Rubbin' Off The Paint: Tabs: Mon., Mar. 16, 2026

News and things to read and watch!

Aye-ayes being welcomed to the Tierpark in Berlin with treats! Gif by our friend Martini Glambassador.

Happy Monday! Week three of Trump World War Everybody!

The war-that-is-not-a-war in Iran, not going great.

Now the UK is refusing to send warships to help. (Telegraph archive link)

Rep. Ro Khanna breaks down the state of affairs.

And Sen. Chris Murphy detailed the expanding crisis from Trump/Pete Hegseth’s multiple fuckups:

Now Israel is reportedly also running low on drone interceptors. No countries except Russia and China dare send ships though the Strait of Hormuz. The US has struck more than 42,000 civilian sites across Iran, every one a war crime, and at least 13 members of the US military have died so far. (Semaphor / AP / Al Jazeera)

Trump called into Brian Kilmeade’s show with what may be his most openly racist/Islamophobic sentiment yet, so far: Muslims have “bad genetics.”

Meanwhile,

A jury in Los Angeles started deliberations Friday in a lawsuit from parents against Meta, which they accuse of being programmed to be intentionally addictive to younger users, and then of deliberately hiding research that showed they knew full well all along exactly what they were doing and how harmful it was. Heaven forbid The Zuck might have had to forego any extra ad revenue that could have bought him more villain’s-lair Hawaiian islands or timepieces for his multimillion-$ watch collection! The Verge’s Laura Feiner wrote about watching grieving parents whose children died by suicide, choking challenges, or accidental overdoses that they believe were facilitated or exacerbated by Meta’s negligence and worse, while they stared down Mark Zuckerberg’s hollow, waxen shell and dead eyes in court. It is rough. (BBC archive link / The Verge)

All over the country, citizens, states, Reps. and local governments — see latest examples, Michigan, Maryland, Oregon, Utah, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Virginia — have been fighting the construction of ICE facilities and/or demanding they be held to at least the basic hygiene and safety standards US prisoners are entitled to get; sometimes winning. Sometimes not.

SoooEeeeeee, Judge James Boasberg just handed US Attorney for (HIC!) Washington DC a loss and tidy shaming for her attempt to prosecute Fed Board Chair Jerome Powell for aggravated decorating above budget (“The Government might as well investigate him for mail fraud because someone once saw him send a letter.”) And she had a real 🥃 🧉🍸 🍷 🍹 normal one about it! (Law and Crime)

In Texas, eight anti-ICE protestors who were present when Benjamin Song shot an ICE guard in the shoulder and accused of being part of an “Antifa cell” were found guilty on charges related to support for terrorism, and also a man who didn’t even attend the protest but was accused of concealing leftwing zines in his house after his wife was arrested. A First-Amendment tire fire all over! (The Guardian)

A secretive dark money group has been staging online false and defamatory attacks against Kat Abughazaleh, the Progressive Democratic candidate and frontrunner for Illinois’s 9th Congressional District. (MSNOW)

This story about a Florida court-ordered c-section is nightmare fuel. (ProPublica)

Fuckin’ Jared.

A judge has ordered those videos of “legendarily based” DOGE boys Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox humiliating themselves with gobsmacking ignorance taken down following the boys whining to her that they were being harassed, as if the internet archive isn’t a thing! Guess those genius cyberhackers should have thought to ask about that whole sealing the file thing sometime before a few days after the videos were already out, a-doydoy! (New York Times gift link)

Still Not a Drag Queen Dept.: Thirty-year-old right-wing griftfluencer and pardoned Capitol rioter Jake Lang (remember him?) allegedly got catfished by who he thought was a 15-year-old girl, and slobbered romantic sentiments such as “Unless you’re under 18, I don’t care,” and “When do you turn 16?” (The Bulwark / video below)

Arts Nook:

Ric Grenell is leaving his job as chair of the Kennedy Center, auf wiedersehen, adieu! (NPR)

Trump-mint artists have redesigned the dime to have no olive branches, only arrows. (People)

The breakout star at the Whitney Biennial in 92-year-old painter Carmen De Monteflores, who attributes the inspiration for her large, colorful canvases to her large, colorful libido. “I think it was my longing for sex after years of having kids. I think there was a longing for a fuller sexual life.” (ArtNet)

You might think heterosexual male high school ice hockey players would be thrilled that the show “Heated Rivalry” has sexualized their sport, being a group once best known for its BO and missing teeth. They could be the beaus of any ball, winking at any girl, “we aren’t all gay,” and then go forth and happily practice their heterosexualities! But instead boys’ ice hockey teams have been dealing with an avalanche of homophobia. One day those boys are going to kick themselves so hard. (OutSports / New York Magazine archive link)

The world’s wait for a podcast from a West Texas fracker turned male escort to lonely ladies of the Panhandle is over. (The Guardian)

Jimmy Kimmel got jokes!

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Support Rebecca’s girls’ Detroit public elementary school and buy some pizza (pizza!). Little Caesar’s will ship the incredibly convenient pizza kits right to your home! (Pizza Pizza)

Download Wonkette’s Spotify playlist, the cure for bad taste!

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