01/07/25

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, January 7th.

I am Not Going to Take It Anymore Day

Tell me about it…

And now, the news.

Venezuela

-via The Guardian, NBC News, and Yahoo News

Starting with an update on Venezuela. Just a couple quick things.

First, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who ran for president in 2024 before she was banned from doing so (Edmundo Gonzalez ran in her place and did, in fact, win that election but Maduro claims otherwise), announced that she will return to Venezuela, rejecting the authority of interim president Delcy Rodríguez, and calling for a new election.

Last year Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize and I’ll tell you why that matters – Trump has had his eye on that little guy ever since he realized he’ll never win an Emmy. A source even told the Washington Post that Trump once said: “If she had turned it down and said: ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today.”

Machado now is, very smartly, saying: “It hasn’t happened yet, but I would certainly love to be able to personally tell him that we believe the Venezuelan people – because this is a prize of the Venezuelan people – certainly want to give it to him and share it with him.”

So that’s where we’re at – hoping that Donald Trump’s ego can be satiated enough by sharing a Nobel Peace Prize to allow for free and fair elections in the country that he’s like sort of playing Risk with.

Meanwhile… Trump says he believes it could take 18 months, perhaps less, to get the oil industry in the country up and running. It’ll take a lot of money, though, but fear not… when companies come in to build in the country, the US will pay them back.

We… are going to pay the companies money to go in and build something that’s going to give them money? (To be fair, he also thinks maybe the revenue they’ll get from the oil might be enough repayment.)

Maybe it’ll come from the tariffs. Wouldn’t you love to give Chevron some more of your money?

Seems like, in a rare move for the president, he hasn’t really thought this through.

What he has thought through, however, are other things he’d like to acquire.

On Tuesday, despite Stephen Miller saying Greenland would be outside of their minds to mess with the US armed forces so they’re not considering a military force in the country… turns out a military intervention in Greenland is “always an option.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that "acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States." She says it’s needed to deter countries like China and Russia.

From what? What have they done to us so far that Greenland will protect us from? I’m not being mean to Greenland, they’re a great ally (and frankly… would they like a Kim??), I’m saying – China and Russia aren’t sneaking into America and Greenland, as a landmass, is preventing it.

This isn’t about national security. It’s… actually opposite?

Taking Greenland is really just the end of NATO, because it’s one NATO country attacking another. The whole purpose of NATO is to protect each other.

Healthcare Cuts for Dems

As Trump attempts to collect countries like infinity stones, he’s dropping states abroad. Gotta make room in that noggin, I guess.

Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois and Colorado lose access to around $7 billion in funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, as the Trump administration plans to cut a total of around $10 billion in funding for child care subsidies, social services and cash support for low-income families in the five democratic states.

Rounding out the $10 billion, $2.4 billion for the Child Care and Development Fund, which supports child care for working parents, and around $870 million for social services grants that mostly benefit children at risk, will also be cut from all five states.

Hundreds of thousands of people.

Kids.

Babies.

Why? Remember when I said yesterday that a YouTuber released a video alleging fraud in Minnesota daycare centers?

…yeah.

I’m not kidding. That’s why.

Listen, I don’t mean to swing my big state budget around but if you cut California off, what do you think will happen? Where do you think the majority of the money comes from? I would assume it probably comes from the state that has an economy so big that it actually surpasses Japan.

But we wouldn’t do that because we understand that the people it would actually hurt are, you know, innocent families and babies.

A concept this administration can’t wrap their ding dong heads around something like that! They love choosing to be mean!

However, if they keep pushing us away… at some point… why wouldn’t we just take the hint?

Lady News™️

-via Washington Post and NPR

And now for a segment I’m calling – Lady News.

We’ll go bad news first. Good news first? Good news first – and if you don’t like it, you can blame Nicole from work. I asked what she would prefer, and she said good news first.

In Wyoming, the state’s Supreme Court has ruled the near-total abortion ban as well as the prohibition on the abortion bill to be… a violation of the state constitution!

The state argued they needed to take all the choice away from a person who could get pregnant because abortion isn’t health care.

Their words not mine!!

However, the Chief Justice ruled: “Although a woman’s decision to have an abortion ends the fetal life, the decision is, nevertheless, one she makes concerning her own health care.”

Great job Wyoming. Would you, perhaps, be interested in also being the Pentagon for a mo-ment?

Because bad news time – the Pentagon announced on Tuesday that they are beginning a six-month review of the “effectiveness” of women in ground combat jobs.

That’s right – Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth is going to lead a review on whether the women are effective in ground combat jobs.

In a 2024 podcast interview, he said: “I’m straight up saying we should not have women in combat roles.”

Oh you’re straight up saying it? Well if you’re straight up saying it.

This guy is such a loser. Go put more hairspray on your head, you idiot.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

Look, here’s the deal. I could make a whole meal out of this Venezuela thing but if you’re new to this show, that’s not what I do. We’re going to talk about things as they come up. We’re not going to speculate or guess at.

It’s news that now Trump is saying military force is on the table for Greenland. But I’m not going to continue to repeat that over and over, if all he does is repeat the same line. Ya know?

What’s happening with Venezuela is very serious, and I’m not going to dilute that by making a whole circus out of it.

And you know what… I’m not going to take it, from anyone who is… day 

And because you never would either… I’m proud of you.