
After a call with top executives at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, however, Trump approved a one-month exemption from tariffs on "any autos coming through" the US, Mexico and Canada, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced on Wednesday.
The exemption has been granted "at the request of the companies," Leavitt told reporters, "so they are not at an economic disadvantage."
so, Mister Car Dealer no longer has to worry about that truck that was going to be sitting on his lot, taking up space. how convenient.
Donny's reckless tariffs impacts all industries — so why did he choose to cut the auto industry some slack? because they're big, powerful fat cats who can be relied on to shovel money into Donny's pockets.
that's the way it's gonna be from now on. the plutocrats with the scratch — the corner-office honchos who can plunk down five mil for private dinners with Dear Leader at Motel-a-Lago — they're going to get all kinds of special carve-outs to Donny's tariffs. one hand washes the other.
he little guys who can't afford to pay-for-play — the ones who don't have Donny on speed dial — well, they're going to be cordially invited, as always, to go fuck themselves raw.
mind you, Canada isn't taking any of this fuckery lying down.
if you're a Canadian right now with a hankering for some California wine, or Kentucky bourbon, forget about it. that shit's been taken off the shelves.
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), one of the largest buyers of alcohol in the world, removed US-made alcoholic drinks from its shelves on Tuesday.
don't fuck with Canada. they're not playing around — and the Canadian public thinks this shit's hilarious.
US distilleries are less than thrilled.

March 5 (Reuters) – Jack Daniel's maker Brown-Forman's (BFb.N), CEO Lawson Whiting said on Wednesday Canadian provinces taking American liquor off store shelves was "worse than a tariff" and a "disproportionate response" to levies imposed by the Trump administration.
reporter: "respectfully, It's just 43 pounds that were found last year. that's less than a carry-on suitcase. is that a lot of fentanyl compared to, say, Mexico? the vast majority of fentanyl is brought in though Mexico, not Canada. so what else does Canada need to do?"
Karoline Leavitt: "last year alone, there was a 2000% increase in illegal fentanyl."
Reporter: "it was only 43 pounds, Karoline."
that's a verifiable fact — but Donny and his toadies are going to keep pretending otherwise.
Leavitt, by the way, was not pleased about being fact-checked by a reporter doing his job. check out her totally mature reaction.
You're asking me for what the president's justification is for these tariffs. It's not up to you. You're not the president, Gabe!" Leavitt snapped.
"And frankly, I think it's a little bit disrespect-ul [sic] to the families in this country that have lost loved ones at the hands of this deadly poison.
hissy much, Karoline?
and oh look, Team Donny has invented a whole new reason to be mad at Canada.
when last we saw Peter Navarro, he was being mocked mercilessly by the legendary Anarchy Princess while on his way to prison for contempt of Congress
well, Big Pete's done his time. he's back in Donny's good graces and has an office at the White House.
here he is, dropping a whole new truth bomb on Fox News, with his unique blend of ignorance and arrogance.
"Canada has been taken over by Mexican cartels."
don't you love how these bold-face fucksticks just keep piling fantastical new lies on top of the old lies?
Peter, are these Mexican cartels in the room with us right now? no, they're not—because apparently they're right inside Justin Trudeau's office—much in the same way the Space Nazi shares the Oval Office with Donny.
for all we know, there's probably the son of some drug lord, right now, wiping his snots all over Canada's version of the Resolute Desk.
so, for those of you keeping score at home,
— we have to take over Canada because it's being run by Mexico.
— we have to take over Panama because it's being run by China.
— we have to take over Greenland because it's being run by … fuck it, who cares. we're gonna invade them anyway.
— and the one country that really does need our protection because they've been attacked by Russia, they can go eat an entire bag of dicks, because Zelensky was very mean to Dear Leader.
here are your heroes of the day.
when some DOGE dipshits showed up at the headquarters of the U.S. African Development Foundation (a division of USAID) and demanded to be let in, staffers working there were all yeah, you pimply teenage incels can fuck all the way off.
thank you, USADF, for showing everyone how it's done.
Something Elon Musk Is Incapable Of
I Don't Know Who Did These…
…but they deserve an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, Tony, Kennedy Center Honor, People's Choice, and a fucking Lifetime Achievement Award.
The second one especially I can watch forever.
#Appropriate
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett was asked if she had a message for Elon Musk. What would she say to him?
"Canada's Not A Real Country"
Finally Some Good News… Or At Least A Break In The Shitstorm
From Palmer Report:
Elon Musk's DOGE agency was in trouble from the start when its co-head Vivek Ramaswamy resigned on literally day one of the Trump administration, and then the agency's top lawyer also resigned in the first week. Since that time Musk has made one harmful, incompetent, and bizarre move after another.
Over the weekend he swung for the fences by demanding that every federal employee immediately respond to his email or be fired. When five Trump-appointed agency heads told Musk to shove it, Musk then claimed the email was merely "voluntary." I wrote that this marked a major inflection point, because Musk had just forfeited all the leverage he had. Who would take his threats seriously after he backed down like that?
Sure enough, Musk is now fully on the defensive. Twenty-one DOGE staffers resigned today in protest of Musk's agenda. These people all recently took jobs with DOGE, meaning they were on board with what DOGE initially said it was going to do. Yet just a month in, they're now so disgusted with what DOGE has turned into that they're quitting very loudly, announcing their disgust to the Associated Press.
Elon Musk responded to the mass resignations by calling them "fake news" on Twitter, which is how you know the resignations are a blow to him. At this point Musk is now stuck playing defense against the courts which keep ruling against him, the Trump-appointed agency heads who keep defying him, and his DOGE staffers who have already turned against him. How much longer before Trump decides Musk is more trouble than he's worth and cuts him loose?