Elon's hostile takeover, asteroid odds rise, meat eaters force formula change.
February 19, 2025
Be sure to visit KGB Overset for all the memes, cartoons, humor, news, and miscellany that didn’t fit in today’s newsletter.
Joe Kandra in The Daily Kos:
Knee Deep in the Hoopla
Elon Musk is leading a “hostile takeover of the federal government.” “I can think of no precedent in American history of such enormous power being entrusted to a private citizen,” Laurence Tribe, an emeritus professor of constitutional law at Harvard, wrote by email in reply to my inquiry:
To say that this delegation of unsupervised authority by President Trump to Elon Musk is an unprecedented violation of the appointments clause of Article II of the Constitution, which at a minimum would demand the Senate’s advice and consent to the appointment of anyone exercising the kind of power, would be an understatement.
Our Constitution rebels against the idea of empowering any individual, neither elected nor officially appointed pursuant to law, with the sweeping power to control the expenditure of public funds, the hiring and firing of public officials, the deployment of public force and the organization of public agencies. This is brute dictatorship of the worst kind.
but… Musk is not an employee of DOGE and "has no actual or formal authority," White House says.
and… Judge declines to block Musk and DOGE from accessing federal data or laying off workers.
Trump vowed to clean up Washington, then his team hired a man who pushed a scam the IRS called the “Worst of the Worst”. Frank Schuler was a leading promoter of a tax deduction derided as a scam by prosecutors, senators and the IRS. Now he’s a senior adviser to the General Services Administration, which manages the federal government’s property.
How will Republicans pay for the tax cuts for the rich? By raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion. (Notice how the deficit is a problem only when there’s a Democrat in the White House?) They also threw in $2 trillion of compulsory cuts to Medicaid, which could make health care even more expensive and inaccessible for large swaths of America.
The surprising theory that explains modern American life. The U.S. was once the world’s most geographically mobile society. Now we’re stuck in place—and that’s a very big problem.
Chance of 'city-killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 smashing into Earth rises yet again to 3.1%, NASA reports. NASA has increased the chances of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth in 2032 to 1 in 32, or 3.1%, up from 1 in 42 as reported in previous calculations.
Americans are eating so much meat, Dawn had to reformulate its dish soap. Back in 2017 when Dawn created most of its cleaning formulas used today, our top consumed foods were coffee, eggs, butter, oil, and milk, according to Procter & Gamble, which makes Dawn dish soap. Now, they are meat, coffee, eggs, oil, and cheese.
California assemblyman proposes Bigfoot as state’s Official Large Hairy Mythical Creature.
Shirt of the day (click on image)
KGB Quote of the Day: Umberto Eco
“The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.”
--Umberto Eco (Wikipedia link).
(More Umberto Eco quotes on the KGB Quotations Database)
Among other things, today is- in no particular order of importance-
International Tug-of-War Day, Iwo Jima Day, National Arabian Horse Day, National Boston Terrier Day, National Chocolate Mint Day, National Lash Day, National Vet Girls RISE Day, and Prevent Plagiarism Day.
Quotes by or about persons born on this date (Click on link after name for quotes):
1473 – Nicolaus Copernicus, Prussian mathematician and astronomer (d. 1543)
1893 – Cedric Hardwicke, English actor and director (d. 1964)
1917 – Carson McCullers, American novelist, short story writer, playwright, and essayist (d. 1967)
1952 – Amy Tan, American novelist, essayist, and short story writer
Other birthdays:
1911 – Merle Oberon, Indian-American actress (d. 1979)
1912 – Saul Chaplin, American composer (d. 1997)
1913 – Frank Tashlin, American animator and screenwriter (d. 1972)
1924 – Lee Marvin, American actor (d. 1987)
1930 – John Frankenheimer, American director and producer (d. 2002)
1940 – Smokey Robinson, American singer-songwriter and producer
1943 – Lou Christie, American singer-songwriter
1943 – Homer Hickam, American author and engineer
1946 – Karen Silkwood, American technician and activist (d. 1974)
1955 – Jeff Daniels, American actor and playwright
1960 – Prince Andrew, Duke of York
1967 – Benicio del Toro, Puerto Rican actor, director, and producer
On This Day:
1878 – Thomas Edison patented the phonograph.
1942 – World War II: United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed executive order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese Americans to internment camps.
1945 – World War II: Battle of Iwo Jima: About 30,000 United States Marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima.
1960 – Bil Keane's "Family Circus" cartoon strip debuted
1963 – The publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique reawakened the feminist movement in the United States as women's organizations and consciousness raising groups spread.
1968 – Children's educational TV program "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" debuted
1972 – American singer Harry Nilsson's cover of Badfinger’s "Without You" began a four week run at #1, his highest-charting single.
1973 – "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" single was released by Dawn featuring Tony Orlando (Billboard Song of the Year 1973)
1976 – Executive Order 9066, which led to the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps, was rescinded by President Gerald Ford's Proclamation 4417.
1977 – Manfred Mann's Earth Band's cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded By The Light" hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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