Black People Won Super Bowl LIX
It’s hard not to conclude that Kendrick Lamar “pwnd” Donald Trump (and Drake, too) during the Super Bowl LIX halftime show yesterday. The first U.S. president to attend a Super Bowl was treated to a full-on rap storm for 20 minutes, which must have rocked his white-supremacist soul to its rotten core.
The cultural fact is, the Black people have won. The spineless National Football League, by taking a metaphorical knee in anticipation of the arrival of the Racist-in-Chief and removing the “End Racism” message from the end zones and replacing it with “Choose Love,” joined the oligarchs and media companies in capitulating to Trump.
But it’s too late. In 2023, fully 53.1% of players in the NFL were Black, and if you want to see who owns Super Bowl halftime shows, just consider this from CBS Sports:
On Sunday, Kendrick Lamar took the stage in New Orleans. In 2024, Usher took the stage in Las Vegas. In 2023, Rihanna took the stage at State Farm Stadium during Super Bowl LVII. Before that, five performers took the stage for Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles, California: Eminem, Dr. Dre. Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J. Blige performed halfway through the Rams win over the Bengals.
Seven years ago, Trump mounted a campaign against Black NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. But what really galled him was when the Super Bowl–winning Philadelphia Eagles in 2018 declined his invitation for the traditional winner’s visit to the White House, so he “uninvited” them:
The Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII, but the Super Bowl winners’ traditional White House visit is canceled after a host of players decline to attend.
“The Philadelphia Eagles Football Team was invited to the White House,” Trump says. “Unfortunately, only a small number of players decided to come, and we canceled the event. Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling.”
Trump and his racist followers can bitch and complain about it all they want, but the fight is over: people of color are the true Super Bowl winners.
Who Was the Musk Rat Who Barred Members of Congress from Entering a Federal Building? He should be identified and investigated for obstructing Congress
AP: Democratic members of Congress hold a news conference outside the Department of Education and oppose President Donald Trump’s plan to abolish it. They confronted security denying them access to the building.
This is outrageous. Who is this guy and on what authority can he prevent sitting members of Congress from access the federal headquarters of the Department of Education? This man needs to be identified and investigated for obstructing Congress.
Here’s a video of the incident:
Trumponomics Watch: Trump’s Tariffs Are Terrible
“Stock futures fell and oil prices rose Sunday after the U.S. imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from major trading partners, jolting Wall Street’s outlook for the American economy,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Futures linked to the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led the declines, falling by more than 2%, while the S&P 500 slipped by 1.6%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slid by about 1.1%, or around 500 points.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 421 points, or 1%, to 44,123 in early morning trading. The broad-based S&P 500 lost 1.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index tumbled 1.8%.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump signed an executive order that imposes 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, while adding an additional 10% levy on goods from China. Hours later, Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs of its own, while Mexico said it was also planning to issue tariffs on the U.S. as well, adding to the potential fallout from a trade war with two of the U.S.’ closest trading partners.
Mr. Trump’s announcement prompted some economists to project that the stiff new tariffs could dampen U.S. economic growth and cause an increase in job losses.
“This development came sooner than we anticipated in our baseline forecast and will lead us to downgrade our 2025 global forecast,” Oxford Economics wrote in a Feb. 3 research note. “The latest set of tariffs will lead to weaker GDP growth, higher unemployment, higher interest rates, and higher inflation this year in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. than in our January baseline forecast.”
Tennessee MAGA Rep. Proposes Amendment to Give Trump – But Not Pres. Obama – a Third Term
Salon.com: Rep. Andy Ogles, R.-Tenn., is the latest House Republican to make a splashy grab for President Donald Trump’s attention, introducing a proposal to amend the Constitution and allow the 78-year-old to try for a third term.
In a statement, Ogles claimed Trump “must be given the time necessary” to enact his legislation and praised the president as the “only figure in modern history” who could properly lead the country.
“This amendment would allow President Trump to serve three terms, ensuring that we can sustain the bold leadership our nation so desperately needs,” Ogles said.
Ogle specifically excludes Obama and any other presidents who successfully served two consecutive terms. However, in the extremely unlikely event that this amendment gets the required two-third votes in the House and Senat, this provision is so illogical that it would almost certainly be struck down, setting the stage for a 2028 match up between Trump, 82, and Barack Obama, 67.
Forget Pres. Musk – the Real President is Stephen Miller
“Turns out the President Musk thing was off base because Stephen Miller is really running the country,” Ron Filipkowski wrote recently on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “These are Miller’s ideas and Miller’s executive orders. Trump is just signing them and talking gibberish about what’s in them.”
No one who followed Trump’s claims during the election can be surprised by the firehose of ultra-right executive orders spewed by the new administration in its first few days. They were cribbed out of the Heritage Foundation’s anti-democracy “Project 2025” manifesto, which has been rebranded as “America First,” borrowing a name from a 1930s U.S. fascist movement associated with celebrity aviator Charles Lindbergh.
The only surprise is that the morbidly obese, 78-year-old Trump. the laziest president since Reagan, has had the energy to do it all. The suggestion by Filipkowski, an attorney associated with the Meidas Touch Network, that Miller is doing the heavy lifting makes sense.
Florida Sends a Home-Grown Insurrectionist to the U.S. Senate
Professional muckraker Dan Christenson of FloridaBulldog.org offers a look at how Ashley Moody — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pick to replace Marco Rubio as U.S. senator — aggressively participated in the effort to overturn the 2020 election:
When Ashley Moody takes the oath and becomes Florida’s next U.S. Senator Congress will get yet another politician who played a role in whipping up President Donald Trump’s supporters to march on the Capitol “to stop the steal” on Jan. 6, 2021.
Florida Attorney General Moody – picked Thursday by Gov. Ron DeSantis to succeed Marco Rubio, Trump’s choice for Secretary of State – was a director of a conservative dark money group ironically called the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF). On Jan. 5, the group sent out robocalls to Trump adherents imploring them to “march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal” and “fight to protect the integrity of our elections.”
The next day, after President Trump instructed rallygoers nearby to descend on the Capitol, violent insurrectionists broke into the building as the nation watched on television. Their assault threatened the peaceful transition of power to Joe Biden, caused the nation’s leaders to flee in panic and left four people dead. A Capitol Police officer who had fought with insurgents died the next day.
Earlier, Moody had tried unsuccessfully in court to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In early December, after the courts had rejected numerous challenges to the vote, Moody signed onto a brief filed by the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit asking the justices to delay Senate certification of presidential electors in four battleground states. Paxton’s lawsuit was bounced out of court three days later
Read the rest here.
Politifact Fact-Checked Trump’s Inaugural Address Live
Politifact live fact-checked the newly minted 47th president’s inaugural address. Trump started lying as soon as he was sworn in (without placing his hand on the Bible) about everything from the number of Americans who died building the Panama Canal to the price of apples. Read the facts here.
Inaugural Resistance: Who Is Skipping Trump’s Swearing in
The Resistance to the coming fascist state under Donald Trump unofficially kicks off at his inauguration on Monday with the notable absence of key Democratic figures who would normally appear on stage with an incoming president.
Hell Freezes over
Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, is going to be bitterly cold in Washington, D.C. WTOP reports that there is a chance of snow on Sunday and predicts gusty winds on Monday, with a high temperature of just 20 degrees.
Ex-Presidents Out at Lunch
Of course, Pres. Biden and Dr. Jill Biden will be on the podium, as will former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, along with his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush and his wife Laura. However, Michele Obama has opted not to attend.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not attend the inauguration, and it is not because she recently broke her hip.
