Another weekend, another chamber of news horrors. The sister-in-law of a woman I work with received one of Elon’s justify-your-job emails. The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was fired, and replaced by a retiree who once told Trump he could whip ISIS in a week. fElon gets his stupid mug in the news more often than the boss, who every day looks more tired and orange.
Meanwhile, the town-hall pushback has begun.
I have very little news to report, other than this: Kate got outbid on a house she wanted, but! She won a spelling bee at a party on Sunday. I’m so proud. I texted her congratulations, and she said it was no biggie, that she’d won in the third round when she was the only one who could spell “preposterous.” I told her that was the advantage of being a reader in a generation raised with autocorrect and texting. I mean, I’m enough of a tightass on this subject that I winced when Prince did all that “2 U” and “4 U” shit in his song titles. I’m glad some of it got passed down to my offspring.
It reminded me of the time a News-Sentinel copy editor in Fort Wayne entered a spelling bee at Grabill Days or one of those olde tyme country fairs out in the region. Everyone was given an olde tyme slate and a piece of chalk, and the bee commenced. The pronouncer said, “diphtheria,” and every single person spelled it without the first H, except the editor. They bounced him. He protested. I can’t remember how it ended, whether anyone had thought to toss a dictionary into the judge’s kit or what, but I gather the organizers wanted Scott to vamoose and for the alternative-spelling olde tyme fun to continue. Chaos at Grabill Days! BURN DOWN THE SPELLING BEE.
Next we’ll do ophthalmologist and jodhpurs.
I used to have a great memory for phone numbers; I could recall numbers that friends had in 1969. No more. I can’t even remember area codes. I hope I retain my spelling prowess, however. Almost all of my spelling errors nowadays are due to autocorrect.
The last week of February is here, and I feel like a person climbing a mountain with spikes in my hands. We have a mini-break coming up at the end of the week, and it cannot get here soon enough.
FDChief said on February 23, 2025 at 11:07 pm
So far I’ve seen two terrific clapbacks at the idiotic “five things” MuskRat email.
One is simple; in response to “what did you do last week” the person responded: “Not as much ketamine as you did, fuckwad.”
The other is a photocopy of a letter sent by Art Modell’s counsel (for the Cleveland organization). It reads:
“Dear Mr. Cox;
Attached is a letter we received on November 19, 1974. I think you should be aware that some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters.
Very truly yours, James N. Bailey, General Counsel.”
Which is choice, since Modell, well…it takes one to know one.
I stand by my original response; King Trump needs to get a very close shave from what in revolutionary France was known as the “National Razor”. Then his buddy Elmo the Afrikaaner Asshole can get next.
If We the People have the sack to do that I’ll even learn to fucking knit just to join in the celebration.
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Deborah said on February 24, 2025 at 1:45 am
Ditto on remembering numbers, it’s slipping away, but I’ve never been a good speller and it’s getting worse.
I’ve been reading Bluesky posters 5 things lists all day, some are quite clever. What an asshole Musk is, I tell you.
Our CA trip is almost over, we fly to ABQ tomorrow and then Tuesday I have my hearing aid appointment at Costco. I’ve been looking forward to that since October. Not the Costco part but getting the aids finally.
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David C said on February 24, 2025 at 6:14 am
I enjoy reading about the asshole letter. Funny thing is, I saw an article where they interviewed the sender and receiver and the guy who received it thought it was funny and the guy who sent it still felt bad about it.
https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2011/01/cleveland_browns_lawyers_smart.html
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Alan Stamm said on February 24, 2025 at 7:23 am
That arduous sense of climbing a mountain with spikes in my hands captures fatigue that’s likely widespread.
And what’s at the summit — Supreme Court resistance? midterms? 25th Amendment?
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Jeff Gill said on February 24, 2025 at 7:28 am
The Cleveland Clinic website says about ketamine (other than it should be administered by health care personnel in a medical setting) that side effects include:
– hallucinations
and
– loss of contact with reality
As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/18102-ketamine-injection
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Deborah said on February 24, 2025 at 8:38 am
I’m so sick of Trump I could scream. Here’s a gift article from the Atlantic by Anne Applebaum https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/02/putins-three-years-of-humiliation/681810/?gift=e2EpXMuPtOgT-df8U_sJIFaY43c7gYCrxgVEc9LSBd8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
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alex said on February 24, 2025 at 8:50 am
Speaking of the Emperor’s New Face… his makeup seems to be more carelessly applied of late and to have become kind of blotchy and brown around the jowls. And he still hasn’t gotten a clue that he really needs to color in those eye sockets.
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Suzanne said on February 24, 2025 at 9:00 am
This is another excellent article from The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/?gift=F58N5IOcUo4qAP_lFh-H94E33mbccG01kcviCc_yJys&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
“To say, then, that Trump lacks the temperament or attention span to be a dictator offers little comfort. He is patrimonialism’s perfect organism. He recognizes no distinction between what is public and private, legal and illegal, formal and informal, national and personal. “He can’t tell the difference between his own personal interest and the national interest, if he even understands what the national interest is,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Trump’s first term, told The Bulwark.”
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Jeff Borden said on February 24, 2025 at 9:03 am
The red hat rubes are giving their QOP representatives hell at public gatherings about all the steep cuts and Elmo’s role in them. Even in rural Texass. Too little. Too late. Their woeful baying means nothing to the rapidly deteriorating tRump, who’s now quoting Napoleon to justify his rampage. They gave tRump their votes. He’s giving them the back of his hand.
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Mark P said on February 24, 2025 at 9:40 am
When I worked for an Army contractor at a job in a government building in Huntsville, Al, we had to fill out a report on what we had done the previous week. I resented the hell out of it for a lot of reasons. One was that the person I reported to wouldn’t have a clue about what I did. The other was that in their bid for the contract, the contractor required all subcontractors to take a 20 percent pay cut. That was when I started not giving a shit. What I should have done was make something up. No one would have known the difference. That is certainly the case for the Musk demand.
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Dorothy said on February 24, 2025 at 9:56 am
My daughter was a middle school spelling champ and now she’s a copy editor/etc. and I guess that worked out well! And I can something simliar about my mother, who survived a bout of diphtheria when she was 16. She had to stay back a year in school and spend a long time in bed recovering, but she got pretty healthy and went on to have 10 kids. The doctor who treated her when she was in high school was delighted to hear about this through my grandma Josephine, who bragged about her six children (my mum was one of them) to said doctor over the years.
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jcburns said on February 24, 2025 at 10:33 am
Congrats to Kate, forced to grow up with two literate parents.
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Julie Robinson said on February 24, 2025 at 11:32 am
My little town and school never held district-wide spelling bees, but I would have been a strong contender, since I usually won in the classroom. Being a reader helps, but I also think there’s a strong genetic component. One of my kids was crap at spelling and the other only had to look at the words twice. So I can’t fluff my feathers.
I’ve just read another heartbreaking story from a park ranger who lost her job, despite 12 consecutive quarters of the highest possible rating. She received the same letter as thousands of others, that she was being fired for poor performance. It’s my understanding that’s the equivalent of dishonorable discharge in the military, and means you can never be rehired. Someone please tell me I’m wrong. She believes the parks will soon be sold off for development and drilling.
And in other sad news, the one radio station in my hometown has laid off its last three employees and will have no local presence. They will simply rebroadcast syndicated talks shows and music. It was the best source of local news while I was growing up, broadcasting almost every sporting event and city council meeting. My dad was head of news and sports there and his voice was known by all.
There was never a good newspaper and it’s all but gone now too.
So, how will people learn of local news? Who will be a watchdog for those running local government? From what I see, it’s Facebook groups, and let me tell you, those folks never won any spelling bees.
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Dave said on February 24, 2025 at 11:37 am
My cousin, a longtime VA nurse in Tucson, got one of those letters. A mutual cousin suggested that she respond by saying she spent the week conducting rectal exams and would he need one.
Both she and her husband work for the VA, he’s got three years until he can retire and was hoping to do so.
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Jeff Borden said on February 24, 2025 at 12:46 pm
Now, Julie, you know how corrupt and woke those overpaid leftist park rangers are, constantly helping people and keeping our national parks –established by the Republican Teddy Roosevelt– working properly. Elmo and his little band of incels don’t give a flying fig. They’re a line item. Begone, rangers.
Nihilism is our new religion, I guess. Let’s just blow shit up and see what happens.
And the MAGA voters who are learning they’re not going to get their SNAP benefits, who are seeing their local health centers shuttered, who are watching as farmers and ranchers see their contracts be slashed because their customers outside the U.S. can’t count on them because of the tariffs. . .well, karma is a bitch. A reeking piece of shit with 34 felonies, an adjudicated rapist, a moron who is unread, untraveled and unsophisticated in the ways of the world, an utter and absolute failure at virtually every business he ever launched was their choice because he promised to lower egg prices and keep trans athletes from competing. Fuck ’em.
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Dexter Friend said on February 24, 2025 at 1:49 pm
I won my school bee twice, Grade 3 &4. Then at the county bee in the intimidating Auburn courthouse, I got tripped up and finished 4th, then got a red ribbon for 2nd in Grade 4. My brother finished second for not capitalizing “Indian”.
My friend Barb won the Fort Wayne bee and finished like 35th at the D.C. Scripps-Howard in The Mayflower Hotel in 1966. The bee may have been sponsored differently then.
In March, 1972 I drove my black VW Bug to Comiskey Park to buy Opening Day Sox tickets. All the way, Roberta Flack was on the AM, “Killing Me Softly”. I love that song, and her many hits as well.
Rest in peace, Lady. A sad day.
I just found out Lester Holt is outta heah. WTF is it with this MSNBC/NBC purge?
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Carter Cleland said on February 24, 2025 at 1:54 pm
A trial wrapped up this week involving the 75 y.o. “founder” of the Sin City Deciples. I don’t know what the Chicago Manual of Style says about names that don’t exist, but every time I see that moniker I think of the db’s album “Stands for Decibels”.
~~~~~
A killer opinion piece from Elizabeth Shackelford. LOVE that headline.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/02/20/column-russia-wins-cold-war-ukraine-nato-shackelford/?share=batsanuak2thns5oerrs
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Peter said on February 24, 2025 at 2:31 pm
It’s only two hours old, but there’s a story out that all of the public monitors at HUD this morning were running an AI generated clip of Trump licking Elon Musk’s toes with a caption: “THE REAL KING”. Management couldn’t figure out how to stop the clip, so they went around the building and unplugged all of the monitors.
There’s hope for us yet.
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Brandon said on February 24, 2025 at 2:36 pm
R.I.P. Roberta Flack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Me_Softly_with_His_Song
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Dexter Friend said on February 24, 2025 at 2:46 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8_fLu2yrP4
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David C said on February 24, 2025 at 3:50 pm
My nephew and his partner were both sacked. They were chemistry PhDs at the Department of Agriculture working on crop diseases. Who needs that right?
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susan said on February 24, 2025 at 4:26 pm
PETER @18 – Ha ha ha! Typical AI crap, too: Musk as two left feet!
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alex said on February 24, 2025 at 6:16 pm
Big woo on the toe-sucking video. You can see Trump’s face after it’s been buried in Musk’s ass (or maybe it was Putin’s) and it’s not AI:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/picture-donald-trumps-face-being-181137468.html
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Colleen Condron said on February 24, 2025 at 7:05 pm
I’ve always been a good speller…that, along with knowing useless trivia, is my superpower. But what do you expect from a Liberal Arts major?
I am taking heart that the Republican town halls are beginning to be full of angry MAGAs. “I wanted him to hurt other people, not ME!” What kind of person actually wants others to be harmed?
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Sherri said on February 24, 2025 at 9:22 pm
The most recent This American Life is the story of a son and his father trying to reconcile different views of reality, and making a bet. The father has become a conspiracy nut, and so gives the son ten predictions that he is 100% sure will happen in 2024, such as Obama, Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the Clintons all being convicted of treason. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying none of the dad’s predictions come true, and that it doesn’t change his convictions, despite everything that it costs him.
A longer version of the story appears on NPR’s Embedded.
The father seems to have been radicalized by watching Julie Green on YouTube, a self-proclaimed prophet. You can see her prophecies at https://www.jgminternational.org/prophecies
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Jeff Gill said on February 25, 2025 at 6:45 am
I’ll see your Julie Green, and raise you a Shaini Goodwin, plus two GOP elected officials.
“The event costs $432 for general admission, $185 for the “Gala Dinner” and $532 for a VIP ticket.”
https://azmirror.com/briefs/gop-lawmakers-scheduled-to-speak-at-galactic-federation-conspiracy-event/
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Sherri said on February 25, 2025 at 2:42 pm
What is fascinating/disturbing about the dad in the story is that he is very aware that there are many false prophets, but that he believes God has given him the ability to discern what is true. He doesn’t need or want evidence, because he just knows what is true. The fact that nobody else in his life can see this truth causes him no doubt.
There’s a lot written about how people fall into conspiracy thinking out of a need to belong, to feel a part of something, but here’s a man who’d rather throw away his relationships with his family, including a 40 year marriage, and his best friends, than question something from a parasocial online relationship.
One thing about parasocial relationships, though, is that they’re less demanding than real relationships. Real relationships require reciprocity; parasocial relationships don’t.
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Sherri said on February 25, 2025 at 4:56 pm
This is the kind of damage that Musk and Trump are doing to our government, and I fear that it may be irreversible.
https://open.substack.com/pub/fallows/p/they-were-careless-people-taking
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Mark P said on February 25, 2025 at 5:48 pm
I cannot escape the conclusion that Trump wants the US to be a failed state, and to fall behind other developed and developing nations. My only remaining question is why? Anger and retribution because he lost the 2020 election? Does Putin really have him by the short hairs? All I am sure of is that a lot of people who thought they were going to benefit from his presidency are going to find out differently. And that includes some big businesses as well as the lower and middle classes.
One other thing I know is that this is taking a toll on my mental and emotional state. It’s hard enough to deal with my wife’s increasing symptoms of dementia without having to read about another outrage from Musk or Trump. And outrage is exactly what I feel when I see these dumb motherfuckers parading with Nazi flags, and that dumb android giving a Nazi salute. My father fought these people 80 years ago. It looks like not only did Russia win the Cold War, the Nazis might end up winning WW2.
And it also looks like the founders were right. You really can’t trust the people.
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David C said on February 25, 2025 at 6:44 pm
I don’t think there’s a damned thing that he isn’t resentful about. His old man was OK if everyone in Queens thought he was the world’s biggest asshole as long as he was making money. If Trump’s resentment didn’t get the best of him he’d be fine being the asshole son of the biggest asshole in Queens as long as he was making money. But he wanted to be the biggest asshole in Manhattan and make Manhattan money instead of Queens money. He got to be the biggest asshole in Manhattan but he lost his ass doing it. If Mark Burnett hadn’t cleaned him up and made him look sane and in charge, we wouldn’t be here.
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Deborah said on February 25, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Mark P, I listened to a podcast with Anne Applebaum and I don’t remember who else a few weeks ago about the loose alliance of the authoritarian leaning countries and full authoritarian countries and their leaders. One of the common threads they have is that their countries are pretty much in economic failure or at least not in great shape and their leaders don’t care as long as they (the leaders) are the ones in power. Trump doesn’t care if the US is really becoming a failed state in the eyes of much of the world as long as he can dupe his base into letting him keep power and steal them blind. It’s predictable behavior of those types, Trump, Putin, Madura, Whoever is in charge in Iran (?), Erdogan, Orban, Kim Jung Un, Xi Jinping etc.
I think now Trump cares way more about power than money, although money plays a big part in gaining power, so it’s important too.
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Deborah said on February 25, 2025 at 10:03 pm
When grandma starts having to eat cat food to stay alive will they finally begin to realize the leopards are eating their faces?
My husband and I are actually thinking about all kinds of scenarios we might have to do to survive. It’s depressing but I want to at least have a plan or two in place instead of being thrown completely off guard. I used to make plans about what to do in case of a nuclear attack many years ago which made me feel better even if none of the things I had planned would remotely help us survive.
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Jeff Gill said on February 25, 2025 at 10:23 pm
“These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and babies”
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Little Bird said on February 26, 2025 at 9:04 am
Jeff Gill, where are the miracles and wonders?
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Deborah said on February 26, 2025 at 10:28 am
The appeal of Trump is to the teenage boy. Gift article from the Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/trump-masculinity/681828/?gift=e2EpXMuPtOgT-df8U_sJIKP3CAbP1HDc7qmOTXfQhvk&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
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Deborah said on February 26, 2025 at 10:38 am
One of our upstairs neighbors in the condo works for the National Parks Department, she got that email asking her to name 5 things she did last week. She’s in maintenance for gods sake, she mopped the floors and cleaned the toilets in the bathrooms, emptied trash cans etc. She’s pretty sure she’s losing that job and it breaks her heart she was being considered for a foreman’s position but that’s off the table now. What a shame.
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Jerrie in Mid-MD said on February 26, 2025 at 10:40 am
Jeff Bezos is taking the Washington Post opinion section in a new direction. Every day brings worse news than the day before. Here’s a link to Gene Weingarten’s substack and the Bezos memo: https://geneweingarten.substack.com/p/heart-breaking-news
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alex said on February 26, 2025 at 11:06 am
I didn’t quit the Post before but I might as well do so now.
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tajalli said on February 26, 2025 at 11:09 am
LB@34, “miracles and wonders” was an earlier verse. We’re now at “lasers in the jungle” unfortunately. Or fortunately, if one is of the opinion that chaos is a grand opportunity.
WaPo is the new Pravda.
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Jeff Borden said on February 26, 2025 at 11:58 am
Pity the poor because they are going to get absolutely creamed in the QOP budget. Speaker Johnson and co-president tRump pulled off a coup and now have all the votes needed to push their obnoxious bill forward. It will primarily drain Medicaid and other programs for the less fortunate to pay for the obscene tax cuts for the already wealthy. How these weasels continue to get elected without offering much to their constituents continues to baffle me. Oh, and this bill will add about $4.5 trillion to the national debt, so there’s that good news, too.
The rich just don’t get richer. They do it on the backs of the less fortunate. As usual.
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Suzanne said on February 26, 2025 at 12:52 pm
How do these idiots keep getting elected? Propaganda coupled with stupidity.
Indiana Republicans politicians run in every election on how they will clean up corruption, bring efficiency to government, and make the Hoosier state the envy of the nation and even though they have had a majority in the state (and many local places as well) for over 2 decades, and they have yet to turn the state into Nirvana. But they keep getting elected, over and over again.
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alex said on February 26, 2025 at 1:47 pm
It should be noted that Indiana has almost the lowest voter turnout of any state because the GOP is so good at creating voter malaise and making people feel like their votes won’t matter anyway. Their messaging is always insulting to the intelligence of anyone who has any, in effect leaving people feeling frozen out.
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Deborah said on February 26, 2025 at 4:56 pm
LB has been quite bereft today, to the point of crying a lot because it’s obvious her Medicaid will be ended. We need to get her in to as many appointments as we can before the ax falls.
I’m so mad at my sister for voting for Trump, as soon as LB’s Medicaid is discontinued I’m going to write her a long scathing email that I’ve been composing in my head for days. I will be indicating that I’m no longer her sister or want anything whatsoever to do with her ever again and it will probably call her the C word and more.
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diane said on February 26, 2025 at 5:18 pm
I saw that statement by Bezos and realized that although I did not cancel my WaPo subscription before, I am going to have to now.
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Deborah said on February 26, 2025 at 5:26 pm
First child has died from measles in Texas, a school age kid, first death from measles since 2015. Gift article NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/us/texas-measles-outbreak-death.html?unlocked_article_code=1.z04.NU8U.EMfbeSqZrADP&smid=url-share there will no doubt be more. Sad, sad, sad.
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Jeff Gill said on February 26, 2025 at 6:03 pm
First child death since 2003 from measles.
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Dexter Friend said on February 26, 2025 at 6:35 pm
Lady Liberty threw down her torch in the Upper Bay and stormed off back to France.
Trump said Russian oligarchs are welcome to buy his new $5M gold card which acts as a green card + direct path to citizenship.
Trump said he knows many Russian oligarchs and they are “nice guys.” TRUMP IS A RUSSIAN ASSET AND A RUSSIAN AGENT.
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tajalli said on February 26, 2025 at 7:00 pm
Apparently, past and current KGB are stating he’s been an asset since 1987.
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Jeff Gill said on February 26, 2025 at 7:32 pm
Sam Youngman on Bluesky summed up the pre-Cabinet press conference nicely:
“I was concerned until the former heroin junkie with a brain worm told me how normal and routine measles is”
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Sherri said on February 26, 2025 at 7:47 pm
We’re having a particularly bad flu season this year, so of course, the FDA just cancelled the meeting to pick next year’s flu vaccine.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/26/health/news-fda-meeting-to-choose-flu-vaccine-composition-canceled-without-explanation/index.html
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Sherri said on February 26, 2025 at 7:54 pm
Measles was eradicated in this country in 2000, but it takes a vax rate of 95% to maintain herd immunity, so when the rate dropped below that in areas and people traveled in places where measles was still endemic, the inevitable happened.
I debated whether to get a measles titer, but finally just scheduled an MMR shot for next week.
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