02/07/25

Good morning! It’s Friday, February 7th.

National Bubble Gum Day

Man, I love blowing bubbles. Not bubble gum, I like a mint, but I love blowing some gum bubbles

It’s also Wear Red Day and if you’re a new listener here and not sure what kind of show this is. Let this reaction be the only clue you need… we are not celebrating wearing red.

And now, the news.

Plane Crash in the Philippines

-via CBS News

On Thursday, one US service member, as well as three defense contractors, died after their small plane crashed in the Philippines.

It crashed into a rice field and, while an investigation is underway, there are reports that residents saw smoke coming from the plane and heard an explosion before the plane fell to the ground.

No comment yet from Real World star Sean Duffy, but he did tweet on Wednesday that the DOGE team (his words, not mine. Stop making them sound cool, you nerd) is going to help upgrade the aviation system.

So that’s not something that feels super great.

Well one of the two main guys just quit because his racist old tweets got discovered (honestly, I’m surprised that’s still something these people are pretending to care about).

At 25, he would reasonably considered an “old.” The others range in age from 19 (and heir to a popcorn future, ironically named Lesser Evil). With the (publicity) racist one gone, there are now only six of them – three of which were still in college before the richest person in the world was like “do you want to hack the government?”

These are the guys who have access to our entire Treasury department. And this is who Sean Duffy is excited to have in charge of our air travel.

Surely there must be a better idea.

NCAA Obeys in Advance

-via AP News

After Trump signed the executive order that bans transathletes from participating in girls’ and womens’ sports because he lacks whatever brain chemistry gives most humans empathy… the NCAA changed it participation policy, effective immediately, to ban transathletes from playing in the NCAA.

Thank goodness because out of the 500,000 athletes in the NCAA, there are a whole ten known transathletes. Yeah, let’s definitely enact some hateful policy to attack .002%.

Athletes assigned male at birth at able to practice with the women’s teams, as sometimes happens in general. Now, however, while an athlete assigned female at birth who has begun hormone therapy can practice with a women’s team, they cannot compete without risking the team’s championship eligibility.

Another gross move that puts all transpeople, whether they are athletes or not, in danger.

Which is the point. The cruelty is the point.

USAID Raid Started Earlier

-via CNN

While USAID offices remain closed, as our constitutional crisis continues, a source has revealed to CNN that this actually started just a few days after Trump was inaugurated when one of Musk’s lackeys at the Treasury Department asked its acting secretary to shut off all USAID payments immediately.

The acting secretary said they didn’t believe they had the “legal authority to stop an authorized payment certified by an agency.”

The Musk DOGE staffer then responded saying that, should he not choose to start a constitutional crisis, he would have a personal legal risk.

The acting Secretary quit last Friday.

So this isn’t really, like, new new info but it is interesting to know they’ve been running this constitutional crisis from the jump.

Isn’t it so fun to learn new things in this era?

Isn’t it so unscary to look at our phones?

Foreign Election Interference

-via CNN

In one of her first moves in the gig, AG Pam Bondi, who only has the job because it took a lot of convincing for Republicans to decide not to give it to Matt Gaetz even after the ethics report came out, decided to limit the criminal enforcement of a law that’s used to investigate or prosecute Trump donors and allies, as well as fully disband the foreign election interference task force. Because… well, duh. Right.

I mean, listen, this is bologna (sorry about the curse) but out of every terrible thing that’s been done, or that we’re headed towards, we knew this was coming.

We don’t totally even know what it means because investigators will still pursue cases involving foreign election interference and attempts to influence the election.

Listen, I’ve thought about this a lot. Because it’s elections, so obviously I hate this.

But Elon bought himself an election and it was totally legal so, you know, not great. Very dangerous. But I’m trying to gauge my reactions to keep my sanity.

Welcome to the Resistance

-via Washington Post and Democracy Docket

Okay, it’s Friday. It’s been a rough week of news. I expect it will be a rough week next week. So let’s end on a positive note.

On Wednesday night into Thursday morning, democratic Senators held the Senate floor to delay the confirmation of Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (aka OMB), from whence the poorly thought out what if we just hold off on all federal funds appeared. Vought is also a co-author of Project 2025.

And of course, without a majority in any branch of the government, there isn’t much democrats can do. But finally, finally, they are doing something. Finally they are at least making their voices heard.

There are, as I mentioned, two suits from the FBI against the Department of Justice. Unions have asked a judge to block Musk’s fake DOGE department from being able to access our personal info at the treasury. Multiple courts have blocked Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship. People are taking to the streets.

We are never without options.

I’ve repeated this story a couple times, but it feels like a good time to do it again… Something I first heard about back in 2016, when Trump was first elected the first time. It’s a story from Rachel Maddow’s show:

So in this episode, she’s talking about how, 25 years after the Cuban missile crisis, an underground missile silo in Wyoming was accidentally about to go off. As if the president had given the missile the thumbs up emoji. Which... he had not. A classic malfunction just... with a missile.

So the air force started trying everything they could to get the missile not to go off. Because of how it was a MISSILE.

So they start looking at the computer, nothing. Everyone’s kind of freaking out, because a nuclear missile was about to burst out of the ground.

So the maintence team is trying to figure out what’s going on with the computers and the missile and all that. Meanwhile, someone decides... I’m gonna park my car on top of the silo door.

We’re talking about a 90-ton blast that’s about to happen, and this person’s like... okay, well have we tried parking on the door?

This is a quote from the AP: “The theory, according to the spokesman, is that the cover is blown aside so rapidly that a vehicle parked on top of it with the brakes off will be left basically hanging in thin air like yanking a tablecloth out from under dishes, and then the vehicle will drop straight down in the hopes of keeping the launching missile from going anywhere."

An untested theory but... certainly AN idea. And because it’s Maddow, in this episode, she’s woven this tale about this missile so much better than I did. And she wraps it all up in an incredible monologue about what a great country we are and have the potential to be.

And in this monologue she says this: “If history’s any guide, what we do in this country is we improvise, America. We do what we can. Look around, make a quick inventory of the resources we`ve got at hand. Somebody figure a way to MacGyver this thing. We`ve got to do what we can. We always have.”

And remember, this the show after Trump has been elected. So it’s a monologue about the ways in which we are still a great country. And even though this night is hard, this moment is not forever.

It’s important to remember that at some point someone thought I think parking a car on top of this nuclear missile silo is the best idea because we can’t not do anything. We can’t sit back and let this missile go, so we’re going to try everything.

And, forgive me for sounding irrational but… we’re in the middle of a constitutional crisis. It’s here.

This is the missile.

And we can’t just let it go off.

We’re going to do the work because this moment is not just this moment, it’s every moment we’ve ever had and every moment we will ever have. There are generations after us and we have to do the work of making sure they have the best possible future. For them, and for us.

We are here. And because we’re here, because we’re still here, we still get to fight. It is the call of this moment and the honor of a lifetime to be able to lookback and say – see this country? See how it still stands? Battered and bruised but still standing?

We did that.

I understand that optimism feels impossible these days.

I’m so sorry tell you this but… it is the only way.

Our better days lie ahead of us.

Drink some water. Get some sleep.

Let’s get back into it tomorrow.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

Hey, guess what… more than gum. Bigger and more stable than a bubble… I’m proud of you.