Fauci Inoculated Against Virulent Recurring Strain
Fugitive known as "Doctor" Fauci now believed to be at large after life-saving crime spree
Jan. 21: Trump still president somehow … But also, we’re still here somehow! … Trump spends day one breaking promises about what he’d do on day one … Lawyers ride to the rescue, suing Trump’s entire ass …
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There’s a lot of new news shit out there right now, Newsfuckers. The same media that successfully ignored tons of good that Pres. Joe Biden did because it was boring substance is now firehosing us with tons of bad from Pres. Donald Trump because it’s exciting or — Jesus save us — riveting. Trying to digest all of it is futile, not to mention numbing and disheartening. So don’t!
That’s what TFN is for. We’re more of a dissociated mess than an associated press, but we see it as a service to engage the firehose on your behalf and determine what’s actually useful for Newsfuckers to know on any given day. We won’t always get it right, but I’m going to try to shield you from the litany of executive orders and other things that seem urgent and terrible right now but are likely to spend the next several years in court.
Instead, TFN will try to focus on what matters — to you, our country, and our collective future — if only because it reinforces our faith in each other and the hope for better outcomes. News you can use! Hope is what keeps us engaged and/or getting out of bed in the morning. TFN is here to help. We won’t always nail it, but with your support, we’ll keep swinging the hammer.
Trump Betrays MAGA on Day One
Instead of slapping day-one tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, Pres. Donald Trump used his first day in re-office to save TikTok, the computer application that China uses to spy on us and try to make us like China.
Here’s what Trump posted on Nov. 26, 2024:
“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders. This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
Yesterday, Trump didn’t sign any necessary documents to do anything remotely like that, even though yesterday was January 20th. Now, there are a few arguments Trump can make here. For one thing, he didn’t say last year which January 20th he was talking about. He still has three more to go!
For another, yesterday doesn’t have to be January 20th. Any time he wants, Trump can rename yesterday Americuary 14th. Or Trumptember 38th. Problem solved!
What Trump did do yesterday instead of signing something with his hand was say something with his mouth, which is known for writing checks his hand doesn’t cash. Trump said he’ll impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico products imported from Canada and Mexico…on February 1.
As CNN reported, we’re talking about 25% price hikes on almost $900 billion worth of crap from Canada and Mexico…including avocados! Plus, y’know all that American crap we’re supposed to buy instead? A lot of it is made with parts that come from other countries. Which Trump says he’s going to slap with tariffs. (Just not yesterday.) Which will make them more expensive.
Instead, yesterday, Trump ordered a review of America’s trade agreement with the two still-their-own countries. That treaty, the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) was enacted by the deep state back in 2018 when the deep state was Trump. The review isn’t due until April 1, which by then is expected to be renamed January 20th.
Reneging on the USMCA, as CNN notes, could make it impossible for Trump to negotiate trade deals beneficial to America with any countries, because it might shake the otherwise rock-solid faith the world has that Trump’s word is his bond.
FLASHBACK It’s already woefully out of date, but we will eventually update the running tally that TFN last month started to track Trump’s broken promises.
UNINTRUMPTED CONSEQUENCES Trump has said he wants Europe to spend more money on their militaries. Well, actually he said he wants them to pay their full NATO dues, which don’t exist. What he means is that he wants them to live up to NATO’s defense-spending requirements.
But Trump also wants to level out the amount of shit Americans buy from Europe and vice versa. Right now, for instance, the biggest trade deficit is with Germany, which exports more to the U.S. than vice versa.
That’s part of Trump’s tariffs threats. If he makes European crap more expensive (for you to buy, MAGA Mensa members!) then, in theory, the trade levels might even out. But here’s the thing. If those trade levels do change, that ripples through European economies. And makes it harder for them to meet the military-spending levels Trump wants.
Sure enough, just hours before Biden for some reason allowed an insurrectionist to become president despite the 14th Amendment, a European Union official warned in an interview that Trump can’t have his cake and rape it, too.
Addressing Trump’s desired military-spending hikes, European Commission industry chief Stéphane Séjourné reportedly éxplainéd:
“We cannot do this with a trade war on our doorstep, and national budgets everywhere are not capable of increasing defense budgets to more than 3 percent.”
Current NATO requirements call for member states to spend 2% of their gross national product on weapons and death shit. Because it’s a percentage, not an absolute amount, the stronger their economy is, the more they’re supposed to spend on death products. NATO’s expected to hike the percentage to 3% this summer, but Trump has argued it should be as much as 5%.
It’s worth noting that the easiest way to meet these spending percentages is simply to keep spending steady but have a much worse economy, which is looking like a strong possibility.
TRUMP’S BOSS It’s hard to overstate how much Trump views the stock markets as indicators of his success and/or his need to fake his success.
And already the world’s economic indicators are frowning every time Trump threatens tariffs and smiling every time it looks like he’s full of shit. So, yeah, a roller-coaster.
CHINESE CHECKERS Instead of cracking down on China yesterday, Trump illegally suspended enforcement of U.S. law against TikTok operating here while it’s controlled by Chinese interests.
Trump said he’s delaying the ban by 75 days, which the bipartisan law doesn’t give him the power to do. Trump suggested the law’s conditions could be satisfied by forcing China’s communist government to sell off 50% of the popular social-media platform to a non-Chinese entity. It wasn’t immediately clear whether China would be permitted to retain Tik or Tok.1
Chinese officials argued that companies should get to make the decisions about selling or not selling. In fairness, Trump’s position that governments can tell companies what to do does sound a lot like communism!
Fauci Inoculated Against Virulent New Strain
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the government response to the COVID pandemic during Pres. Donald Trump’s first term, received a long-awaited shot in the arm yesterday morning from the departing administration.
In his last hours on the job, Pres. Joe Biden prescribed a pardon for Fauci, immunizing the 84-year-old doctor against the malignant new strain of petty abuse of power infecting the White House. For years, Fauci led the criminal cartel called the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also known as the NAFIA.
Biden issued doses of immunity for Fauci and others who were deemed vulnerable to the toxic, virulent mutations of Trump’s grudges. Also pardoned was Gen. Mark Milley, Trump’s former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Milley’s immunity was compromised during his time in the Trump administration, refusing to swallow Trump’s toxic demands for personal loyalty in violation of the oath Milley swore to uphold the Constitution.
Both Milley and Fauci now have immunity for literally everything they might have done or be accused of doing extending all the way back to Jan. 1, 2014. Trump’s only option for prosecuting the two now will be by uncovering/making up crimes they committed in 2013, or much more simply by renaming 2014 2013.
The pardons are believed to represent the first time Trump has ever been unable to touch whoever he wanted.
Trump Already Failing on Mass Deportations
Days before millions of Democratic voters stayed home and let Donald Trump become president, Trump vowed that, “On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out.”
Today is day two and Trump still hasn’t launched the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out. In fact, none of the 11 million of them were deported yesterday.
The undocumented immigrants are believed to remain at large throughout the country, keeping America’s crime rates low, assembling things in factories, picking fruit for us to eat, and packaging cow parts for us to slather onto the inside of our veins.
TFN will have more on Trump’s immigration incompetence in the near future. But this was a pretty simple thing that Trump had promised he would do.
Trump’s failure to make good on his promise suggests that sometimes he just says shit.
Trump Administration Already Being Sued
Your overpromising TFN promised this would happen, Newsfuckers, and happen it happed. Before the ink was dry on that Celtic rune that President Donald Trump calls a signature, the first lawsuits opposing his executive orders were in.
The Washington Post has a partial inventory (gift link because I love you) of some of the initial legal challenges to Trump’s illegal power grabs. Despite all the headlines yesterday, the actual outcomes won’t be known for months, possibly as late as whatever day he renames January 20th.
Among the suits Trump is now wearing or being fitted for:
Challenging the appointment of serial CEO Elon Musk, who’s so stupid he has more money than anyone, because the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) violates transparency laws requiring open meetings for government advisory panels.
Challenging Trump’s unconstitutional rejection of birthright citizenship, denying citizenship to babies born in the United States if Trump doesn’t like their parents.
Challenging these suits will be the best lawyers you could find from the ACLU and other advocacy organizations, while Trump will be forced to defend his orders with the best lawyers he can find.
PELTIER Native American activist Leonard Peltier was freed yesterday. He spent almost 50 years in prison denying killing two FBI agents.
The 80-year-old wasn’t pardoned. Biden commuted his sentence to home confinement, on the recommendation of prosecutors and other law enforcement, allowing the sickly Peltier to serve out the rest of his sentence at home with his family and loved ones.
Former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold the post, wrote:
“I am beyond words about the commutation of Leonard Peltier. His release from prison signifies a measure of justice that has long evaded so many Native Americans for so many decades. … I applaud President Biden for this action and understanding what this means to Indian Country.”
Trump Goes Soft on Crime, Pardons Thugs Who Attacked Cops
Issuing hundreds of pardons on the first day of his presidency — which, honestly, is when presidents should do it, instead of saving it for the last day — Pres. Donald Trump took a strong stand in favor his new approach of being soft on crime.
Despite the obvious conflict of interest of being a criminal himself, Trump pardoned two men convicted of attacking on-duty police officers attempting to defend against a violent House invasion.
The two brothers had been sentenced to serve 2-½ years in prison for their violent attacks on police. One pleaded guilty to trying to violently steal an officer’s baton. The other pleaded guilty to throwing a chair at another officer.
In their defense, of course, they were merely acting as part of an ad hoc civic effort to rape and hang elected officials.
Trump Surrenders to Hamas
Just hours after his inauguration speech promising to end all wars — like, for eternity — Pres. Donald Trump explained that his one-day cease-fire in Gaza might not last.
And he appeared to roll back his war-ending promise, suggesting he would now limit it to just wars that America is fighting.
Asked about the Gaza cease-fire that took hold Sunday, Trump last night basically shrugged. “I’m not confident” in the cease-fire, Trump said. “It’s not our war, it’s their war, but I’m not confident.”
Trump’s Spiritual Moment
Pres. Donald Trump in his inauguration speech yesterday made a stirring vow about America’s religiosity and spirituality.
“We will not forget our god,” Trump said. “Can’t do that.”
It was an historically unusual presidential imperative. Namely because if you really believe that the universe was created by an omnipotent being that knows your every thought and action and will use it all to decide whether you spend eternity in unimaginable agony, how the everfucking fuck would you ever fucking forget that?
Fun Fact!
Weird little calendar/astronomical coincidence today. If you look at the time and date today on an analog clock, Jan. 21, 2025, at exactly 3:21 this afternoon, it adds up to “what the fuck do you mean Trump’s really president?” Try it at home!
TCB
LIVE CHAT Only a tiny handful of diehard Newsfuckers showed up for yesterday’s TFN live chat of the inauguration speech. Thanks to those who joined me for it. To the rest of you, I missed you, but I don’t blame you.
SUPPORTING TFN As we see how we and the media and our elected leaders respond to our resurrected president, TFN will be gauging and constantly calibrating how best to serve your needs — journalistically and emotionally. Barraging you with bad news doesn’t help anyone and just enervates and depresses us. It’s my goal to inform and uplift — while continuing to break original/investigative stories over on the Jonathan Larsen Substack. Yes, that includes exposing Democrats who abet right-wing theocratic movements. Yes, I’m working on specific stories right now.
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DUOLINGUISTS Any Newsfuckers out there read Romanian? Or Korean? HMU!
CONNECTING We’re still on social media: Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Spoutible.
Go get ‘em, kids! WE ARE STILL HERE.
Dad joke. Sorry/not sorry.
Congratulations on surviving 1/20/25. Long live TFN 🥳
Amongst all of Trump's distractions, don't overlook perhaps a BIG ONE.
Trump exec order cripples IRS as payback to billionaire donors: Follow the money!
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/01/20/trump-exec-order-cripples-irs-payback-to-billionaire-donors-follow-the-money/