JUNTA? AUTOCOUP? Tabs, Mon., Feb. 3, 2025

Morning news roundup and things to read!

Feb 03, 2025

Tabs gif by your friend Martini Glambassador!

Happy Monday! Sure was a busy weekend, eh?

And hey, happy Black History Month, Black history is American history! This year’s theme is labor. You can follow professor Jared Van on TikTok for a new Black history story every day! (TikTok)

Since his purge of the inspectors general, That Man has fired hundreds of civil servants, including the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the head of the National Labor Relations Board, FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases, commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the USDA inspector general (who was forcibly escorted out of the building), and 160 members of the National Security Council, at least 56 members of USAID, and all federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion staff. NOT NORMAL. Remember when Joe Biden fired 17 Trump appointees and the National Review raised eyebrows about how he was pushing the envelope? The Internet remembers. (AP/ National Review via Cato Institute)

Oh, and we’re going to have a trade war with Canada, China, and Mexico, which will wreck global trade too if it happens. Even the Wall Street Journal editorial board called it the “Dumbest Trade War in History.” Justin Trudeau gave an empathetic speech announcing new tariffs and reiterating that Trump tariffs will fuck Americans the very most. WE KNOW. Can’t wait to see how the stock markets do! (Wall Street Journal gift link)

Why in holy fuck did Elon Musk force out the highest-ranking official at the Treasury Department to give himself access to the government’s entire payment system? He is not even a government employee. Whatever is going on there is NOT GOOD. (New York Magazine)

Oh, and Musk is suing even more companies that don’t want to advertise on his troll-infested heck-site. (NPR)

How should we describe what’s happening in government right now? An Elon-Musk-led junta? An autocoup? One thing’s for sure, it’s mighty banana-republic-y, and not in the sense of clothes that only look good on tall people. (Doomsday Scenario)

It’s not your imagination: Trump lost. Voter suppression won. Greg Palast has done the math. (Greg Palast dot com)

The Army has released the name of the third helicopter pilot who died in the collision near R-word National Airport, she was Cpt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, NC. Her awards include an Army commendation medal and an achievement medal, and when she graduated college was in the top 20 percent of cadets nationwide. (AP)

Kentucky-fried chucklefuck Thomas Massie’s got a bill to eliminate the Department of Education, to go with Eric Burlison’s national abortion ban bill and all the other horrible bills. (The [Savannah Tennessee] Courier)

Pro-Hitler podcaster Stew Peters is heartbroken that Kash Patel is pretending not to know him now, even though they texted all the time and he thought they were BFF’s. (Joe My God)

Mark Zuckerberg bitched in a meeting that everything he says leaks, which immediately leaked. And his employees replaced those men’s room tampons he tried to remove. Trump hates him, his employees hate him, sucks to suck, sucka! (404 Media/NYT archive link)

How about some news of the arts? Rebecca Yarros’s ‘Onyx Storm’ has become the fastest-selling adult novel in 20 years. It’s in the “romantasy” genre, what’s that? It “blends spicy sex scenes and romance tropes with supernatural elements.” So “One Hundred Years Of Solitude” but with more sexytimes and dragons maybe? Neat! (New York Times archive link)

In the UK, the Royal Ballet School has settled a first-ever claim against them for “body shaming,” which is a very nice way of saying “encouraged disordered eating and worse for teenagers.” (The Sunday Times)

The Art Institute of Chicago thought it might have a holy molar from John the Baptist in a reliquary, in tooth it was just really old. (Chicago Sun-Times archive link)

Katherine Rundell, author of many books of children’s fiction, wrote a delightful essay on why books for children are important: not just for teaching children about the laws of the world, but “what it means to hope, to fear, to yearn,” and also what joy and delight look like. Some days we need a reminder! (London Review of Books)

Obligatory!