Whoosh And They're Gone
Well that was fun. In last week's welcome bit of comic relief, we got the vapid rise and rapid fall - despite requisite blonde hair, faux smile and passing resemblance to Ivanka - of "manifestly unqualified" Barbie News Reader and fake Chinese lawyer Katie Zacharia after a brutal debut. So much for MAGA meritocracy. SAD! Zacharia set a new speed record - half a Mooch - in a job akin to Spinal Tap drummer. But the question remains: When will the incompetent male dolts get fired?
While by far not the most substantive Trump blunder, it was one of the most cringeworthy, exposing (again) the profound ineptitude of his shambolic rule just before voters go to the polls to render judgment on it. In less than a week, Zacharia managed to get plucked from right-wing obscurity, be "shoehorned" into a job far beyond her skillset, humiliate herself before millions, go on Fox and stammeringly fail to redeem herself, and get fired by a capricious, perennial loser who got famous fake-firing people on TV and now daily exposes his own clownish unfitness for his job. One astute observer: "I'm starting to think this Donald guy might not have any idea what he's doing."
Born Kate Sharon Black in 1984, Zacharia grew up in California in the "liberal cesspool” of Cambria; she was the conservative “black sheep” of her family "thanks to the great, late Rush Limbaugh, who raised me as a kid on the radio." Describing a clash with woke patrons of her "cardio kickboxing gym," she said the owner once asked her not to wear her "Trump 2024" hat but "I would never take my Trump hat off to appease the left." A Pizzagate, Qanon and Stop the Steal buff, she was a "huge fan of ICE and Border Patrol" who briefly worked for Kristi Noem and a commentator for right-wing TV before being spotted by Trump, maybe because she scheduled her gigs when she thought he'd be watching. Totally normal.
Officials looking to replace Karoline Leavitt had reportedly narrowed down the list of candidates "only to find that (they'd) said something negative about (Trump)," which of course wouldn't do for the fragile toddler. Thus did uber-obsequious, ringlet-bottle-blonde "lizard person" Zacharia take to the podium, blare "Good morning!!" in a sing-songy screech, and stumble through a smiley, halting, inflection-challenged briefing about Trump's "historic one-day war," "attendance at record highs as enthusiastic hardworking Americans are lining up and packing arenas," a "booming economy....and a, um, he, great relationship...with Venezuela...um, and...my president, excuse me, my husband, that's a good one..." Not.
After the one question on Ukraine, and the famous, “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” it was over. 14 minutes, or forever in bimbo time. It got worse. The oft-repeated claims of being a lawyer when she’d failed the bar - weirdly, thanks Hannity - and of working in China on “international transaction law” when she was basically a paid intern. The verdict: "A train wreck," "a joke hire," "talk about a public execution," "between the 3rd-grade level reading and the fake attorney in China thing, brutal." Anti-DEI,.scandal-plagued Rick Santorum's glowing review: She was "not even close to the worst." Trump's lazy excuse: "I told her, 'If I were you, I'd reconsider.'" Fox: She's "transitioning" out of the job she held for 14 minutes.
It was a made-for-the-Internet spectacle. The White House declared, "She’ll be remembered as one of the all-time greats." America proclaimed, "She's gonna be a punchline for a very long time." Democratic strategist Mike Nellis clarified, "She wasn't fired because she lied,” a Trump requisite, but because "she was a bad liar." Another requisite: Michael Steele mused no more "blonde white female pronouncing his noise in a way that makes him feel good.” Some selfishly mourned the loss: "Please let her last long enough to hold a second briefing - I need the joy." Some empathized with SNL writers stuck with Friday night rewrites. Some were shocked: "I can't believe her husband, I mean president, fired her."
Though no press secretary really matters because Trump daily lies, veers, makes things up, some speculated on the next one: Scott Jennings, Katie Miller, Melissa McCarthy doing Sean Spicer. The Borowitz Report announced it's George Santos, who was "thrilled...I will bring to this job my experience not only as a lawyer but as a doctor and astronaut.” Also, he was cutting short his reunion tour "with his fellow Beatles." Some noted Zacharia "was press secretary longer than she was a lawyer." Others asserted they'd had blueberries, bananas, takeout and lettuce in their fridge longer than she had her job. Also that the U.K's Liz Truss lasted longer, as did the head of lettuce that often competed with her.
Some mulled Zacharia's future: "Next: memoir and book tour," "Now she can go back to studying for the bar, or at least its cocktail menu," "She is leaving 'to spend more time with my children, who will teach me how to read.'" A guy met her years ago on a cruise ship: She was telling a friend she'd partied the night before and slept in. They told her she'd missed them crossing the equator that morning. She said, "Oh, what did it look like?" Some waxed lyrical: "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives." Some lamented inflation: "I remember when you could get a few months of work out of a press secretary. Now they're like those new batteries - they look like they'll last but whoosh and they're gone."
In honor of her historic reign, Wikipedia’s “List Of Humorous Units Of Measurement” was updated to include the “Zacharia,” a “fractional unit of a Scaramucci,” the previous record for Anthony Scaramucci's 11 days as press secretary in Trump's first term. The change prompted heated debate, pained mathematical equations, admiration: "Nobody thought anything could go faster than the speed of Mooch, but here we are." There were questions - Are Mooches a metric system? Would that be 45 centi-Mooches? - and answers: "They convert at a 5/11 ratio." Talk turned existential: "A Scaramucci was a measure of time. A Zacharia is more ethereal, a measure of being, a disconnect between one’s story and one's purpose...Beautiful really."
And there was anger Zacharia got fired but Trump's still here, that the media and GOP have let him "get away with LYING ABOUT EVERY GODDAMNED THING...from 2015 SPOUTING THAT OBAMA BIRTH CERTIFICATE SHIT AND EVERY OTHER FUCKING LIE HE’S TOLD SINCE." And, in the last few months, that half of eight female officials have resigned or been fired, all replaced by men. That consistently inept, unhinged, corrupt, sick idiots like Hegseth, Patel, Lutnick, Goebbels, Vance etc lie, cheat, rave, royally screw up yet keep their jobs. What the fuck. Meanwhile Zacharia, still sketchy, posts altered photos from the Oval Office and declares the guy who threw her under the bus "kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic and hard-working...No one will ever make America great the way he has and continues to." Damn, we hope not.
Helpful Press Secretary conversion table.Image from Bluesky
US Officials Face Fresh Pressure After Another American 'Brutalized' by Israeli Settlers in West Bank
"One town over from Abu Falah and was attacked on the same day," he noted. "They're really cracking down here."
The journalist pointed out that six weeks ago, President Donald Trump's ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, "stood in a home in Turmus 'Ayya, telling residents they deserved peace, condemning settler terror, and promising severe consequences."
"Today, settlers burned American homes and assaulted US citizens here," he continued. "No accountability in sight."
"Meanwhile, Huckabee just gave the keynote speech at a settlement conference alongside Eliram Azoulay, one of the key figures in ethnically cleansing Masafer Yatta," Nathaniel added.
Israeli settlers set fire to a house and attack Palestinians in Turmus 'Ayya, a town in the illegally occupied West Bank, on October 19, 2026. (Photo by Avishay Mohar/Facebook)
Avishay Mohar, who is part of Activestills, "an independent photography collective engaged in decolonial struggles in Palestine/Israel since 2005," described the Monday attack with photographs on his Facebook and Instagram accounts.
"Israelis set fire to a house and attack Palestinian olive harvesters in Turmus 'Ayya as they picked olives in a residential area between the village's houses," he wrote in the caption. "Over the years, Israel has taken nearly all of the village's land. The Israelis, dressed in black and wearing masks, severely beat an elderly farmer with sticks and sharp objects."
"They threw stones at houses, set two cars on fire, and burned a room in one of the homes," according to Mohar. "Later, Israeli army forces arrived along with other Israeli civilians, including one known for building new outposts in the area. They threatened residents with tear gas if they did not leave immediately, and banned them from blocking the road leading from the violent outposts to the village homes."
The United States' largest Muslim civil rights group and its Chicago chapter demanded action from US policymakers—who have increased the billions of dollars in military aid that they give to Israel annually since Israeli forces began a genocidal war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack.
Throughout Israel's assault on Gaza—which has killed over 74,000 people—there has been a surge of violence by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank, leading to the deaths of more than 1,100 Palestinians and multiple Americans.
"Once again, the extremist thugs supported and enabled by the Israeli government have brutalized an American citizen. Enough is enough. Failing to speak out about this and demand accountability is a betrayal of the American people in favor of a foreign state," said the Council on American-Islamic Relations and CAIR-Chicago in a Monday statement.
"We call on Illinois lawmakers to condemn this vicious attack. We call on members of Congress to demand the US government place sanctions on illegal Israeli settlers and the Israeli military," they continued. "We call on Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs to divest Illinois' public funds from Israel bonds and halt all new purchases and renewals."
They added that "Illinois taxpayers should not be bankrolling a government that enables attacks on American citizens. We also call on the US government to launch an independent investigation into the attacks on Mohammed Sakat, Heidi Levine, and all other Americans targeted by Israeli settlers and troops."
Between the Israeli settler assaults of Levine and Sakat, there were reports that Israel's military ignored repeated distress calls before masked settlers attacked a group of European diplomats in the West Bank over the weekend.
While the Israel Defense Forces attempted to defend itself by saying the diplomats did not coordinate their visit with the military and turned to a hotline not intended for civilian use, the anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence said that "the IDF will always have a bureaucratic excuse, but the real reason is that backing settler terrorists is its policy."
According to The Associated Press, "Israeli police said they arrested 10 people on Monday in connection with a wave of settler violence that included attacks on a foreign journalist and European diplomats in the occupied West Bank over the weekend."
However, as the Palestinian National Authority's news agency WAFA noted in a Monday report about three olive harvesters injured by Israeli settlers near Salfit, "colonists' violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities."
