bonkers shit as Trump waves around a printout of one of his Truth Social posts meant to show how he purportedly gave water to California pic.twitter.com/9LTlyGhAIc — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2025 That’s incredibly dumb but then, what else is new? Remember the big water release in California Trump bragged would soon be in Los Angeles and we would never have any fires again? You know, the one that almost flooded the flood plain and wasted billions of gallons of water for nothing? Well, it started out as a DOGE thing: Representatives from the Department of Government Efficiency repeatedly pressured the head of a United States water management agency to open a major California pump system in late January, intending to release a huge amount of water south toward Los Angeles — even though the water would have never made it to the fire-scarred metropolis.
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Baby eaglets! Big Bear’s beloved bald eagle couple, Jackie and Shadow, have welcomed eaglets into the world! You can watch live as the proud parents keep a close eye on their babies. Original live video courtesy of FOBBV. The first eaglet arrived Monday night, popping out of its shell shortly before 11:30 p.m. The special moment was captured live during the 11 p.m. newscast of ABC7 Eyewitness News. The second chick hatched sometime in the overnight hours. The third egg appeared to be hatching, as well, about 1 p.m. Thursday. Jackie and Shadow are taking turns watching and feeding the baby birds, who won’t be able to leave the nest for about 10 to 14 weeks. The baby birds are unnamed, but suggestions will come from the public. The tough decision-makers will be local Big Bear third-graders. In 2022, Jackie and Shadow successfully hatched an eaglet, later named Spirit via a contest held by Friends of Big Bear Valley. Here’s the Live Cam. Join all of LA in watching this rare bit of unadulterated good news.
A steroid, an antibiotic and cod liver oil From the New York Times account of this week’s fractious White House meeting between Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s cabinet secretaries: “The exchange ended with Mr. Trump telling Mr. Duffy that he had to hire people from M.I.T. as air traffic controllers. These air traffic controllers need to be ‘geniuses,’ he said.” We’re days away from a Trump Executive Order to water U.S. crops with Brawndo. Meantime, “a steroid, an antibiotic and cod liver oil” walk into an emergency room with RFK Jr.: There is a highly effective vaccine that prevents measles but no specific antiviral to treat it. Kennedy has previously pushed the use of vitamin A, and in an interview with Fox News this week, he endorsed an unconventional treatment regimen for measles including a steroid, an antibiotic and cod liver oil, which is rich in vitamin A.
Coming soon to a federal agency serving you An “important safety recall” on my car arrived via U.S. Mail the other day. The notice arrived, it said, “in accordance with the requirements of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act” (NHTSA, passed in 1966). A wiring issue could cause “the unintentional deployment of the airbag(s).” Dealers will fix the defect at no cost. It’s the newest car I’ve ever owned and my first recall. Your recall mileage may vary. Literally. The notice is required under Sec. 113 of NHTSA: Yup, that’s pretty much what arrived in the mail (not from Tesla). But it got me thinking. NHTSA is now administered by Donald Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. He got into a little Cabinet Room dustup this week with Elon Musk, he of reusable self-parking rocket booster and “rapid unscheduled disassembly” fame. With his youthful but inexperienced DOGE saboteurs, Musk is bringing his cutting-edge, rapid unscheduled disassembly technology to bear on a government agency serving you.
The NYT: As President Trump seeks to purge the federal government of “woke” initiatives, agencies have flagged hundreds of words to limit or avoid, according to a compilation of government documents. I can understand that they want to erase all references to straight, non-white people and women. Who needs ’em. But I can’t believe they eliminated the word victim. How will they describe themselves without it? Update — policing science as well. This is from the National Cancer Institute Peanut allergies are controversial? Who knew?
Leavitt: "He feels strongly that it would be very beneficial for the Canadian people to be the 51st state of the United States." pic.twitter.com/Ve6HHIloBf — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2025 The Canadians are taking this seriously too: Reacting strongly to US President Donald Trump’s proposal on making Canada the 51st state of his country, Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly has said that she takes his remarks “very seriously”, BBC reported. “This is not a joke anymore,” Joly told Newsnight. “There’s a reason why Canadians, when they go out on a hockey game, are booing the American national anthem… We’re insulted. We’re mad. We’re angry.” I don’t blame them. And let’s face facts. The reason Trump is doing it is very simple. Trudeau is young and handsome and he hates him for it. There is no other explanation.
Anne Applebaum has been travelling in Europe and getting an earful. Her observation here is interesting and it certainly rings true to me: In just a few minutes, the behavior of Donald Trump and J. D. Vance created a brand new stereotype for America: not the quiet American, not the ugly American, but the brutal American. Whatever illusions Europeans ever had about Americans—whatever images lingered from old American movies, the ones where the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and honor defeats treachery—those are shattered. Whatever fond memories remain of the smiling GIs who marched into European cities in 1945, of the speeches that John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan made at the Berlin Wall, or of the crowds that once welcomed Barack Obama, those are also fading fast. Quite apart from their politics, Trump and Vance are rude. They are cruel. They berated and mistreated a guest on camera, and then boasted about it afterward, as if their ugly behavior achieved some kind of macho “win.” They announced that they would halt transfers of military equipment to Ukraine, and hinted at ending sanctions on Russia, the aggressor state.
“Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget,” President Trump says as he shakes the hand of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. pic.twitter.com/uFrvem6rUj — Tom Dreisbach (@TomDreisbach) March 5, 2025 He thanks the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the opinion that gave him immunity for his many crimes, apparently not for the first time. Of course he won’t forget it. None of us will.
Via Mediaite: JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The first results of CNN’s instant poll are in. Let’s get right to CNN’s bureau chief and political director, David Chalian. David, how did the voters that you snap-polled feel about the speech? DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, first, I just want to mention, Jake, this is a poll of speech watchers, not a poll that is representative of the country overall, or what an electorate, an election looks like. And what we know is that people who tend to be fans or partisans with the president no matter which party the president is in, tend to tune in more on speeches like this. And that’s the case in tonight’s survey as well because 21 percent Democrat, 44 percent Republican in this sample. 35 percent independent. That’s about 14 points more Republican than the overall general population. So keep that in mind when you see these results of speech watchers. To the results. What was your reaction to Trump’s speech? 44 percent of speech watchers in our instant poll tonight say they had a very positive reaction to Trump’s speech, 25 percent somewhat positive, 31 percent negative.
Next stop, Hell A couple of lines rattle around behind my eyes this morning. “The Last Days of Pompeii” is one. Another is “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.” “The Trump people are living in a bubble and it’s affecting their ability to understand the world around them,” Digby wrote yesterday, reacting in part to this passage from Anne Applebaum: Europeans can also see that this alternative reality is directly and profoundly shaped by Russian propaganda. I don’t know whether the American president absorbs Russian narratives online, from proxies, or from Putin himself. Either way, he has thoroughly adopted the Russian view of the world, as has Vance. They’ve gone down a rabbit hole and mean to take the country and the world with it. The Russians are certainly playing Trump and his circle, but there’s more to it. Republicans as a party have habituated themselves to lying and to living inside the bubble of lies they tell. This tendency predates the rise of Trumpism.