David Waldman serves up a lot on today’s KITM, but no nothingburgers! You need to head over to Bondi’s for those.

Greg Dworkin tried unplugging and replugging Connecticut this morning but they’re still offline up there.

Place your bets right now. Will Republicans or Democrats destroy the United States first? Of course, Dems are the “good guys”, right? They stand for… uhm, their intentions are… hmm. It’s just that their Ping-Pong paddles are kind of small and hard to read.

Donald K. Trump demands that Al Green be forced to take an IQ test. Representative Green probably should, if he believes that any “fellow” Democrats would have joined his opposition to Trump. Do you think that they would have censured a couple hundred Democrats? I guess we’ll never know, will we? As Democrats Anonymous member “Elissa” said in her rebuttal: … Well, it doesn’t matter “what” she said, it’s that she wouldn’t say anything that consultants say she shouldn’t say, which is very important when you consider “the audience” that she was speaking to, which would be other consultants. If Democrats were interested in the opinions of anyone other than Democratic consultants, Al Green would have been doing the rebuttal, or AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Eric Swalwell or a hundred or so others, give or take.

Meanwhile, Trump deports Ukrainians, while looking into overthrowing their government. That seems to be a weird way to treat a loyal … Wait, we still have loyalties? Well, “yes and no”, and “yes and no”, and “yes and no”, and “yes and no”, and “yes and no”, but maybe… if you play your cards right. That is, if the courts let Trump get away with it, or if Trump can get away with it after the courts try to stop him. Or, if Mr. Musk allows him to. Senate Republicans tell Musk… push Musk to…. beg Musk to let them pretend to have a say in things. Elon is having way too much fun to share right now.

No, David Waldman did not watch the speech, or the Oscars, or the Super Bowl, all right? (The TV’s been stuck on the History Channel since David lost the remote.) Greg Dworkin is still on Skype, which is now shutting down, forcing an alternative. Greg will be choosing between Zoom or his dial-up fax machine in the basement, whichever has the most pleasant ringtone.

Donald K. Trump presented his State of Denial “address”… It was a “Joint Address” to the Gops who love humiliation, and the Dems, who are learning to. Of course, some Democrats boycotted, but most did not. Some had signs, most did not. Al Green stood up, and was ejected. The rest chose not to join him. Expediency seems to be the hill they have chosen to die on, and there’s certainly little disarray there.

With Democrats keeping a low profile until 2026 2028 2030… it once again falls upon Trump to do all the heavy lifting. The plan has always been to keep the masses just at the precipice of an uprising, but this administration might be slightly overplaying their hand. (Yes, Steve Inskeep is on Blue Sky) Trump tariffs might sink the stock market, but don’t worry, rich people will still get rich even when poor people get poor. Trump’s tariffs might hurt Trump voters, but Trump doesn’t need them to vote for him anymore. It will take a lot more than mere poverty to ever cool their ardor, though. (Yes, Will Jordan is on Blue Sky) Anyhow, each passing moment is another opportunity to declare victory and completely reverse course, faster than a bro can change his Zyn pouch.

DOGE lists 443 federal properties up for sale, because why work in a building that you own, when you can rent it? NVM... the list went away. 

Trump is halting enforcement against corporate lawbreakers. Who says he doesn’t have empathy for his brethren? However, the Trump Supreme Court says 5-4 that Trump has to follow contractual obligations. Is it too late for Donald to get a full refund on John Roberts?

Fat Tuesday! Grab your donuts and breakfast beer and March 4th with David Waldman this morning. This year for Mardi Gras, Cybertruck-shaped piñatas will be roaming the streets! 

Happy Tariff Day! Trees, a major source of income for both Canada and Joyce Kilmer, will be going up like eggs, as will just about everything, since just about everything comes from Canada, Mexico or China. The only thing going down will be stocks, and they’re going way down.

Donald K. Trump will be going viral tonight, up or down, he DNGAF. Can you imagine Dems treating this thing like the locals at a town hall? Well, imagine away, because they aren’t going to do that. They will bring some people, release some statements mentioning those people, and… ...sorry, my fingers fell asleep typing that.

Elon Musk is of course, a visionary-genius, as of course, reflected by his visionarily genius child-naming. Which one was at the White House recently… “5138008”? “88-14WYTB01? “D3L3TDG0VT”? Nope, it was “X Æ A-Xii”… accent on the ”Æ”. (You know how to pronounce Æ) That tyke is Elon’s favorite human stole to wear on formal occasions and knew exactly how to trigger fellow toddler Donald K. Trump through the time-honored tradition of wiping boogers on his desk.

DataRepublican may not be a visionary-genius name, and neither is Jennica Pounds, but if she doesn’t like you are just as fired as if X Æ A-Xii fired you himself.

Donald took the classified documents that he had previously stolen and returned them to… Mar-a-Lago. Because, as previously mentioned, Trump is a toddler. Professional psychopathologists may have a more complex definition of his behavior, but really, someone should just take him out of the adult room before he breaks something.

Operation Smell the Whirlwind might have lost their prize quarry, Chuck Schumer. Meanwhile, the Trump Justice Department is figuring out how to spring Tina Peters out of a State Pen. Soon we’ll see how loyal the Trump Supreme Court is.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has yet to return to the US, but it is certainly expected that he will be required to wear a different wardrobe for his upcoming apology visit. Does clothes make the man, or the man make the clothes?

Ok, where was I? Oh yes, I finished Friday’s summary describing the time Donald K. Trump extorted Ukraine President Zelenskyy to falsely promote Russian interests. Back in those days we used to impeach Presidents for that kind of stuff. Anyhow...

David Waldman is here with the KITM Oscars Analysis. He has heard some “good buzz” about this movie “Oppenheimer” that he might want to check out… No spoilers, please!

Greg Dworkin is here with a big Raft O’ Stories™, loaded with Plenty O’ X links (I know, but the guy still uses Skype too. Some things take time to let go of.)

New Yorkers knew Trump was a mob boss, now the world knows. Everybody knew this was a trap going in. SNL probably had their skit written last Thursday. It’s weird, but we also all knew what the Trump & crew’s reaction to the trap’s gigantic failure would be also. The surprise might be in how this unified Europe against the burgeoning Axis of assholes.

Pete Hegseth rotates the turrets away from Russia and levels the guns on Mexico.

Which pandemic will you die from this year? When you find out, write your answer in this DOGE questionnaire. Elon Musk is pulling out of the retail market to go to where the money is: the public sector, where waste and fraud might not run rampant, but he sure can.  The good news is that the national debt and pandemic deaths will soon be set to zero with a push of a button.

Trump named the cryptocurrencies in the strategic reserve, naturally he named them to his friends first. (Follow The Stalwart on Blue Sky.)

If Trump could laugh, he’d cackle with glee as he suspended the security clearances of Jack Smith’s lawyers and demoted prosecutors down to trying CVS shoplifters.

Judge Chuang can’t stop the DOJ from beating the USAID because they’re already dead. Of course, the children they were feeding will soon be literally dead.

Low-income Trump voters sure hope they don’t find out. They can’t afford to find out much more. Car prices are going up by what a car used to be priced at.  Even Elon Musk and his mother are crashing at a bud’s house until this blows over.

Kash Patel doesn’t want to flash the Kash Patelmobile around DC and plans to stay in Las Vegas at the pleasure of his megadonor daddy.

Democrats understand what to do with a crime in progress… Talk. And, if the crime progresses, talk louder… or perhaps, change the subject, or hold on a while, or wait. Or try all of those in combination, that should do it. If all that can’t stop it, NOTHING can… and they’ll be up for trying that too.

David Waldman delivers us to the end of the month, and yes, the end of the week. KITM’s superpower is to not work on weekends.

You don’t see Donald K. Trump work weekends, or weekdays. It’s too much work for him to remember what he said yesterday. Elon Musk is the go-getter, destroying civilization, trolling billions, uploading federal grants with one hand and downloading IVF deposits with the other. Or perhaps the “real power” behind the autocoup is the “husband” and “wife” team of Stephen and Katie Miller. That would explain a lot of things.

Chinese crypto guy Justin Sun paid up front on his fraud case, so now the SEC can discover new priorities. (That’s all chump crypto change to North Korea) The FBI raids the EPA without probable cause because that isn’t really needed for a shakedown. Meanwhile, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has cracked the case of 40 tons of gold bars shoplifted from Fort Knox. That would seem hard to believe until you consider Donald K. Trump flushed a billion down the toilet to own the EV Libs… and if you think that’s “shocking”, consider that Elon Musk is flushing an entire EV car company down the toilet to own the EV Libs.

Ace KITM Correspondent Rosalyn MacGregor reports on the one business booming lately, IUD procedures!

Russia Russia Russia put the K in Donald K. Trump. That’s some of why he was impeached that one time, maybe both. Remember when Trump tried to intimidate and extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and blame Ukraine, not Russia for… Oh, hold on, I see that he is doing it again as I type this. I’ll have to stop, or my summary will run right into Monday’s!

David Waldman gives us a few more things to think about, laugh about, get kind of grumpy about, on today’s KITM.

Guess what? Dr. Greg Dworkin says America’s got a fever! And the only prescription... is more F-bombs! Covid “alarmists” were closer to the truth than anyone else. (IMO, “alarmist” has been pretty much the way to go for around a decade.) DOGE douches unplugged our healthcare ventilator and were surprised after the heart wouldn’t reboot. Oops! Ebola prevention was shut off… There! Fixed, good as new… They weren’t in America, anyhow.

Speaking of Americans, Billions in professional services contracts in Veterans Affairs were to be cut for… whatever. Then someone checked into it and discovered that they were doing some really important stuff there. Who’d guess that so many consequential things would be actually happening? Elon will have to check in with “DataRepublican”, the new Q of MAGA, more often. 

Whatever your problem is, Elon Musk has got just the thing to fix it. DOGE noticed that the FAA misspelled “Verizon” on their contracts and helpfully corrected it to “Starlink”. You’d be amazed at how many uses Starlink can fulfill.  And best for Elon, they each can be turned off at any time, no problem! Even so, for some reason, many in Washington feel pwnd by Musk, as do a lot of others.

Speaking of trolls, who are also rapists, human traffickers and child pornographers, Andrew Tate and his brother are arriving in the US, and will probably be Medal of Honor recipients by mid-March. Election denier, rabid insurrectionist toady Paul Ingrassia is now Trump’s guy at Homeland Security.

Tariffs on Mexico and Canada will go into effect March 4 as scheduled because Donald K. Trump isn’t becoming re-glued and re-hinged anytime soon. As this our Axis forms, is it patrimonialism supported by anarcholibertarian capitalists or just morons in the moment?

Right pukka, innit? Another KITM today featuring the brilliant púcaí doodlebugging of David Waldman and Greg Dworkin!

The Gop big beautiful awful bill passed the House last night. Clever and feisty Dems were clever and feisty but not quite successful... yet played a great game. Should Democrats strategize and triangulate and stick up for minorities while appealing to the majority? Yes! Or… they could just pick out some principles and hills to die on and take those damn hills or find themselves simply primaried out... 

Or they could wait. MAGA policies aren’t popular, and Donald K. Trump is despicable. People see zero difference between Glenn Youngkin and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Gop town halls aren’t as comfy as they used to be.

There’s a chance that we could live to see Republicans crumble, but with medical research lab funding halted, we have no one to figure out what that chance might be. Traffic-cone-on-the-face research device, Gesundheit II, hoped to study the deadly spread of sneezing. (Gesundheit I traced a more silent yet deadly threat.)

Federal firings bring back the thrill of flying. Wouldn’t you know, Elon Musk has just the fix: Starlink satellites that he could turn off whenever he’s in “one of his moods”. You might ask, “How was Elon awarded that contract so quickly? Was there a vetting or bidding process?” Go ahead. Ask all you want. They drew straws to see who’d run DOGE, and Amy Gleason was out that day.

A federal board agreed to pause firings for some staff. Members of the board, as well as lawyers who assisted Jack Smith, are advised to stay away from open office windows.

Any lowly immigrant carrying only their worldly belongings and a certified check for $5 million dollars will always be welcome here as long as Trump is president.

David Waldman counts down the days until our national apocalypse, yet with so many tied down the backstretch, this race is a tough call!

For supposed “auditors”, nothing about DOGE adds up. Monday, Elon gave federal workers until three to… Uhm, today Elon gave federal workers until three to… Tomorrow, Elon will give federal workers until three to… Trump could barely get a semi-fired up today, as his EO has ED. Musk was able to cut 20 DOGE staff today who couldn’t look themselves in the mirror anymore. Meanwhile, “fired” staffers keep finding themselves “unfired”. Those who did send in responses will have the answers fed into AI and anyone determined to be funnier than Musk will be dismissed immediately… (Those people would also be expected to be more liberal, naturally.)

DOGE’s dealings are illegal and even unconstitutional, but now the challenge is determining who is DOGE’s head douche. Trump is so opposed to leaving a paper trail that he skips on chances to cover his own ass.

DOGE was designed to attack liberals, but it terrifies the ever-loving crap out of Democrats, which was “Job One” for Donald K. Trump. Donald can now leave the Lib cleanup operation to Don Bongino and Don Jr.’s “hunting buddy” who will instruct the FDA to move infant formula by the kilo from this point on. With the US out of the way it is now time to Make Axis Great Again for our new conquest over our old allies.

With such colossal corruption, who’s to notice the little stuff, like a Florida congressman assaulting women at night along the Wharf? At least that’s what the U.S. Attorney’s Office thought when they tossed his warrant into the trash.

This weekend KITM Headquarters sent David Waldman and Greg Dworkin an email directing them to list five ways that they contribute to the civil discourse. These overachievers came up with something like two hours' worth!

Gop town halls are experiencing F5 blowback from constituents, but it’s a gentle breeze compared to what they’re expecting to be hit with soon. This is the kind of thing local news loves to cover, and local protesters love to attend. People in power may want to hide, but for people who want to be in power, town halls are the place to be seen. Suddenly, no one wants to take credit for their thugs.

Never Trump Republicans are divided on a host of issues but know how to get in front of a camera. They are enough of a threat to this administration to earn immediate attention from the Brown Shirts. On the other hand, Democrats are unifying behind nearby hedges to work on their guacamole bar charts, as their “Hope” poster mostly refers to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Ok, there is Senator Chris Murphy.

Other than that, Donald K. Trump’s worst enemy is himself, and he’s doing a simply incredible job. He and Elon, of course. The only people they hate more than themselves are all the other people. With Dan Bongino and Pete Hegseth FA, there won’t be any left to FO.

We are, as usual, heading towards a government shutdown. Gops would like to blame Dems, if it wasn’t for all of the government that they’ve been shutting down recently.

As for the states, Trump picked and lost a fight with the Maine Governor, but hating Trump is completely bipartisan.

The Times asks if had Ukraine not dressed so provocatively, would Vlad and Donald not be behaving the way they are? Germany has swung to the right in the latest elections but is also not swinging towards the United States.

It’s Friday, the day David Waldman pitches us into the maelstrom.  We get today’s last dangle before we drop.

The weekend is when Elon Musk really lets his Big Balls loose. Well not “his”, per se, those are in a jar at some IVF lab. The rest of us are menaced by whatever his giant ketamine cookie jar of a head is coming up with.

The weekdays are for Trump to crop-dust us with EOs, edicts and royal proclamations. Trump will thus eliminate judges who are too judgey and deliver your mail from now on. Jan 6 rioters will soon be deputized. Pete Hic! Seth will purge all generals left of Jack D. Ripper. Trump’s first priority, however, is to take whatever Vlad will allow him.

Israel is angry to come up short on their hostage body count. Hamas better move fast before the renovators come in. Trumpy America makes things humiliating for Saudi Arabia, along with every other Middle Eastern faction since the dawn of time.

Ah, but we are only weeks away from March 15 and the beginning of spring cleanup season! Gop townhalls are filling with freshly leopard-eaten faces. FAFO is already exceeding overflow capacity. Republicans are beginning to get what they deserve…  But you know what? Democrats deserve double, because, really, nobody voted for that.

Greg Dworkin walks us through some familiar and relevant Watergate history, beginning with the saga of John Mitchell, which serves as necessary background to today’s corruption, only part of which manifests itself in the form of Eric Adams’ corruption. Another fun development on this front: a NY Bar Association complaint against Count Boveula.

Of course, there are a million other angles on Trump’s corruption, like this one out of left field, on NYC congestion pricing. The Adams story is just today’s appetizer.

And that’s just the domestic model. Looking abroad, we find other worrisome precedent—and the potential for new disasters—in Germany. And, of course, the potential for compounding old disasters, as in Ukraine.

Checking back in on the growing library of Trump “administration” attorney conflicts of interest, Walt Nauta’s lawyer just remembered he’s in government now, and resigned his case.

Another story we had to check back in on: Trump’s targeting of the Merit Service Protection Board. While we were waiting around for a new show, a federal judge reversed MSPB Chair Cathy Harris’ purported dismissal.

And that other growing library, the list of federal agencies infiltrated by the DOGE Teen Hunger Force has also expanded. This time, it’s just the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). No big whoop.

Just in case you’d forgotten how they get everyone to lie down for them, though, the answer is just what you thought it was: death threats.