Circle Circle Dot Dot Dot, Hurry Get Your Cooties Shot! Tabs, Mon., March 31, 2025

Morning news roundup and things to read!

Tabs gif by your friend Martini Glambassador!

Oh boy, what a weekend, let’s catch up!

Trump insists he’s “not joking” about running for a third term, and that there’s “methods for doing so.” Nobody said they were legal methods. (NBC)

Marco Rubio says the State Department has combed through exchange students’ social media accounts for any views the government does not like, and revoked more than 300 student visas, and demanded that said students immediately self-deport with an email that concludes: “Persons being deported may be sent to countries other than their countries of origin.” FUCKING YIKES. (NDTV)

District and appeals court have rejected Trump’s “disappear anybody” order, so now he’s EMERGENCY begging the Supreme Court to let him do it anyway, as The Enforcer, The Executor, and The Notary. (El Pais)

Denmark, Portugal, Ireland, Finland, France, Germany … the list of countries issuing travel warnings to the US keeps growing, on account of civil liberties issues. Also, now that there are more than 500 cases of measles in the US and climbing, the WHO has issued a warning for any travelers to make sure they’re up-to-date on their shots, because America is like the world’s rabid raccoon now. (The Travel / The Express)

Big fat tariffs are coming this week, unless That Man last-minute changes his mind again. His minions like Peter Navarro are still out here repeating tariffs some kind of a “tax cut,” while Trump privately wheedle-demanded that car companies should not raise their prices, then harrumphed to NBC that he does not care about car prices. (AP/ WSJ/ NBC)

That Man’s administration sent a letter to French companies doing business with the US demanding they sign a pledge that they won’t do DEI any more; the French trade ministry was like EHAHAHA, NON. France is also now preparing to fund scientists fleeing the Trump administration. (France 24 / Les Echos)

Another ominous sign of the times: “don’t obey in advance” Yale history professor Timothy Snyder and two other Yale professors are departing for Canada. (Yale Daily News / CBC)

Why does Pete Hegseth feel the need to bring his wife to “meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed”? Wrong answers only. (WSJ gift link)

Look who’ll be visiting the corner of Baltimore and South Paca streets tonight! Why, it’s Project 2025’s Kevin Roberts, the guy who reportedly bragged at a dinner party about beating his neighbor’s dog to death with a shovel! He’s coming to free speech at University of Maryland law school students and faculty. (Baltimore Banner archive link)

A Social Security employee reported that all the employees who fix software glitches there have left or been fired, and anybody expecting a Social Security check could imminently “be out of benefits for months.” Thank Elon! (Washington Post archive link)

Eugene Daniels and the board of the White House Correspondents’ Association have dis-invited their previously unanimous choice for entertainer, Amber Ruffin, from their annual dinner after Trump deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich criticized her on X. Is that the obeying in advance Timothy Snyder was talking about? (Vulture/ Politico)

Less-obedient news, Maine officials say they are NOT going to comply with President Shoe Lifts’ demand that they ban trans athletes, even though he’s threatened to pull all the state’s funding. Maine will see you in court! (NBC)

No, President Zelenskyy will not sign a deal saying that Ukraine owes the US all of its mineral money, forever, in exchange for nothing in return. (Washington Post archive link)

SOCIOLOGY DEPT:

A reporter from The Atlantic drove around DC in a Cybertruck to see what kind of reactions he’d get. Spoiler, he was “flipped off at least 17 times, called a ‘motherfucker’ (in both English and Spanish), and a ‘fucking dork.’” (The Atlantic)

Ewwww, far-right influencers/pro-natalists had a $10,000-a-person “Natal conference” in Austin this weekend featuring matchmaking sessions and ministers, so attendees could immediately get married and start making more babies with superior genetic quality, wink wink. Guests included Jack Posobiec and Simone and Malcolm Collins, that “Techno-Puritan” couple that “home schools” their genetically-pre-selected children Industry, Titan, Octavian and Torsten by strapping iPads to their necks. They’re putting the “Gen Z” in “eugenicz”! (Wired, Guardian)

A reporter from Cosmopolitan spent a year dating conservatives to try to figure out how a “divided America” is “affecting our love lives.” Matches included her former stalker, men who enjoyed instructing her on a woman’s biblical place, and not one guy with enough social skills / curiosity to ask her any questions about herself. Shockerooney!! (Cosmopolitan)

Well, there’s only one song and video that goes with that.

PS. Get your cootie shots!

@descendnts.._Cooties 💞 #hairspray #hairspraylive #cooties #dovecameron #musical #foryoupage #foryou

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