Kagro in the Morning

Easter candies and matzo crackers go on sale this week! No white smoke yet though, so David Waldman and Greg Dworkin were both available to work on today’s show.

The Pope met with JD Vance, then… Marjorie Taylor Greene rejoiced, but not hardly as much the Antichrist, who posted self-exultations in his triumph over the forces of good, then went golfing.

Pete Kegsbreath's phone seems to have sucked up the contact info of his wife and brother to include them in another Signal war-room chat... Shaaa-(Hic!)-zam! Darn those anonymous (cough, mike waltz) smears! If it weren’t for all of those snitches, Pete would still be doing a great job! Facts just keep making Hic-seth look bad, like they do Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem losing her purse with $3000 in cash, or R-S.C. Nancy Mace losing her ever-loving mind with a voter. Or the latest IRS commissioner… or the one before him, or the one before, or the one before. Or the six thugs who assaulted a woman in that Idaho town hall.

Elon Musk is no genius, but he’s no dummy.

Even with so many idiots, the terror escalates. American citizens are being swept off to detainment centers even as Senator Chris Van Hollen and most of the Supreme Court fight to make things right. MAGA DNGAF and think that’s cool. Trump’s plan in Ukraine is “rape, pillage, kill”, similar to their plan for universities, if they’d just let them.

Senior citizens, boomers and boomers-at-heart are at the heart of nationwide Trump protests.

On today’s KITM, David Waldman delivers us to the weekend and parks us right under the cloud of another mass shooting. Well, you can’t say this shooter was the quiet type who always kept to themselves that you’d never guess…

Senator Chris Van Hollen went to El Salvador and met Kilmar Abrego Garcia, yet neither one of their heads have appeared on pikes behind Donald K. Trump in a press briefing, so I guess things are better than I thought, and less what Sebastian Gorka wishes they were.

A judge has also kept Trump from ordering hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to leave the country, but like the heads on pikes, we don’t know what this weekend will bring.

Trump did promise to end the war in Ukraine easily within 24 hours. Of course, if it takes longer, or becomes difficult, that offer is void.

Measles and E. coli spread, but not as fast as Russian chatbot disinformation.

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin are here today, with a 50% reduction in staffing projected for tomorrow. You don’t even want to know what is planned for Saturday.

Hey, any human system will produce simple clerical errors, amirite? And afterwords, lie about it, lie again, and again, then stonewall any investigation, then smear and threaten the investigators, then really threaten the investigators, I mean we’ve all been there… Oh lord, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is already dead, isn’t he?

The thing that Trump does, before he quits doing it, is do it as bad as he can, so we can expect a lot worse. People are fighting back even as fighting back becomes riskier. MAGA, meanwhile, demands even more scalps. Trump will get high-flow showerheads and incandescent bulbs and coal power whether anyone else wants them or not. Especially if no one wants them. Who’s going to tell him differently?

Well, Trump did call off a strike on Iran nuclear sites. We’ll probably find out how that happened in the next (Hic) seth leaks… if we don’t read it on Signal first.

Law firms who had let Donald pussygrab them might soon be dismayed to find him coming back for more. The Ivy League resistance, however, is just getting started.

Remember Ron DeSantis? Donald K. Trump doesn’t, so Ron has been having an increasingly difficult time keeping accountability from creeping up on him. Speaking of creeps, Frederick Piccolo Jr., a former Ron DeSantis spokesman, was caught exposing his Freddy Piccolo Jr. 4 too many times.

Remember Mike Lindell? No, me neither.

David Waldman brings us to today’s KITM, which is certainly a day. Greg Dworkin joins us with a slew packed into his Raft O’ Stories™!

What happens if a president and the federal government fail to follow a judge's orders? This administration couldn’t just Google the answer to that, could they? If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. But, if you only lie, you also don’t need to remember anything, yet you have nothing to be responsible for. Of course, judges have to come along and harsh everyone’s mellow.

Trump has a point; El Salvador’s Hotel California is intended to be our NIMBY death-camp. Americans hate it when clerical errors happen in front of our faces. If people return from being disappeared, it kind of defeats the purpose. 

Harvard University has decided to defeat Trump’s purpose, which might cost them a couple of billion in funding. Then again, Columbia has turned about, and hopefully other universities are taking notes. Meanwhile, Maine is showing other states how it’s done.

Canadians are quick studies. The slowest of the slow learners, incumbent Democrats, are just beginning to find out. Are they bright enough to come out against the Trump Tariffs, though?  Trump’s Tariff Disaster might last longer than the dollar. Time for coders to retrain as coal miners, and preschoolers to jumpstart their careers in operating textile looms.

Luckily, Elon Musk has been incel-seeding his own master race, for exactly these circumstances. Rumor has it that Elon’s way past second base with Shivon Zilis… She could be the one! Civil rights are for losers.

Shortly after yesterday’s show, David Waldman thought of some more stuff he wanted to tell you. If anything else comes up, we will be sure to let you know tomorrow.

If you’re one of KITM’s many hardcore MAGA followers, you’re probably reading this in your local rural diner, sipping a cup o’ joe, digging into your confit pork belly and rye pain with extra cheese, contemplating how you’ve become objectively superior in all ways to all people, and frankly just hotter than everyone around you... That’s when you get that text from Elon wondering where you are and telling you to get back to work… sigh.

DOGE never was about finding fraud and saving money. It’s always been about digitally couping for the lulz. It’s about taking what they want because they can. It’s about knocking the biggest things over, then daring anyone to prove that they did it.

Why, that’s obviously immoral, illegal, inhuman! Oh look, now they want reparations...

The weekend provided no respite from tariff whiplash. And the tariff whiplash (and attendant cheerleading) just drove the rest of the economy that much further down. Greg Dworkin even titled the APR with a warning. And of course, when you’ve lost Ross Douthat, you’ve temporarily lost Ross Douthat.

Trump spent the weekend snubbing VIPs and watching the wrong people win sporting events.

In other weekend excitement—or incitement, as the case may be—there was a little extracurricular activity at the Pennsylvania Governor’s mansion.

Nayib Bukele is in town today. “Cool!” We’ll see whether he “facilitates” Trump’s defiance of the courts, or moots the whole issue (which he, like me, sees as just a contracts issue) by “gifting” Kilmar Abrego García back to the United States. Either way, we’re preparing to ship still more people to El Salvador, despite the 90% “error” rate. And this extremely poor record is impacting evidence-free student round-ups not at all!

The protests continue this weekend. Good thing, too!

New for your radar: Binance wants the regulatory dogs called off, while it’s busy trying to bribe Trump.

And the latest trend in DOGE sleight-of-hand: declaring immigration targets “dead,” so that they lose their benefits, work papers, insurance, bank accounts, and pretty much everything else that makes it possible to live here. Which is the idea, of course.

Happy Going! We’re all getting punchy heading into the weekend, as if the weekend will be a breather for any of us. David Waldman effectuates our weekending KITM, and I facilitate that with this summary, I hope.

Donald K. Trump pardoned a corporation, yet has not appointed a horse to Senate, which might be more of a late term thing. Polytheism seems to be wearing thin in Trump/Musk circles, with Elon Musk’s pride goething before his fall. Thou shalt bow down thyself only onto Trump in Cabinet meetings. (Graven images available at the door.)

Two people guilty of not praising Donald enough are being investigated for treason, while Trump shops for his presidential Luger. Marco Rubio is punishing the country of South Sudan for not accepting the Democratic Republic of the Congo citizen he sent there by mistake. The commander of a Greenland military base was ousted when she failed to rattle her saber loudly enough for JD Vance. US tells Greenland “I see you have Injuns! We have Injuns!” Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell believes people boycotting the Kennedy Center hate Republicans, when mostly they hate Richard Grenell.

What happens when the courts can’t trust the Executive Branch? Well, we are about to find out, because the courts can’t trust the Executive Branch. Learn more about courts of equity, such as the Court of Chancery.

Kash Patel plans to work remotely in his FBI position but wasn’t remotely working in his ATF job.

Hey now… there’s no proof that Marjorie Taylor Green participated in insider trading this week, or placed pipe bombs prior to Jan 6… It just looks like that.

RFK Jr. will discover the cause of autism by this fall, but if you have cancer, you’ll need to wait a little longer.  

It’s only TLDR if you don’t take the time to read it! How did the President lose and when did he lose it in the SCOTUS Alien Enemy Act case? Curtis Yarvin always wanted to destroy the United States and the global economy, yet somehow still feels empty inside.

Today on KITM, David Waldman and Greg Dworkin are back! Of course, you expected them to, but how often do things go as expected anymore?

If you thought it was profitable lurking on Pete Hegseth’s signal chats, just think of being on Don Jr. or MTG’s alerts yesterday!  Democrats not on the friend lists are sternly authoring letters at this moment. Who’d guess that Donald K. Trump would use tariffs to reward his friends, when everyone just assumed that he was only using them to punish his enemies? Well, following Trump’s victory/defeat, we can put that behind us, except that it hasn’t changed and it’s still coming…. The apocalypse has been only delayed, until DOGE can make a run on the banks as fun as a run on the stock market.

Congress could take tariff authority back from Trump tomorrow, it’s just that they’ve arranged for tomorrow to not arrive this year. As for today, you knew Republicans weren’t going to stick around through recess debating their big horrible bill. (Including Jared Golden (Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), Henry Cuellar (Texas) and Ed Case (Hawaii).

Golden Trump bust lapel pins are the new American Flag on Republican lapels as Trump directs Pam Bondi, She Wolf of the DOJ, to find capital offences with people who weaponized politics at him. Trump has an Article 2 which allows him to call for 2nd Amendment solutions on anyone. They were just putting Henrry Villatoro Santos blindfold on when they had to let him go.

Elon Musk needs to buy his elections more discreetly. 

Tulsi Gabbard declared her residency in Texas, then voted in Hawaii… Look a squirrel, on that grassy knoll!

A thunder of jets in an open sky... A streak of gray and a cheerful "Hi"! A loop, a whirl, a vertical climb, and once again you know it's time for the adventures of David J. Waldman, his pal Greg Dworkin, KITM and friends!

We are at the dawn of the Trump Tariff era, and the sunset of every other era anyone would want to live in. Sure, the Trump tax will cost America trillions of dollars in the most regressive and destructive way imaginable. But many fictional economists do advocate for the measure, ready to put their fictional necks on the line if things go wrong. MAGA welcomes the new people’s revolution. After all, nothing will build character in today’s youth more effectively than a lifetime working on collective farms.

(Elon Musk says, “Uh, wait a minute.” Donald K. Trump says, “How about 90 days Mr. Musk?”) 

Musk doesn’t need the US when he has the rest of the world’s teat to suck. Does Trump really need tariffs when just threatening them gives him all of the “Please Sir” stories he ever needs?  Trump can make up all of the “Please Sir” stories he’ll ever need. Follow Aaron Rupar on Blue Sky… Blue Sky… Blue Sky!

Who needs to threaten tariffs when you can threaten to bomb Mexico and Panama? Why intimidate citizens when you can make them disappear? 

We can still have elections, and there’s a bunch of them this month. Not all judges are Texan, not even Trump appointed judges. Meanwhile, Dems are working harder and Gops are hardly working.

Are you back in high school? Have your pants disappeared? Yes, you are in the middle of a nightmare... Lucky you. Waking nightmares are much more frustrating.

At least we have David Waldman on KITM to explain some of the horrors befalling us.

Bette Midler refused to dance with Donald K. Trump at Studio 54. That was the moment Donald’s mind ceased to function, trapping him forever in the early 80’s. Now, we are trapped with him. So, who’s to blame for the Trump Tariffs? Uhm… Elon Musk? No, probably not. How about Peter Navarro? Maybe it’s Howard Lutnick? Or could it be JD Vance’s fault for these Trump Tariffs?

No one has figured out who is responsible for the Trump Tariffs, but there will be a $100 million, 4-mile-long parade to honor Generalissimo K. Trump on his birthday.

Meanwhile, Gops will raise the debt limit to $5 trillion, and cut taxes by $5 trillion, because at this point, why not? Blue states can officially drop dead. For those who care about an excuse for SignalFiascoGate, here’s one. Complaints and suggestions are always welcome, just remember to fill out your name and address legibly for a quick response! Judges in Texas are standing by to habeas your corpus onto C-17s, ASAP.

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin return to today’s KITM. You didn’t think ever miss this, did you?

For those of you keeping a tally, Donald K. Trump also does not understand what the word “beautiful” means.  The stock market continues to crash here and around the world. There was that moment when people became insane enough to believe that Trump might have suddenly become sane, but then another Trillion bucks went away forever, and reality snapped back. This is an economic catastrophe orchestrated by Republicans, but one they don’t know how, don’t care how, and are afraid to fix. 

Why pay more? For far less than the hourly rate of a psychiatrist, David Waldman can address much of the anxiety that you, and he, suffer beneath the surface of each day. Dollar for dollar, KITM sooths and informs better than most barbers, bartenders, or even Uber drivers. Try some today!

While you’re doing that, do something else! There’s plenty to be done and you’re the one to do it. You have to do it, no one else is going to do it, they are too busy doing their part. Don’t make us tariff you.

Yesterday, Donald K. Trump pitched the world into a steep nosedive, before parachuting out somewhere over the Doral golf course. What was he thinking?

Great minds struggle to decipher and explain Trump’s tariff calculations, failing to consider that tiny minds came up with it. Actually, it’s not difficult to see that these tariffs are just another way to leverage and measure acquiescence and obsequence.

How can the Democrats ever pull us out of this horrible spin? IEEPA!

Don’t ask Trump anything about SignalGate. Don’t ask him about anything. Please don’t ask him about his $5 million instant citizen gold card.

Interim and future U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin is as Trumpy as they come, alarming federal prosecutors across the political spectrum. There’s no point along any spectrum unalarmed by Laura Loomer, who unfortunately has Trump’s rear, uh, “ear” to whisper sweet enemy lists into. The 5th floor window that General Timothy Haugh, the director of the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command was shoved out of was in fact, not literal, as the deep state had all of office windows sealed due to “the environment”.

South Koreans are still puzzling over why their leader declared martial law, while Americans are puzzling over how to get our justice system to work half as well as the South Korean’s.

Because The Donald waited until after the markets closed yesterday to announce the “details” of his tariff “plan,” Greg Dworkin had to wait until this morning to chime in on the results. And even though in the modern age there’s trading done at all hours, all around the world, we still had to wait until 9:30 for The Old Man’s version of “the market” to open. But we knew it was gonna be bad. For everyone and everything (except Russia). How could it have been otherwise?

Still, there are always those who refuse to see it coming. Or refused to see it for what it was. Which is to say, “ruination.” Just “wildly destructive stupidity.”

The good news about Democratic reaction to the tariffs is that they had a genuine success in the Senate, with four Gop defections on a measure to block them! Republicans do know this sucks for them!

The not-so-good news is that it was about the last round of tariffs announced — the ones against Canada — not including this most recent round of nuttery.

Luckily, there was more good news. Namely, Democratic turnout and performance in Tuesday’s elections. It was good news even in the expected Florida losses, but most especially in the Wisconsin win.

The momentum is most welcome! We’re gonna need it, because he’s not leaving willingly. And the Gop knows that sucks for them, too.

In case you thought Signalgate didn’t still suck, it does! They don’t want to let Mike Waltz out from under that bus, even if he hasn’t yet gotten caught in the wheels.

Elsewhere, Eric Adams finally got his case dismissed. But not the way the Trump DOJ envisioned it. And Gerry Connolly scores with some SSA emails that confirm that stupidest of scenarios: Yes, Social Security registration for newborns in Maine really was targeted because Janet Mills was tough with Trump.

Today let’s join David Waldman in bidding adieu to yesterday’s co-host Charlie Kirk. We at KITM wish him well in his future endeavors. 

Greg Dworkin, who is 100% available on Blue Sky, felt possessed to post his analysis of where we are, post yesterday’s events, on the execrable X... At least he didn’t dock his Raft O’ Stories ™ over at the Tesla dealership. 

When will Democrats say or do enough to counter Donald K. Trump? Yesterday, and for more than 25 hours previously, Senator Cory Booker said and did enough. Great! OK, who’s next at bat?

Yesterday’s elections were very special. Florida Republicans won, sure, but other than that, they can’t really brag. In Wisconsin, Elon Musk had his ass handed to him, then claimed that he always wanted to look at it from that angle.

Mike Johnson couldn’t kill a new parents proxy voting measure, so he took his ball and went home.

Donald K. Trump is furious to catch Senate Gops attempting to slip out of his Tariff Jonestown before the big event. What’ll be in tonight’s batch of Kool-Aid? Canadians, Mexicans and Europeans have already moved on, and Trump couldn’t care less. 

Abducting people to disappear and destroying government and democracy sure sounded like good ideas at the time, but...

The Signal witch-hunt continues, but which witch will Trump burn? Michael Waltz used to be “Signal stupid”, but now he’s “Gmail stupid”, while Pete Hegseth is a special kind of stupid, and getting more special every day. 

All of Mel Gibson’s flags are red, but when a Justice Department Official didn’t want Mel to buy more guns, she was fired. Donald could pardon him. Donald will pardon anything.

David Waldman is not April fooling. Why devote a single day of our year to cruel jokes when with Donald K. Trump, every day can be one?

The real April Fools’ day is tomorrow when all, none, or some of Trump tariffs go into effect. Europeans have a plan for handling whatever Trump brings on, Americans, well, not so much.

The Trump administration is warning companies throughout Europe to cut out their DEI, CRT... whatever they call it in their counties, or else.

America paid El Salvador just to take their prisoners, sadly, there is no “return policy”. Oopsie! You, on the other hand, are not yet on route to a detention facility. Why is that?

Doge pirates take over the Federal payroll system. The old crew walks the plank. Elon isn’t saving the government money but saved himself $500 million on the cool previous headquarters of the United States Insititute of Peace.

Big Elections are happening today in Wisconsin and Florida. Congratulations to Nicholas Jacobs and Ekaterina Diestler big winners in Elon Musk’s — April Fools!

No joke! Cory Booker goes to Washington and has been going Jimmy Stewart for over 15 hours as I write this.

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin are back for yet another week of KITM! How do they do it, what is their secret? No one knows!

We begin the week with the White House embroiled in scandal. Which scandal? All of them!

There’s SignalGate, the main culprit of which has been finally determined to be JD Vance, or the news media, or an unspecified Democrat yet to be announced.

JD Vance is also guilty of blowing the art of the deal in Greenland. Like Canada, Greenland has a lot to offer in both material and strategic benefits. Just think of the partnerships, alliances, and investments Trump could have potentially made if his first negotiation tactic was ever something other than a pussygrab? 

Countries who turned away their pussygrabs get tariffs this Wednesday, or at least more threats of more tariffs. Nothing makes Trump angrier than someone stealing his pickup technique.

Don’t knock it, the Trump pussygrab has been a success with most of the media, several law firms, and an undisclosed number of SCOTUS. Following many, yet not enough, injunctions from lower-court judges, the Supreme Court has six pending emergency applications from Trump demanding to know "So like…What are we?"  

Gops warned Victoria Spartz not to have town halls, but she didn’t listen, and conducted a town hall in which she wouldn’t listen. For Victoria, if you have to ask for due process, you must not deserve it. Think those masked guys heading your way won’t put a bag over your head? Surprise!

Democrats will fix this all soon… we just need to get a little bit closer to their mid-term election fundraising drives, ok, please? In contrast, Donald K. Trump is already getting set for his 2028 election, and beyond. Wait a second, doesn’t the Constitution prohibit that sort of thing? Where we’re going, we don’t need Constitutions.

France on the other hand, takes things seriously, but their guillotine must have been on the fritz because Marine Le Pen only received 5 years off from seeking office.

David Waldman delivers us to the end of the week. Anyone not detained this weekend for acts of dispatriotism can meet back here on Monday.

Russia seems to use David’s random country generator to pick out its disinformation targets. Today it’s Austria!

SignalGate! It turns out that you can get in a lot of trouble for accidentally adding a reporter to a group email. “You” are not, however, one of the morons on the Houthi PC Small Group chat. Those folks are in a special protected class of super-morons. The more stupidity linked to them, such as public Venmo accounts with payments to eggplants, the more they are called out, such as Senator Tammy Duckworth calling Pete Hegseth “a f*cking liar” who needs to resign in disgrace, the more Donald K. Trump will defend them and lock down Gops from doing anything about it. Hillary Clinton writing an op-ed for the Times has secured Pete Hegseth the job for life. Trump is afraid of confrontation and making any decisions tougher than picking out colors anyhow.

Elise Stefanik, on the other hand, isn’t that much of a dangerous idiot to become concerned about. Trump figured that she could break just as much stuff if she kept her old job.

Trump is cutting the “racial stuff” from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and “gender” from the American Women's history museum, as well as “improper ideology” from the National Zoo. Thinking incorrectly at a university can earn you a free sightseeing trip in an unmarked van with a canvas bag on your head. 

Trump’s sister declared the immigration law he used “unconstitutional”.

While we’re talking about Trumps, Vanessa Trump is in a relationship with Tiger Woods! Yep, Vanessa sure has a thing for those “bad boys”… Wait, who is Vanessa Trump?

It’s Thursday, and David Waldman and Greg Dworkin are here to say the smartest things about the dumbest stuff.

The Team Trump screwups keep on screwing up. Their passwords and personal emails have now been discovered by DER SPIEGEL, which might read better in the original German. The Trump administration has created a golden age for foreign spies, which does read better in the second-hand Chinese. Mike Waltz’ Venmo list contains a lot of journalists who he owes or owe him money. Foremost authority on barstools and sports, Dave Portnoy demands that heads should roll... At least one, ok? Donald K. Trump loves his staff, unless the polls convince him that they were just coffee boys.

So much for JD Vance’s tour ship diplomacy! No one in Greenland wants to sell him a box of donuts, let alone their finest local whale blubber, seal blubber or narwhal blubber. And JD just sold his house too! That is, his LLC released its holdings to another LLC. (Of course, Orla Joelsen’s pictures of Greenland look much better on Blue Sky.)

We are the bad guys now. Masked gunmen disappear people off the street, families beg for their release as the captives are used in propaganda videos.

The majority of Americans believe presidents should obey the courts, but who thinks that Trump is only a president anymore? Probably a few lunatic left judges, but who cares about them? 

Ah, but special elections, those could be the beginning of a blue wave, if we are allowed to have those anymore. In Florida, state Senator Randy Fine should be winning big, but might be winning small. His wife could help out by hoochie cooing like a drag queen if required.

SignalGate! David Waldman is here to explain it all, using only emojis. Greg Dworkin is here to unload his Raft of Stories, Ship of Fools, and Confederacy of Dunces. The revolution will not be televised, but KITM is here to present you with all the rest. (Do not follow Greg on anything but Blue Sky.)

What did they know and when did they know it? The answer is, not much and not yet. America’s allies are panicking, sure, but our enemies must be really shocked to find themselves having to rely upon these morons. The only way Gops could make it worse… is to do exactly what they are doing, not only blaming everyone but themselves, but viciously attacking them. The NSA warned that “Bin Laden determined to strike US”… and recently, "A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal Messenger Application.” The Atlantic said the chat contained classified material, the White House said Nuh-Uh!  So, The Atlantic published the messages, and it turns out that Pete Hegseth also can declassify secrets using only his mind, and a 40 of malt. All rise, the Honorable Judge James Boasberg will be presiding. This isn’t even their worst foreign policy move so far… or yet.

For instance, JD and Usha Vance will soon head to Greenland to be greeted as liberators. The Vances have some extra vacation cash from a lobbyist who spent what a house around my neighborhood goes for, over the asking price of their house.

Big Balls provided tech support to a cybercrime ring but doesn’t have half the balls Democratic House Rep. Melanie Stansbury showed yesterday.

The White House budget office has decided that you don’t need to know what their budget spends money on.

Maybe people out there are paying attention. A Democrat wins the latest Pennsylvania special election for a district that never was Democratic, handing Dems control of the state House.

Based on recent experience, David Waldman has been tapped to set up the Zoom on future secret White House meetings.

You might have heard that our nation’s safety is in the hands of the worst group of fuckups imaginable. That’s a fact made more obvious by inviting the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to a war planning meeting being held via a chat group on the Signal app, second only to Mar-a-Lago as a go-to espionage destination spot. Steve Witkoff took advantage of the Kremlin’s free Wi-Fi service. Joe Kent took time from hunting antifa and BLM to join the chat.

But, her emails? Democrats want heads to roll. Republicans explain that the truth is, that these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand, and request a moment or a few days of silence while they notify the next of kin. 

Meanwhile, Donald K. Trump and the Paul, Weiss law firm pioneer a new form of agreement in which each side signs off on the version that they like the best. Eagle Ed Martin, who wants to jail women for abortions, free Jan 6 insurrectionists, and stop the steal of his own 2010 election, is honored to just have an ass so big to kiss as the head of the Office of Management and Budget.

David Waldman introduces KITM listeners to the Smooth Sound of Zoom™.

Greg Dworkin watches America circle the drain, while helping us locate the stopper.

Donald K. Trump, modest as he is, isn’t taking credit for invoking the Alien Enemies Act.  “Many do not know this, but John Adams was a president who signed things, and we have been hearing many good things about him lately.”, Donald will soon say, or he’ll just say “Lil’ Marco did it.”, which he already is saying. Either way Trump checks off another day of telling you and Judge James Boasberg something, which is good enough for him, probably not for Boasberg. Meanwhile, El Salvador remains Rubio’s quick-stop low-cost disappearing headquarters.

In comparison, the Paul, Weiss firm are Trump’s dream of what a law firm should be, backing off of him, and giving him money. Paul, Weiss chair Brad Karp complains that after years of “dishing it out”, “taking it” feels surprisingly harsh, but if Brad thinks it’s all behind him, he doesn’t know how much is left to be inserted.

Who knew that Republicans also received Social Security? DOGE is having a hard time finding any fraud there, but of course, that isn’t the point. Most people would prefer that their airliner didn’t crash, but here we are.

Trump picks Boeing over Lockheed because they’ll name their next fighter after him. Now they need to find pilots small enough for that “cockpit”. Most countries sure won’t be shopping USA for weapons.

Usha Vance is heading to Greenland, and already they aren’t thankful. 

Columbia, the gem of kowtowing universities, is sending $400 million dollars to soothe Trump’s pain from a deal he blew 25 years ago. 

Scott Turner follows in the footsteps of OJ Simpson and Rosie Greer as a football player hoping that 70’s casting decisions work out for him. (Yes, you can follow M. Nolan Gray on Blue Sky.)

David Waldman has so much crazy, so little time!

Drug use and undisclosed ties to foreign agents used to make it difficult to obtain security clearance, back before the Trump administration thought to offer affordable leasing.  Now the Pentagon is happy to invite Elon Musk to talk over war plans against China! Oh wait, Elon said I should be arrested for telling you that. Donald K. Trump says I’m fake news and has booked me a flight to El Salvador... I better type quicker. Musk has big investments in China, so maybe he’ll Starlink those missiles away… On the other hand, those investments are drying up, therefore it might be a good time for a nuclear market adjustment.

Trump and Musk want to outlaw judges who rule against them and pay off the ones that let them win. What’s wrong with that? Trump hates that people think that these are “conservative” judges… what have they done for him lately?

No more warrants to enter homes, or due process to process suspects means that any suspicious, or even aggravatingly inconvenient behavior can be delt with efficiently. Bad guys, whomever that might be deemed at the moment, won’t be able to hide behind “laws” to escape justice.

Well, once MAGA understands this, they’ll… do nothing, because their face will be a small price to pay if the leopard eats your face. The only bums in danger of being thrown out are the Democrats.

On today’s KITM, David Waldman and Greg Dworkin turn it all the way up to 11… sometimes on purpose! 

Great news everyone! Kamala Harris did not “lose”! Now if only our present-day vibes could just recall those “quotation marks”, this whole nation would be one big California… but without the unnecessary regulations, with more government spending… but without government overspending. No more poor, therefore no more aid…

More Republicans are voicing voters' remorse… more Democrats also.

Today a handful of people stand in the way of a perfect world. A French scientist was denied entry into the US for disliking the Trump administration’s research policy. A Canadian actress asked too many questions at the border and was imprisoned for weeks. And over two hundred members of the MS-13 gang… oh sorry, those folks were the first Trump administration scary gang affiliated with El Salvador, the country which is now the hero of the second Trump administration… Two hundred members of the new scary gang were shipped to El Salvador, give or take an undisclosed number of just regular guys like you and me. 

Who’d guess that the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a bipartisan appointee with a three-decade career in Washington, would turn out to be a such a Radical Left Lunatic? It seems that crazy judges keep popping up, the more Trump clamps down. Soon he’ll realize that they really aren’t that well-armed. When DOGE took down the U.S. Institute of Peace, they had plenty of guns and badges, so they didn’t need no stinking laws.

After fentanyl becomes a 'Weapon of Mass Destruction”, Mexico and Canada will become Iraq.

It’s all computer! It’s taken a week, but David Waldman and Greg Dworkin have almost completed KITM’s incomprehensibly complex and possibly hazardous transition from “Skype” over to “Zoom” voice over internet protocol telephony technologies. Without alert tones, Greg can finally enter conversations through his preferred “jump scare” technique.

The constitutional crisis just over the horizon has now arrived. Officially, we are still at the “Wait, what?” stage, but this administration plans to repeat it again and louder until they are completely understood. Donald K. Trump plans to deliver dozens of RSVPs to the Supreme court, inviting them over to his side of the Rubicon.

If only we could just cross into Canada and buy enough beer and donuts to fix this thing that we’re going to do to them.  Seriously, if they can do it to a young, pretty, lawyered up white woman, just think of what they can do to you.

Days of simple heists over, DOGE thugs screwed sharper hobnails into their jackboots in order to kick the doors in over at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Presently we are at the “he said, she said” in the case, but you know the deal with this administration and paperwork...

“Trump won’t win the election, he’s focusing only on his base while Biden… Harris…” bla bla bla bla bla bla. “If only Democrats could capture the white uneducated” bla bla bla bla bla bla. “Now, Democrats should embrace the most effective means of targeted disinformation yet invented and….” (Yet invented, that is.)

But, hey! Trump’s poll numbers are sagging… not even 100 days in. (and maybe 100 days before independent polling becomes illegal) So, it just goes to show you, Chuck Schumer really has got a handle on this thing. Therefore, it is imperative that we focus upon… The JFK assassination documents have been released! Let’s all go over to X.com and talk about it!

David Waldman returns to the mound at KITM Stadium, pitching for the US Liberals, down by… a lot, in what feels like a pretty late inning.

Hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members were flown to El Salvador, that is, they are alleged to be gang members, purported to be Venezuelan, maybe they weren’t US citizens, possibly weren’t just a guy with a beef with an ICE agent, who probably isn’t affiliated with an opposing gang. Sure, it seems like a constitutional crisis, but isn’t everything? The White House asks the judge, “You mad, bro?” then demands his impeachment.

It’s just another example of the USA’s new sense of humor, like the plan to make Canada our northern Puerto Rico. Blaming Canada is easy, which is why we do it. Canadian soldiers, however, aren’t insects to swat away. They do seem to have a lot of tanks, missiles, jets, bullets and about four times the shared border of, say, Ukraine and Russia.

Trump rehires while Elon fires as their madcap hijinks continue. DOGE makes an armed raid upon the offices of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Staff inside did stand their ground for a while but really missed a chance at creating a quite ironic Castle Doctrine case. I have personally predicted a standoff between U.S. Marshals and Secret Service for almost a decade now and continue to be incorrect. (As of 2:56 EST)

Oklahoma social studies classes will teach about ‘discrepancies’ in the 2020 election. The President of the United States teaches that there are no discrepancies. There are no longer non-white soldiers in American history… at least, no famous ones. Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira hopes that Trump will assign him to a new reality.

David Waldman returns for yet another week of driving the snakes out, today solo, as Greg Dworkin is on assignment.

Chuck Schumer’s book tour is not off to a great start, although he could’ve sold plenty of copies to throw at the target on his dunk tank. Listen, plenty of calculation went into these CR votes, by plenty of calculating Democrats, calculating the perfect number of days before their elections before becoming too “anti-Trump” Democrats. It’s just pragmatic to allow Donald K. Trump to be a little bit of a dictator for about 6 or 9 more months to allow campaign donations to build. It’s how the game is played.

Donald, however, is not the pragmatic sort. “Dictator” is the only game he’s playing. Rules are for suckers… Ok, rules are also good for the LULZ. Take the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, please. Trump will tell you… Well, Trump will tell you anything, that’s irrelevant. The next step, was when a judge then called bullshit and blocked the order. Trump then did it anyhow, as his lawyers invoked the ”fingers in the ears shouting, “la la la” defense”. Hundreds of men were then shanghaied to El Salvador. No one can prove that they were gang members. No one can prove that they were not citizens. There is no way to know if they will ever be seen again. It is much easier to disappear to El Salvador than Guantanamo, so if you soon find yourself with a bag on your head, riding in a van, chances are that’s your destination. A valid visa and a judge’s order couldn’t stop kidney transplant specialist Dr. Rasha Alawieh’s deportation. Wishful thinking couldn’t stop Trump voter Bradley Bartell’s wife from be taken away by ICE.

Welcome to Advanced Civics with Professor David Waldman. David’s been teaching this course since about the turn of the century, yet it seems as if there is always more to learn. Heck, I’ve been held back over this last decade, and I still don’t quite get it.

Basically, the Senate is voting on the 2025 budget because maybe that’s better than not voting on it? Voting for it would piss off Elon Musk, but voting against it would piss off Donald K. Trump. It’s a quandary! Luckily for Senate Democrats, they have valiant leader Chuck Schumer, Donald’s newest best buddy, ready to push those glasses down to the end of his nose and… look into this. Whether Chuck’s decision is horrible/wise or horrible-wise he’ll be hearing all about it at his series of upcoming townhall meetings that he probably still believes are a “book tour”.

Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock voted NO! Yay! But on what, and to what end? This is where it gets weedy. David tells us about clotures, the process of invoking clotures, and… how to check for ripeness? For those whom precedents take precedence, there are the Antideficiency Act, and its preceding precedent, the Feed and Forage Act.

Remember, for every Stalin, Mao and Hitler, there are millions, each with the power to fix everything at any time. That is why tyrants consolidate corrupt power and eliminate human rights at every opportunity.

Hey, at least the sound system was working today, when Greg Dworkin dropped by with his Raft o’ Stories!

Senate Dems are wrestling with the question of whether they should screw up, or do the right thing. Sounds easy! But it never really is, even if we think we know the right answer. (And the biggest union representing federal workers just happens to agree, too.) But time’s running out to unify behind a single, coherent position (if there is one). And the one thing nobody expected has just happened: House Republicans had unified!

Hey, by the way, have we misunderstood—or just been too credulous—in accepting the characterization of Trump as “transactional?” That might not be quite right. Or even right at all. We do know that he sucks for the economy, though. Even though we’re also not supposed to think of the “stonk” market as the economy. The thing is, Trump thinks he can move seamlessly from “I’ll fix it on Day One,” to “You knew you were signing up for pain.”

Tesla hatred is purifying hatred. Even if you don’t believe Trump actually bought one.

I have some bad news for you. The DOGE weirdos do not live their “efficiency” mission. It turns out that Elon, who claims that working nights and weekends is a “super power,” is mostly just doing what your kids are doing with their nights and weekends: playing video games. But in a very billionaire-y way, I’m sure! Not to worry, though. He’s got a high-priced consultant to help him buy big TVs to use as gaming monitors. Hope that didn’t get installed at government expense! Ha ha! (It probably did.)

Meanwhile, over at OPM, where the job is to kick everybody else out of their jobs, the agency spokesperson has been—efficiently, no doubt—moonlighting as an Instagram fashion influencer. To be fair, it’s not clear that she actually influences anybody. But the real point is that she’s doing it from the office. On your time, and your dime.

And just to give you one more thing to think worry about, if the DOGE kids actually do succeed in selling off government office buildings, what’s gonna happen to the artwork? Yes, there’s artwork! And some of it is pretty valuable! And there are a bunch of grubby billionaires with light fingers in town!

That’s the last time KITM hires that local kid “Big Balls” to do IT work. Yesterday’s show file wasn’t recorded… which one could only wish happened to the first 15 minutes of today’s show as David Waldman on-the-fly set up the KITM VoIP connection to Greg Dworkin.

It’s the economy, stupid, and no one could possibly handle it more stupidly than Donald K. Trump. Inflation was lower than expected in February… remember February? That was so long ago. Trump’s own advisors are terrified because they see what’s coming. Americans are finally getting the picture, as if that really matters. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hasn’t yet seen the underside of the bus but can tell you that it’s a wonderful place to be.

Go see Crazy Don for crazy deals! Right behind the White House just off Pennsylvania Avenue!

Green card holder, American spouse, kid on the way, Mahmoud Khali was disappeared after using his Constitutional rights in a politically incorrect (for March 2025) manner. Columbia, gem of private higher education, did exactly what Trump wanted, therefore their future destruction as an example will be doubly satisfying. Ohio, for one, welcomes their anti-DEI overlords to all of their 14 public universities and 23 public colleges. Georgetown University, in Washington DC, sees diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of their compliance to a higher authority… the Constitution.

Greenland’s election was between 6 parties, 5 who want independence from Denmark, 6 who want independence from Trump.

The US closed its eyes to Ukraine intelligence, encouraging the Five Eyes intelligence alliance to become the Four Eyes intelligence group, which does sound more intelligent. 

House Gops sent their unclean CR to the Senate. Let’s see if Dems can keep from being weenies over there now.

Walt Nauta should be in jail, so of course he’s on the U.S. Navy’s board of visitors. Trump communications chief McLaurine Pinover defended DOGE Layoffs while efficiently modelling cute outfits.

Social Security workers aren’t allowed to read this story, but heading into the weekend, David Waldman and KITM have remained under the DOGE radar! Keep your fingers crossed!

The first thing we do is… let’s kill all the Democratic consultants. Ok, that sounds “a little harsh”, and the one thing any consultant will tell you, is that you absolutely do not want to sound “a little harsh”, EVER. Except for when you’re knifing a friend and colleague in the back for sounding “a little harsh”. That’s just pragmatic expediency. Everyone, except possibly that person that you knifed, will forget in no time… Therefore, feel free to knife friends and colleagues in the back as often as needed. It always works!

Do Republicans lie to each other like Democrats do? They lie so often, it’s hard to tell. Will Trump really be counting the gold bars in Fort Knox? Are scientists randomly dressing mice in little fedoras and bonnets? Is the Enola Gay just too gay? The blunders are stacking up everywhere. But the thing is, if stupid lies work just as well, why not? Lie with every sentence, F ’em if they can’t take a joke. Russian humor is an acquired taste, you know. At this moment, translators are putting a comedy set together for the Pentagon’s new deputy press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, and her opening act, Jack Posobiec. 

The parade of comedy never ends! Turning Canada and Mexico’s tariffs on and off never gets old, amirite? Expect a dozen more times with those two, perhaps fewer with China. Maine parents are required to register newborns at the Social Security office, for the LOLs. Fired federal workers bring the gift of laughter to their own relatives. DOGE revealed a secret CIA facility… but no worries, they hid it again… heh heh.

David Waldman serves up a lot on today’s KITM, but no nothingburgers! You need to head over to Bondi’s for those.

Greg Dworkin tried unplugging and replugging Connecticut this morning but they’re still offline up there.

Place your bets right now. Will Republicans or Democrats destroy the United States first? Of course, Dems are the “good guys”, right? They stand for… uhm, their intentions are… hmm. It’s just that their Ping-Pong paddles are kind of small and hard to read.

Donald K. Trump demands that Al Green be forced to take an IQ test. Representative Green probably should, if he believes that any “fellow” Democrats would have joined his opposition to Trump. Do you think that they would have censured a couple hundred Democrats? I guess we’ll never know, will we? As Democrats Anonymous member “Elissa” said in her rebuttal: … Well, it doesn’t matter “what” she said, it’s that she wouldn’t say anything that consultants say she shouldn’t say, which is very important when you consider “the audience” that she was speaking to, which would be other consultants. If Democrats were interested in the opinions of anyone other than Democratic consultants, Al Green would have been doing the rebuttal, or AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Eric Swalwell or a hundred or so others, give or take.

Meanwhile, Trump deports Ukrainians, while looking into overthrowing their government. That seems to be a weird way to treat a loyal … Wait, we still have loyalties? Well, “yes and no”, and “yes and no”, and “yes and no”, and “yes and no”, and “yes and no”, but maybe… if you play your cards right. That is, if the courts let Trump get away with it, or if Trump can get away with it after the courts try to stop him. Or, if Mr. Musk allows him to. Senate Republicans tell Musk… push Musk to…. beg Musk to let them pretend to have a say in things. Elon is having way too much fun to share right now.

No, David Waldman did not watch the speech, or the Oscars, or the Super Bowl, all right? (The TV’s been stuck on the History Channel since David lost the remote.) Greg Dworkin is still on Skype, which is now shutting down, forcing an alternative. Greg will be choosing between Zoom or his dial-up fax machine in the basement, whichever has the most pleasant ringtone.

Donald K. Trump presented his State of Denial “address”… It was a “Joint Address” to the Gops who love humiliation, and the Dems, who are learning to. Of course, some Democrats boycotted, but most did not. Some had signs, most did not. Al Green stood up, and was ejected. The rest chose not to join him. Expediency seems to be the hill they have chosen to die on, and there’s certainly little disarray there.

With Democrats keeping a low profile until 2026 2028 2030… it once again falls upon Trump to do all the heavy lifting. The plan has always been to keep the masses just at the precipice of an uprising, but this administration might be slightly overplaying their hand. (Yes, Steve Inskeep is on Blue Sky) Trump tariffs might sink the stock market, but don’t worry, rich people will still get rich even when poor people get poor. Trump’s tariffs might hurt Trump voters, but Trump doesn’t need them to vote for him anymore. It will take a lot more than mere poverty to ever cool their ardor, though. (Yes, Will Jordan is on Blue Sky) Anyhow, each passing moment is another opportunity to declare victory and completely reverse course, faster than a bro can change his Zyn pouch.

DOGE lists 443 federal properties up for sale, because why work in a building that you own, when you can rent it? NVM... the list went away. 

Trump is halting enforcement against corporate lawbreakers. Who says he doesn’t have empathy for his brethren? However, the Trump Supreme Court says 5-4 that Trump has to follow contractual obligations. Is it too late for Donald to get a full refund on John Roberts?

Fat Tuesday! Grab your donuts and breakfast beer and March 4th with David Waldman this morning. This year for Mardi Gras, Cybertruck-shaped piñatas will be roaming the streets! 

Happy Tariff Day! Trees, a major source of income for both Canada and Joyce Kilmer, will be going up like eggs, as will just about everything, since just about everything comes from Canada, Mexico or China. The only thing going down will be stocks, and they’re going way down.

Donald K. Trump will be going viral tonight, up or down, he DNGAF. Can you imagine Dems treating this thing like the locals at a town hall? Well, imagine away, because they aren’t going to do that. They will bring some people, release some statements mentioning those people, and… ...sorry, my fingers fell asleep typing that.

Elon Musk is of course, a visionary-genius, as of course, reflected by his visionarily genius child-naming. Which one was at the White House recently… “5138008”? “88-14WYTB01? “D3L3TDG0VT”? Nope, it was “X Æ A-Xii”… accent on the ”Æ”. (You know how to pronounce Æ) That tyke is Elon’s favorite human stole to wear on formal occasions and knew exactly how to trigger fellow toddler Donald K. Trump through the time-honored tradition of wiping boogers on his desk.

DataRepublican may not be a visionary-genius name, and neither is Jennica Pounds, but if she doesn’t like you are just as fired as if X Æ A-Xii fired you himself.

Donald took the classified documents that he had previously stolen and returned them to… Mar-a-Lago. Because, as previously mentioned, Trump is a toddler. Professional psychopathologists may have a more complex definition of his behavior, but really, someone should just take him out of the adult room before he breaks something.

Operation Smell the Whirlwind might have lost their prize quarry, Chuck Schumer. Meanwhile, the Trump Justice Department is figuring out how to spring Tina Peters out of a State Pen. Soon we’ll see how loyal the Trump Supreme Court is.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has yet to return to the US, but it is certainly expected that he will be required to wear a different wardrobe for his upcoming apology visit. Does clothes make the man, or the man make the clothes?

Ok, where was I? Oh yes, I finished Friday’s summary describing the time Donald K. Trump extorted Ukraine President Zelenskyy to falsely promote Russian interests. Back in those days we used to impeach Presidents for that kind of stuff. Anyhow...

David Waldman is here with the KITM Oscars Analysis. He has heard some “good buzz” about this movie “Oppenheimer” that he might want to check out… No spoilers, please!

Greg Dworkin is here with a big Raft O’ Stories™, loaded with Plenty O’ X links (I know, but the guy still uses Skype too. Some things take time to let go of.)

New Yorkers knew Trump was a mob boss, now the world knows. Everybody knew this was a trap going in. SNL probably had their skit written last Thursday. It’s weird, but we also all knew what the Trump & crew’s reaction to the trap’s gigantic failure would be also. The surprise might be in how this unified Europe against the burgeoning Axis of assholes.

Pete Hegseth rotates the turrets away from Russia and levels the guns on Mexico.

Which pandemic will you die from this year? When you find out, write your answer in this DOGE questionnaire. Elon Musk is pulling out of the retail market to go to where the money is: the public sector, where waste and fraud might not run rampant, but he sure can.  The good news is that the national debt and pandemic deaths will soon be set to zero with a push of a button.

Trump named the cryptocurrencies in the strategic reserve, naturally he named them to his friends first. (Follow The Stalwart on Blue Sky.)

If Trump could laugh, he’d cackle with glee as he suspended the security clearances of Jack Smith’s lawyers and demoted prosecutors down to trying CVS shoplifters.

Judge Chuang can’t stop the DOJ from beating the USAID because they’re already dead. Of course, the children they were feeding will soon be literally dead.

Low-income Trump voters sure hope they don’t find out. They can’t afford to find out much more. Car prices are going up by what a car used to be priced at.  Even Elon Musk and his mother are crashing at a bud’s house until this blows over.

Kash Patel doesn’t want to flash the Kash Patelmobile around DC and plans to stay in Las Vegas at the pleasure of his megadonor daddy.

Democrats understand what to do with a crime in progress… Talk. And, if the crime progresses, talk louder… or perhaps, change the subject, or hold on a while, or wait. Or try all of those in combination, that should do it. If all that can’t stop it, NOTHING can… and they’ll be up for trying that too.

David Waldman delivers us to the end of the month, and yes, the end of the week. KITM’s superpower is to not work on weekends.

You don’t see Donald K. Trump work weekends, or weekdays. It’s too much work for him to remember what he said yesterday. Elon Musk is the go-getter, destroying civilization, trolling billions, uploading federal grants with one hand and downloading IVF deposits with the other. Or perhaps the “real power” behind the autocoup is the “husband” and “wife” team of Stephen and Katie Miller. That would explain a lot of things.

Chinese crypto guy Justin Sun paid up front on his fraud case, so now the SEC can discover new priorities. (That’s all chump crypto change to North Korea) The FBI raids the EPA without probable cause because that isn’t really needed for a shakedown. Meanwhile, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has cracked the case of 40 tons of gold bars shoplifted from Fort Knox. That would seem hard to believe until you consider Donald K. Trump flushed a billion down the toilet to own the EV Libs… and if you think that’s “shocking”, consider that Elon Musk is flushing an entire EV car company down the toilet to own the EV Libs.

Ace KITM Correspondent Rosalyn MacGregor reports on the one business booming lately, IUD procedures!

Russia Russia Russia put the K in Donald K. Trump. That’s some of why he was impeached that one time, maybe both. Remember when Trump tried to intimidate and extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and blame Ukraine, not Russia for… Oh, hold on, I see that he is doing it again as I type this. I’ll have to stop, or my summary will run right into Monday’s!

David Waldman gives us a few more things to think about, laugh about, get kind of grumpy about, on today’s KITM.

Guess what? Dr. Greg Dworkin says America’s got a fever! And the only prescription... is more F-bombs! Covid “alarmists” were closer to the truth than anyone else. (IMO, “alarmist” has been pretty much the way to go for around a decade.) DOGE douches unplugged our healthcare ventilator and were surprised after the heart wouldn’t reboot. Oops! Ebola prevention was shut off… There! Fixed, good as new… They weren’t in America, anyhow.

Speaking of Americans, Billions in professional services contracts in Veterans Affairs were to be cut for… whatever. Then someone checked into it and discovered that they were doing some really important stuff there. Who’d guess that so many consequential things would be actually happening? Elon will have to check in with “DataRepublican”, the new Q of MAGA, more often. 

Whatever your problem is, Elon Musk has got just the thing to fix it. DOGE noticed that the FAA misspelled “Verizon” on their contracts and helpfully corrected it to “Starlink”. You’d be amazed at how many uses Starlink can fulfill.  And best for Elon, they each can be turned off at any time, no problem! Even so, for some reason, many in Washington feel pwnd by Musk, as do a lot of others.

Speaking of trolls, who are also rapists, human traffickers and child pornographers, Andrew Tate and his brother are arriving in the US, and will probably be Medal of Honor recipients by mid-March. Election denier, rabid insurrectionist toady Paul Ingrassia is now Trump’s guy at Homeland Security.

Tariffs on Mexico and Canada will go into effect March 4 as scheduled because Donald K. Trump isn’t becoming re-glued and re-hinged anytime soon. As this our Axis forms, is it patrimonialism supported by anarcholibertarian capitalists or just morons in the moment?

Right pukka, innit? Another KITM today featuring the brilliant púcaí doodlebugging of David Waldman and Greg Dworkin!

The Gop big beautiful awful bill passed the House last night. Clever and feisty Dems were clever and feisty but not quite successful... yet played a great game. Should Democrats strategize and triangulate and stick up for minorities while appealing to the majority? Yes! Or… they could just pick out some principles and hills to die on and take those damn hills or find themselves simply primaried out... 

Or they could wait. MAGA policies aren’t popular, and Donald K. Trump is despicable. People see zero difference between Glenn Youngkin and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Gop town halls aren’t as comfy as they used to be.

There’s a chance that we could live to see Republicans crumble, but with medical research lab funding halted, we have no one to figure out what that chance might be. Traffic-cone-on-the-face research device, Gesundheit II, hoped to study the deadly spread of sneezing. (Gesundheit I traced a more silent yet deadly threat.)

Federal firings bring back the thrill of flying. Wouldn’t you know, Elon Musk has just the fix: Starlink satellites that he could turn off whenever he’s in “one of his moods”. You might ask, “How was Elon awarded that contract so quickly? Was there a vetting or bidding process?” Go ahead. Ask all you want. They drew straws to see who’d run DOGE, and Amy Gleason was out that day.

A federal board agreed to pause firings for some staff. Members of the board, as well as lawyers who assisted Jack Smith, are advised to stay away from open office windows.

Any lowly immigrant carrying only their worldly belongings and a certified check for $5 million dollars will always be welcome here as long as Trump is president.

David Waldman counts down the days until our national apocalypse, yet with so many tied down the backstretch, this race is a tough call!

For supposed “auditors”, nothing about DOGE adds up. Monday, Elon gave federal workers until three to… Uhm, today Elon gave federal workers until three to… Tomorrow, Elon will give federal workers until three to… Trump could barely get a semi-fired up today, as his EO has ED. Musk was able to cut 20 DOGE staff today who couldn’t look themselves in the mirror anymore. Meanwhile, “fired” staffers keep finding themselves “unfired”. Those who did send in responses will have the answers fed into AI and anyone determined to be funnier than Musk will be dismissed immediately… (Those people would also be expected to be more liberal, naturally.)

DOGE’s dealings are illegal and even unconstitutional, but now the challenge is determining who is DOGE’s head douche. Trump is so opposed to leaving a paper trail that he skips on chances to cover his own ass.

DOGE was designed to attack liberals, but it terrifies the ever-loving crap out of Democrats, which was “Job One” for Donald K. Trump. Donald can now leave the Lib cleanup operation to Don Bongino and Don Jr.’s “hunting buddy” who will instruct the FDA to move infant formula by the kilo from this point on. With the US out of the way it is now time to Make Axis Great Again for our new conquest over our old allies.

With such colossal corruption, who’s to notice the little stuff, like a Florida congressman assaulting women at night along the Wharf? At least that’s what the U.S. Attorney’s Office thought when they tossed his warrant into the trash.

This weekend KITM Headquarters sent David Waldman and Greg Dworkin an email directing them to list five ways that they contribute to the civil discourse. These overachievers came up with something like two hours' worth!

Gop town halls are experiencing F5 blowback from constituents, but it’s a gentle breeze compared to what they’re expecting to be hit with soon. This is the kind of thing local news loves to cover, and local protesters love to attend. People in power may want to hide, but for people who want to be in power, town halls are the place to be seen. Suddenly, no one wants to take credit for their thugs.

Never Trump Republicans are divided on a host of issues but know how to get in front of a camera. They are enough of a threat to this administration to earn immediate attention from the Brown Shirts. On the other hand, Democrats are unifying behind nearby hedges to work on their guacamole bar charts, as their “Hope” poster mostly refers to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Ok, there is Senator Chris Murphy.

Other than that, Donald K. Trump’s worst enemy is himself, and he’s doing a simply incredible job. He and Elon, of course. The only people they hate more than themselves are all the other people. With Dan Bongino and Pete Hegseth FA, there won’t be any left to FO.

We are, as usual, heading towards a government shutdown. Gops would like to blame Dems, if it wasn’t for all of the government that they’ve been shutting down recently.

As for the states, Trump picked and lost a fight with the Maine Governor, but hating Trump is completely bipartisan.

The Times asks if had Ukraine not dressed so provocatively, would Vlad and Donald not be behaving the way they are? Germany has swung to the right in the latest elections but is also not swinging towards the United States.

It’s Friday, the day David Waldman pitches us into the maelstrom.  We get today’s last dangle before we drop.

The weekend is when Elon Musk really lets his Big Balls loose. Well not “his”, per se, those are in a jar at some IVF lab. The rest of us are menaced by whatever his giant ketamine cookie jar of a head is coming up with.

The weekdays are for Trump to crop-dust us with EOs, edicts and royal proclamations. Trump will thus eliminate judges who are too judgey and deliver your mail from now on. Jan 6 rioters will soon be deputized. Pete Hic! Seth will purge all generals left of Jack D. Ripper. Trump’s first priority, however, is to take whatever Vlad will allow him.

Israel is angry to come up short on their hostage body count. Hamas better move fast before the renovators come in. Trumpy America makes things humiliating for Saudi Arabia, along with every other Middle Eastern faction since the dawn of time.

Ah, but we are only weeks away from March 15 and the beginning of spring cleanup season! Gop townhalls are filling with freshly leopard-eaten faces. FAFO is already exceeding overflow capacity. Republicans are beginning to get what they deserve…  But you know what? Democrats deserve double, because, really, nobody voted for that.

Greg Dworkin walks us through some familiar and relevant Watergate history, beginning with the saga of John Mitchell, which serves as necessary background to today’s corruption, only part of which manifests itself in the form of Eric Adams’ corruption. Another fun development on this front: a NY Bar Association complaint against Count Boveula.

Of course, there are a million other angles on Trump’s corruption, like this one out of left field, on NYC congestion pricing. The Adams story is just today’s appetizer.

And that’s just the domestic model. Looking abroad, we find other worrisome precedent—and the potential for new disasters—in Germany. And, of course, the potential for compounding old disasters, as in Ukraine.

Checking back in on the growing library of Trump “administration” attorney conflicts of interest, Walt Nauta’s lawyer just remembered he’s in government now, and resigned his case.

Another story we had to check back in on: Trump’s targeting of the Merit Service Protection Board. While we were waiting around for a new show, a federal judge reversed MSPB Chair Cathy Harris’ purported dismissal.

And that other growing library, the list of federal agencies infiltrated by the DOGE Teen Hunger Force has also expanded. This time, it’s just the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). No big whoop.

Just in case you’d forgotten how they get everyone to lie down for them, though, the answer is just what you thought it was: death threats.

David Waldman is not here today! But what is “here”, anyway? David recorded a brand-new show that went over by four minutes — that’s hundreds of extra words! So, he is virtually here today… but what is “virtually”, anyhow? KITM is still OG podcasting, the way they did it back in the twenty teens, none of that funny new stuff, or the funny old stuff, or any of that funny stuff, just the real stuff! (which is often funny)

The Trump White House is one step away from adding a laugh track to its ICE videos.

DOGE has made Trump II exponentially more incompetent and horrific. Are they saving $8 million? $8 billion? $8 trillion? $8? Who knows? Because that isn’t the point. The National Science Foundation fired probationary employees and threw in some permanent employees and at-will workers. If anyone had a problem, they could take it up with the board (who were fired) or tell reporters to make a FOIA request through staff (who were also fired). That doesn’t sound like saving money, it sounds like eliminating witnesses. It sounds like burning everything down to hide the bodies. 

Pam Bondi, She-Wolf of the DOJ, was schutzstaffelling the Eric Adams case the moment she got the job. When Trump picked the one Black woman in the National Labor Relations Board to fire, he might have been dimly aware that it would go to his Supreme Court. Whatever they decide won’t be the end of it.

Trump, Putin and the Saudis had a meeting to discuss the upcoming Kyiv Trump Tower and rare earth mines. In only 4 hours they were able to settle on their McDonald’s order and sell out the future of 40 million people.

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin return in a Tuesday KITM that feels like a Monday KITM but is more like a Friday KITM that feels like a Thursday KITM. You will understand once you hear the Wednesday KITM.

A Delta airliner landed on its roof in Minneapolis yesterday. Is that how they are supposed to land? It doesn’t seem so… unfortunately the people in charge of that at the FAA don’t work there anymore. OSHA also eliminated safety guidelines warning of a diversity of dangers. Thousands of government employees have been fired because of performance, though “good” or “bad” performance has not been specified. Next up, the Social Security Administration, because there is no “yours” or “their” money, it’s “woke” or “based” money. MAGA is finding out that Musk just doesn’t think they are that cool.

One thing’s for certain; you can’t blame Trump or Musk for this, because “Trump” and “Musk” and “DOGE” and the “Gulf of America” are just words in some mass hallucination that you have chosen to believe. Pick the red or blue pill and… never mind, SCOTUS will pick one out for you.

Did “they” flood Kentucky to steal Fort Knox from Elon? Sure, why not?

Gops only care about the rules if that helps them break the rules. “But! Those rules are the rules!” the Dems cry out, as sparks shoot out of their ears, and they collapse en masse to the ground.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has found a set of rules to try after four of the City's Deputy Mayors resigned rather than break their rules. Governor Katy Hochul has now found herself in the uncomfortable position of having to do a thing or at least having a conversation about doing a thing. Of course, no one actually “told” anyone to dismiss Eric Adam’s prosecution… especially not attorney Alex Spiro.

David Waldman delivers the first KITM following the declaration of the historic Luigi Doctrine this weekend. Dems in exile plot their counterattack to be waged once they find the Elmer’s to glue together their big piece of posterboard onto that easel that goes behind their outraged speeches. Greg Dworkin is out fighting weather not fit for man nor beast. Greg’s not presumed lost; in fact, we presume he might turn up tomorrow.

Elon Musk is sucking America dry.  Anyone willing to reciprocate will be rewarded. Supergenius Elon knows when you are laughing “with” him and when you aren’t. Elon’s son, WD-40, will tell him as he already has more accounting experience and common sense than all DOGErs combined. OSHA guidelines are banned from warning about a diversity of dangers. Hundreds of officials hired to keep nukes from going nuclear are fired, maybe, then rehired, maybe. Maybe they aren’t really fired, they just won’t be paid, or maybe they’ll be arrested today, who knows? If employees were involved with DEI, attended mandatory DEI meetings, had grandparents who were DEI lovers, or have even a drop of DEI blood, they better watch their backs.

Today, whether you’re planning a romantic evening for two or two hundred, you’ll want to hear David Waldman, the “Barry White of political podcasts”, on KITM, home of the hottest takes.

Elon Musk doesn’t know his SQL from a hole in the ground, but how hard is it really to sucker punch US government agencies defended by only strong rhetoric? 

Dems seem kinda happy to be out of power. Gops are certainly happy that they are also out of power. Corporate media is delighted to phone it in. 

Officers with the federal public integrity unit don’t want to be the one who aids and abets Mayor Eric Adams.

Pete Hegseth told NATO to never trust or rely upon the US anymore, and NATO agreed. JD Vance also brought his foreign policy to work today. The Vance Doctrine fights woke around the world. Little DOGEy Edward Coristine might have dabbled in racism and pedophilia back in his youth of last year, but Elon Musk will groom him to greatness.

Emil Bove, who somehow looks more like Stephen Miller than Miller does will hunt down the Jan 6 prosecutors he worked with before the end times.

Thomson Reuters wins the first major AI copyright case in the US.

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin are back and will continue to return until we straighten up.

Today in political procedure efficaciousness: Democratic Representatives aren’t really into leading a peaceful revolution at the moment, which will probably end in… something not so good… that they won’t be leading anyhow. Therefore, it falls upon Gops to be responsible and save the nation and stuff...

Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi, flanked by FBI agents, as a signal that she meant business, announced the immediate arrest of traitors to the Father… no wait, she didn’t. Plenty of others around the world are happy to, however, and Americans can and will die from this.

As per tradition, Gazans will be allowed to leave a trail of tears when relocated.

We abandon Ukraine. We abandon Nato. We abandon the world. We are such pussies.

Disney fights woke by taking the trigger warning off Dumbo, while slipping in the most woke verse to the most woke song on the most woke theme park ride ever. Finally, the yoke of woke is off entertainment! Finally, the Kennedy Center will be free to honor the next Leni Riefenstahl, as long as she’s blonde with double Ds.

The State Department said they were buying $400M in Cybertrucks. Elon Musk denied that the State Dept is buying $400M worth of Tesla Cybertrucks. The state department removed the word “Tesla” from the $400M contract. Waste and corruption are gone! You are welcome! Elon Musk will pay $10 million to settle its NOT-Z site lawsuit. Elon Musk collects $8 million per day for his DODGEY efforts. Even Elon’s son THX-1138 can do the math on who’s in charge here.

Arbitrary and capricious! Who’d guess that something as obscure as “law” would throw Trump off his righteous path? Trump and paperwork, man.

JD Vance has always been JD First, which he believes will get him into Heaven. Experts disagree.

IYL to KITM, YK but David Waldman only has two hours, weekdays, to tell you. Somedays, like today, Greg Dworkin shows up to assist via his many helpful interruptions.

Democrats will never bring a gun to a knife fight. They won’t bring a knife to a knife fight. They bring Robert’s Rules of Order to a knife fight. Dodgy Doges performing illegal acts on government property? What do you want Dems to do? Walk by a guard? No! Effective procedure is far too complex for that. Think of the trouble it would cause if Jasmine Crockett were to actually break Nancy Mace’s nose! No one wants trouble, no matter how good that trouble might be. 

After all, we have the Constitution. They are still letting us have the rule of law (as of 2:10 PM EST) Yep, just wait for things to turn out right… Also, Gops seem to be morons, so there’s always some hope there. (Remember to NOT follow anyone on the NOT-Z site! They are always available elsewhere!)

Then there’s that DODGY, and its most Artful DOGEr, Elon Musk. Elon, wearing his son Mxyzptlk, was forced to call his worst employee onto the oval carpet yesterday. Donald was asleep at the job again, and worse couldn’t perform the simple task of lying to credulous access stenographers about why DODGY exists, which is of course to destroy Elon’s enemies, including all the poors, (Because hilarious!) leaving the remainder… the folks that get it.

New York Mayor Eric Adams gets it. But if it turns out he hasn’t, back into the box he goes. By the way, how did the Pope ever get the impression that JD Vance worshiped Christ?

Sunday’s Superbowl halftime show was the second most watched TV show of all time but may have taken the lead in the number of stupid people watching it. That is, stupid people and old white folks whose kids obviously didn’t them bring up right. Here today to guide us is KITM Senior Hip-Hop Correspondent and Cultural Zeitgeist Analyst Darwin Darko who personally recorded a quick 10-minute primer to catch us up.

On today’s KITM David Waldman reviews the freshest havoc being delivered direct to your door.

Donald opened the gates on Arkham Asylum yet again, Rod Blagojevich scurried out. Eric Adams will be allowed to remain “New York City” Mayor as long as he remembers whose mayor he really is. Trump streamlines the process and just legalizes bribery and corruption.

Judge Berman Jackson placed an administrative stay on the firing of Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger. Trump sent a lawyer in a velvet tux to shout “Objection!”

Today’s chaff explosion contains pennies and Lee Harvey Oswald’s laptop from hell. Also, Jan 6 cops were the rioters. 

Trump’s biggest corruption ever, and possibly the biggest this week... or maybe today, is to create a Trump-centric economy and kill the watchdog. This began before the inauguration, when early crypto traders stroked the $TRUMPet and made millions from nothing, for no one.

Trump is a narcissistic sociopathic grifter, but he knows what side his bread is buttered on and isn’t interested in destroying all of his adoring fans. Elon Musk, however, is in this for the Lulz. He’s still giving out reasons for what he does, but that’s for his lulz as well. If he told the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau why he wanted in the door, they wouldn’t have let him in, and what is the fun in that?

Musk gets along with his little Dogeys by rescuing the worst of every litter. Elon knows who he needs for this job. If your bs got you fired, that bs will get you hired by Musk.

It’s Superbowl Monday! There may be some problem with saying that, but it also seems that most have bigger things on their plate.

David Waldman is here to help carry our metaphorical plates

Greg Dworkin somehow hauls in his Raft O’ Stories™ while riding in on the new FAFO Express™. 

Jeff Stein over on the NOT-Z website describes what he sees as the DOGE game plan. (Jeff will describe it to you at the Good Place also.) Kingpin Elon Musk adds to Trump’s psychopathogarchy an all new economic model with him at the top of the pyramid scheme, and a system of government similar to your health insurance help line. Already Musk’s trademark efforts have cut worker turnover in half.

Elon’s handymen are busy installing backdoors all over Washington.

Much of what Boss Musk is doing is illegal, but who’s going to tell him, will he listen, and if not, who’s going to make him listen? JD Vance believes that Trump should just shut down the “federal” part of government and just hand off the rest to the States.

Russell Vought, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, didn’t act that way for long, shutting it all down and adding a few more lawsuits to the pile. The National Security Agency will be deleting any websites that show bias… that is, the word “bias”, also “prejudice”, “racism” and “gender”. Everyone knows that if those words are eliminated, so of course would be the problems. Trump knows to fire the people foolish enough to come to the diversity training that he ordered.

Trump meanwhile assures citizens that the treasury is rigged, and that their dollars are fake, so just calm down until Mike Lindell takes a look at everything. Farmers were assured that their USDA funding would not be frozen, but no one promised that they would keep sending them checks. You can trust Trump to be a liar, but you can’t trust that he is always lying. You can trust Trump to be purely transactional, but you never know if you are the recipient, or the payment.

To no one’s surprise, the excuses the Trump White House is issuing for Elon Musk’s attacks on USAID are not true. Eleven of the 12 offered are just flat lies or inaccurate. The twelfth is just dumb. Meanwhile, Trump continues to insist on the dumbest possible reading of everything, including his claim that USAID subsidized Politico. Which, duh. Although maybe Politico thought they could get subsidized by the Trump “administration” if they licked his boots enough. Nope! Not only that, but Trump now thinks he’s ordered the government-wide cancellation of all media contracts. Probably not the best one, though.

If it’s not a White Guy, it’s DEI!™ NSA papers over, then re-reveals its “Hall of Honor” exhibits. Overzealous enforcement, or malicious compliance?

Anyway, you’ll never believe it, but Elon’s Lost Boys were lying about their access. Oh, and they’re racists. Oh, and Little Marco was lying about a fake freebie deal with Panama, too. Oh, and Elon’s been falling for Russian fake videos again.

Who benefits when USAID leaves the field? The other team(s). (Though Elon might actually be on those teams.) Who loses? The people Trump says he’s “protecting” from “anti-Christian bias.” Of course, he also thinks he’s protecting against anti-Jewish bias, too.

Did the Trump “administration” learn its lesson from Colombia, about treating deportees with minimum basic standards of dignity? Well, you heard me say it was Trump, right?

Pop quiz! Who is the Archivist of the United States?

Pop quiz! Who is the chair of the Federal Election Commission?

Google is your friend co-conspirator.

Gluttons for punishment or eternal optimists? David Waldman and Greg Dworkin are back, and so are you!

Be on the lookout! Someone has stolen 100,000 eggs, and the suspect is still at large... grade A, extra-large!

Alas, there are worse cartoon supervillains on the loose. Elon Musk is attacking his enemies, USAID and USA, while his chief henchman Trump finally breaks the Senate, orders America to check the undies of 9-year-olds, weaponizes government against the first female Coast Guard commandant, and pours billions of gallons of water into the sewer while looking into the eyes of drought-ridden farmers. Trump can’t find enough people here to set on his trail of tears, so he hopes to add Gazans. Democrats have yet to solidify around a solution, as most of the good solutions might be considered felonies.

Democracy is down, but maybe not out. Most people don’t like what’s happening, if that matters anymore. Gops don’t like Musk, but who does? And what just happened with Trump’s tariff strategy? Trump and paperwork, man! But then again, his boss Musk has some crafty little ones working for him. They were born into the age of trolling. Their entire life has been a black mirror, for them all reality is fungible. For them, all truth is no more or less than an internet poll. All those numbers and names are just data, bro.

We and David Waldman have made it to the Wednesday KITM! Now, let’s try for Thursday!

Greg Dworkin bursts through the door, cinders in his hair, shirt torn, exclaiming “The State of the Union is not... sound” before collapsing. Really? I read that The Sims is 25, but are things that bad out there? Why yes, things are that bad. You won’t be reading that on government websites, because they have been shut off. As for the MSM, “Trump is brazenly defying laws” must be hard to type from the lower intestine of a leopard, which is also a bad location to recover from. But what if Trump defies judges next? Well, that is the point in being “brazen”, right? Anyhow, Trump’s face will eventually be leopard chow, because Elon’s actually running this operation, somehow one step ahead of everyone with his gang of kids, including Big Balls and The Artful Dodger.

The Dems charge over the hill, cavalry bugling, finally.  But who to rescue first? The FAA bans employees from making air travel safer. The USPS suspends and un-suspends packages from China. The Army doesn’t know what the F is going on. Trump hopes to have Gaza wrapped up to give Jared for Christmas. Don’t worry, Palestinians can come back after it’s “world class”, right after Paiutes return to Las Vegas and the Lenape to Manhattan. By then Gazans in the Middle East (and Africa!) will have collected enough condoms to line their new private swimming pools. And why does everyone keep trying to trade war Donald?

Oh, I forgot that Trump is an idiot figurehead, a complete cypher. Unfortunately, not enough people remember that. Remember that the enemy isn’t who Trump tells MAGA it is, it is whomever that Elon Musk thinks it is. At this moment the enemy is the less than a quarter of one percent of the US GDP in foreign aid. “Nonessential” USAID personnel will find out how essential they’ve been deemed late in the afternoon of the day that they need to leave their countries. The least essential guy available has been put in control of their future.

David Waldman spins the big wheel of awfulness, let’s see if your number comes up!

Our digital Pearl Harbor continues, and we continue to lose. Federal workers are reeling from the ongoing surprise attack. A 25-year-old working for Musk now has a few trillion dollars of his very own. You say it was your money? Try proving that with a deleted Social Security number. You say a federal judge backs you... What federal Judge? You say you have a paper trail… What’s paper? Chuck Schumer has a few zingers that he had hoped to unleash on Gerald Ford but now is as good a time as any.

Gops blame DEI in schools eating the cats and dogs to poop in the litterboxes.

Steven Miller says that you saw the ax in Trump’s hand when you let him in the door. What did you expect would happen?  Anyhow, who’s Trump? President Musk has finished measuring the drapes and will be accepting the Oval Office now. Today’s random country is South Africa. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa begs Elon for mercy, not Donald. Donald’s happy to just sign stuff and go golfing.

Heads up to Democrats, today’s target is the Department of Education, so you’ll know to put that on your list to definitely get to, sometime. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau just said F’ it and surrendered. The NSA puts burkas on their woman’s photos. Susan Collins is concerned.

Trump is putting together a sovereign wealth fund so that he still gets a chunk when this all goes down.

On today’s KITM, David Waldman and Greg Dworkin attempted to sum up what happened over the weekend.  Now, let me try to sum up that.

Musk and Trump are about halfway in their overthrow of the United States. Democrats who stick with procedure as Gops violate norms, now consider violating norms as Gops violate laws. We wish them and the mainstream media godspeed in their journey. Meanwhile, between you and me, we seem pretty fucked... Musk has already taken over government computers, blinded their security, decapitated leadership across dozens of agencies, and incapacitated their defense in a weekend that will live in infamy… Not here, we’re talking Kanye here, but everywhere else in the world as they watch the USAFAFO.

And that’s not the half of it! Elon is taking the United States, but not before Donald can ruin it. Even Fox News will tell you that.  Brian Stelter recommends that you subscribe to Canadian News. I recommend that you follow Brian Stelter on Threads, or Blue Sky! It sure beats following him on state media! Pour one out for the Star Ledger. The remaining US media sit in slack-jawed amazement as economists slowly explain the stuff they should’ve learned in high school. The Chair of the House Appropriations committee might need to retake remedial civics classes. Graduate level courses are offered by Matt Glassman on Nazi Social, but also, of course, on Blue Sky. 

Hey! Remember last week, when Trump emptied reservoirs of water to punish California farmers for voting blue?

There is nothing wrong with your media device. Do not attempt to adjust the sound. We are controlling transmission... Well, we were for a while. On Libsyn and Patreon versions of today’s KITM David Waldman might have recorded a sign off, on others though, if you aren’t hearing anything after 1:42:18, that is not a very dramatic pause, you’re just out of podcast until Monday morning.

Anyhow, are you feeling shocked and awed? That was definitely the intent in Trump’s freezing of federal loans and grants, which has been rescinded…  but was the order actually rescinded, or just the memo containing the order? Aha! Gotcha!

Expect this bullshit. The Office of Personnel Management “survey” contained a “resign” button that either does nothing or ruins your life. Spinning the wheel will never land you on seven months' pay, just a fork in the eye.

The Trump DOJ will now drop prosecution of Trump’s henchmen, because they are now the president’s henchmen. In the over 1,500 Jan. 6 insurrectionists pardoned several have been rearrested or killed in police shootouts, as well they should. And yet some expect the pardon to carry over to their future crimes.

Zuck invested another $25 mil to stay out of Gitmo.

FU, FIU.

With the show ending early, let me offer something constructive to do with your extra 15 minutes: KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. Make certain that everyone knows their rights. And, if you find yourself with a little extra rights compared to others, spread them around!

We now return control of the internet to you, until next Monday at this same time, when Kagro in the Morning will take you to... The Outer Limits.

David Waldman, Greg Dworkin and we are under the cloud of a domestic commercial airline disaster, just a few days after Trump/Elon fixed it. ON BLUE SKY, experts have predicted something like this for a while in the area. President Why Don’t They Just demanded to know why didn’t they just avoid colliding up there, then realized that black and gay people might be involved, then remembered that Obama and Buttigieg actually were involved. Whew! Disaster averted!  Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy adroitly asked, “Does this stuff normally happen, or what?” Gop Tim Burchett begs fellow Republicans to just shut up already, Jeez! Dems are deliberating on a sternly worded letter that they hope to release this fiscal year.

Did you ever think that maybe this administration can’t be this stupid? They probably are, though. It is after all what their voters demand over everything.

Using military jets for deportations is an ugly, wasteful, and a super-cool photo op that will be played on a loop in corporate media. If they can find a well-lit faucet in California Trump will send Seal Team 6 and a Fox News crew there. Gitmo is the perfect concentration camp for Trump, even if he never sends anyone there. Mel Gibson is slated to direct. The scene opens with masked strangers in body armor attempting to kidnap children, only to be turned away by newly-armed military-trained elementary school teachers.

David gives his analysis of Kevin Elliott’s analysis of Ezra Klein's analysis of why Republicans just walk over and kick you in the balls. What young impetuous newcomers in DC don’t realize is that those dinosaurs they want out of the way have evolved an extremely tenacious grip that will not be broken unless that meteorite bops them directly on the forehead, and even then…

Meanwhile, Israel released 110 Palestinian prisoners after Gaza released theirs. They’re still getting the hang of it.

the weekend yesterday…David was just checking to see if you had a calendar! Remember, always ask to see the paperwork!

Because today is not Saturday, Greg Dworkin showed up to review the breathtaking amount of FA occurring, with the inevitable FO upcoming. Just because Trump “can’t” impound doesn’t mean he can’t “impound” … or maybe he can’t! That right wing circle jerk might have got the water hose after all. (Follow Aaron Fritschner on Blue Sky, damn it) Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester pointed to the overstep, withholding her vote on Sean Duffy. (Who made it, anyhow.)

The president is now offering a buyout for federal employees to not come in to work, that is “President Musk”, now tired of impersonating a video gamer and various others is trying the same trick on all federal employees. This might be Elon’s most based troll yet!

Meanwhile the purge continues. The DOJ fires career lawyers. The DOD fires career soldiers. Even 4-star General Mark Miley needs to watch his step around 5th story windows.

Two-fisted drinker of breakfast beverages, David Waldman tells it like it is this Tuesday. 

WAR! Trumpskrieg is in full force, finding the calvaries of MGs Schumer and Jeffries still tamping down their muskets. Of course, reporters aren’t used to the news being so damn “new” either. MAGA forces have already scored massive, albeit imaginary victories in Colombia, California and assorted elementary schools.

If Canada and Mexico get tired of Trump, they can just hit the BRICS.

The White House paused all federal grants and loan disbursement, which they can’t do, and just did. This has caused immediate chaos and although they promise it will be temporary chaos, it will be long-term chaos which they hope to turn into permanent chaos.

There is also a Gop proposal to make college scholarships taxable income as most of us will be picking tomatoes within a generation anyhow.

Trump hopes to skip out of the World Health Organization without paying the bill.

When Trump pardoned repeat offending wife beating, police assaulting, gun running pedophiles he never could have guessed they would return to a life of crime. One thing’s for certain, Matthew W. Huttle would have been alive today if it wasn’t for Donald Trump.

It’s Infrastructure Week! The second week of razing civilization while laying a foundation of chaos, disinformation, and fear. I guess our job, with the help of David Waldman and Greg Dworkin, is to chip some away as Gops and MAGAs lay it down.

Tariffs are a bad idea. Does anyone know why… Anyone? Well, everyone knows, but threatening tariffs gets airplay. So does loading up a military plane with shackled immigrants.  If the news plays them both as clips hundreds of times each day it will shortly begin to feel like a success, which is as good as anything real for these folks. Colombia, the Gem of South America, threatened Jr.’s upcoming shipment of uncut… no wait, cut flowers over tariffs threatened upon them by Trump when they complained of mistreatment in Trump’s photo op deportations.

Trump sees a tremendous, beautiful future for Gaza once those savage Gazans are cleared out. Of course, they can come back once their housing is built featuring world-class amenities and fine dining.

Denmark was last week’s Colombia, but they’ve notified Trump that he’ll have to come through the United Kingdom to get to them.

Information wants to be free, which might be why we are having trouble getting our $KAGRO memecoin off the ground. Nonetheless, plenty of millionaires have somehow become billionaires clamping down on information over the years. China has just ruined the party with an open-source AI turd in the punchbowl. Meanwhile, Sweden has decided that Russia doesn’t want any information to be free to travel under the ocean off their shores.

All of this should be cleared up in Trump’s third term, promises Tennessee fraudster congressman Andy Ogles. That sounds a little less funny to Ohioans who remember Governor Jim Rhoades, a monster that Donald would be expected to emulate.

David “Golden Voice” Waldman mellifluously orated us through the week and off the ledge. We’re on our own now, but first:

President Why Don’t You Just is out there just getting things done every minute. What things? Why? Don’t ask him, he doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He has staff for that. But Trump, like any boss will tell you, is the only one getting things done around here. That’s why he’s ordering all the lazy good-for-nothing remote workers to get their asses back to office where someone can assistant manage them. There! His boss part is done, the rest is just details.

On to California to find out why don’t they just turn on the big water tap so people can flush their toilets on the fire? They could they just put immigrants on the fire line and… what? Details! What matters is that a lot gets done, whatever that might be.

As long as things just get done, we can always go back and make corrections. Like the two DC cops who chased that kid with their SUV until he was run over. Pardon the cops, and as for the kid… That’ll buff right out.

Must bosses think of everything? It’s up to teachers across the nation to figure out what to tell their children when an automatic weapon toting stranger enters a classroom and schoolmates disappear forever… and when that stranger wasn’t sent by the Feds.

Wielding government to annihilate woke weaponized government is tricky business. Might need to crack a lot of eggs to make that omelet. The Leopards Ate My Face party will sometimes have to accept that a certain number of faces will be eaten by leopards.

Lauren Boebert went to check the genitalia of someone in the restroom and came up empty handed.

Andrew Puzder’s wife beating kept him from being labor secretary in 2017, but now he will be EU ambassador. Now, there’s probably nothing in the way of him beating his wife.

Several congressional Gops were happy to attend Cassidy Hutchinson’s Jan. 6 testimony and texted her with details on how they would like to show her their happiness. Mike Johnson had to send his son an emergency boner alert.

David Waldman answers the pressing questions of today, accompanied in close harmony by Greg Dworkin.

It sure is a great time to be a jackbooted thug in America. Soon there will be more prison camps than Super 8s. Experts warn that deportations threaten the US food supply. Farmers say that too. MAGA farmers could have sworn that Trump was only talking about the more “metropolitan” immigrants, but it turns out that this administration’s plans are a bit more ambitious.

In anticipation of the future high demand for thugs, the President tapped his strategic Jan. 6 reserve, releasing 1,500 back into the wild in hopes that they multiply. Non-thug Americans disprove of this, especially those who met any of them. Gops promise to restock the prisons as soon as possible. 

Ein Hitlergruß ist ein Hitlergruß ist ein Hitlergruß, but as you’d expect, saying that in English in American media is positively verboten.

“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Bishop Budde?” pled Trump II to his subjects recently. Trump is probably at the peak of his popularity, thus the peak of his power, probably, maybe.

Tech Broligarchs dream like no bro has dreamt before, of a radical future utopia where they can raise themselves high above those less forward thinkers, bringing along their portly merchants, muscular warriors… but no DEI hires!

David Waldman retains his faith in democracy and the rule of law, otherwise what would we talk about in a couple of weeks?

Greg Dworkin declares this the year of FAFO. There is plenty of FA for sure as the Felon Authoritarian President gets his treason party started. Out goes anything that Biden ordered with “equity”, “lawful”, “ethics”, “civil”, “sustainable”, “inclusion”, “access”, “opportunity”, “affordable” or “trustworthy” in the title… make that anything Lyndon Johnson ordered as well, if he meant that a minority should get anything. Jackboots are now approved to kick down church and school doors. Treaties are for lighting cigars only. And if there’s anyone left not screwed over… screw them too!

What about the FO part? That might take some time, at least more than three days. Republicans oppose pardons for violent January 6 convicts? Oh well! Why didn’t they say something earlier? Probably because they didn’t know, didn’t want to know, no one was about to tell them, and anyone who tries will be punished. The ones who have FO however, aren’t FA anymore.

Gops are so busy knowing nothing that they can’t pull their Reich together. Trump just knows that Gaza will be such a beautiful place once they sweep all the dead Gazans up. Meanwhile, Elmo put his right hand in, he put his right hand out, Musk did the Honky Pokey but only Nazis want to dance with him anymore.

Bros hoping to cyber up their own private Pinochet Medieval Fair stocked with hot twerking Ayn Rands are sad that the NPCs consider them “weird”.

Progress on David Waldman’s memecoin, $KAGRO, is moving along slow and steady… Kidding! 15 years and we don’t even have a t-shirt! In the meantime, you can show your solidarity and enthusiasm right here.

Welcome to 2025... Project 2025 has commenced with President Why Don’t Cha farting out whatever EOs and affixing his skid mark to most of them… maybe somebody will check. Or not. It is only a matter of time before SCOTUS decides that whatever the (this) president thinks to himself will be law until someone says differently… and who is left to say differently?

People believe that Trump made $50 billion from his memecoin. He didn’t, but as always it is more important to him that people believe that he did, and that he alone can.

Keeping the mythos going is reason enough to let 1,500 J6 insurrectionists loose to rearm. When your lord is all-powerful, there’s no limit to what you can do. Instead of a wall, Trump’s declaring martial law, and Mexico will pay for it this time! (Not just any President can declare martial law, you know.)

Leonard Peltier had to wait until he was 80 for freedom and it probably doesn’t include a discount at the local gun shop.

It is the dawn of the golden age of the broligarchy, yet some bros are sad… perhaps a cyber-Galt Gulch will finally dry their tears.

RIP, Charles “Big Chuck” Schodowski. Man, that’s the end of an era that no one will ever recapture. You won’t see times like that again, guaranteed. David Waldman and Greg Dworkin are here to interrupt each other and some of our doomthinking for a couple of hours.

The thumb-in-the-eye president is back to stick his thumb in more eyes.  Voters with problems know someone else is to blame and have reelected history’s greatest blame-shifter to blame those who aren’t them. Sure, he’ll be Lovecraftianly horrific otherwise, but on that one skill he is a virtuoso. All the rest are lies of course but lies that feel so good people will pay billions to hear them.

Your goldbug friends who wanted a return to the gold standard are now going crypto which is stable somewhere between zero and infinity. A one-world coinage sounds just fine to them.

Welcome to today’s new gilded age, with sadly no Titanic yet spotted on the horizon. A couple of bros wanted to buy Greenland for incels and stock it with females. Donald wants a piece of that too. Rudy Giuliani doesn’t have that pay to play anymore.

Trump’s DC hotel might reopen as the world’s premiere graft speakeasy, but this time Elon’s opening his international whorehouse of payola right up the street. The inaugural ass kiss lip balm concession sold out today around one o’clock.

Israel trusted Bibi Netanyahu to lie to them, but some are concerned that he might have begun telling the truth lately.

And, it is still Martin Luther King Jr. Day, this year.

Bob Uecker and David Lynch are hanging out together in Heaven’s waiting room, laughing (slowly, and in reverse, naturally), looking down as Hell freezes over so that Donald Trump can return to the Presidency.  But... why are we still here though? Probably to listen to David Waldman on the Friday KITM.

Don’t turn to Republicans to answer your questions, existential or otherwise. They have all the answers, just not to the questions they’ve been asked. If they told you the answer they wouldn’t have to kill you, but they’ll wish they have had killed themselves.

Joe Biden looked at his watch and just realized that he forgot to answer all the questions and fix everything. Hurry Joe!

What caused Sam Harris to wake up and turn on his bro Elon Musk, other than they couldn’t fit both of their heads into the same room anymore?

Bro RFK Jr. isn’t a part of the broligarchy on nepotism, inheritance, and psychopathy alone. He put in his time scamming rubes just like the rest of them.

Paul Manafort returns to his job of being the bro of the broligarchy and dick for the dictators.

Beta Mike Johnson makes certain to have all betas in chair positions before Trump comes in.

Meatball Ron DeSantis sometimes doesn’t do exactly what he’s told but is still a good boy.

In Minnesota, DFL Rep. Brad Tabke of Shakopee won reelection, but Gops seized control anyway, which would really matter if they had planned to get anything done legislatively.

Joe Biden has said farewell, but I guess David Waldman, Greg Dworkin and the rest of us will stick around out of some sort of morbid curiosity. Joe took the opportunity to warn us about what Ike warned us about, and look at how well we headed that warning. Biden also sounded the alarm on the threat of oligarchy. Of course, he probably should have added the threat of illiteracy. Oligarchies suck, but apparently not if they are run by a bro. Not as many people see Joe Biden as a bro as they used to. Definitely not as many bros as who see Trump as a bro. 

For instance, Trump said that if Israel and Hamas didn’t quit fighting, he’d go over there and kick somebody’s ass. Worked like a charm. Middle East peace is locked in for the next thousand years or more, unless somebody screws up.

If California doesn’t shape up, Jim Jordan will take their 2028 Olympics and give it to Cleveland.

Elon Musk used his chic oligarchic charm to free an Italian from Iranians.

Meanwhile, in the Gop it isn’t possible to be too dumb or drunk, but it is possible to be too macho if it shrivels the machismo of the incoming boss.

As the news desert encroaches, David Waldman and Greg Dworkin continue to serve us tasty news dessert:

Pete Hegseth is on his way to be the first DEI Miltary hire of the upcoming administration. It is hard to deny Hegseth’s qualifications as an authentic bona fide POS. Experience or ability would obviously distract from Pete’s purity of purpose, yet being a born-again evangelical elevates Hegseth to sacrosanct untouchability. Hegseth will be the first thumb-in-the-eye member of the thumb-in-the-eye administration of the Thumb-In-The-Eye President.

Greenland is thinking about rejoining the EU and should probably also make sure their NATO paperwork is up to date. Denmark wants to talk on the down low, but Trump always tells, and if he hasn’t got anything to say will make it up anyhow.

Sure, people have given Trump half a billion dollars for his inauguration… but what have they done for him lately? This term Trump wants no responsibility, no blame, but especially no debt.

23 thousand acres in ashes might be considered pretty bad optics for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, especially when she wasn’t in really great shape to begin with. One thing’s for certain, none of this would have happened on Honorary Mayor Bob Saget’s watch!

Meanwhile, in South Korea, in the course of a few months the President fomented insurrection, declared martial law, was impeached, and is now arrested, because that country has a functioning justice system.

David Waldman has a couple of things he would like to talk about today, and a couple of hours to talk about them. Pull up a chair.

That SOB was guilty and got away with it again. That about sums it up, the rest are details. This time it’s Special counsel Jack Smith saying it. No one has ever committed such crimes before, during, after, or before a presidency, to then be invited to an encore performance. Do you think that the J6 insurrectionist convicted of plotting to murder his FBI investigators will receive one pardon, or two? If Trump can’t be found guilty of insurrection, can anybody?  If we act soon, we might be able to squeeze in a thousand impeachment proposals this term, and maybe a few hundred impeachments.

Speaking of guilty SOBs, the time for intimidating and silencing Pete Hegseth’s witnesses is almost over. Now the question is whether Pete is scum enough to lock in Republican votes.

While others shout into the void, David Waldman and Greg Dworkin stare into the abyss, weekdays on KITM:

The inferno continues around Los Angeles, urged on by the red wind. California is finding out who their friends are, and who isn’t. Some will learn something, some won’t. Insurance companies are having to scrape money together to buy insurance for themselves.

We dive into our own metaphorical conflagration next week. President Joe Biden rides off into the sunset, although Joe might not have let the sun set so far before he started riding. The guy taking over has no beliefs, no principles, no shame and no problem. Welcome back to the art of the deal.

Jack Smith is also out of here. Aileen Cannon makes another big move to clinch this season of The Presidential Apprentice. DOGE is vaporware, but that doesn’t mean that Elon won’t get some fun trolling out of it.

Would a blackout drunk rapist still be a hiring risk as long as he was a good Christian nationalist? That is the question hoped to be answered in soon upcoming cabinet nominee hearings. Senator Katie Britt doesn’t have that answer but can describe in detail how useless corporate news has become.

TGIFKITM! David Waldman takes us to the weekend, and if we show up again on Monday, he’ll start all over and do it again!

Donald Trump is now a convicted and sentenced felon and yet is somehow still getting away with it.  Of course, he tried to get away with more, citing Irreparable Injury among other BS to the Supreme Court. OBVIOUSLY, that’s not how the Court, laws, the Constitution work! Except… It almost did. One old white guy in a robe didn’t fix things for Trump this time. Less than 10 days before he corrects that situation.

I predict that Aileen Cannon will win this season of Presidential Apprentice.  But why did Trump fire the reliably loyal National Archivist Colleen Shogan? Maybe a dopamine release to his tiny vermin brain? Why does it ever have to be anything more?

God continues to work in mysterious, or not so mysterious, ways. MAGA isn’t about to blame God for the fires in Los Angeles when there’s more money in other scapegoats, like Democratic-Jewish Space Lasers. Donald exploits all suffering to his own ends, because it feeds the pit in his soul, and because that strategy has never failed him yet.

During his visit to Greenland, Donald Jr. tried his hand in exploiting the destitute, but he just doesn’t have the Old Man’s touch. 

Gops are trying to throw out votes in all North Carolina statewide races.

The Pizzagate gunman died as he lived: a dangerous lunatic.

Finally, we at KITM regret to announce that Anita Bryant lived 84 years.

Yet again, David Waldman and Greg Dworkin bring their usual camaraderie and repartee to today’s KITM. That kind of stuff is hard to fake!

Today is a good day to ask ourselves, WWJCD? Probably not a single thing that will ever happen now. For people who don’t like being called Hitler, MAGAs sure are into annexation lately. Greenland, Canada, Mexico and Panama have been asking for it lately, showing off their ample mineral assets, letting just anyone into their trade routes. How can they not expect to get grabbed by the canal? What does Trump get out of empty threats? The satisfaction of watching people flinch.

Wildfires like hot air, so Trump is focusing his degradation and intimidation on the victims instead. California will of course have to shut off the windmills, those things just blow the fire around.

Remember your shock when the Trump Supreme Court handed down its decision on Presidential immunity? Well, I hope you’re sitting down when you find out what Trump and Alito are cooking up this time.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk, whose sole joy in life is stirring up shit, found some in the UK in the personage of lifelong POS Tommy Robinson.

In election news, Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger goes right down the middle to find a one-point lead over the local extremist, while Lebanon’s Joseph Aoun becomes the fifth army commander to be elected as president in multi-Islamic Lebanon, taking over the job held previously for two years by an empty chair.

On Today’s KITM, David Waldman and Greg Dworkin won’t let the crazy distract us from the other crazy.

Yesterday, Trump laid out his vision of American manifest idiocy. An insane press conference from an insane president... as if you expected something different. You know Trump, he’s crazy! Crazy like a fox... crazy like a rabid fox. After all, who to attack but your allies? They’re a lot easier than the ones who don’t like you! For example, National archivist Colleen Shogan pulled every string for Trump, so she was a perfect target to eliminate. She never saw it coming!

Faces fight to cram into leopard mouths, hoping to be the next eaten. Mark Zuckerberg offers his millions of faces on Facebook, Threads, and Instagram.  After all, they had all signed up for the opportunity for free speech and reasoned debate… that is, algorithmically fomented moronic arguments and trolling, along with AI created advertising in the guise of human contact, and Mark is duty-bound to give it to them.

The Cyber Truck bomber was crazy like Trump and served his face to the Leopards grilled to perfection.

Will the Trump Supreme Court block his New York hush money sentencing? If not, he should demand his money back, lay a tariff on them or something. Merrick Garland was awakened from his 4-year slumber to release some of the Jack Smith report. Now Aileen Cannon — that’s service! Leopards will eat her face last.

The North Carolina Supreme Court tried to throw out the votes and the win of their Democratic colleague, but that might not be as easy as they hoped.

Schools and city governments rely on property taxes. Old people like their property, don’t like taxes, and don’t care about schools or cities.

Santa Ana winds intensify Southern California fires. Celebrity heroes and villains emerge from the inferno. Over on the other coast they’re working out the bugs on their Congestion Pricing. 

If you want to talk violent rhetoric, brazen lies, and outreach to mainstream conservatives, then you need to talk Jean-Marie Le Pen. Huge celebrations mark Le Pen’s death... You know, if Trump’s still pissed about that Jimmy Carter coverage, there’s one way to top him, if he acts soon.

David Waldman is the best at bringing us the latest on today’s KITM:

As we approach our National Day of Mourning, we will need to make room for a few more things to be depressed about. We say so long to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and bienvenue to Pierre Poilievre. Some might pronounce his name one way, he might a different way. Whatever, Trump will pronounce it wrong, the US House will make it a law, and previous pronunciations will be pronounced illegal.

No one is above the law — except Trump. I mean, that’s what he says, but he’s said it for 70 years and it has worked so far. Trump will be sentenced on Jan. 10 according to Justice Juan Merchan, but what does he know? Merchan’s just a judge, and Trump has many reasons, all pulled right out of his pre-presidential butt, on why he shouldn't. Same goes for Jack Smith’s final report. Smith sounds like a guy who knows the law, but he also sounds like a guy who wants some time in Gitmo.

Remember when we could have done something about this? It must have been the working-class anxiety or something…

In sports news, The Pope’s first round draft choice Robert McElroy has been traded from the San Diego Padres over to the Washington Cardinals.

Is it still 2025? Man, this sucks! How can David Waldman and Greg Dworkin ever ring in the new without the old ever being wrung out? It’s the anniversary of the coup… but reminiscing about our deceased democracy isn’t polling well with the working class… so let’s all just agree that they were all heroes and forget this ever happened, okay?

There are hundreds of January 6 cases still heading to trial. When Kash Patel heads the FBI, he promises there will be hundreds more.

Democrats keep helping out poor people… That’s it. That’s the problem. Why would a member of the MAGA “working class” be interested wasting time and money helping poor people, or helping other people for that matter? Have you ever heard a member of America First describe it as anything other than Me First? Think tanks since the 60’s have raked in millions to develop new ways to paint over racism with big words. Tariffs and deportation show that many are prepared to suffer terribly to make certain that others suffer more.

Less than 36 hours after its deadly truck attack, New Orleans reopened Bourbon Street to pedestrians. They didn’t solve the problem, or any problem, but the money coming in muffles the noise. $1 million will be just a deposit for Trump’s protection racket. Each million goes to Trump's inaugural fund, which is being held in Trump’s pocket this year.

The Washington Post tried to bury what will be their most viewed editorial cartoon ever, because pointing out billionaire hush money payments has become so “repetitious”. Many subscribers to the Post realized their subscription payments have also been becoming too repetitive.

David Waldman brings us to the first Friday and the first weekend of the year… and look who he brought with him! Distinguished Professor Ian Reifowitz is here and is well on his way to be a millionaire, or should be, considering his output of scholarly literature, including an upcoming tome on how stereotypes are used to drive political rhetoric and thus policy. the topic of which was discussed in relation to that unfortunate outcome of the recent election. Recent second-guessing in Dem circles warns against coming off like some distinguished professor when talking to potential voters. James Carville reminds Democratic candidates to KISS — Keep It Stupid for the Simples. Republicans have learned to simplify further by honing any statement down to an uncomplicated all-purpose lie.

How does corporate media plan to counter this? They’re going to try rolling over and showing their tummy and see how that works. Elon Musk plans to sue facts that disagree with him. On his site, with a tap of a button Elon can agree with anything he says... What could be stopping him from just authoring the post of anyone from this point? Humility? Mark Zuckerberg has it all figured out. Mark is replacing his problematic social media users with friendly AI bots! AI profiles are ready to get into prolonged frustrating arguments with already established trollbots and disagreebots, unless they get distracted by engagementbots or pornbots...

Back in the “real world”, the 119th Congress is waiting for Mike Johnson to get his act together, at least long enough to squeak back into his rubberstamp position. Democrats have an opportunity to dare to do great things… or just goof around, and we know the likelihood of them doing either.

He’s back! Greg Dworkin has been MIA at KITM since sometime last year and had been absent half of 2025 before ringy-dingying back in like nothing ever happened. (Actually, he acted like a lot happened and was keen to tell David Waldman and us all about it.)

Facts are still coming in on the New Orleans truck attack, but who needs any more facts once the perp’s complexion has been verified? And then, his mom named him Shamsud-Din Jabbar! Jabbar might have acted alone, been in the military, been born in the United States, but oh that name… Fox News will tell you that just has to be illegal. Trump is ready to make Tijuana the next Bagdad over all this.

Then another military man took another rental EV truck and… Wait, he’s a white guy named Matt? That’s confusing! Well, self-immolation in a pickup full of firecrackers does seem uniquely American, and it was a Tesla so (Deleted by request of the KITM Legal Department)

Then there’s 150 pipe bombs found in a Virginia man’s home, but his name’s Brad, and he’s the goodest of good ol’ boys, never meaning no harm, just target practicing on Joe Biden cutouts. Expect a bit more empathy for this one… those pipe bombs were probably for pesky little beavers.

Americans haven’t been this united since the Civil War in their shared belief of the lack of institutional resources to handle the other folks, although half of us expect that the guy they elected is all the resource they will ever need.

Kek-ek-ek-ek-ek! Gluteus Maximus has changed his name to Kekius. Other than the direct fascist, alt-right and Nazi references, what could Elon Musk mean? Elon’s humor, like his political stances, is just so enigmatic! Isn’t it so weird how the world’s richest incel gamerboi became a supervillain? Vivek Ramaswamy has become Elon’s OddJob.

If only we had Jimmy Carter to get rid of these parasites.

David Waldman welcomes us to 2025, a year so nasty they named a Christofacist masterplan after it. 2024 was pretty stupid, but not half as stupid as the journalists we listened to, nor half as stupid as they will be. 

The vibe for the year was set early on Bourbon Street in New Orleans when a driver, or at least his pickup truck, killed and injured dozens. Later, his weapon discharged, then police discharged theirs, and the resulting corpse will be charged with terrorism... of course. Obviously, that is a “terroristic” act, like shooting a CEO, and should be treated as such. The largest homemade explosives cache in FBI history was recently discovered in Virginia, but that’s kind of a gray area in terms of terrorism.  After all, the dude was only shooting at Joe Biden silhouettes, and Kash Patel can tell you all about that “FBI”. And you might think that a guy planning to cut off drinking water to a million people unless they meet his demands would be considered a supervillain, let alone a terrorist, yet people will call him “Governor” this year.

Ken Paxton’s deputy is getting away with it, as is Ken Paxton.

Donald Trump will be going to Jimmy Carter’s funeral to demonstrate to the world that you can’t make him not go. The Gop Congress is collectively holding out their Johnson to impress Trump, but Donald is notoriously fickle.  After all, Trump used to hate TikTok when he thought it was for entertainment, but once it became the premier site for micro-algorithmic disinformation dissemination, it won his heart.

David Waldman is about done with 2024 but isn’t that into 2025. Maybe we can find an alternative?

KITM World Headquarters uses pure green energy from the plutonium stored in the core of our volcano lair, but for the many who do not have that luxury, the nationwide power grid is under tremendous strain as AI data centers suck up huge amounts of power and distort the normal flow of electricity for millions of Americans. Eliminating federal regulations would not seem to be the way to go, but here we are, eager to become serfs to a mad king as long as he is as mad as us. A problem with being a “Me First” nation is that “They” are sometimes you. Elon Musk was recently shocked to discover that there was a “They” other than him. In fact, on exTwitter, many of them are actually… him. In fact, how can anybody ever be certain they aren’t all him, as he can be any one of them with a tap of a button?

Meanwhile, South Korea has approved the arrest of President Yoon Suk Yeol, whom they’ve already impeached.

Russia has a shadow fleet of ships employed to evade sanctions, so why not have them multitask in espionage and sabotage while they’re out there?

David Waldman is back today, eager to devote no time at all to the brewing Beyoncé controversy.

Has there been a better president than Jimmy Carter? Or a better Christian? Husband? Person? Jimmy Carter saved people from nuclear cataclysm. Jimmy Carter saved people from parasitic onslaught. Jimmy Carter saved people from the weather. Jimmy Carter was the best, which is of course, what a lot of people had against him. The thing is, mediocrity has much more leeway than greatness, so much more flexibility in terms of self-respect and ethics… and strength in numbers.

Now look where we are. The best that the incoming president can say of Carter is that Jimmy was a “president”, as any other comparison would be one even he’d be embarrassed to make.

Back in our present idiocracy, Trump would rather go to Canada, Greenland, or Panama than listen to this shithole’s problems any longer. My suggestion is for these countries to throw a few parties for BRICS members to see how they like the chocolate cake over at their places. Trump could save TikTok, but it would depend upon whether the Supreme Court has the guts to make decisions outside of laws or the Constitution, for the benefit of America, that is, China.

The people who say America First but mean “whites first” are fighting with the people who say America First but mean “money first”. Trump wants none of that argument as he knows that America First has always meant “me first”.

Looking for a fun family activity in-between/right in the middle of the holidays? How about a visit to the zoo? By which we mean, of course, a visit to The Two Pennsylvanias: Eastern PA, where “prosperity gospel”-inspired Latinos are buying the Trump humbug, and; Western PA, where less-than-prosperous white voters are buying the Trump humbug. (The second story, by the way, invokes the old “why are we paying to study [something stupid-sounding] trope that should always be answered properly, even though a proper answer rarely matters.)

But if you really want to drive yourself crazy, consider this academic paper-level analysis of why Dems are losing touch with average voters. What could be more ironic?

Look, I know that doesn’t make any logical sense. But does anything make logical sense, anymore? Does it matter? I don’t know! But I do know that, at least for this weekend, you’ll be able to enjoy watching the MAGA coalition fight on Twitter. Which is hilarious, because Twitter is actually one of the combatants in this.

Over on the other side of the ocean, it seems like the Baltic flashpoint is something we’ll have to keep an eye on. Here’s some more about the situation brewing between Russia, Finland and Estonia. And the Cook Islands. And Germany, if not all people named Pistorius or something similar.

And, just because we have to start preparing, we make another of what will likely be several attempts to get through a granular survey of WTF will the 119th Congress be like?

Happy holidays! Have yourself a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, winsome Kwanzaa, and a rip-roaring Boxing Day listening to David Waldman on today’s KITM.

It’s Beyoncé's world, but she will allow us to be entertained by her. It’s Trump’s America, and he will allow us to have a democracy for as long as it pleases him. He will even allow God, as long as he gets a piece of the action.

The 119th Congress will be a lot like the 118th, except that the president is a sociopathic megalomaniacal dictator wannabe, and his buddy Donald Trump’s a jerk too. House Speaker Mike Johnson might have his work cut out for him, or not… if he does the right thing.

Trump picked his ambassador in charge of manifest destiny in Panama. Kevin Marino Cabrera might hope to learn something in his new job, but he might be wise to not learn too much.

Today’s overseas news is also Finland and Estonia’s overseas news. Finland suspects an oil tanker dragging its anchor caused a communications cable break.  but we really know who Finland suspects.

Finland teaches their school children how to spot misinformation. Hopefully they can teach us as our State Department unit in charge of identifying and tracking foreign propaganda has been Eloned.

David Waldman did not present KITM “live” this morning. He presented a special “live-like” pre-recorded KITM, but he presented it in 2016, the last Christmas on which we faced the unknown of a looming Trump term in office. And as we asked then, hey—what better way to address the unreality of the media world that created the character moving into the White House? 

The Apprentice seemed to be “reality” simply because it was labeled as “reality TV”, and originally the show, and the character of “Donald Trump”, were designed as comedy. Once audiences started believing the “reality” of “The Apprentice”, and “Donald Trump”, it wasn’t so funny anymore. David looks at how the reality was manipulated on The Apprentice, and how it is really not funny anymore.

Now, the government is casting regulars just like a TV show. 

That doesn’t mean that the Trump team is neglecting their twin goals of destroying government and enriching themselves. White House counsel pick Donald F. McGahn will defend the swamp by promoting agency dysfunction through gridlock and delay. At the DOJ, civil rights lawyers prepare themselves to take on the Least Racist Person in America.

You might have heard it first in those Jade Helm 15 emails from your uncle, but discover it second here: A Clinton-era directive for natural disaster relief is enabling militarized police to come down on you, hard.

The War on Christmas has been won, except for the continuing battles on the War on Jews. A white supremacist website calls for reinforcements in Montana.

David Waldman didn’t write the rules, but he might be the last one to remember what they all are.

Christmas has come early for Trump. Billionaire Secret Santa rules are simple: bring a million bucks. Also, it’s no secret who’s playing Santa this year. Donald can sit on Santa Musk’s lap all he wants, but the naughty boys and girls who threaten Santa’s elves in China will find a primary challenge in their stockings. Musk expects Trump to immediately fire all non-essential employees and rehire them over at DOGE.

The Trump doctrine (aka, Sein Kampf) involves gunboat money laundering in Panama, while around the world tariffs replace thumb breaking. Here such heavy-handed extortion tactics are not required as everyone seems eager to break their own thumbs in advance.

Clarence Thomas needs an emotional support billionaire to live with the stigma of cruel people constantly mocking his graft.

Fani Willis didn’t deserve to be disqualified from prosecuting Trump in Georgia, and yet she was. The archivist and deputy archivist of the United States said that the Equal Rights Amendment cannot be certified without further action by Congress.  But did Joe Biden think to call Colleen Shogan “unhinged” and suggest that she is in an affair with William Bosanko, then maybe dox them both? Worth a try!

Political chaos meets holiday chaos this week. We will have Christmas Eve, then Christmas, and Hanukkah, then Boxing Day with David Waldman battling contender Jake or maybe Ron Paul, then Friday… and that’s almost the weekend! So who knows what could happen?  

Our transcendent question this week: Which Superman is the greatest?  It is, of course, Kirk Alyn, obviously. However, it seems  that 30 million nerd-ragers beg to differ. Nothing drives engagement better than an argument, therefore it was inevitable that the solution and cause of all of our future problems, Artificial Intelligence, would soon be dispatched in the form of “argue-bots”. Now all we need are infinite AI “defend-my-argument-bots” launched against those, and social media should be sucked up its own singularity.

Human argue-bot Trump would start a fight with a pile of rocks if he could. If we hadn’t elected him F’n President he would have filled his day with Gunn vs. Snyder arguments. Now he’s content with threatening to annex Canada, Greenland, and Panama. (It seems that Poland and Crimea have been taken.) 

President Joe Biden commuted 37 death sentences that Donald had looked forward to… Oh well, plenty more where they came from.

The faster Trump can be Stalin, the happier Curtis Yarvin and his many followers in the upcoming  administration  will be.

The House Ethics report on Matt Gaetz is out, and other than the statutory rape, payments to prostitutes and illegal drug use Matt seems like a smart choice for Attorney General. Expect Matt to issue a rebuttal on Cameo soon.

Justice Clarence Thomas did fail to disclose a lot of stuff, and will fail to disclose much more, but has been recently caught on a few new ones.

Honsan? Hissan? Nissanonda? Nissan and Honda are a couple now.

Our lone point of stability, Greg Dworkin did show up, at least for today, with news of the DNC Chair election, which promises to be the beginning of our refuge from chaos.

David Waldman finally gets to complete a countdown! The US has only hours to go before it runs out of funding. Donald is trying to blame Joe, or Chip or maybe even Mike, but big boss Elon knows who’s really responsible… himself! It’s his most based lulz yet!

After tomorrow, no more money, except essential services, disaster relief, Mars missions, Russian yacht maintenance.… Nothing else!

Fascism was bad in the 1930s and 40s.  Could it be better this time… with AI? AI can lie faster, backtrack quicker, and deflect more effectively than any human can hope to, even with Maggie Haberman’s assistance. Of course, a tool for lying is still only a tool, Trump is an artist. When it comes to taking out Liz Cheney, why worry about the lives of other lies? 

So, how does the Resistance fight this? With FAFO – Focused Action, Focused Objectives… or you know, turn on, tune in, drop out.

Today, David Waldman and Greg Dworkin have stupid discussions about stupid people and stupid situations, because things have become pretty stupid lately.

It looked as if the United States was about to avoid a shutdown heading into Christmas vacation, when the boss of us all, Elon Musk, decided that his staff, Congress, wasn’t about to take an early break. So, Musk had his straw boss, Trump, have his trogs down at the stupid factory shift production into high gear. What can Mike Johnson do, when he’s already doing as little as possible? What can Democrats do, other than nothing to get in the way of Republican stupidity? (BTW, tell David Plouffe to post somewhere else other than Elon’s outhouse. How can you believe a thing you read there?) Musk opposes Infowars sale, because a big hunk of Alex Jones is his property.

Senator Chris Murphy warns that Elon’s Employee of the Month is destroying democracy with the assistance of the corporate media. While the US goes down, Chris applauds the improvements Syrians have implemented with their government. 

Meanwhile, Wisconsin chair Ben Wikler figures that if he sits down with those who destain him to talk to those who despise him, it might matter somehow.

The United States House Committee on Ethics isn’t half stupid and will release their report on Matt Gaetz while everyone’s hair is on fire about the other stuff. The DOJ got fabricated evidence against Hunter Biden more than five times… Who’s Hunter Biden again?

Wow, it’s the 5th anniversary of “Will Be Wild” day! Time flies!

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin help us face the challenges of our rapidly changing world through the power of cheery repartee.

Following his election win by 98 points or so, has D embarked upon a retribution tour or an authoritarian spree? Well, it turns out that retribution is only one of the many perks of authoritarianism.  Trump is now suing retired pollster Ann Selzer because she got on his bad side, but also because it’s fun. Liz Cheney actually made him really mad, so she is in for far more than a little civil suit.

As always, we can be thankful for Republican incompetence and rats-in-a-cage instincts. Congress has struck a deal to avert government shutdown, while Trump allies are busy trying to doge the deal. If they want a circular firing squad, the least Dems could do is offer to help pass the ammunition. (Follow Matt Glassman on Blue Sky.) Victoria Spartz, Queen of Chaos, hopes to be the Joe Manchin this time even as John Fetterman gives her a run for the title.

Good news: France has passed its stopgap budget bill! Now they can pay the guy who lifts the flag in Syria. (Follow Charles Lister on Threads.)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has lost a vote of confidence in the German parliament. Not so good news for Olaf, but also pretty bad for Germany and the rest of the free world. Finger pointers in Germany run the risk of running out of fingers. If members of the traffic light coalition can get along, maybe we all can.

You’d think that hunters firing up into the sky would be aiming at drones but no, they were hunting flying bears. It didn’t turn out well for any of the participants.

It’s Tuesday, and David Waldman finds himself again in front of the KITM Microphone, and we find ourselves listening. Isn’t it nice how some things just work out?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lost in the House Democrats' Steering and Policy Committee vote to lead the House Oversight Committee to Rep. Gerry Connolly, as AOC apparently proved no match for Gerry’s high-energy boyish charm and… wait, I have been told that Gerry Connolly is actually some moustache and pair of dentures who’s been around for 20 years holding his place in line… Yes, it does seem that seniority is highly valued by those senior citizens who still wield the levers of power, although wielding a TV remote might be too big an ask… Nonetheless, AOC still has hope and is still out there fighting for the position. David reminds us to follow the money if we want to see the way things could and should go… and yet that also would lead one to see AOC as the frontrunner... Ah well, perhaps the young up-and-commers should wait until they’re a bit more elder out-and-goers before they take the reins.

Other countries have found different solutions to rotating out their personnel. The German government will follow France’s lead and will now try collapsing for a spell. South Korea and Canada are looking a little winded as well.

You know who’s living his best life? The guy who sees life as a zero-sum game. He’ll now probably sue Judge Juan Merchan for a billion dollars. Many MAGA trust that Trump will be the lying SOB that they elected. Some hope and pray that he will be. Most quit caring before they pocketed their voting booth pen. That pretty much only leaves us to give a damn that Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty to framing Joe and Hunter Biden for Burisma. Or that the Fox weekend host’s bodyguard likes to beat up Mexican-looking Middle Easterners… or Middle Eastern-looking Mexicans, whatever. Or that his one low-silicone daughter’s baby daddy’s baby daddy’s net worth is set to rise from the lower single digit to the lower nine digits over the next four years.

Abundant Life Christian School went against each of the principles in its name until a bad 15-year-old with a gun’s shooting spree was stopped by a good 12-year-old with a cellphone. Expect that kid caught with the cellphone to face strict discipline.

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin figure out the latest news, opinions, and where to scrape up the $1 million for that check that we need to send out at the end of the month.

Hamas admits that their decision to attack a gathering of left-wing Israelis on October 7 couldn’t have turned out worse if Bibi came up with the idea himself. President Joe Biden takes credit for Bashar al-Assad’s sudden Russian vacation and might even bomb a few ISIS on his way out.

Remember Joe Biden? Remember the Democrats? Whatever happened to those guys? They spent $5 billion in ads to get people interested in honest government when it seems that people just want to see results, whether or not the results are honest, or advantageous. Dems just forgot to cater to the simple, stupid. Therefore, expect a lot of “why don’t cha” legislation, like getting rid of making people set their clocks ever again. Smart fascists microtarget their masses these days to save cash. All of this running around looking busy, still takes money however, and they’ll be running out of that this week.

France’s Macron as well is being forced to do the big things over the little things as incrementalism is tossed out around the globe.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to lead the House Oversight Committee but will have to go through Nancy Pelosi to get it.

Meanwhile, Tiffany Trump’s baby daddy daddy works for his own father-in-law at a company turning a mid 5 figure profit, so he’ll be making a big move up if he can hang out with Jared Kushner and learn a thing or two.  Trump advisor Alex Bruesewitz, the guy who started the whole "Haitians are eating pets" thing, must have picked the wrong entree at the Young Republicans Gala, passing out on stage. Trump called in to assure Alex, “Izzim a good boy? Yes! Alex izza good boy!” (Their catering choice could have been worse.)

David Waldman is here with the Friday KITM, and also somewhere else entirely, all through the magic of “technology”…  And, now for our discussion of “cryptocurrency”:

How big a scam is cryptocurrency? It is so big that Eric Trump promises that his dad will become the most procrypto president in the history of America. Crypto, in fact could be the ultimate pyramid scheme, as it’s multilevel marketing with no levels, just a big pile of cash going to first person who grabs it when the other suckers’ greed makes them hold out too long. It’s perfect, all of the overhead is paid by chumps who believe all the others will be the chumps! Its only possible enemy could be regulation… 

That would be the Securities and Exchange Commission, who will soon be shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in this establishment. That is, if there were someone to regulate them.

It seems that someone just might be the “Person of the Year”, recently witnessed sharing the parable of The Poor Woman and the Three Apples to his followers gathered inside of the national Temple of Money Changers. Why would Trump choose the low bar of being this country’s Mao, when he can aim for Ceasar, or higher?

Meanwhile, pity the poor Democrats fighting for President Joe Biden’s legacy. Think of the history Joe could make as the President who finally helped achieve certification for the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution!

David Waldman knows what tomorrow’s pre-recorded KITM is about but isn’t telling.  He trusts Greg Dworkin to keep mum, but didn’t tell me because everyone knows I’d just blab it all to you… like this:

Luigi Mangione was not selected as Time “Person of the Year”.  Luigi might not get another chance as why have another “Person of the Year” after this one? Why have another “year” after this one? Dictator cosplay is just like real as long as enough people believe. In fact, that is how all dictatorships work. (Follow Ben Wikler on Threads.) Trump appointed Governor-Senator Kari Lake as director of Voice of America. Well, he can’t do that, but he did.

Not enough people clapped to keep South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol aloft. Opposition parties will just keep impeaching him until it sticks. Yoon caught social media brain rot, a disease plaguing the entire world.

Still-President Joe Biden commuted 1,500 sentences and issued 39 pardons yesterday. KITM staff aren’t included, but still hopeful.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is poised to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Ideology might not drive money, but it is best if it doesn’t turn it down.

The North Carolina Gop traded hurricane relief for Democratic power… and MTG thought Dems created hurricanes! In Washington, Gops want two reconciliation bills, prosperity for things they like, austerity for things they don’t.

Bulletin: Nighttime invaders have been sighted in the skies over Grovers Mill, New Jersey.  Reports indicate that Homeland Security has become involved as a State Senator calls for a state of emergency. More reporting as this story develops.

The majority of Brexit voters are getting tired of the “Brexit” part of that Brexit thing that they voted for.

"Catherine’s Learning Barn” is in remembrance of Sandy Hook school victims, and a celebration of their ideals.

David Waldman is back for more today and hopes you are too!

Is Luigi Mangione any less hot because he’s rich? Sure, more poor people shooting CEOs might seem more felicitous to some, but it takes money to become an anarchist in today’s society. One might say Luigi Mangione and Brian Thompson were just two rich criminals whose lifepaths crossed. However, if you prefer that your enraged criminals be authentically impoverished, you’re in luck, plenty are now on order.

Democrats got it wrong with Latinos and immigration. Few people chose solidarity when they can safely opt not to. Some rogue Harris staffers tried a little outreach, but why bother? Blacks and Latinos are always in the bag for us, right?

Most countries don’t prefer to elect fascists, criminals or idiots. Some do. Dems got it wrong there also. Kimberly Guilfoyle was named ambassador to the country that Don Jr. figured he’d have the least reason to visit, with the language Kim had the least chance to blab in. Anyhow, Silvio was busy.

Federal cutbacks might prevent Mitch McConnell from getting that Hoveround he needs.

Greg Dworkin hauls in another raft o’ stories from Syria. David Rothkopf (on Threads!) believes you need to know why Syria matters to you. Alex Simon slightly decomplexifies the Alawi strongholds of Latakia and Tartous. Charles Lister (also on Threads!) describes the expanding territories being captured by the HTS group. And, Haid Haid writes his second PhD thesis on the so far successful pragmatic terrorist group HTS governance model.

Ho! Ho! Ho! David Waldman counts down the days — only 40 until that one day of dictatorship!

It was him, Luigi! … Allegedly.  Luigi The Adjuster Mangione may not legally qualify for president in 2028 at only 34 years of age. Should that be held against him though? Luigi may have shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, yet he’s no angel — he reads Ayn Rand and his parents like the opera… and Art Modell (shudder). All should deeply consider how this promising young man’s life went so terribly awry and take note… lots of notes.

Sure, Kash Patel, nominated for director of the FBI (Ministry of State Security), is an idiot, but he’s a useful idiot to both Putin and Trump, making him perhaps the world’s most useful idiot.  Kash hosted Kash’s Corner, which sounds like a 70’s kid show, but in this case Kash was both the host and the puppet.

Tulsi Gabbard is brought to you by Russia Today, and vice versa.

Trump’s such a family man that his crime family extends to the in-laws.

Alas, lickspittle Ric Grenell and his allies did not lick quite enough spittle. Maybe next time.

Senate Republicans are forced to spend all their time and money on the border crackdown, as anywhere else runs the risk of doing good.

Ah, the dawn of a bright new beautiful Monday! Well, somewhere, I guess. How about we take David Waldman and Greg Dworkin and check out some other countries for a while, for a breather?

Ordinarily, we would not be looking to the Middle East for inspiration, but suddenly Syria is standing for freedom. You’d hardly know about it from the American mainstream media… you’d hardly know anything from them… but there’s plenty of other sources to discover at Blue Sky, Threads, and you know… others. At exTwitter, there’s Tammam Aloudat’s positive assessment. There’s Alex Simon’s appraisal of the Syrian prison “system”. Threads has Charles Lister with the international repercussions emanating from Syria’s takeover by rebel forces. Blue Sky has more than just savvy individuals as well, it has an excellent news search.

Then there’s Romania. Romania, Romania, rhymes with Albania, which makes it easy to remember their tasty food, bawdy cooks, NOT chrome, and now election integrity, following a presidential vote recount after discovering Russian interference.

Ok, that’s the good news. Here are the takeaways from D’s Meet the Press interview, which unfortunately did not conclude with him being taken away. The kakistocracy has already filled the bowl up to the seat but isn’t close to stopping. The world’s most powerful traffic court lawyer, Alina Habba raises the number of blond leggy presidential advisors to “Austin Powers” levels. Journalist David Corn moves up a dozen slots on the administration shitlist with his history of Kash Patel, future director of the US Staatssicherheit.

David Waldman counts the days until our next big national funding crisis. Crises more than two weeks off seem like science fiction, don’t they? Won’t we have solved it with AI by then? AI might be a lousy search engine, but it will argue with you as well as any idiot. “Giving a woman an orgasm on purpose is gay” is not AI, but an actual idiot’s opinion. AI also could never have predicted what really motivated economically anxious Republicans in the election.

President Joe Biden will hopefully prioritize KITM staff pardons, but Liz Cheney and Anthony Fauci are probably first in line.

The "Deny, Defend, Depose" shooter is still at large, flashing his dashing Gyllenhaalian smile while cleverly changing his backpack color, number of coat pockets, and means of transportation to elude the authorities, as ballads are sung of his exploits. We are reminded that it’s unseemly to pattern one’s social movement on the acts of law breakers. Now someone else at United Healthcare will need to sign off on hundreds of millions in ransomware payments.

Devout breeder Elon Musk isn’t quite a devout Christian but is ok with you worshiping him. Elon sits at the right hand of Trump, because he outbid all of the other saviors. Musk spent $20 million on a fake “RBG” PAC, because the only thing more important that control to Elon is trolling.

Trump’s working on the budget as well, helping weed out any funding not going to an Elon Musk venture, even if it means firing Louis DeJoy. Instead of a gold standard, perhaps we can base our economy on pump and dumping meme stocks? Hawk Tuah!

House Republicans blocked release of the Matt Gaetz ethics report, because they can.  Democratic Representative Sean Casten might still force them to release it, though.

David Waldman... and Greg Dworkin... on the same show? Find out on today’s KITM!

The UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting seems to point to one culprit, that being a nationwide guillotine shortage. The "Deny, Defend, Depose" movement hopes to remedy that, however our supplier of democracy in France might be facing heavy domestic demand soon.

Speaking of collapses, the Democratic party could do worse than to adopt that “DDD” slogan. It sure beats using “The Resistance” again. Kash Patel only has 60 people on his enemy list, and it already made a mess of MSNBC’s underwear.

Musk and Ramaswamy found about a quarter of their cost cutting so far, eliminating federal prisons, the FBI, veterans' health care, and annoying Musk competitors. Easy Peasy. Try reaching for Republican pork and see how many fingers you take back.

Pete Hegseth tries the “Please Baby, Baby please!” defense. Pete had Trump with the bigotry, torture and sexual abuse, but seems to have lost him with all the alcohol. If only Hegseth had lied better. Trump loves liars.

It seems that a small plurality of the electorate doesn’t mind liars either. Republicans microtargeted their lies to Americans during the election using the latest technology... effectively. How did the Russian-backed candidate win in Romania? TikTok, Democrats!

South Korea’s President tried one little coup and now everybody’s sore at him. Worse yet, Yoon Suk Yeol can only find one guy to throw under his bus. Trump won’t make that mistake.

There’s a rainbow of revolutions out there. Crave Syria news? Blue Sky might not be the place. The bad place might still be the place. When I find myself forced into exTwitter, I search Threads for the author and almost always find the exact same post. Try it, it’s fun!

Is this nation on the wrong track? David Waldman and Greg Dworkin discuss all the ways we have derailed. except for any new wreckage this afternoon, which we’ll get to tomorrow.

Whatever you have on your Dems failure bingo card, you can’t count Silicon Valley. The made billions off of Democrats, now they are making billions off of Republicans.

America has always been at war with Eastasia, Canada. America has always been at war with Eurasia, Mexico. They are our greatest allies, except that we are at war with them. Sacrifices need to be made in these times of war.

Manhattan 5th floor windows are locked shut at this time of year. UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead on 6th Avenue.

Presidential Apprentice has been rebooted due to a slight popular demand, and as sequels tend to go, it promises to be much more and much worse. The Biden White House had zero exciting indictments, convictions, or even rapists, as if it was American Idol hosted by Ted Lasso. This time, contestants exit in shame when they’re deemed not vile enough to compete. Right now, the season is Kash Patel’s to lose. Kash will trim the FBI down to Scully and Mulder and assign them to a full-time investigation of the incoming secretary of defense Tater Tot Ron Desantis crime family. Ron is replacing nominee Pete Hegseth, who has been implicated in a sex scandal with almost every woman in America.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol imposed martial law. Before morning, the South Korean State Council lifted the order. Go to bed South Korea, you’re drunk! They’ll probably impeach him by afternoon, as they are a lot more efficient over there.

And in Syria they recross the killing fields that they have crossed many times before.