Merrick Garland goes half-chicken

Today’s Big Stuff. January 8, 2025.

It’s Wednesday. There are 664 days until the midterm elections. Democracy on life support in North Carolina, Merrick Garland goes half-chicken and Virginia delivers a shot of hope.

Be advised: This newsletter uses profanity. It allows us to tell Trump to eat shit on Greenland’s behalf.

Note: Hey there, Sexy Patriots! Have you seen how stupid and dumb and fucking moronic everything is? Well we’re just getting started. And by we, we mean the dumb motherfuckers who elected the dumbest motherfucker to say shit like hey it’s time to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. And then there’s this level of dumbshittery…

Ok. We don’t know what this means, but we’ll play along. Let’s pretend for a second that our bathroom was somehow malfunctioning and orange ass-for-brains came to fix it. Here’s how it would go…

Trump: Yep, your toilet is broken.

TBS: That’s the refrigerator. You’re in the kitchen.

Trump: Yes, it’s the greatest toilet ever thanks to me. You can’t get the water to flow right in some of these. China makes the water less wet.

TBS: That doesn’t make sense. You’re not even in the bathroom.

Trump: Then why did I just take a shit?

TBS: You did?! When?!

Trump: Just now. Did you know the windmills make fun of my hair?

TBS: Wait. What?!

That was supposed to be funny, but we realized halfway through that we are actually in for four years of watching that deranged idiot spew gibberish while shitting his pants. Cue the Lee fucking Greenwood because we’re sure super proud to be Americans right now. Brace yourselves, SPs. The stupid is coming. The stupid is coming. Y’all have a blessed day.

Note two: If you pray, pray for L.A. The fires that tore through the Pacific Palisades yesterday and last night was something out of a horror movie. It’s terrifying to think that the next time something like that happens in California, Trump won’t do jack shit to help. Sam calls LA home and reports this morning that the sky looks like the sky in hell. This is scary shit, folks. More: CNN

Note three: Dark Brandon says he would have beaten Trump. We’ll let y’all decide if that’s true. To be honest, we’re not sure how much these interviews help the legacy. More: NBC News

Note four: We’re sure you’ve seen by now that Trump refused to rule out using force or economic coercion to make Denmark give up Greenland. So yeah, he’s not even in office yet and he’s already threatening our NATO allies. It’s going to be cruel. It’s going to be mean. But mostly it’s going to be really, really dumb. More: Associated Press

Note five: Also, just a quick note to the Danes from the Americans who aren’t total shitheads — we are so sorry. Especially for Don Jr. going over there. We don’t want him here either, but you don’t deserve that. Nobody does. More: CNN

Note six: This morning a desperate Trump begged his pets on the Supreme Court to keep him from being sentenced Friday. He REALLY doesn’t want to be a convicted felon, but he REALLY is one. More: Associated Press

Note seven: More terrible media news as HuffPo announces they’re cutting 30 employees. We’re running out of good media. (h/t Oliver Darcy)

Note eight: Man, we don’t even have the words — cuss or otherwise — to accurately describe just how goddamn corrupt everything is about to get…

Note nine: Want to hear something really unsurprising? Trump got the Fox News townhall questions in advance. Remember when he said journalists should go to jail for that? More: CNN

Note 10: One of our favorite things is waking up and seeing that Ukraine has struck inside of Russia. Ya know, because fuck Russia. More: CNN

Note 11: Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she’s going to have some tough questions for Pete Hegseth. Good. Maybe while she’s at it she can teach some of the other Senate Democrats how to fight. More: Associated Press

Note 12: It really sucks to see our own party going along with demonizing migrants. More: The Hill

Note 13: We read that John Fetterman has become a Senate sponsor of that bill. You might recall that Fetterman’s wife was undocumented. What a massive disappointment that guy is. Just Sinema in a hoodie and real fucking asshole. Ugh. We just saw Ruben Gallego is backing this too. Just so we’re clear — this would revoke due process for immigrants who are accused of crimes. Not convicted but accused. More: Philadelphia Inquirer

Note 14: A country that elects people this goddamn stupid probably isn’t smart enough to survive. Someone wanna tell him we have a West Coast too?

Note 15: Marjorie Taylor Greene is filing legislation to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. We don’t know how this will make eggs cheaper. More: Axios

Note 16: Facebook is a fucking disaster right now because it’s leader is an ass-kissing weasel. More: Wired

Note 17: Former President Carter is lying in state today. Trump is lying about everything else. More: CNN

Note 18: Georgia Republicans expelled the former lieutenant governor from their party. Because it’s a dumbfuck cult and not really a party. More: The Hill

Note 19: For today’s Happy Ending, we take you to one of the surprisingly beautiful moments here in these last days of America. Here’s VP Harris eulogizing President Carter…

Note 20: And on that touching note, let’s go do some news! We sure hope y’all are managing the snow or the fire or whatever awful dumbshittery is ruining your day today. If it helps, we sure do love y’all!

The Tar Hole State
Republicans are stealing an election. With zero cause to do so, the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court in North Carolina ordered the board of elections to not certify that a Democrat won a seat on the state Supreme Court. Yes, that is exactly as corrupt as it sounds. The Republican candidate wants 60,000 ballots thrown out. Sound familiar? More: WRAL

Yay?
After “Judge” Aileen Cannon went super corrupt yesterday and blocked DOJ from releasing Jack Smith’s reports on Trump, Merrick Garland woke up this morning and decided to be half-courageous. Garland announced this morning that he is going to release the report on Jan. 6, but he will not release the report on the stolen classified documents until the appeals process is over. That means we are never going to see the report on classified documents. But given what a gutless chickenshit Merrick is, we’re honestly just grateful to be getting anything. More: NBC News

Virginia is for lovers (of democracy)
Phew! Yesterday Virginia voted in the first special elections since American democracy died, and we got some much-needed good news. Democrats held their two seats while Republicans held their one. That means Democrats maintain their narrow legislative majorities in the state Senate and state House of Delegates. All is not lost, y’all. It just feels that way. More: CNN

Today’s clips
The Heritage Foundation plans to “identify and target” volunteer editors on Wikipedia who it says are “abusing their position” by publishing content the group believes to be antisemitic, according to documents obtained by the Forward. More: Forward.com

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday used his Truth Social platform to continue to ramp up his rhetoric regarding somehow merging the United States with Canada. More: Huff Post