Quote:Duffy has little experience in the space arena. Before entering politics, he starred in The Real World: Boston in 1997, the sixth season of the MTV reality television show, and Road Rules: All Stars in 1998, an MTV Winnebago driving event where he met his future wife, Rachel Campos. He resigned from Congress in 2019, later becoming a Fox Business host in 2022 before being appointed secretary of transportation in 2025.
-- Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones, But words can break your heart. - unknown
Doesn't really count, it was mainly the idea of appointing a C-list celebrity with uh, leanings to an ambassadorship. Any Kardashian would count, however.
On my own front, there's been a few things in the news about a ICE raid on a farm near me, in Camarillo. We used to get tomatoes on the vine from here, back when it was Howeling's -- resold at Costco a few miles away, and thus pretty fresh. A couple years back they realized that all of these greenhouses could make more money growing the Mary Jane, so they've been sold converted to grow the cash crop.
When ICE showed up in force, one guy climbed up on top of the greenhouse, then fell and broke his neck. Today, they announced that he had died, one of the first casualties of the war on immigrants. Then a few hours later, the County Hospital announced he was actually alive, just in critical condition. So less than a kilometer away from me, is a man at the center of all of this, in the hospital, because he tried to work.
Oh, and more tariffs on Canada, because last time worked so well.
Is that the steel tariffs thing? I got a video popping up about it on YT, but fifteen seconds on google reveal that it was heavily sensationalized and wirtten as if everything had been in place for months generating huge economic and geopolitical ripples, which, well, no. It's not good, certainly, but Canadian steel foundries haven't shifted all output to the European and Asian markets leaving US industry at a standstill, etc., as it repeatedly attempted to claim. It may in fact have been entirely AI generated, or someone just reading an AI script. I'm not sure how good voice synth has gotten TBH since I only use the one in my ereader that's a couple years old and the free voices for the web browser extension TTS, so I'm not really riding the bleeding edge of SoTA.
07-13-2025, 09:06 AM (This post was last modified: 07-13-2025, 11:03 AM by classicdrogn.)
... sigh.
Dickwaffle: "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a tariff out of my ass!"
Balboa: "Again?"
But yes, absolutley in bad faith, either because "it's a strong negotiating tactic" he never intended to follow up on, or just because TACO day rolls around again.
tl;dr: His Orangeness is upset that people might elect mayors who don't like him. It's unlikely he can override Constitutional guarantees of States' rights to take over NYC or LA... but DC isn't in a state.
-- Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones, But words can break your heart. - unknown
(07-12-2025, 08:58 PM)hazard Wrote: It looks like the whole Epstein List issue is blowing up in the social media, so escalating the trade wars may be an attempt to redirect attention.
Quote:A number of high-profile Trump supporters and associates have warned that any perceived lack of transparency from his administration would have negative consequences.
Far-right commentator and 9/11 conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer has been especially vocal, calling on Bondi to resign her attorney general's post, while comedian Dave Smith accused Trump of "actively" covering up "a giant child rapist ring."
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is also known for pushing conspiracies, said that a coverup would cross "a red line" for many Trump supporters — while InfoWars host and Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said that Trump's Epstein problem "is not going away ... it's out of control."
Yeah. When Marjorie Taylor Greene isn't blindly on His Orangeness's side, the GOP has an internal problem.
-- Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones, But words can break your heart. - unknown
Quote:In a statement from CBS, owned by Paramount Global, the network announced: "'THE LATE SHOW with STEPHEN COLBERT' will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season. We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire the 'THE LATE SHOW' franchise at that time. We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late-night television.
"This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount."
But the move comes just weeks after CBS' parent company forced them to settle in a major Trump lawsuit over the alleged altering of an episode of '60 Minutes'. The network paid the US President $16 million to settle out of court.
I will point out that it's The Express, not me, that is connecting these two events. Since we have no idea what that out-of-court settlement says, there is no way to confirm or refute the correlation.
Quote:Late-night TV has been facing economic pressures for years; viewership is down and many young viewers prefer highlights online, which networks have trouble monetizing. CBS also recently cancelled host Taylor Tomlinson's After Midnight, which aired after The Late Show.
But Colbert has been leading in the late-night entertainment ratings for several years. While NBC has acknowledged economic pressures by eliminating the band on Seth Meyers's show and cutting one night of Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show, there had been no such visible efforts at The Late Show.
Colbert's relentless criticism of Trump, his denunciation of the lawsuit settlement and the parent company's pending sale can't be ignored, said Bill Carter, author of The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night.
"If CBS thinks people are just going to swallow this, they're really deluded," Carter said.
EDIT: It's pretty obvious to me that the CBS that Labster mentioned on the bingo card doesn't exist any more. Even if they don't complete the merger with Skydance Media.
-- Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones, But words can break your heart. - unknown
I think that there are a lot of layers to this decision. If you've seen the HBO show Hacks, the current season is about how the main character finally got her second chance to host a late night show after a late-career comeback, right at the moment that late night shows are dying. She was worried about another comedian getting hired instead of her, but for the network, the choice was between her and having no late night show at all.
Colbert was number one in the ratings. But Fallon makes a little more money for the network -- being less political means its easier to get advertiser dollars, being less topical means that viewers trend younger which is good for advertisers. On paper, the decision makes sense.
But also, it doesn't, right? The Late Show was dropped unceremoniously, when usually late night hosts are dropped ceremoniously, with literal ceremonies about them leaving in an attempt to drive up ratings for the last few months. There were no attempts made at cost-cutting, no asks to do other things on the network like hosting game shows, etc. Late night shows have other value -- promoting the network's own stars, shows, and movies has value. There was definitely no attempt to save the property.
Now, maybe we should expect this from CEO David Ellison. His father, Larry Ellison, is a CEO who has long been noted for his ability to pretend to be a human, while still embodying perfect CEO-ness. But more than likely, this is an attempt to please Trump, so that he will not interfere with the merger. It is much safer from a business perspective, to not embarrass him, since he'll use the levers of power against you if he's offended. (After all, the whole reason that we're going through this is that Obama made jokes about Trump at a White House Correspondents' Dinner.) The correct financial decision is to not offend the President.
Quote:When reached for comment, NASA officials confirmed their awareness of the upcoming protest, but said the space agency has no affiliation with the demonstration.
Anyway. Letting the show run for a full year before pulling the rug seems a little strange rather than just pulling the plug. There's plenty of time for ceremony, and no longer any reason for Colbert to hold his tongue
Oh sweet meteor of death
Fall upon us.
Deliver us in fire
To Peace everlasting.
There's also the possibility that if Cheetoman gets run out of office by the Epstein thing or some other scandal or gets called home to the devil, or simply after the deal goes through if that can happen in under a year, they can somehow find it in the budget to un-cancel it after all.
