Good morning from my Hunker-Bunker overlooking the Puget Sound from the cliffs of West Seattle. It is a Thursday in the scheme of things and I woke up this morning to the news on the radio proclaiming that Elon Musk is now our new President-In-Waiting. Oh my, and all of this before I could even coax a cup of coffee out of the Keurig…
Question: Does popcorn pair well with coffee early in the morning?
I see that the mass hysteria over drone sightings has continued to grow. Living in the shadows of SeaTac, Boeing Field, Renton Boeing Field, Everett Boeing Field, and McChord, Bremerton, and a few dozen heliports, it is almost impossible to look up in the sky and NOT see aircraft of any kind, shape, or form. And those are just the ones that follow the FAA rules of flight.
Yes, there are a shitload of drones out and about in the skies now. I have two older drones hanging on the wall behind me that I fly from time-to-time. But my personal baby is my HS55 GPS Drone that I bought a couple of weeks ago on Amazon for a whopping $80. Regular price is about $220, but I caught it on sale at just the right time. I see it is STILL on sale.
Flight time is about 20 – 40 minutes depending on what you are doing with it. There are no lights on it, and the camera is not night vision, so I’m not the one contributing to the night shows. I’m a hobbyist, mostly, but I do use it to few the sides and roofs of our buildings from time-to-time. My wife has a more commercial unit, and she does use it at night. They are equipped with FAA lighting, and she does follow FAA rules for her work. So there are MANY reasons why you might see drones flying around at night, just as a general practice.
Most of the ‘sightings’ are of actual planes. The one thing they are not are spy drones. Spies tend not to use FAA lighting, since the number one rule in spycraft is not to be detected.
Are there more drones out there now than ever before? Well, YEAH. These things are freakishly cheap. Look on Amazon: most of them are under thirty bucks — at least until Trump adds more tariffs, then the price will go up.
I have just finished my Christmas shopping — for myself. (yeah, fuck all the rest of you, who do you think I am, Santa-Fucking-Claus?) I may be fat with a bushy white beard, but that’s where the similarity ends, trust me. I just spent $10k on all the electronics shit and other knick-knacks that are sure to go up in price next year. Yeah, like another drone, one that follows me. Shit that I don’t really need, but I really, really want…
Provided this morning by my AI assistant on ChatGPT:
“Folks, if you watch the show, you know I spend most of my time right over there in the news observatory, polishing the day’s sharpest, most topical lenses, aligning them with the celestial geometry of breaking stories, and capturing the radiant supernova of current events to present to you the gleaming Thursday morning posting you see here. But sometimes, folks, just sometimes, I get stranded on a hillside after a late-night stargazing fiasco, fashioning a makeshift periscope out of coffee stirrers and a cracked compact mirror to spy on the swirling nebula of chaos that is my segment, Meanwhile.”
(Everyone needs an AI assistant)
So yeah, top of the news this morning is President Elon…
Elon Musk’s influence over President-elect Donald Trump has made him the true “president-elect,” according to David Axelrod, ex-adviser to former President Barack Obama.
“So will President-elect Musk join the budget negotiations now?” Axelrod wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Axelrod’s post came after Trump announced his opposition to a continuing resolution backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson to avoid a government shutdown. Just before Trump’s announcement, Musk was busy rallying Republicans to kill the bill on X.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump transition team via email on Wednesday night.
Why It Matters
Congress has a Friday deadline to avoid a government shutdown by passing a temporarily funding bill. The Johnson-backed plan had looked likely to pass before Musk and later Trump voiced their opposition.
Johnson quickly killed the bill following Trump’s announcement, with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise confirming that there was “no new agreement” to avoid a shutdown, according to CBS News.
Before Trump announcing his opposition to the bill, which initially came in the form of a joint statement with Vice President-elect JD Vance, Musk’s growing influence over the Republican Party appeared to be on display as a number of GOP lawmakers quickly came out against the legislation.
Democrats Troll ‘Vice President’ Trump as Musk Calls the Shots
Elon Musk sticking his fingers in congressional affairs before his new pal Donald Trump is even sworn in as president had many Democrats referring to the tech figure as “President Musk” Wednesday.
The billionaire Tesla CEO successfully lobbied—with Trump’s help—for the death of a bipartisan spending bill Wednesday that would have staved off a shutdown and funded the government through March—leaving the Capitol in chaos as Congress scrambled to keep Washington running as the Christmas holiday looms.
Regarding the pair’s efforts to kill the spending bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson had painstakingly negotiated with Democratic leaders, New York Rep. Daniel Goldman told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, “It’s not Donald Trump asking for this. It’s very clearly President Elon Musk asking for this.”
Axelrod: Trump, Musk need to ‘decide who the president is’
Democratic strategist David Axelrod poked fun at President-elect Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk for their public dialogue after the duo pushed back against House Republicans’ bill to avert a government shutdown ahead of Friday’s deadline.
“What was confusing to me is Musk sends out one of his tweets, and he says no one should do anything until January 20th when Trump gets there,” Axelrod said during a Wednesday morning CNN appearance “AC360.”
“Trump sends out a tweet saying they ought to pass a clean, a clean [continuing resolution]… So they seem to be saying different things, and eventually they’re gonna have to get together and decide who the president is,” he added.
Earlier Axelrod told guest host Jim Sciutto that it looked like Republicans were making headway before Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy chimed in urging lawmakers to vote against the bill.
In a series of posts, the SpaceX CEO declared the bill a “piece of pork” and said those that support it should not be reelected.
“Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” he wrote in a post on social platform X, which he owns.
House Democrat: ‘Unelected oligarch’ Musk ‘governing by tweet’
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) criticized President-elect Trump for allowing SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to “govern” through a series of social media posts that effectively helped to delay passage of a stopgap funding bill that would prevent a government shutdown ahead of the holidays.
“It’s one thing when you have Donald Trump governing by tweet, as he did in his first term, where he was in communication with Congress, but now you have Elon Musk, an unelected oligarch, governing by tweet,” Goldman said Wednesday on CNN’s “AC360.”
“This is absurd,” he added, decrying that the move “is putting us on the brink of a government shutdown.”
Johnson spending deal throws Speakership into question as floor vote approaches
Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) handling of an end-of-year spending deal is throwing his grasp on his gavel into uncertain territory ahead of a critical Jan. 3 Speaker vote, as some GOP lawmakers question their support for the Louisiana Republican.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) on Wednesday came out against Johnson in light of the spending deal, pledging to oppose him on the House floor next month. And a handful of other Republicans are not saying if they will support Johnson next month, leaving their options open as criticism of the Speaker mounts.
Hardline House Republicans who have been party to gavel battles in the past, meanwhile, say chatter is increasing about Speaker alternatives, raising serious questions about Johnson’s fate in the top job.
MY TAKE: My first thought when I woke up to this news was that Elon Musk isn’t going to last long. There is no scenario where Donald Trump accepts a role of playing second fiddle to Musk. If the general public begins perceiving Elon Musk as being the actual president instead of the elected one, then Trump is going to shit can him fast.
I know that Democrats are mad because there was a bipartisan DEAL. The very ones who are now vociferously talking shit about the deal were the ones who put the deal together in the first place. Everyone who agreed on the deal were getting something they wanted out of it.
There was NOTHING kosher about this deal: it was mostly pork.
I watched Hakeem Jeffies’ quick news conference. I couldn’t help but notice that he was a bit perturbed and put out. He tried to put all the blame off onto the Republicans if the government gets shut down because of this. He was insistent that this bill only contained money that was important in making disaster victims whole, and this Continuing Resolution would fund the government until Mid-March.
What he failed to mention was a forty percent raise across the board in Congress, and this would include their staffers as well.
On previous CRs, Democrats were always quick to decry the use of “must-pass’ legislation to slip in special nuggets of shit that Republicans couldn’t pass any other way. The opposition party always wants a “clean resolution” when it comes to these kinds of things.
Not this time though. This time is different because I think EVERYONE realises that it is now or never. Either grab for something now, while the gettin’ is good, because it’s going to be a completely different wasteland after the next term starts.
Just clean the CR, pass it, and rally the troops for the BIG battle next year.
Shutting down the government is only going to make matters WORSE.
The Revenge Tour Has Begun
On the eve of a jury trial in June 2017, Disney settled a defamation lawsuit brought by a beef company for a whopping $177 million. The case stemmed from a series of ABC News reports in 2012 fronted by star anchor Diane Sawyer that dubbed the processed meat “pink slime.” At the time, it marked the largest settlement or jury award ever for a libel case and has since been eclipsed only by Alex Jones ($1.438 billion to Sandy Hook families) and Fox News ($787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems).
Fast forward to 2024, and George Stephanopoulos is now the face of ABC News and one of the highest-paid anchors on TV, making up to $18 million per year. And inside Disney’s C-suites on the Burbank lot, there was a feeling of déjà vu thanks to a looming defamation lawsuit filed in March by former and incoming President Donald Trump, a far more powerful and strident adversary than a South Dakota food processor. But a protracted fight with the president elect was similarly unpredictable and potentially devastating.
Disney’s Decision to Settle Trump Defamation Suit Prompts Backlash at ABC News
Staffers question the decision approved by Bob Iger; the company was looking to avoid a protracted legal battle
MY TAKE:
ABC/Disney was wrong to cave in on a lawsuit that was almost impossible to lose. The “cave” came because Bob Iger wanted to buy influence with Trump, and the only way he could do it without being political about it was to use the lawsuit as a vehicle to transfer a donation to Trump for influence.
But I don’t think Bob Iger understood the consequences of doing this, because this only emboldened Trump into going after all of his other perceived enemies both real and imagined. Now he is going after a pollster from the Des Moines Register because she put out the results of a presidential poll that showed him losing Iowa by three points.
REALLY? SERIOUSLY? There is no such thing as an accurate poll. It’s why they have ‘margins’ of error.
Trump is going after her using a state law that was designed for false advertising. He can’t prevail, and a second year law student could easily have it tossed. But if the Des Moines Register caves like Bob Iger did on ABC, then Trump will move on to the next victim.
Reversing the bus, to throw him under it
In reversal, key House panel votes to release Matt Gaetz ethics report
The House Ethics Committee secretly voted earlier this month to release its report into the conduct of former Rep. Matt Gaetz before the end of this Congress, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter.
The report is now expected to be made public after the House’s final day of votes this year as lawmakers leave Washington for the holidays, those sources said.
The vote, which has not previously been reported, amounts to a stark reversal for the panel after it had voted along party lines in late November not to release the results of the investigation. The decision to release the report suggests that some Republicans ultimately decided to side with Democrats on the matter, and it is unclear if the committee will once again change course now that it has voted.
When the committee voted last month to shelve the report, Gaetz was President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be attorney general. Since then, Gaetz withdrew himself from consideration for the Senate-confirmed post, though he maintains frosty relations with many in his party and is still active in GOP politics.
It is exceedingly rare for an ethics report to be released after a member has left Congress, though it has happened on a couple of occasions in the past. The committee revisited the issue behind closed doors earlier this month after a feud over the report spilled into public view before Thanksgiving.
MY TAKE:
Someone doesn’t want Matt Gaetz to return to Congress. I say “someone” when I should have said, “almost everyone in Congress”…
I think this was the right thing to do, but the wrong way to do it. There shouldn’t have been ANY question about releasing this, or any other report on the ethics (or lack thereof) of every Congresscritter, both now and in the past. Any right to privacy fails when you are talking about the very people who are supposed to be representing US.
Don’t stop with Matt Gaetz. Let’s see the dossiers on EVERY fucknozzle in Congress.
There apparently is money for a FORTY PERCENT PAY RAISE
An unpopular Congress that failed to cut big spending tries giving itself a year-end pay raise
A salary bump for members of Congress, who are currently paid $174,000 per year, is included in the 1,547-page spending bill that was unveiled on Tuesday night.
Congress has to pass a spending bill to keep the government funded before the end of the day on Friday. The current version is a Continuing Resolution that would last until mid-March.
Congress has voted since 2009 to block lawmakers from receiving automatic cost-of-living adjustments.
The House speaker earns $223,500 annually and the Senate majority leader makes $193,400 while other lawmakers earn $174,000 currently. The average salary in the United States is $66,621, according to the latest data from the Social Security Administration.
A provision in the negotiated spending bill would allow the automatic pay raises to return, which could yield a $6,600 raise next year for lawmakers, according to a Congressional Research Service report from September.
According to Gallup polling, Congress has a 19% approval rating among the public.
The low approval comes after a Republican-led House that swept to power in 2023 with promises to restore normal budgeting and large spending cuts failed to do both.
MY TAKE:
Everyone should get COLA raises every year. But not FORTY PERCENT raises.
Also, we’re talking about Congress. A body of people who get paid $174k a year to get almost nothing done. It’s a salary that is already three times the national median salary — and that’s before considering exactly how much these clowns actually work.
Never mind that the majority of Congress are millionaires many times over. The poorest person in Congress, Chaka Fattah, ias a net worth of $650k But there are members with even less — Democrats Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Gregory W. Meeks of New York, and Republicans Rick Crawford of Arkansas, Duncan Hunter of California and Louie Gohmert of Texas. These members do not have enough liabilities to drop into the 10 poorest, but their net worths range from -$15,000 (Sinema) to -$610,000 (Gohmert). The richest clown in Congress is worth $360 million.
Many of these people got rich by enrichment through being a congresscritter.
Delegating Diminished Capacity
How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge
During the 2020 presidential primary, Jill Biden campaigned so extensively across Iowa that she held events in more counties than her husband—a fact her press secretary at the time, Michael LaRosa, touted to a local reporter.
His superior in the Biden campaign quickly chided him. As the three rode in a minivan through the state’s cornfields, Anthony Bernal, then a deputy campaign manager and chief of staff to Jill Biden, pressed LaRosa to contact the reporter again and play down any comparison in campaign appearances between Joe Biden, then 77, and his wife, who is eight years his junior. Her energetic schedule only highlighted her husband’s more plodding pace, LaRosa recalls being told.
The message from Biden’s team was clear. “The more you talk her up, the more you make him look bad,” LaRosa said.
The small correction foreshadowed how Biden’s closest aides and advisers would manage the limitations of the oldest president in U.S. history during his four years in office.
To adapt the White House around the needs of a diminished leader, they told visitors to keep meetings focused. Interactions with senior Democratic lawmakers and some cabinet members—including powerful secretaries such as Defense’s Lloyd Austin and Treasury’s Janet Yellen—were infrequent or grew less frequent. Some legislative leaders had a hard time getting the president’s ear at key moments, including ahead of the U.S.’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan.
Senior advisers were often put into roles that some administration officials and lawmakers thought Biden should occupy, with people such as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, senior counselor Steve Ricchetti and National Economic Council head Lael Brainard and her predecessor frequently in the position of being go-betweens for the president.
MY TAKE:
Personally, I see very little difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump when it comes to being ‘diminished’. Both are obviously a shadow of their former selves, and you can see them fading more each and every day. We may get to witness an ‘Article 25’ in the next two or three years.
For shits and giggles, I think it would be hilarious if Joe Biden were to step down today and make Kamala Harris the 47th President? Why? Because Trump would then have to reprint all of the products he’s been hawking. We’d get to see him publicly melt down. He might even want to arrest Joe Biden for illegally stepping down. I would say I was kidding, but we all know what Trump is capable of…
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Many musicians struggled during the pandemic. Lil Wayne wasn’t one of them. He sold master recordings from his record label’s artists for more than $100 million. He was pardoned for felony gun possession in a last-minute action by then-President Donald Trump. He purchased a $15.4 million mansion in the mountains of Los Angeles.
And, as a Business Insider investigation found, he received an $8.9 million grant from a little-known pandemic-relief program that he used to cover more than two years’ worth of spending on luxury hotel stays, designer clothes, and travel to and from nightclub appearances around the country.
The rapper, whose real name is Dwayne Carter Jr., spent more than $1.3 million from the grant on private-jet flights and over $460,000 on clothes and accessories, many of them from high-end brands like Gucci and Balenciaga. He billed taxpayers more than $175,000 for expenses related to a music festival promoting his marijuana brand, GKUA, including clothing for artists associated with his record label.
He also used grant money to cover nearly $15,000 worth of flights and luxury hotel rooms for women whose connection to Lil Wayne’s touring operation was unclear, including a waitress at a Hooters-type restaurant and a porn actress.
MY TAKE:
Oh wait, y’all didn’t know?
The Ultimate Boeing Layoff
NASA’s 2 stuck astronauts face more time in space with return delayed until at least late March
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s two stuck astronauts just got their space mission extended again. That means they won’t be back on Earth until spring, 10 months after rocketing into orbit on Boeing’s Starliner capsule.
NASA announced the latest delay in Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams’ homecoming on Tuesday.
The two test pilots planned on being away just a week or so when they blasted off June 5 on Boeing’s first astronaut flight to the International Space Station. Their mission grew from eight days to eight months after NASA decided to send the company’s problem-plagued Starliner capsule back empty in September.
Now the pair won’t return until the end of March or even April because of a delay in launching their replacements, according to NASA.
A fresh crew needs to launch before Wilmore and Williams can return and the next mission has been bumped more than a month, according to the space agency.
NASA’s next crew of four was supposed to launch in February, followed by Wilmore and Williams’ return home by the end of that month alongside two other astronauts. But SpaceX needs more time to prepare the brand new capsule for liftoff. That launch is now scheduled for no earlier than late March.
MY TAKE:
This is absolutely NUTS.
Did Boeing forget about these two? I mean, Boeing has been pretty busy lately laying off machinists and engineers.
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