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Staircase to Nowhere: MAGA's Crowning Achievement
In a perhaps unprecedented dark time for America and the world, let us take solace in our indomitable Dear Stable Genius, who remains unwaveringly focused on taking care of shiny business: Gold social security cards like Elvis, a $400 million, lopsided shed/ballroom with gaudy columns but no main entrance, and of course gold toilets - which all keeps him so busy he hardly has time to threaten Iran with war crimes. What a time to be alive, barely.
In actual good news, No Kings Day 3.0 drew between 8 and 12 million people, thus hovering tantalizingly close to the 3.5% of a nation's populace historically required to overthrow an authoritarian regime. So good work, patriots. The over 3,000 protests, aka per Mike Johnson "Hate America rallies," ranged from Alaska's Utqiaġvik, the country's northernmost city (7 people) to Ele'ele, Kaua'i, the westernmost, from over 100,000 in New York City to nine stalwarts on Maine's Monhegan Island. Thousands of Trump's neighbors in Palm Beach turned out, ending with a twilight march to Mar-A-Lago, or as close as they could get.
Their signs were brutal: "Elect A Rapist, Expect To Get Fucked. How Many Deaths For the Epstein War? Worst President Since Trump. Criminals Belong Behind Bars, Free Balls for Members of Congress Who Lost Them, Trump Rapes Kids, Impeach Pedolf Shitler, Putin's Bitch, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. According to The Borowitz Report, Trump, furious about the large protests, argued they'd be much smaller if you subtract all Elon Musk's kids there because they hate him: "People are saying their number (was) much higher than 400, thousands, maybe millions. You take away Elon’s kids and almost no one was there."
There were also "half-dozens to dozens of Americans" at One King co unter-protests, reports The Fucking News, who put the number at "many-ish...Organizers say there were barely any organizers," with attendees ranging from "a tiny number of young people to a die-hard faction of dying people." In Palm Beach, one man carried a heavy sign that read, "Deport the white liberals"; masked to protect himself "against the vindictive left," he said he left soon after he was "attacked" by a woman who denied touching him; her comrades said the guy just dropped his sign "because he was too weak to carry it."
Their small numbers did face competition from "the incredible shrinking CPAC," also meeting that day in Grapevine, Texas with a turnout of "barely thousands." Once a MAGA "center of political gravity," this year's event drew neither Trumps nor presidential candidates. One possible ick factor: MC was (still) CPAC chair Matt Schlapp, who in 2024 settled a pricey sexual misconduct lawsuit from a guy working on Hershel Walker’s (LOL) Senate campaign, who charged Schlapp groped him. The event did boast Todd Chrisley, a reality TV star doing 12 years in prison for massive fraud till Trump pardoned him. Here’s his welcome.
There was also a big contingent of South Korean “stop the steal” activists and supporters of former president Yoon Suk Yeol, impeached last year and now serving life in prison for insurrection. Still, the whole thing was a bit of a slog. Organizers tried to jazz up session subjects - a panel titled "Fraud" became “Ilhan Omar ‘Family’ Values"; Mercedes Schlapp beseeched factions not to "divide from within," which is how you divide; and when Schlapp asked them, the clueless CPAC "crowdette" mistakenly, hilariously cheered the prospect of impeachment proceedings by what could be a newly-Democratic-controlled House. SAD!
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Poor deplorable MAGA. Maybe they're disheartened by Trump's well-deserved plunging approval rating, now at barely 33%. Maybe it's because their regime is such a half-assed shitshow and their people are such self-serving, hypocritical dickwads. As in: Amidst a government shutdown that's seen TSA agents (starting salary $34,454) compelled to work without pay as Congress takes a two-week recess (pay over $170,000) on the taxpayers' dime, TMZ urged readers to send in photos of vacationing pols, and here comes Lindsey Graham at Disney World, “The Most Magical Place On Earth," gaily twirling a Little Mermaid bubble wand yet. America and Megyn Kelly: WTF.
Or maybe it's because Commander-In-Chief Private Bonespurs started another forever quagmire without legal or political justification, and it turns out wars in the Middle East are hard and complex and above his pay grade - like health care! - to solve, and now with no good options he's spewing up only staggering incoherence for strategy, like hailing "great progress" in imaginary "serious discussions" while pivoting to rabidly threatening to "conclude our lovely 'stay’ in Iran" by "obliterating" their civilian infrastructure, electricity, energy and drinking water, which is a war crime. But talks are going “unbelievably well."
Serious discussions with IranImage from Australia's The Shovel
Anyway, his true passion is turning every crass, stupid thing he or Elvis can think of fake gold like the Oval bordello and even Social Security cards, and slathering his repulsive name on structures, coins, currency, and building trashy, illegal monuments to himself like an obscene, unapproved, un-permitted, $400 million ballroom twice the size of the White House, because, "They’ve always wanted a ballroom," except now it's suddenly, "essentially a shed for what goes under it," a massive military complex, presumably a bunker where, as merciful history would have it, he'll finally free us of him, "and we're doing it very well."
He's so ballroom-enraptured that on Air Force One he just pulled out a swath of drawings to show reporters, explaining, "I thought I’d do this now because it’s easier. I’m so busy...fighting wars and other things." Quick mindless pivot to "hand-carved, beautiful, Corinthian columns" - "Corinthian wut" - he's also reportedly re-imagining for the White House facade, a change deemed "at odds with universally held historic preservation standards." Same, experts say of "barely scrutinized" ballroom plans, "riddled with design flaws" - disproportionate, pillars block windows, grand staircase to nowhere. WH lackey on "the best builder in the world": "The American people can rest well knowing this project is in his hands.” We feel better already.
Trump's "plan" for his oversized shed/ballroomImages from New York Times
And then there's his new gold toilet, mounted on a 10-foot throne near the Lincoln Memorial. The new masterwork of Secret Handshake (Best Friends Forever), it celebrates the renovation of the White House Lincoln Bedroom bathroom, all in gold, and "what this President has actually accomplished." The toilet's plaque reads, “In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict, and economic turmoil, President Trump focused on what truly mattered: remodeling the Lincoln Bathroom....This, his crowning achievement, is a bold reminder that (he) isn’t just a businessman, he’s taking care of business. It stands as a tribute to an unwavering visionary who looked down, saw a problem, and painted it gold.”
A Throne Fit For a King. Photo from Secret Handshake
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Experts Alarmed by ‘Way-Off-the-Scale Warmth’ as Snow Drought Hits Western US
One of the worst Western US snow droughts of the century—exacerbated by a historically warm winter and a record-shattering March heatwave—has experts increasingly worried about wildfire and water supply risks heading into the spring and summer months.
On Wednesday, the California Department of Water Resources reported "no measurable snow" recorded at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada range. Because there was some visible snow already on the ground, DWR is calling this the second-lowest April measurement on record.
The agency said this is "a stark indicator of how record‑hot March temperatures and high‑elevation rain have erased the Sierra Nevada snowpack months ahead of schedule."
"The combination of warm storms and unusually hot temperatures rapidly melted what remained of this year’s already sparse snowpack," DWR added. "Statewide, the snowpack is now just 18% of average for this date, according to the automated snow sensor network."
DWR Director Karla Nemeth said that “it feels like we skipped spring this year and dropped straight into a summer heatwave."
“What should be gradual snowmelt happened suddenly weeks ago," Nemeth added. "We’re seeing fewer, warmer storms and shorter wet seasons. Future water supplies will depend upon our ability to capture water when it’s available and manage it more efficiently.”
(Image by US Department of Agriculture)
Jeff Mount, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, told the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday: "It didn’t snow where we needed it to snow, and where it did snow, it didn’t stick. This is going to be an ugly summer."
Oregon's iconic Crater Lake is experiencing its lowest snow water equivalent levels on record for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service.
In Colorado, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data show the statewide snowpack is at just 26% of median levels as of Thursday.
“This year is on a whole other level,” Colorado State University climatologist Russ Schumacher told The Guardian. "Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning."
Last week, the Denver Board of Water Commissioners declared Stage 1 drought restrictions, a move that seeks to reduce water use by 20%.
“The snowpack within Denver Water’s collection system has deteriorated significantly and continues to decline,” said Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s manager of water supply. “Snowpack levels in both basins are now the lowest observed in the past 40 years, with accelerated melting underway. The conditions we are experiencing are unprecedented, and we need customers to save water to protect the supply we have right now.”
April measurements of alpine snowpacks—which are sometimes described as water savings accounts—typically indicate peak levels of water that, with spring warming, melt into reservoirs, rivers, and other bodies that help hydrate the West during the parched summer and fall months.
“March is often a big month for snowstorms,” Schumacher said. “Instead of getting snow we would normally expect we got this unprecedented, way-off-the-scale warmth.”
“This year has the potential of being way worse than any of the years we have analogues for in the past,” he added.
As University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources climate scientist Daniel Swain explained last week:
Meteorologically speaking, March 2026 will go down in the record books as the warmest March on record for at least a third, and possibly half or more, of the continental United States. But even more remarkable is the ~10 day window of peak heat during this truly exceptional March heatwave—when many, if not most, locations across the western two thirds of the United States in a broad swath stretching from the Pacific Coast in California eastward past the Mississippi River broke their all-time March monthly heat records. The margin by which March heat records were shattered was so wide that more than a handful of locations also broke their all-time April heat records, and in a few locations even tied or broke their May heat records!
“Beyond the conspicuous ‘weirdness’ of it all, the most consequential impact of our record-shattering March heat will likely be the decimation of the water year 2025-26 snowpack across nearly all of the American west," Swain warned. "The toll wrought on our 'water tower in the sky' is nothing short of shocking."
The National Interagency Fire Center is among those projecting above-normal fire risk throughout the American West in the coming months.
“Unless there’s a major change in the weather patterns and we somehow pull out some sort of miracle springtime precipitation, we’re looking at an extended fire season,” Joel Lisonbee, senior associate scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, told The Guardian.
In addition to the risk of drought and wildfire, low water levels threaten wildlife, including California's flagging salmon runs—which are also imperiled by Trump administration actions including habitat disruption caused by water flow manipulation.
“No sooner do we start to gain a little ground back in rebuilding our salmon runs, the federal Bureau of Reclamation is destroying them again,” Vance Staplin, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, told The Sacramento Bee last week. "These fish are in big trouble if the bureau doesn’t relent very soon.”
Scientists have long warned that planetary heating driven by human burning of fossil fuels will result in longer and more frequent snow droughts. One 2020 study showed how the Western United States is fast becoming a "global snow drought hot spot," with the length of such dry spells increasing by 28% between 1980 and 2018.
“Climate change is going to result in a lot of these extreme events worsening,” Clark University climatologist Abby Frazier told The Guardian on Thursday. "It is heartbreaking to see it all playing out as we have predicted for so long. The changes we have teed up for ourselves are going to be catastrophic.”
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