06/04/25
Good morning! It’s Wednesday, June 4th.
Hug Your Cat Day
Councilwoman Ruth Meowser Stanton? How’d you get in here?
And now, the news.
Joni Ernst
-via Washington Post, Politico, and MSNBC
Okay. On this show, I’ve covered a lot of odd stories. I’ve done a lot of Friday shows. A lot of silly shows. I’ve covered serious stories with a funny tone. I’ve started calling the S&P 500 the Santa and Parrots.
This show is free. This is a news show with a growing audience (I hope. I actually don’t know I genuinely never look. Could be 5 listeners. Could be 75 billion listeners. There are not 75 billion people in the world, but there could be 75 billion mammalian listeners. We don’t know. I could have a large whale audience and I don’t want to assume anything.) but I do it for an audience of one – my best friend Zazz. All I’m ever trying to do is make Zazz laugh. And so sometimes, I like to get a little silly.
All of that to say, I have never had to cover a collection of stories that are all, when put together, so absurdly silly. And at the same time – this is our actual government! These are the people in charge.
These are supposed to be the adults in the room.
They sit in the highest seats in our government. They decide where money goes. They decide what bills pass. They decide so many things.
They are meant to be of service. Civil servants.
And yet… they are also… this collection of stories.
So here we go.
Here is the episode I wanted to bring you on Monday. And please understand that I am not doing this because I want to brush what happened on Sunday away. In fact, it’s the opposite. I’m doing this so that I can, so that we can, continue to fight the deep-seated things that brought on what happened on Sunday. I’m doing this because if I don’t take a breath, if I don’t force myself to take even just a half-step back from talking about Sunday, then I don’t know how to stop talking about Sunday and move on to talking about the future.
We start with Joni Ernst, the Republican Senator from Iowa.
At a townhall, one of her constituents, scared and worried enough about their future after the budget cuts medicare to show up to the townhall, called out that without healthcare coverage, people would die, responded: “Well, we all are going to die, for heaven’s sakes, folks.”
And the way she said it, it was so… she was so annoyed. How dare this person possibly have this concern?
Wild thing to say!
Obviously, people reacted accurately.
They were unthrilled.
That’s the backstory! A US Senator being annoyed enough about a constituent being scared that people will die without healthcare and responding we’re all going to die is the backstory!
Because this is how she cleaned it up! I’m not kidding.
She posted a video on social media where, from a cemetery (uh oh! Bad start already! Never great when you’re scouting cemeteries from whence to post your social media followup video!) and said this. This is real, this is a direct quote: “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth. So I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”
What goes on? Do you understand how many filters that thought had to run through before that video got posted? There were so many times, so many moments, where someone, anyone, including Joni could have stopped! Mayhaps on the way to the cemetery! That would have been my first thought. Anytime you’re headed to the cemetery for a social media video, that’s the time to do some serious reassessing. Something’s gone terribly wrong.
Immediately following her comments, democratic state rep JD Scholten launched his campaign to challenge her in a state that has not seen a Democrat since 2008. And he did it with the perfect quote that I hope more democrats see and embody - “Now’s the time, and rather than being perfect with everything, I just feel like you got to do it.”
Stop waiting to be perfect while the other side is doing cemetery social media videos!
Quite the sentence!
Head of FEMA Surprised by Hurricane Season
-via CBS News
Next up, FEMA. As you may recall, the previous head of FEMA was fired after testifying in front of Congress to say that, yes, FEMA should exist. How dare he.
So now there’s a new head of FEMA, who has no previous weather experience. He is a former officer in the Marines.
And at a meeting on Monday he said… he was unaware the country had a hurricane season. Now, it’s unclear whether he meant it as a joke or not, but putting that aside, the general consensus was that he was, either way, genuinely surprised that hurricane season was upon us.
I am from California. It took me longer than I want to admit on the internet.com before I knew the difference between a hurricane and a tornado, and even I knew there was a hurricane season!
I don’t know if he meant it as a joke or not. I will say this though. I don’t know if you’ve seen this guy but… he definitely doesn’t look like a guy who makes jokes.
Not great. Not amazing. Also silly because what on earth are we doing here? This is the head of FEMA and we now have to have a debate over whether he was joking or serious about not knowing that the country has a hurricane season but we know for sure that he didn’t know it was upon us!
Elon Musk
Prior to my news hiatus, I mentioned that the President’s most special government employee, Elon Musk, was headed out of the White House and back to ruining Twitter.
Well, on his way out, the NY Times released a blockbuster report about his serious drug use on the campaign trail. They can’t confirm if he used them in the White House. Though we can, you know, watch videos of him in press conferences and certainly wonder. While he has admitted to using ketamine in the past, apparently, he’s used so much that it affects his bladder. That’s… that’s a lot of ketamine!
He also, allegedly!, used mushrooms and ecstasy, as well as carried around a daily medication box that holds around 20 various pills.
And boy oh boy do you have to be careful with the reporting of an article like this! So all of these are anecdotes from the campaign, there is no proof any of this happened during his time in the White House.
But again, you know, we have eyes. We can go back and watch videos of him at dinners at Mar a Lago where he’s just like stacking forks together by the prongs. Or zoning out while he’s standing next to Trump. We can have thoughts.
But like I said, Elon – his time as most special government employee is done and so, on Friday, Trump brought him into the Oval to thank him for his time doing chaos and illegal things.
And it’s right after this report comes out, so it’s not the best timing that Elon happens to have a black eye that he said was from his son. There are rumors it was actually from someone else in Trump’s cabinet (which, if true, is also wild) but he fully blamed it on his son, saying he told his son, named X, to punch him in the face.
But go watch the video. But he’s got a black eye, arguing about how he’s not on drugs, and at one point he’s just starts spacing out, kind of looking around the room, and it’s not really clear that he’s aware of where he is.
Now listen, there’s a line of joking here. Because there’s a lot to make fun of with Elon Musk. A lot. The man’s got big loser energy. Carries in in excess. But what I’m certainly not going to do is make fun of an addict. That’s not something I have any interest in doing. I’m also not going to accuse him of anything, but listen… you’re showing up to the Oval Office with a black eye, with some very clear mental instability happening. That’s not a well man.
That’s someone who’s IN IT. Right in the middle of it.
So I do hope that he can clean himself up.
Don’t get me wrong, I want nothing more than to never hear about that man’s name ever again in my entire life. But we can at least hope he can clean himself up. We can be better than him, but you better believe he’d never hope the same for anyone else. So even if you don’t actually want it for him, want it if only to be better than him.
Want him to clean himself up and just go, like, get super into rock collecting or something and we never have to read another headline about him again.
The Girls Are Fighting
-via The Guardian
But before we’re headline free… Musk and Speaker Johnson are fighting!
The budget bill is still up for debate and now that he’s apparently unburdened by the shackles of the White House, Musk is speaking his truth and his truth is… that this bill is a “disgusting abomination.”
At least he’s read it – Marjorie Taylor Greene admitted she hasn’t even read the thing! She posted on Twitter that she was shocked to learn part of the One Big Beautiful Bill (again, I’m embarrassed to tell you that is the real name of the bill) prevents states from being able to regulate AI for a full decade and had she known, she would have voted against the whole thing. But she had no way of knowing because she didn’t read the bill. “Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years.” Crack that bad boy open! Take yourself a gander!
Anyway, in response to Musk’s comments, Mike Johnson said, “With all due respect, my friend Elon is terribly wrong about the one big, beautiful bill,” and I just want you to know… that’s really embarrassing for Speaker Johnson. Super lame. Not silly, just super embarrassing.
Trump’s Conspiracy Theories
-via Rolling Stone
And then there’s this… thing.
On Sunday, Trump took to his ironically named Truth Social to retweet a post from some conspiracy theorist that was alleging that Joe Biden was actually executed in 2020 and replaced by a robot clone.
I…
The president of the United States reposted a claim that the former President was executed in 2020 and replaced by a robot clone.
This is the post: “There is no #JoeBiden - executed in 2020. #Biden clones doubles & robotic engineered soulless mindless entities are what you see. #Democrats don't know the difference.”
He reposted it without comment.
Just – hey, heads up. You should probably know about this.
This is the President of the United States!
It’s so weird!! So weird!
What do I even say here? What do any of us say here?
I wish I was replaced by a clone and my brain was somewhere else, just perpetually watching Parks and Rec, but each time was the first time for me, and I didn’t need to hear about this guy at all.
Maradona Case
-via AP News
How about international silly news? This one came from the same co-worker, who is also a friend and very offended by the description of just co-worker even though, for now, that is accurate, who told me about the Final Destination story.
In Argentina, there was a very famous soccer player, long since retired, named Diego Maradona. Kind of widely regarded as one of the best in all of soccer, up there with the ranks of Pelé. It happened when he was at home recovering from surgery on a blood clot earlier that month and so the hospital staff is now being charged with homicide.
Not silly. Very sad.
This is a huge case.
There are three judges overseeing the case. One of them had to resign, however, because she was discovered to have been participating in a documentary about the trial! She wasn’t just doing interviews, which is wild enough – sitting on the bench and then turning around and answering questions for the crew – but she was helping them make it! She authorized it!
Her brother was producing it!
Incredible!
No thoughts. Not one single thought went through that noggin. Not even on accident. (And stories like that, are how I rank so high on the MLS Soccer searches!) So silly!
And that’s it. That’s the news.
Long episode. What a bunch of jokers. They’re in charge!
Let this be a lesson. For what? I don’t know. But let it be.
Hey, no news for the rest of the week, because I’m gonna go get older tomorrow. But I’ll be back Monday with more news.
I’m proud of… you know what, I’m not proud of the yahoos here, but I am proud of general silliness. Like, silliness that doesn’t hurt anything. Fun little sillies.
And because you’re a fun little silly – I’m proud of you.