Finally Friday Reads: Is it Over yet?

“Crappy New Year!” John Buss,
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s only 3 days into 2025.  It feels a lot longer.  I’m exhausted. It’s difficult to wake up one day and be asked by the FaceBook AI to mark yourself safe from the Attack on New Orleans. It was good that I hadn’t sipped that hot tea yet because buying a new computer was way out of my budget. Yesterday, my news feed was flooded with notifications from friends and neighbors marking themselves safe. It was surreal. All I see everywhere is Attack on Bourbon. We even have one of those newsroom theme songs.

The 2025 chaos has already started. They held the Sugar Bowl at a heavily fortified Super Dome. Bourbon Street reopened with several of the city’s preachers leading a second line.  People went back to work because even if you do work you’re desperate from the affordable housing shortage plaguing the entire country. We’re still stunned and tired.

People got to see our lousy governor and our very drunk Senator while the New Orleans leader contingent paid second and third fiddles and was blamed for not doing what they’ve been doing for decades superbly.  The presser included a drunk Senator John Neely Kennedy spitting tobacco into a red plastic cup while looking like he’d been drinking still.  He shoved the FBI Special Agent–a black woman–away from the microphone where she was answering a reporter’s question.  Social Media is not treating him kindly and righteously so.

Our local news tagged him right.  This is from Tommy Tucker at WWL. “Tommy Tucker calls out Sen. John Kennedy’s display following the Bourbon Street attack: You’re a U.S. Senator—act like it.”

That said, during times of crisis, it’s our local, state, and national leaders who are expected to act with prudence and do their best to avoid placing personal grievances and their egos above what’s best for the citizens who elected them to serve.

That’s not what we saw from Louisiana Senator John Kennedy yesterday.

The press conference, where the bodies of the victims were still lying on Bourbon Street, was not the time to make cheap political points by taking shots at the director of Homeland Security or the media.

Senator, I know you. I know you’re better than that. You’re smarter than that. Act better than that because it embarrasses our state and our city.

Again, I know you. And that comedic rooster act yesterday isn’t who you are.

You’re a U.S. senator, for the love of God. Act like it because calling for unity while making cheap political points at a press conference is nothing other than contradictory.

If you disagree, call in, please, because I’d love to talk to you about it. As I understand it, we tried to get you on yesterday, but you refused. You didn’t have time to come on WWL—the official emergency management station of New Orleans—but did have time to go on Fox and spread misinformation, like claiming the federal government doesn’t have, or will care to provide, the necessary resources to investigate and deal with this horrific attack.

Senator, do yourself and the state of favor: resign your damn seat and let another Republican take over—someone who won’t do a Foghorn Leghorn impersonation and make a mockery of themself during one of the darkest moments in their state’s history.

Just so you can see that Kennedy’s Schtick isn’t real, these clips compiled by Ron FilipKowski will show the difference between the Senator when he was the State Treasurer and now. He’s really not that stupid. Kennedy graduated from Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia School of Law before attending Oxford University. He just plays stupid for the state’s swamp billies and KKK remenents.

I made this montage of clips of LA Sen John Kennedy. The old clips are when Kennedy was a Democrat and was Treasurer for LA. The new clips are after he switched parties to Republican. Check the difference.

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) 2025-01-03T15:09:40.593Z

I’m always left with the big question of why it is that suicidal cis men can’t commit suicide without taking a contingent of innocents and law enforcement folks with them. They must be deluded into thinking they have the last word.  It’s the ultimate Act of ManSplaining.

The entire MAGA contingent and their propaganda media whores are still suggesting that this American who served in the U.S. Army and was the Son of Americans was somehow a border-crossing invader instead of a man who just couldn’t deal with the challenges of modern life in American and found purpose in radicalizing his religion to the detriment of the world.

Then, we got the Tesla bomber.  A Green Beret on leave making some kind of statement while wiring a Tesla to burn in front of a Trump Property. At least he shot himself, and no one else got killed in whatever statement he was trying to make on the way out the earthly door. The more we learn about him, the more I want to stay indoors and away from people I haven’t known for a long time. This is from the Daily Beast. “Suspected Las Vegas Cybertruck Bomber Was a ‘Big’ Trump Supporter: Source. Sources say, Matthew Livelsberger, a Green Beret who enlisted in the U.S. Army as a teenager, was a fan of the president-elect.”  I’m waiting for a J6 “rally” and a Charlottesville march with very “decent people on both sides” now. It’s deja vu all over again.

The man suspected of being behind Tesla Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas was a “big” supporter of Donald Trump and voted for him in November, a senior law enforcement official tells the Daily Beast.

That revelation came from an interview between Matthew Livelsberger’s loved ones and investigators, the source said. His family added that they believed the 37-year-old Green Beret, who died in Wednesday’s blast outside Trump International Hotel, had Republican leanings.

The revelation tracks with old Facebook comments and what Livelsberger’s uncle, Dean, told The Independent about his nephew’s politics on Thursday.

“He loved Trump, and he was always a very, very patriotic soldier, a patriotic American,” Dean said. “It’s one of the reasons he was in Special Forces for so many years.”

Records in El Paso County, Colo., indicate that he registered in 2020 with the No Labels party, which supports centrist “commonsense” candidates, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. The same email Livelsberger used to sign up for LinkedIn was listed in a data breach last year that revealed he had an account on the far-right news website The Post Millennial.

Much remains unknown about what allegedly drove Livelsberger to rent a Cybertruck in his hometown of Colorado Springs and drive it to Trump’s Las Vegas property.

The truck was filled with explosives and, perhaps miraculously, only injured seven when it burst into flames just steps from the hotel’s front lobby. Livelsberger was the only fatality in the blast.

These two stories completely ran this one off of the news for days. This is from People Magazine. “10 People Injured After Multiple Males Fired Over 30 Shots in N.Y.C. Nightclub Shooting. “Let me start by saying that there’s zero tolerance for these senseless shootings,” NYPD Chief Philip Rivera said at a press conference.”  Notice a trend here?

Police say the venue was at capacity with 90 people inside at the time of the incident, therefore a line of about 15 people formed outside. The venue is named Amazura, according to ABC7, The Guardian and FOX5.

“Three to four males then opened fire over 30 times in the direction of the group standing outside the event space, striking multiple victims,” Rivera said.

The suspects fled the scene and were seen getting into a Sedan with out-of-state license plates, according to authorities.

Police noted that out of the 10 victims, six were females and four were male.

All victims were taken to nearby hospitals and “are expected to recover with non-life-threatening injuries,” per the NYPD.

Rivera encouraged people to speak up if they have any information about the crime, saying, “The public has been very instrumental in the recent weeks to help us capture dangerous individuals like these four men.”

Police are investigating the cause of the crime, though Rivera said it was “not a terrorist attack.”

ABC7 reports that the gathering was to celebrate the birthday of Tae’arion Mungo, a 16-year-old who was fatally shot in Brooklyn in October 2024.

The Republican House Speaker Brawl is headed to new lows this month.  President Eject Incontinentia’s buttocks are lobbying Republicans to support Moses on the Bayou.  John Thune is now the Senate Majority Leader.  It will be an interesting few years with these razor-thin Republican majorities and a fairly united Democratic Party. This is from AXIOS and the analysis is by Andrew Solendar. “House GOP tensions erupt ahead of speaker vote.”

House Republicans’ chronic infighting is resurfacing in spectacular fashion in the run-up to Friday’s vote to elect a speaker of the House.

Why it matters: Right-wing hardliners and allies of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) are at each others’ throats in a likely preview of what is to come in the next two years.

• Johnson is struggling to secure the support he needs to retain his gavel, with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) digging in in opposition and claiming to reporters several of his colleagues will join him in voting no.
• With a 219-215 majority and Democrats firmly behind House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Johnson will likely not be able to afford multiple GOP defections.
• A number of House Republicans, mostly members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, still refuse to commit to voting for Johnson.

Driving the news: Johnson’s skeptics are circulating an unsigned memo, a copy of which was obtained by Axios, outlining his “4 ‘successes’ and 26 ‘fails’ for House Republicans” since taking office in November 2023.

• The document homes in on the government spending bill Johnson shepherded through Congress last month along bipartisan lines.
• It also takes aim at Johnson for not pushing harder for spending cuts, passing aid to Ukraine and reauthorizing FISA.
• “The House must be organized to deliver on the historic mandate granted to President Trump and Republicans. It currently is not,” the memo says.

The other side: Johnson allies are growing increasingly frustrated with their right-wing colleagues.

• “Anybody who’s voting against the speaker to try to get personal favors or to try to get publicity needs to rethink why they’re in Congress,” fumed Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.).
• Another House Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Axios there is “a very small group within our party who are trying to extract something, not for the country … but for themselves.”

At least Matt Gaetz is gone.  Punchbowl News has information on what’s going on today as the House changes hands. “Johnson’s jam: It’s a new Congress but the same problems.*

Legislative business starts today at 11 a.m. with the closing of the 118th Congress. The new Congress begins at noon with the quorum call and the vote to elect a speaker.

And the 119th Congress will kick off with drama. Speaker Mike Johnson is facing an alarming revolt from conservative hardliners. Does this sound familiar? President-elect Donald Trump has been lobbying Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on Johnson’s behalf, as we scooped for you on Thursday. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a frequent Johnson critic, is backing him. But this may not be enough.

Johnson has a tenuous single-digit majority, while a dozen hardliners have publicly questioned whether he deserves to remain speaker.

Let’s be clear: It’s entirely possible that Johnson could lose the speakership today or this weekend, or that the balloting goes more than one round.

The latest. Johnson spent Thursday making phone calls and holding meetings in his Capitol office in a bid to shore up his vote count. Johnson met with members of the House Freedom Caucus, including Roy and GOP Reps. Ralph Norman (S.C.) and Victoria Spartz (Ind.), both of whom are still publicly undecided on whether they’ll back the Louisiana Republican again.

During the meeting, hardliners aired various grievances about Johnson while laying out a number of process reforms they want enacted. These include assurances on spending cuts, pay-fors and the use of the so-called suspension calendar, among other things. Johnson told reporters he’s “open” to some of these ideas.

Yet the most controversial topic discussed by far was whether Johnson should appoint Roy as chair of the Rules Committee. This has been one of the asks from some of the Freedom Caucus holdouts, we’re told by multiple sources. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) even raised it publicly in an interview on OANN. We wrote about the Roy-for-Rules-Committee-chair push Thursday morning.

But GOP leadership sources insist Johnson isn’t considering making Roy the Rules chair.

Roy has been a huge problem for Johnson and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy since he was added to the Rules panel, which controls what legislation gets on the floor and how it’s considered. Making Roy the chair would be an incredibly risky move for Johnson. It would give Roy gigantic sway over what gets to the floor and spur a backlash from moderates.

Roy was tight-lipped leaving the speaker’s office Thursday, as were other holdouts. The conservatives said they expect to speak with Johnson again before the roll-call vote today. Johnson, however, insisted on multiple occasions Thursday he’d win on the first ballot.

Remember this — for every inch Johnson yields to conservatives, he risks losing trust with the middle of the conference.

The team of reporters outlines three possible outcomes from today’s mess.  One includes Sleazy Steve Scalise, which always makes me gag.  This is the horse race analysis from The Washington Post team.  I chose my favorite part.

What might a delay in choosing a speaker mean for Trump’s agenda?

If there’s no speaker by Jan. 6, the House not only risks delaying the certification of the 2024 election — which is scheduled to happen on that day — but also delaying the implementation of Trump’s agenda. The incoming administration wants the GOP-led Congress to quickly pass policies addressing border security and energy-related reforms before working on reauthorizing Trump’s 2017 tax law.

I’m exhausted and plan to use my last few days without student obligations, being lazy.  I hope everything is going well for you and yours!

I’ll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Welcome to the return of this century’s lunatic.  We need a recut of this with a new slide show. This one shows Reagan, Saddam, and a bunch of the end of last century’s lunatics.