Breaking Fake News Update (v18)

 Fake News Broke on September 7,2025

So, what's going on here? Do we really need to tariff chalk at the same level as drug prices are allegedly coming down?  You bet we do!

Florida cities are busy trying to remove all of their 'street art,' in an effort to satisfy both Department of Transportation Secretary Sean 'Lumberjack' Duffy and their Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

Sidewalk art, such as that in Orlando remembering those lost at the Pulse nightclub anti-LBGTQ mass shooting, a memorial to a high school student, and even one supporting police, were scrubbed out last month, some of them several times, as passionate citizens kept recoloring them.

At least for a while, and maybe still, law enforcement officers were 'guarding' the sidewalks, keeping their communities safe from the dastardly threat of rainbow colors, which have been deemed more distracting than, say, 

• touch screens in cars that are larger than my television, or
• this Florida Man's car, or 
• any of the rolling rallies that have been held for 45/FOTUS over the years, and even
• seeing our National Guard troops fighting landscaping crime in DC.

Somehow, the smaller, leaner, more efficient federal government that everyone likes to say they voted for seems to enjoy being knee-deep in the weeds, and, of course, threatening everyone that they'll lose their taxpayer funding if they don't toe the FOTUS line.

That last part? Not fake news, as we've seen. But rest assured, if there's fake news to report, we'll be on it!

Breaking Fake News Update (v4)

  Fake News Broke on August 10, 2025!

This news broke after FOTUS finally issued his long-promised new tariffs; some were negotiated, others were just directed via 'dear Country' letters. Tariffs as high as 125% were imposed on tea imports from China, and it was believed that tariffs would also apply to British tea imports, many of which previously fell below the 'de minimis' price. 

We don't produce a ton of tea - well, we probably produce more than a ton, but not a shit-ton, if you know what I mean - which made this ridiculous post about re-enacting the Boston Tea Party using homegrown tea as part of our 250th birthday celebration possible.

We will continue to share fake news as it breaks.

Wondering on Wednesday 1/15/25

Ready... Set... Wonder!

The Once and Future President (OAFP) wants to make our government smaller. And that's just one reason why I can't help wondering whether we really need a new External Revenue Service to collect tariffs from foreign countries. Separate from the fact that tariffs aren't paid by foreign governments, they're paid by the importers of goods from foreign countries, who typically will pass them on to customers, we already have the good folks at Customs and Border Protection who are responsible for collecting money from foreign governments. Why do we need another team to do the same thing?

You might wonder, as I did, whether the creation of the new department is a suggestion that they're not doing a good job. That doesn't appear to be the case. Rather, the ERS is a way to help us all - even the donor class! Take a look at these comments from MAGAist Steve Bannon, speaking with Dasha Burns of Politico.

Tariffs paid for everything up until the early 20th century. But you wouldn't just look at tariffs, you look at everything about how you can charge fees essentially, whether that's on investment, whether that's on other things of access to this country. America's behind the golden door, OK? And this market is the most robust, lucrative market in the world, and we shouldn't just let people have access, we shouldn't let foreigners have access to this market and to the American people and American citizens for free.

And he said, the ERS, which he envisions fitting under the Treasury Department,  

should eventually take the “burden off people on Internal Revenue Services — no reason the American people, American corporations, even the donor class has to pay for everything.” (emphasis added)

I have to wonder how many Americans woke up this morning worried about the donor class?  

We know who they are, right? The tech billionaires, media billionaires, pharma billionaires, think tank billionaires, and so on. My first thought? Most of us regular folks are pretty sick of hearing about - and from - 'the donor class.' And it seems no one's more sick of one of them -Elon Musk, the First Buddy - than Bannon himself. 

What could be going wrong between these two, you're wondering? Bannon and other MAGA 'originalists' have been publicly bickering with Musk over the coveted H1-B visas, which give foreigners up to six years to work in the US in mostly high-paying jobs that could go to Americans, thinking that supporting those visas goes against the MAGA goal of reducing all immigration, and against America First principles.

Speaking with an Italian newspaper, Bannon proclaimed

I will get Elon Musk kicked out by the time (Trump's) inaugurated. He won’t have a blue pass with full access to the White House. He’ll be like everyone else.

He’s a truly evil person. Stopping him has become a personal issue for me. Before, since he’s put in so much money, I was prepared to tolerate it. Not anymore.

With only a handful of days til the inauguration, is anyone else wondering who'll be the last man standing? I'm guessing it's Musk, with whom the OAFP has sided on the visa issue, but we'll see... that 'co-president' stuff will get to Trump sooner than later, I think.

Sticking with the monied people a bit longer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has submitted revised financial disclosure documents. It seems he was unaware that, when asked to state his income, the correct number to submit is the gross amount, not the net amount. And, I think he's also learned that any positive gross amount would be greater than zero. 

Now, you may be wondering why this matters. After all, there are many concerns with RFK's nomination and his positions on a whole host of issues, from the healthiest way to travel with and dispose of dead animals, to whether having part of his brain eaten by a worm is still detrimental to his mental function, or if it was only an issue during a divorce proceeding, to his wide-ranging controversial comments on vaccines and fluoridated water, to whether he would have been chosen by Trump at all if he weren't a Kennedy and a former Democrat, to why his family is so adamantly against him getting any government job... 

But here's the thing I'm wondering: now that we know he not only didn't work for free, as he has stated in interviews, but he was paid a whole lotta money from his anti-vax stuff, has anyone checked his tax returns? Did he report gross income then, or net? 

Speaking of health and stuff, the FDA today banned red dye 3 from food and beverages by January 2027, and from the medications we ingest by January 2028, due to its cancer risk. It's important to note that it was removed from cosmetics over thirty years ago. Think about that for a minute: we haven't been able to put it on our faces for almost half my lifetime, but we can continue eating, drinking, and ingesting it for at least another two years? I can't help wondering the logic of all of that, and I also have to wonder why Big Pharma gets a whole year longer than the food industry to protect us. 

And news is officially breaking today that there's a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, which if all goes well should get at least some of the American hostages released soon. President Biden noted in his remarks that members of the OAFP's administration were engaged in the talks that led to the agreement, which is what would normally be expected in a well-functioning government in transition between administrations. I wonder, as we wait for word of Israel's formal acceptance, if this will be the deal that finally brings this nightmare to an end. 

There was no wondering at all on whether the OAFP would take credit for the deal; of course, he did. Similarly, I didn't wonder for a second whether the reporters covering the White House would throw a 'credit' question into the mix; of course, they did. Why? Because they simply can't help making fools of themselves at times like this. 

And they wonder why people don't trust them. 

There's always more to wonder about than I can ever fit in a single post... drop a comment if there's something on your mind.

Wondering on Wednesday (v191)

Ready... set... wonder! 

• I wonder if anyone at all honestly believes that Republicans are not being exactly as partisan in defending the president as the Democrats are in calling for his impeachment? I mean, if we are supposed to believe that the latter is driven by political ideology and dismay about losing the election, why would any sane person think that the former is anything other than blind allegiance to the winner?

• Was anyone else watching or listening to the House Judiciary Committee's hearing on Monday, wondering how cool it would have been if someone - anyone - had stood up and bellowed "OAR-DURRRRRRR" like the recently retired Speaker of the Commons John Bercow? I mean, seriously - the hearing (the couple of hours I listened to before losing patience) - was a cluster of whining and yelling and posturing and gibberish and predictable voice votes and annoying roll calls -- and worse, there was not a bit of charisma exhibited by any of them, least of all the chairman. I was begging for a Bercow, I really was. 

• I wonder, has Christopher Wray been fired yet? I haven't checked Twitter all that much today, but I can't imagine he's going to be the current Director of the FBI for a whole lot longer. Staying with the same presidential tweet, I have to wonder what the "greatest men and women working there" think of their new-found accolades, having been denigrated by the president throughout his time in office. Maybe that's Trump's way of saying I'm sorry?

• A bit of additional diversity was added to the December Democratic debate, as entrepreneur Andrew Yang has met the qualifications: 4% approval in four approved national polls or 6% in two early-state polls and at least 200,000 unique donors and at least 800 donors in at least 20 states. The qualifiers to date, in alphabetical order (to prevent the Bernie Sanders contingent from freaking out if he's not listed first): Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Sanders,  Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, and Yang. I'm wondering tonight how many of the remaining non-qualifying candidates will continue to stay in the race, especially if this is not the first debate they've missed.

• Folks in the UK go to the polls tomorrow; current polling suggests that the Conservatives, led by Boris Johnson, will prevail against Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, but we've learned on our side of the pond how wrong polls can be. I wonder what will happen if Johnson doesn't prevail, almost as much as I wonder what will happen if he does. Will other countries start making their own moves to leave the EU? And what will our response be, other than tariffs? I mean, there will be tariffs, right?  Trump's still president, after all...

• I know about Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday, and Small Business Saturday, but I had to wonder what Green Monday was all about. I only learned about it when I got more than a dozen emails from retailers (they're still coming today, I might add). In case you're in the dark, as I was, the 2nd Monday of December is apparently the day that lots of retailers kick off their holiday sales

There's more - there's always more... but what are you wondering about today?

Wondering on Wednesday (v174)

Here we go again - it's Wednesday!

Many people are wondering why the president doesn't have a tailor, or at least a 'dresser' to help him get ready for things like appearances at church on 'Pray for Donald Trump' Day, or at a state dinner with that great, great woman, HRH the Queen.  Me? I"m wondering if Melania lets him go places dressed like he does on purpose? You know,  exceptional fashion model and her badly dressed husband?

The visit to the church was a weird thing in and of itself. He was not invited, the pastor tells us. Rather, the pastor was looking forward to a few minutes of quiet contemplation, and then this happened:

But I was immediately called backstage and told that the president of the United States was on his way to the church, would be there in a matter of minutes, and would like us to pray for him.

That seems not quite the same reason for his stop that the White House gave, though:

president Donald J. Trump is visiting McLean Bible Church in Vienna, VA to visit with the Pastor and pray for the victims and community of Virginia Beach.

I'm don't think I'm the only one wondering whether there's some #fakenews here? As Trump said nothing - not a thing - during his visit to the stage, and the pastor never mentioned Virginia Beach either, I can only assume the president didn't read his schedule carefully enough, or he was being his usual intrusive self and the White House was forced to cover for him.

Again.

Sunday School 4/8/18

I managed to catch a few classrooms today, paying attention to the group discussions where everyone gets to chime in, instead of focusing on the one-on-one interviews with oh so many of the usual suspects.

Topic one? Facebook, as Mr. Zuckerberg goes to Washington. The social media giant's founder and CEO is set to testify before the House and Senate this week, to talk about privacy and Cambridge Analytica and privacy and privacy, and likely, regulations. How did the gangs talk about it?

On Meet the Press (MTP), the general thinking was that Zuckerberg should have apologized earlier - immediately after the Cambridge Analytica story came out, before the news that it wasn't 50 millions users, maybe it was 87 million users. Maybe it's a trillion users, who knows. And we were reminded that this over-sharing actually started a few years ago. One reporter mentioned that sources will only talk face-to-face, won't put anything in writing anymore, harkening back to Watergate days and parking garages. That got a chuckle.

On This Week with George Stephanopoulos (TWwGS), where again Martha Raddatz was sitting in, one of the folks suggested that Zuckerberg was going into a 'Congressional gauntlet' (compared to MTP's 'ambush' language) and that being supportive of regulations calling for more transparency in political ads, for example, was good but was not going to be nearly enough to protect him from the wrath of a bunch of people who,in my opinion probably don't really have a good understanding of Facebook.

Topic two? Trade and tariffs. On Face the Nation (FTN) over on CBS, Margaret Brennan's group suggested we'd not see a revised NAFTA deal before or during Trump's visit to South America for the Summit of the Americas, noting that the president's incendiary tweets and border moves don't help, nor do his aluminum and steel tariffs or the many others he's threatening. And, surrounding himself with conflicting pro- and anti-NAFTA voices plays to how Trump likes things, but hurts our policy decisions. One noted that Trump, at his core, is a protectionist and NAFTA may not survive as a result. The stock market swings, which are driving everyone nuts, stem more from uncertainty than any single move Trump is making. And of course, you'll recall that uncertainty was a dirty word to Republicans throughout the Obama administration.

Topic three? Embattled EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, he of the 50 bucks a night rental in DC, and the travel, and the phone booth, and the raises, and so on. The group at Fox News Sunday had mixed opinions. On the one hand, we were told, there's this giant double standard because Obama's people did the same thing, spending money on travel, and besides his policies are what people wanted, so let's tell the president to stay away from Pruitt. This thought was echoed by folks on FTN, who noted that with the mid-term elections coming up, now is not the time to keep Republicans in Washington trying to fill Cabinet positions.

Back to Fox, the point was also made that if Trump is all about draining the swamp, keeping Pruitt is the wrong thing to do, whether he's right from a policy perspective or not. On ABC, the comparison was made to how Christian evangelicals were willing to overlook Trump's bad behavior because they like his policies. It was also noted that, as EPA rules don't change that often or quickly, pretty much anyone could implement the policy changes that Pruitt is making, while having none of the ethical issues.

All of this sort of leads us to topic four: Trump's personal General John Kelly. According to some reports, which Trump denies as being fake news, Kelly is ready to go, has offered to go, has threatened to go. Kelly has two jobs, we're told on TWwGS: keeping an eye on Trump and keeping an eye on the Cabinet. Both roles may be shrinking; Kelly did take Jared's security clearance away, and if he's truly told Trump to get rid of Pruitt and/or told Pruitt to behave, neither is having any impact.

This was echoed by Brennan's group, and one even suggested that Pruitt would replace Kelly as Chief, instead of replacing Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III as Attorney General. And, we're told, Kelly's not being invited to meetings, his team seems more willing to speak out, and so on - so maybe Kelly will be the next one to go?

Finally, a little extra credit. One guest on FTN suggested that the reason he sleeps so well at night is because he doesn't follow Trump's tweets as closely as do many others.

See you around campus.

Sunday School 3/4/18

Kinda of in a funk today, so my attention span was limited and I only visited one classroom, CNN's State of the Union with Jake Tapper at the helm.

The first guest was Peter Navarro, who is the White House Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. Navarro's goal today was to convince us that president Trump's surprise announcement of tariffs - 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum -- was a great idea, good for the president, good for our steel and aluminum workers, and #MAGA.

Navarro said the tariffs would go into effect next week, maybe the week after, once the White House lawyers get all their ducks in a row. Tapper played some video of the president blaming China for overproduction and saying that needed to be addressed, and then he reminded Navarro that China doesn't make the top ten steel importers into the US. Here's how Navarro responded:

So, the bigger picture is that China has tremendous overcapacity in both aluminum and steel. And so what they do is, they flood the world market with this product. And that ripples down to our shores and to other countries. So China is, in many ways, the root of the problem in both aluminum and steel for all countries of the world.

But let's be clear here about what the president's doing. Let's lay this on the table. This is an action, basically, to protect our national security and economic security. And the president was quite clear. We can't have a country that can defend itself and prosper without an aluminum and steel industry.

Silly me - I thought we couldn't be a country without a border wall, and without getting rid of chain migration and stuff. I was wrong, I guess.

Tapper reminded Navarro, speaking of national security, that the Pentagon was not in favor of what Trump did.

The Pentagon wrote a memo about the tariff, saying, indeed the unfair steel practices do create a national security problem. But the Pentagon also said that the US should use targeted tariffs and avoid angering allies who are needed for other diplomatic national security reasons, such as Canada, such as South Korea. If you are invoking the national security exemption, should you not also be listening to the Pentagon on how to apply these tariffs?

Navarro's answer was reminiscent of Trump's "I alone can fix it" comment.

What I love about this president is, he listens to all points of view, both within his government and outside, and then he makes the tough decisions. 

Which includes ignoring the Pentagon.

Also on the show was Ohio Governor John Kasich, who is considered a potential challenger to Trump in 2020. Tapper talked to him about the president's trade tariffs (Kasich is not a fan) and the president's 'gun control without due process' plan; Kasich is again not a fan. Rather, what he's trying in Ohio is a restraining order, which comes with due process.

In terms of our gun retraining order, it means, if you have somebody in the family who sees trouble in the family, they have an ability, either go to law enforcement or the court in order to get those guns out of that person who's having a very difficult time, get the guns away from them. If you're a neighbor or somebody outside, you can go to a police officer who can investigate and then go to the judge. There's got to be speed in this, because we don't want people who are emotionally - you know, emotionally in upheaval, who could pose a threat either to themselves or to somebody else, to be in a position where they can have a gun.

Kasich also noted that the agenda changes, quickly.

And by the way, have we forgotten the Dreamers, the DACA, the young people who came here? They're not even in the news anymore. And I don't - I can't believe Congress is -- Congress has got to do something on guns. 

And you know what? I think the president will sign something. If he doesn't, send it to him anyway. I mean, the deal is that you don't ask permission. You legislate; you get it to the president, you see what he does.

 I believe he will sign some really good, strong, common sense gun legislation. Send him the Dreamers. We can't be taking these kids that have been -- or young people who have been here, some of them for 20 years, and ship them out of the country for political reasons. 

Tapper also asked Kasich about 2020, and whether someone should challenge Trump, even if it's not Kasich who does it. .

Well, come on Jake. We don't know what's going to happen next week. That's not -- you know, all I'm doing is making sure that, both now and when I'm out, that I can have a voice that can help the country, that can bring it together. That's all I'm particularly interested in at this point. And if I go any further than that, Jake, I won't be able to get in my house tonight. My wife will have it barricaded. 

So, I'm not going there.... 

And, listening to the entire exchange  between Kasich and Tapper, I was reminded why I liked Kasich more than any of the rest of the Republicans. First, he's reasonable, and second, he has a great sense of humor and hes not afraid to use it - which is something we could use a whole lot more of in DC.

See you around campus.