US Clickbait Headline Reserves At Record Low! Tabs, Friday, May 23, 2025

Your morning news roundup and things to read!

If not fren, why fren-shaped? Tabs gif by Yr Martini Glambassador

It’s Pyumas! Pyumas in the cravasses! Take it, Tom!

Donald Trump and more than 200 of his most remunerative meme coin purchasers had dinner at Trump’s Virginia trash palace last night after investors snapped up $148 million of the worthless online tokens, producing millions of dollars in trading fees for Trump’s family. Ethics, schmethics! The top 25 buyers also got an exclusive meeting with Dear Leader beforehand, and what a Night Gallery of rogues they were! Or at least the ones who can be identified. The White House explained Trump wasn’t making money off his presidency because the dinner was on his personal time, mmm-hmmm. [Politico / The Intercept]

The Trump administration took $365 million that was supposed to build out solar energy in Puerto Rico, to help make the island less dependent on coal and gas, which have to be delivered by sea, and diverted the money to build up the island’s dependency on coal and gas, which have to be delivered by sea. The Department of Energy lied that the move would make Puerto Rico’s power grid more reliable. The grid still fails regularly, and local solar and storage microgrids were intended to keep power on at clinics and public housing. [AP]

Did Tabs already hit this? I don’t think we did. The Trump administration has been leaning on countries in Africa to drum up contracts for Elon Musk’s Starlink internet system. Nice US embassy you have here. Shame if we hadda close it. [ProPublica]

As part of its ongoing revenge against Harvard for failing to bend the knee to Great Leader, the Trump administration said yesterday it revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll international students. In addition to the baseless claims that Harvard is almost as antisemitic as Donald Trump’s dinner guests, DHS Secretary Kristi Nazi Barbie accused the university of “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party,” because it the entire campus palled around with a Chinese paramilitary group, allegedly. Hey, can Harvard afford a good lawyer or twenty? [AP]

In one of those inevitable coincidences of timing, a federal judge also blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting or deporting a bunch of international students whose immigration records it deleted without explanation in April. The judge also ordered No Backsies, to make sure ICE wouldn’t refuse to honor its promise to reinstate the students’ records. Unfortunately, the court didn’t also explicitly warn Noem that she can’t pretend she didn’t get the order, or that she left it in her Safari costume. [Courthouse News Service]

Oh, hey, speaking of people who like cosplay, I was really happy to see that one of my favorite anime rom-com series from the last few years, “My Dress-Up Darling,” will be getting a second season starting in July. The first season was goofy and sweet. It’s about a popular gal who convinces a socially inept nerdboy to help create cosplay outfits for her. She’s a gyaru who can’t interest her friends in anime and the raunchy dating sims she loves. He’s the grandson of a craftsman who makes traditional hina dolls, and he dreams of equaling his ojiisan someday and carrying on the craft — but he fears anyone finding out because why would a boy like dolls and sewing? Can these two oddballs find love? It’s an anime, so only after failing to acknowledge their real feelings until the last episode of Season One! Best of all, nobody dresses as an ICE stormtrooper! At least not exactly. [Crunchyroll]

Also, the first season’s end credit song, by Akari Akase, is boppy as fuck.

I guess now that I’ve gotten anime out of the way I should talk more about news.

Kentucky Fried Dipshit Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky; we just said) is demanding to interview Joe Biden’s physician and other Biden White House staff to determine when they found out that he was old. He explained that the House Oversight Committee absolutely must get the bottom of “whether former President Biden executed his duties — and, if not, who in fact did.” What a dumb question: It was actually a cute little vole who lived under Biden’s chef’s hat. (The vole was paid by George Soros) [Politico]

In a complete coincidence, the Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation of Media Matters, which Elon Musk just happens to have a grudge against. [Joe. My. God]

People on the interwebs had a lot of fun mocking a list of “summer books” published in the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer because while it included a number of popular authors, the titles and descriptions of all the new books were hallucinated by some stupid AI chatbot. Oops. The list was part of an insert on Summer Fun Things from once-respected King Features, owned by Hearst, and the whole thing was completely embarrassing. [Vice]

The House version of Trump’s Big Beautiful Blowjobs for Billionaires Bill largely killed off the clean energy tax cuts, with some of the most unkindest cuts being added overnight before the bill passed on Thursday. Now we can only hope the Senate will be so stricken with chaos that it fails to pass the House’s version, or that it passes a bunch of changes that won’t fly in the House. Fuck. Clean energy won’t go away, but this is pretty fucking disheartening. [Heatmap News]

Related: an analysis by research firm Energy Innovation estimated that the bill will throw away a trillion dollars in economic growth from clean energy and tech — and that was before the last-minute additional cuts. [Heatmap again]

Nice Chaser 1: Political cusses have reached Minnesota. You fuckin’ betcha. [AlterNet]

Nice Chaser 2: Here’s a very cool, nostalgia-inducing video to make you smile: A brief history (and business analysis) of how one model of plastic and tubular-steel chair, the Virco 9000, introduced in 1965, became the chair most people of a certain age sat on in public schools. Bet most of you filthy fuckaducks know this chair. Bonus: In the comments, LOTS of women point out that since the video was made by a man, it doesn’t mention the perennial frustration of long hair getting caught in those two goddamn rivets that held the back of the chair to the frame. Male privilege strikes again.

Super Saiyan Ultimate Form Nice Chaser: You were waiting for Thornton. I don’t blame you. He is a delight. Here he is sitting on my desk, but this time in front of a Bluesky post of the very same Thornton pic I shared with you last week.

Thorntonception!

caption...

Also this Bluesky post that I just saw when looking for the above pic:

Factcheck EW. Have a great weekend, kids. I will be out next Tuesday and Wednesday for mental battery recharge. But before that I gotta write about things for today and Saturday!

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