America's Worse Democratic Congresswoman

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

She Looks Fantastic In Her Crop Top But Suffers From Crippling Self-doubt

We can debate what precisely Bari's job was supposed to be, but making everybody look ridiculous was probably not part of the plan. Paywalled, but the gist:

Uh oh. The head of CBS Entertainment is privately warning that the Bari Weiss train wreck is inflicting significant damage on the broader CBS brand. And shes not alone. Inside Paramount, "some believe she should be relieved of her duties." The scoop in @status.news www.status.news/p/60-minutes...

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— Jon Passantino (@passantino.bsky.social) June 5, 2026 at 2:02 PM

Some think her job was just to destroy it, but that doesn't make much sense. That's easy to do! Click cancel!

More likely she was supposed to MAGAfy it, but there are plenty of hardcore uncut MAGA outlets. To do propaganda for the existing CBS news audience you have to do it quietly and subtly, with a bit of skill. Not what you get from a dimbulb narcissist.

Nobody Could Have Predicted

I suppose I did, basically.

The return of screwworm comes after the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, launched by the Trump administration, last year cut funding for a project dedicated to monitoring and containing New World screwworm in Central America.

The funding was axed days before the U.S. ended a temporary suspension of cattle imports from Mexico, meaning livestock was allowed to cross the border without any of the monitoring previously funded by the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID).

"Why are we wasting money on worms in Central America. Is it because of woke?"

He Never Had Any Idea What That Would Mean

He probably could've obtained a new "deal" that Fox News could've sold as being 7 billion percent better than Obama's deal if he didn't start a war first, but either way he never had any idea what that would look like.

Inside the White House, Trump oscillated between impatience and theatrical self-confidence. He told advisers repeatedly that he wanted a deal bigger than President Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement and broader than the initial round of Abraham Accords. He also made clear that he did not want to own the failure of negotiations. The longer the process dragged on, the more the competing impulses pulled him in different directions.

He wanted the conflict over. But he had become irritated by comparisons between the emerging framework and the Obama-era agreement, which set restrictions and time limits on Iran’s nuclear-development program. Administration officials said Trump repeatedly complained that critics were calling his team’s draft agreement a weaker version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which he had spent years attacking and tore up in his first term.

Trump wanted a way to argue that Iran had accepted terms from him that Obama never managed to extract, aides told us. One potential answer was removing Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. Trump rejected military options to seize or destroy the material as unnecessarily risky, according to officials familiar with the discussions. Instead, negotiators explored arrangements under which Iran would transfer the uranium to either the U.S. or an acceptable third country, the aides told us. But that idea stalled, too.

Focus Groups

While doing a bit of reading for the previous post, I came aross a page where the New York Times provides all of its "Times Opinion Focus Groups" pieces. It is pretty funny:

'Disappointed,' 'Surprised,' 'Betrayed': 11 Trump Voters on What Has Gone Wrong
Trump voters discuss their disappointment with the presidents second term.

11 Pro-Trump Republican Voters on What They Like So Far and What They Don't
The group discusses the economy, immigration, President Trump's recent actions in Venezuela and more

14 Wellness Voters Talk Parenting, MAHA and Social Media
The group discusses how to parent in line with health and wellness in the age of social media

'They're Just Waiting to Just Get Back on Their Phone': 12 Teachers on What's Changed in Schools
The group discusses artificial intelligence, phones and how students have changed over me

The Economy Still Isn't What These 11 Latino Trump Voters Had in Mind
The group discusses the president's second term so far, focusing on issues such as the economy and immigration.

What Worries 11 Democratic Voters Most About Trump Democrats and What They Want From
The participants discuss what Democrats should do in the face of a second Trump presidency.

How 13 Independent Voters Who Backed Trump Think He Is Doing So Far
The participants discuss how they think Trump's second term is going

How 12 Americans See Life After Watching a Lot of Tik Tok
People who usa TikTok daily talk about why thay love the app, how consuming and addicting social media can be and why they wouldn't want their kids to use

"Where's Our Place in Society?': 12 Men Who Backed Trump Grapple With America
The group discusses the news and podcasts that shape their opinions about America and the wond, what being a man's man means and what they do and don't want Trump to do in office

These 14 Voters Think Trump Has One Mandate Above All, and It's Not About the Economy
The group discusses abortion, Immigration and what Trump should focus on in his second term

Those are all of the ones since the 2024 election. Even "normie Democrats" mostly exist as a character in their heads, people to be talked about, not heard from, let alone The Left.

Thwarted

Elon's plan to make every unwitting retirement fund holder eat his fraud losses has been temporarily thwarted.

S&P Global said on Thursday it was not changing the requirements for entry into its major indices, dealing a setback to Elon Musk’s SpaceX by effectively ruling out a swift entry for the world’s biggest-ever IPO into the benchmark S&P 500 index

Some explanation.

Within weeks of SpaceX going public, millions of Americans are going to own its stock without having chosen to, without having been asked, and at whatever price Elon Musk and his early backers decide is fair.

The shares will simply appear inside the index funds in their 401(k)s, the target-date retirement accounts of teachers and nurses and bus drivers, and the boring tracking products financial advisors push on every middle-class household. The buying will be automatic. Musk sets the price himself, the index funds buy at whatever level he chooses, and when the inevitable correction lands, it lands on people who never knew they owned this company- a danger the American Federation of Teachers is demanding the SEC address.

Morning

Funky friday

Happy Hour

 Get happy

The Greatest Show On Earth

I think we already knew this, but the Strait is never going to revert to its previous status.

In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has waved off the stalled Iran negotiations and the looming midterm elections with a shrug: “I don’t care,” he said during a Cabinet meeting last week. But there is one topic that has his full attention: America’s 250th birthday.

People close to the president say he’s fixated on the flurry of events descending on Washington for the semiquincentennial celebration. He’s throwing himself into construction and renovation projects around the capital, staging a UFC fight at the White House — his idea — and attempting to salvage a botched “Freedom 250” concert series by reimagining it as a political rally.

It is funny that the Iran hawks put their faith in Donald fucking Trump for this. No worries, tho, they will be on your TV selling new and even better wars soon.

Speaking Of Purity

Objecting to bigotry is the kind of purity that has no place in the centrist dream team party.

Rep. Tom Suozzi, who is running against Gov. Kathy Hochul in the Democratic primary for governor, called a controversial new Florida law aimed at discouraging discussions about sexuality and gender in classrooms “reasonable.” Dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by its opponents, Democrats and LGBTQ activists have rallied against the bill as a discriminatory attempt to prevent any LGBTQ topics from getting discussed.

How Did This Happen

Even RFK JR realized he needed to back off the raw milk craze - it somehow switched to "whole milk" suddenly - because it was going to lead to endless stories like this.

Idaho health officials are investigating how nearly 60 people got sick after drinking raw milk in the past two weeks.

Was it because of woke?

Not Now, Screwworm

You can't necessarily attribute everything to Trump-era incompetence and their general rejection of the basic functions of government, but I suspect it's a contributing factor here!

A flesh-eating parasite that had been kept out of U.S. livestock for decades has been detected in Texas, threatening the nation’s cattle industry and food supply at a time when prices are already high.

The case of New World screwworm was confirmed in a 3-week-old calf in La Pryor, near the U.S.-Mexico border, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said late Wednesday.

"For months" hmmm that doesn't sound like he means Sleepy Joe's USDA. It follows months of warnings from U.S. and Texas agriculture officials and cattle industry leaders, as the pest steadily moved north through Mexico toward the American border.

“For months, the screwworm has advanced rapidly through Mexico in spite of the USDA’s existing gameplan,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said Wednesday, adding that “instead of using every available tool, USDA moved too slowly and relied solely on a partial solution that takes years to fully implement.”

When the Republican Texas Ag Commissioner can't even clearly put the blame where it should belong - on Sleepy Joe! - something important has happened!

Our big beautiful ranchers!

Congratulations On Scoring That Big Interview

I appreciate that it isn't precisely the same as just letting your network/show's interview subjects write down the name on a piece of paper, but how, exactly, do we think journalists often score those big interviews?

The broader system of access journalism does not provide incentives for tough scrutiny by the Names, the star journalists.

Maybe 60 Minutes was, for various reasons, more unlike that than other outlets, but it probably didn't seem weird to Bari at all to do that!

I Am Retroactively Modifying This Blog's TOS

Every reader owes me $1000.

Tesla has retroactively modified “Full Self-Driving” purchase agreements to add “supervised” language that did not exist when owners originally bought the product. In some cases, the original documents have been made entirely inaccessible.

Electrek has confirmed the issue with multiple owners. The contracts in question were signed between 2016 and early 2024, when Tesla sold the package as “Full Self-Driving Capability” — with no mention of “supervised” and the implicit promise of unsupervised autonomy.

Rare Backpedal

I suppose there are still some lines.

"Reprimanded."

Fairly Quickly

I have to admit that his optimism isn't entirely insane.  Predictions about the effects of the closure were much more catastrophic than we are currently seeing. That could change!

Everyone said it was going to be $300, $400 a barrel, it’s 98 dollars a barrel but that’s not a big price to pay if you look at the possibility of them having a nuclear weapon,” he said.

...

He even said it’s possible the US naval blockade around the waterway will remain in place through Labor Day — Monday, Sept. 7 — meaning a full summer of elevated fuel prices and likely harm to Republicans in the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

“I don’t know. I mean, I think it could be [closed through Labor Day], but I think it’s unlikely. I think that we’ll have it. I think this will resolve itself fairly quickly,” he said.

Solidarity

There are journalists and journalism worth defending,  but I learned long ago that there is little point in wasting an effort defending American journalism broadly as other journalists rarely show solidarity for each other.

You see that every time Trump insults a reporter for a question and the next one doesn't respond by repeating the question.

I am sure Pelley has plenty of money and will be fine, but while the gossip will be covered, that CBS is completely corrupt will not be remembered on an ongoing basis.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done,” he added. “Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”

Journalists refused to acknowledge what Fox News was for years - oh sure the opinion stuff is over the top but their news people are good, claimed people who never watched the network - and they certainly won't do any different for CBS. 

Morning

Wacky Wednesday

Happy Hour

Get happy 

It's Iran Deal Week, Again

Will the press ever stop reporting on imminent deals as real things. Will THE MARKETS ever stop soaring?

Trump can't manifest reality without a lot of help, which he gets. The question is whethere there will be a coyote falling event.