David Waldman knows what tomorrow’s pre-recorded KITM is about but isn’t telling.  He trusts Greg Dworkin to keep mum, but didn’t tell me because everyone knows I’d just blab it all to you… like this:

Luigi Mangione was not selected as Time “Person of the Year”.  Luigi might not get another chance as why have another “Person of the Year” after this one? Why have another “year” after this one? Dictator cosplay is just like real as long as enough people believe. In fact, that is how all dictatorships work. (Follow Ben Wikler on Threads.) Trump appointed Governor-Senator Kari Lake as director of Voice of America. Well, he can’t do that, but he did.

Not enough people clapped to keep South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol aloft. Opposition parties will just keep impeaching him until it sticks. Yoon caught social media brain rot, a disease plaguing the entire world.

Still-President Joe Biden commuted 1,500 sentences and issued 39 pardons yesterday. KITM staff aren’t included, but still hopeful.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is poised to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Ideology might not drive money, but it is best if it doesn’t turn it down.

The North Carolina Gop traded hurricane relief for Democratic power… and MTG thought Dems created hurricanes! In Washington, Gops want two reconciliation bills, prosperity for things they like, austerity for things they don’t.

Bulletin: Nighttime invaders have been sighted in the skies over Grovers Mill, New Jersey.  Reports indicate that Homeland Security has become involved as a State Senator calls for a state of emergency. More reporting as this story develops.

The majority of Brexit voters are getting tired of the “Brexit” part of that Brexit thing that they voted for.

"Catherine’s Learning Barn” is in remembrance of Sandy Hook school victims, and a celebration of their ideals.

David Waldman is back for more today and hopes you are too!

Is Luigi Mangione any less hot because he’s rich? Sure, more poor people shooting CEOs might seem more felicitous to some, but it takes money to become an anarchist in today’s society. One might say Luigi Mangione and Brian Thompson were just two rich criminals whose lifepaths crossed. However, if you prefer that your enraged criminals be authentically impoverished, you’re in luck, plenty are now on order.

Democrats got it wrong with Latinos and immigration. Few people chose solidarity when they can safely opt not to. Some rogue Harris staffers tried a little outreach, but why bother? Blacks and Latinos are always in the bag for us, right?

Most countries don’t prefer to elect fascists, criminals or idiots. Some do. Dems got it wrong there also. Kimberly Guilfoyle was named ambassador to the country that Don Jr. figured he’d have the least reason to visit, with the language Kim had the least chance to blab in. Anyhow, Silvio was busy.

Federal cutbacks might prevent Mitch McConnell from getting that Hoveround he needs.

Greg Dworkin hauls in another raft o’ stories from Syria. David Rothkopf (on Threads!) believes you need to know why Syria matters to you. Alex Simon slightly decomplexifies the Alawi strongholds of Latakia and Tartous. Charles Lister (also on Threads!) describes the expanding territories being captured by the HTS group. And, Haid Haid writes his second PhD thesis on the so far successful pragmatic terrorist group HTS governance model.

Ho! Ho! Ho! David Waldman counts down the days — only 40 until that one day of dictatorship!

It was him, Luigi! … Allegedly.  Luigi The Adjuster Mangione may not legally qualify for president in 2028 at only 34 years of age. Should that be held against him though? Luigi may have shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, yet he’s no angel — he reads Ayn Rand and his parents like the opera… and Art Modell (shudder). All should deeply consider how this promising young man’s life went so terribly awry and take note… lots of notes.

Sure, Kash Patel, nominated for director of the FBI (Ministry of State Security), is an idiot, but he’s a useful idiot to both Putin and Trump, making him perhaps the world’s most useful idiot.  Kash hosted Kash’s Corner, which sounds like a 70’s kid show, but in this case Kash was both the host and the puppet.

Tulsi Gabbard is brought to you by Russia Today, and vice versa.

Trump’s such a family man that his crime family extends to the in-laws.

Alas, lickspittle Ric Grenell and his allies did not lick quite enough spittle. Maybe next time.

Senate Republicans are forced to spend all their time and money on the border crackdown, as anywhere else runs the risk of doing good.

Ah, the dawn of a bright new beautiful Monday! Well, somewhere, I guess. How about we take David Waldman and Greg Dworkin and check out some other countries for a while, for a breather?

Ordinarily, we would not be looking to the Middle East for inspiration, but suddenly Syria is standing for freedom. You’d hardly know about it from the American mainstream media… you’d hardly know anything from them… but there’s plenty of other sources to discover at Blue Sky, Threads, and you know… others. At exTwitter, there’s Tammam Aloudat’s positive assessment. There’s Alex Simon’s appraisal of the Syrian prison “system”. Threads has Charles Lister with the international repercussions emanating from Syria’s takeover by rebel forces. Blue Sky has more than just savvy individuals as well, it has an excellent news search.

Then there’s Romania. Romania, Romania, rhymes with Albania, which makes it easy to remember their tasty food, bawdy cooks, NOT chrome, and now election integrity, following a presidential vote recount after discovering Russian interference.

Ok, that’s the good news. Here are the takeaways from D’s Meet the Press interview, which unfortunately did not conclude with him being taken away. The kakistocracy has already filled the bowl up to the seat but isn’t close to stopping. The world’s most powerful traffic court lawyer, Alina Habba raises the number of blond leggy presidential advisors to “Austin Powers” levels. Journalist David Corn moves up a dozen slots on the administration shitlist with his history of Kash Patel, future director of the US Staatssicherheit.

David Waldman counts the days until our next big national funding crisis. Crises more than two weeks off seem like science fiction, don’t they? Won’t we have solved it with AI by then? AI might be a lousy search engine, but it will argue with you as well as any idiot. “Giving a woman an orgasm on purpose is gay” is not AI, but an actual idiot’s opinion. AI also could never have predicted what really motivated economically anxious Republicans in the election.

President Joe Biden will hopefully prioritize KITM staff pardons, but Liz Cheney and Anthony Fauci are probably first in line.

The "Deny, Defend, Depose" shooter is still at large, flashing his dashing Gyllenhaalian smile while cleverly changing his backpack color, number of coat pockets, and means of transportation to elude the authorities, as ballads are sung of his exploits. We are reminded that it’s unseemly to pattern one’s social movement on the acts of law breakers. Now someone else at United Healthcare will need to sign off on hundreds of millions in ransomware payments.

Devout breeder Elon Musk isn’t quite a devout Christian but is ok with you worshiping him. Elon sits at the right hand of Trump, because he outbid all of the other saviors. Musk spent $20 million on a fake “RBG” PAC, because the only thing more important that control to Elon is trolling.

Trump’s working on the budget as well, helping weed out any funding not going to an Elon Musk venture, even if it means firing Louis DeJoy. Instead of a gold standard, perhaps we can base our economy on pump and dumping meme stocks? Hawk Tuah!

House Republicans blocked release of the Matt Gaetz ethics report, because they can.  Democratic Representative Sean Casten might still force them to release it, though.

David Waldman... and Greg Dworkin... on the same show? Find out on today’s KITM!

The UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting seems to point to one culprit, that being a nationwide guillotine shortage. The "Deny, Defend, Depose" movement hopes to remedy that, however our supplier of democracy in France might be facing heavy domestic demand soon.

Speaking of collapses, the Democratic party could do worse than to adopt that “DDD” slogan. It sure beats using “The Resistance” again. Kash Patel only has 60 people on his enemy list, and it already made a mess of MSNBC’s underwear.

Musk and Ramaswamy found about a quarter of their cost cutting so far, eliminating federal prisons, the FBI, veterans' health care, and annoying Musk competitors. Easy Peasy. Try reaching for Republican pork and see how many fingers you take back.

Pete Hegseth tries the “Please Baby, Baby please!” defense. Pete had Trump with the bigotry, torture and sexual abuse, but seems to have lost him with all the alcohol. If only Hegseth had lied better. Trump loves liars.

It seems that a small plurality of the electorate doesn’t mind liars either. Republicans microtargeted their lies to Americans during the election using the latest technology... effectively. How did the Russian-backed candidate win in Romania? TikTok, Democrats!

South Korea’s President tried one little coup and now everybody’s sore at him. Worse yet, Yoon Suk Yeol can only find one guy to throw under his bus. Trump won’t make that mistake.

There’s a rainbow of revolutions out there. Crave Syria news? Blue Sky might not be the place. The bad place might still be the place. When I find myself forced into exTwitter, I search Threads for the author and almost always find the exact same post. Try it, it’s fun!

Is this nation on the wrong track? David Waldman and Greg Dworkin discuss all the ways we have derailed. except for any new wreckage this afternoon, which we’ll get to tomorrow.

Whatever you have on your Dems failure bingo card, you can’t count Silicon Valley. The made billions off of Democrats, now they are making billions off of Republicans.

America has always been at war with Eastasia, Canada. America has always been at war with Eurasia, Mexico. They are our greatest allies, except that we are at war with them. Sacrifices need to be made in these times of war.

Manhattan 5th floor windows are locked shut at this time of year. UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead on 6th Avenue.

Presidential Apprentice has been rebooted due to a slight popular demand, and as sequels tend to go, it promises to be much more and much worse. The Biden White House had zero exciting indictments, convictions, or even rapists, as if it was American Idol hosted by Ted Lasso. This time, contestants exit in shame when they’re deemed not vile enough to compete. Right now, the season is Kash Patel’s to lose. Kash will trim the FBI down to Scully and Mulder and assign them to a full-time investigation of the incoming secretary of defense Tater Tot Ron Desantis crime family. Ron is replacing nominee Pete Hegseth, who has been implicated in a sex scandal with almost every woman in America.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol imposed martial law. Before morning, the South Korean State Council lifted the order. Go to bed South Korea, you’re drunk! They’ll probably impeach him by afternoon, as they are a lot more efficient over there.

And in Syria they recross the killing fields that they have crossed many times before.

Ok, so what matters again? David Waldman helps us ponder that today. In a couple of weeks, the government runs out of funding, which is the goal of course, but all too early in the midst of the Christmas shopping and inauguration bribing season. Then comes tariff season, which slides right into trade war season, which soon becomes real war season, and before you know it, we won’t need to go to austerity, austerity will have come for us.

That is, it’ll come for anyone Kash Patel hasn’t already come for. Or any of the rest of the posse heading to the roundup. Trump lamprey Dinesh D’Souza has moved on from 2,000 Mules, to become the administration Riefenstahl, or perhaps scribe for Patel’s Littlefinger.

It is impossible to be too corrupt for the upcoming administration, but Pete Hegseth keeps trying to make it happen. Pete, a notorious womanizer because of all his rapenizing, is also a crusader for Crusading, and any other war crimes not covered by religion.

Joe Biden did not pardon his son, Hunter. But he would have even if Kash Patel wasn’t nominated, or Kamala would have... or even Trump, because who doesn’t love Hunter?

Chinese Crypto Magician Justin Sun ate a banana in front of reporters while $18 million magically appeared in Trump’s pocket.

So that’s it for the rule of law… following shame into the abyss. “The most corrupt cop in history” apparently didn’t get the memo. All we have left is procedure, and who knows how long that will last.

David Waldman returns from the long… well, normal, weekend… wishing that he hadn’t let those other two days slip by without a KITM.  Everyone will just need to listen twice as hard to help catch up.

Yesterday, Joe Biden blew his reelection chances for 2028, pardoning his son Hunter Biden, which is the kind of outrageous thing his predecessor would have done, and that his successor will do. In fact, Joe’s successor is kind of mad he didn’t get to miscarriage that justice some first. Some of D’s previous pardons were so tremendous, he might need to do them a few more times. You can bet that he’ll pardon just about any recidivist he can find this time around.

Meanwhile, a few generations of Dems have discovered that going high has actually been leading with their chin.  Joe needs to issue a few thousand more pardons before he goes out, and Kash Patel and his next twelve recess-appointed successors come in. Or perhaps Kash will be recess-appointed twelve times; it might take him a while to rout the Deep State.

Greg Dworkin’s Handbasket of Hellish Cabinet Choices overflows with Pete Hegseth, established expert in financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct. A disappointment and embarrassment to his mother, he probably makes his grandma sick.

Elon Musk’s AI turns on him, but why not one of his cars, maybe a robot or a missile or two? At least Bernie still likes him.

Anti-Affordable Care Act provisions protecting rights to health care choices are now protecting abortion rights. Thanks Obama!

Small subgroups of the population seem much larger to many Americans than they really are. (Not me. I’m snugly embubbled between the two largest concentrations of “subgroups” in Ohio.)

Oh man, right when the Middle East was completely stabilized, something new goes haywire. Rebels have attacked Aleppo in Syria, which is Trump’s fault probably. Saudi Arabia now pivots… to Saudi Arabia.

David Waldman brings us a Door-Busting Black Friday KITM!

The D 2.0 post-truth post-satire post-irony administration has scored its first historically tremendous victory by imposing massive tariffs upon Mexico, who then unilaterally surrendered, finally closing their open border and ceasing all of their fentanyl shipments. You can believe or not believe that, or even present facts or logic to contradict it... Go ahead. If there is any “reality” left anymore, political reality could even stymie it for a while.

Or... maybe the point of our new government isn’t to get anything done, but to villainize and foment hatred against all government, using the government mechanisms of public meetings and hearings to put names and faces to their enemies to keep the mad money flowing. Their enemy list will grow longer of course, but that leaves more power and money for the ones who remain.

Happy holidays!