U Know What's Up. Tabs, July 28, 2025

Morning news roundup and things to read!

Look, raccoons! Gif by Martini Glambassador!

Good morning, Wonklets, smear some avocado on your wheat toast and froth up your latte, it’s time to jump into Monday!

With all eyes on the most in-your-face corrupt pedophile-protecting deal with a pimp the world has ever seen—more on that soon, for sure!— what else has been happening?

Well,

It’s been leaked to the press that Sec. Def. Pete (HIC) Hegseth went into such a paranoid, witch-hunting frenzy looking for leakers to the press that he tried to force not just his own aides to take polygraphs, but also the very major models of modern major generals, admirals, and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff like some kind of criminals, until the White House (Susie Wiles?) intervened. Hire a boozy, angry, screamy clown, get a boozy, angry, screamy circus! (Washington Post archive link)

Remember how for decades conspiracy theorists have been convinced that FEMA was going to build concentration camps? And how MAGA has raged that money that should be going to veterans and schools was being spent on immigrants instead? It has manifested! Now FEMA is handing out $608 million in grants for states to build immigration detention camps, while at the same time it’s withholding funds that Congress designated for disaster relief and emergency preparedness, and also for veterans, education, and other benefits for American citizens. Happy yet, MAGA? (UK Independent)

Frazzled crackpot and head of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., plans to sack all 16 of the members of the anti-death advisory panel that determines what health screenings people get, like for HIV and cancer, because dying from a disease that could be easily cured or controlled if caught early is woke. (WSJ gift link)

As if being a doctor isn’t stressful enough, now they’re having to read up on search and seizure laws and devise strategies to protect their patients as ICE invades hospitals and clinics. (HuffPost)

Why is Epstein investor, CIA spyware-maker, JD Vance’s sugardaddy and guy who is unsure humanity should survive, Peter Thiel, building a private uranium enriching facility in Kentucky? (WKMS)

President Trump wants to put Beyoncé, Oprah, Al Sharpton and Kamala Harris IN JAIL because he claims Beyonce was paid millions to endorse Harris. Of course, there is no evidence that any of them were paid anything, and going after powerful Black people is Trump’s way of reminding his base why they fell in love with him in the first place. (Salon)

In other free speech attacks, the President has decreed an action plan to make AI parrot MAGA reality and “eliminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change.” As Elon Musk has found, that’s not so easy, reality having a liberal bias and all. From what font of knowledge will MAGA-bots regurgitate, Conservapedia? (Wired)

The Minnesota Star Tribune reports that local police bungled the holy fuck out of their response to the shootings of Reps. John and Yvette Hoffman and Melissa and Mark Hortman, taking 10 hours to alert lawmakers that an assassin posing as a cop was targeting them, and waiting an hour to enter the Hortman home, even after they watched Mark get shot in the home’s doorway. WTF. (Minnesota Star Tribune)

Last Thursday the FCC formally approved that shamelessly bribey merger between Paramount and Skydance, and as part of the deal CBS News will get rid of “DEI” and hire a “news ombudsman” to review complaints of “editorial bias” for at least two years. (CBS)

Well, all of that was terrible! Enjoy some of the best protest signs from Trump’s trip to Scotland, including “MAY YOUR ARSE BREAK OUT iN BOiLS YA SCUNNER” and “AGOLF HITLER”! (Meidas Touch / Daily Mail)

Idle hands are the devil’s playthings! Ryan Walters, the Trump-Bible-buying LGBTQ+-hating superintendent of Oklahoma Public Schools, is now going to get probed by the state’s senate after he broadcasted images of a naked lady on his office TV during a state Board of Education meeting, to an audience that apparently doesn’t see a whole lot of such things. And Walters did not even apologize. Reported an aghast witness, “'I hate to even use these terms, but I said, ‘Those are her nipples.’ And then I was looking closer, and I got a full-body view, and I was like, ‘That is pubic hair.’ Even right now, I couldn’t even tell you what I was watching.” Dude, you know what pubic hair is, it’s the squiggles that look like Donald Trump’s signature! (NonDoc / Oklahoma Voice)

Tom Lehrer has died at 97. (Variety)

I was trying to find a throwback summertime jam, but Billy Idol, why do you have a Stars and Bars flag (at 1:29) in your “Hot in the City” video? And the video for “Hot Child in The City” looks to be underage-prostitution themed. So how about a flashback to 1999’s hottest summer jam, instead, with the disclaimer that Wonkette in no way endorses literally blowing up spots?

Or a flashback to the 1941’s, with some Irving Berlin:

There’s a Wonkmeet coming up in CLEVELAND with Rebecca, Shy, and Cleveland’s newest resident, Ziggy Wiggy! Aug. 16, 1 p.m. at the Boss Dog Brewing Company, 2179 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, OH 44118. And Rebecca is buying!

What time is it? It’s time to IMPEACH!

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