Job Opening: Free-World Leader — Must Have Skills, Passion for Democracy
European hiring committee actively recruiting for qualified applicants
Mar. 3: European nations step up to fill Trump-shaped leadership vacuum … France, UK talk deploying peacekeepers … Thousands protest at national parks and in vice-presidential face … Andrew Cuomo is running for mayor of New York City as if people don’t remember things …
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The free nations of the world are hiring! Do you have what it takes to inspire a team of dysfunctional but best-in-class democracies? Do you have an eye for talent that is not a dictator? Are you proficient in Word and Excel? Do you at least know how to use words and excel?
Then leader of the free world may be the job for you!
This position recently and not unexpectedly opened up after Pres. Donald Trump last week kicked Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of the White House instead of helping him fend off the ongoing Russian invasion. (Your weekend-working TFN did a Saturday deep dive Bonus Story into the Ukrainian timeline to unearth exactly why Zelenskyy stuck to his guns Friday arguing for America to stick to its guns.)
European leaders quickly responded to Trump’s abrupt resignation as leader of the free world, posting the position on LinkedIn and Twitter.
European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said Friday, “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”
French President Emmanuel Macron noted that the new position requires demonstrated proficiency in understanding that Ukraine is not merely fighting in self-defense but represents a front line against the territorial ambitions of Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin. “You have to respect those who have been fighting since the beginning because they are fighting for their dignity, their independence, for their children, and for the security of Europe,” Macron said to potential applicants.
The expected new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, seen below, also outlined some expectations for the new leader of the free world. “[W]e stand with #Ukraine in good and in testing times. We must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war,” said Merz.
Others on the hiring committee who identified support for Ukraine as a key job requirement included the presidents of the European Commission, European Council, and parliament. Free nations voicing solidarity with Ukraine included Belgium, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni floated the idea of giving Trump another shot, calling for a European Union summit with the U.S. (Prior to his sudden departure from the post on Friday, Trump was previously fired from the position in 2020 and for a while refused to leave his office.)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán thanked Trump for his service.
Zelenskyy got a hero’s welcome in the U.K. over the weekend. Here’s the Daily Mirror’s front page:
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the U.K.’s defense of Ukraine will eventually include “boots on the ground, and planes in the air.”
Like Zelenskyy, Macron on Sunday shared his skepticism about Putin honoring any ceasefire negotiated with Trump or Jesus or anyone. Instead, he said that France and the U.K. will propose a truce and, if it’s honored, European troops would be deployed to enforce it.
The danger there is that this cements Putin’s territorial gains. And, much as it might gall rabid Newsfuckers out there, stepped-up European involvement is, of course, exactly what Trump has been pushing for, including in his exit interview on Friday.
Despite Trump’s petulant display on Friday, Starmer said he thinks opportunities still exist at least for sharing a co-working space. "Nobody wanted to see what happened last Friday, but I do not accept that the U.S. is an unreliable ally,” Starmer said, pretending to believe it.
American Rebellion Spreads Against Second Would-Be King in 249 Years
The rank cowardice of Republicans refusing to defend the Constitution has an upside: They’re not only afraid of Pres. Donald Trump, they’re afraid of the surging groundswell of voters opposed to Trump.
Let’s review, shall we, Newsfuckers?
As your weekend-working TFN detailed in yesterday’s Bonus Story, Vice Pres. JD Vance was forced to take his skiing vacation to an undiskilosed location. (Undisclosed slalomcation? I’ll keep working on it.)
That’s because Vermonters turned out in the hundreds…I mean, hundreds of millions…to protest Vance for pretty much all the things.
And it wasn’t just Vermont. Protesters turned out at national parks around the country this weekend.
Trump has fired an estimated 1,000 National Park Service employees and twice as many at the U.S. Forest Service. Y’know, for wildfire season.
Saturday’s protests came in “dozens” of states, NBC reported. There’s more.
A new poll released Thursday shows that almost three out of five people expect Trump’s tariffs — theoretically to be imposed tomorrow on Mexico and Canada — will raise the price of everyday goods:
And one out of those three out of five who understand that tariffs raise prices is Trump himself, who let us never forget answered that question with “YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!)”
Also agreeing is offensively rich investor Warren Buffet, who called tariffs an “act of war, to some degree.” Explaining the obvious-except-to-Republicans, Buffet said, “[T]hey are a tax on goods. I mean, the Tooth Fairy doesn’t pay ’em!” (A White House source who requested anonymity but said they know tariffs better than anyone’s ever known tariffs responded that the Tooth Fairy would, in fact, pay the tariffs or suffer consequences like no one’s ever seen.)
And those rowdy town halls continued over the weekend. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) was magically able to determine local residency by whether attendees agreed with him.
He called the crowd at his Saturday town hall — who were defending veterans and people being hurt by government cuts — “one of the rudest audiences I’ve ever had.” Marshall vowed that he would never be so rude while supporting Trump’s illegal destroying of people’s jobs and congressional Republicans cutting life-saving medical insurance. Then he told the crowd, welp, gotta go!
Republicans are dealing with the town-hall blowback by embracing a strategy of not dealing with the blowback and canceling their town halls, NBC reported last week.
Rep. Derrick van Orden (R-WI) tried another tack — threatening a fired veteran who reached out to him for help. Van Orden responded, “I will be referring you to DOGE as it seems that at 13:46 on a Monday you should have been working for veterans, not posting trash about your boss, President Trump.”
Van Orden seems to have missed the entire galactic point that the veteran had been fired.
And it’s not just protesters, town-hall attendees, and laid-off veterans rejecting the Trump agenda. After DOGE sent out yet another email — directing the federal government’s two million remaining employees to explain to DOGE what government does — the Trump administration agencies are again pushing back.
The Washington Post reports that acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro told staff to ignore any new DOGE bullshit the way a pared-down NASA staff will have to ignore incoming meteors.
The State Department told staff to ignore the DOGE emails the way they’re ignoring starving children and pregnant women with HIV.
Meanwhile, Protect Our Care is launching a series of ads targeting 11 vulnerable House Republicans who voted for that budget resolution last week that pretty much guarantees cutting Medicaid. Links to the ads for against each of them can be found here:
David Schweikert (AZ-01)
David Valadao (CA-22)
Young Kim (CA-40)
Ken Calvert (CA-41)
Nick LaLota (NY-01)
Andrew Garbarino (NY-02)
Mike Lawler (NY-17)
Nick Langworthy (NY-23)
Ryan Mackenzie (PA-07)
Scott Perry (PA-10)
Dan Newhouse (WA-04)
HOPE FOR FIRED WORKERS Several states are making targeted efforts to recruit skilled government employees laid off by Trump and his indiscriminate, inexperienced, incurious team of tech bros. Even a Republican state!
Axios reports that New York is launching an ad campaign aimed at experienced workers jettisoned by Trump. Gov. Kathy Hochul told Axios, “Here in New York we don't vilify public servants, we value them and their efforts. So when DOGE says 'You're fired,' New York is ready to say 'You're hired'.”
Hochul’s not alone, and even Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) seemed to have a sly dig at Trump in his remarks. Announcing a drive to fill a quarter-million open Virginia state jobs, Youngkin said, "Come experience those powerful words of 'You are hired.'”
Other states actively recruiting workers Trump stupidly let go include Hawaii and Maryland.
EVEN THE BROS ARE BREAKING Wall Street bros are deep in their feels about the rapidly fading Trump aura.
Politico reports that even the Wall Street bros, not the brightest of coal-fired bulbs, are starting to figure out that a fake businessperson is bad for fake currencies, which is bad for your real money. According to Politico, values have “plunged” since Inauguration Day for Trump-adjacent “assets” including his anti-social social-media company and the memecoins based on him, his current wife, and for all TFN knows, his current acknowledged children.
Trump Media: ↓ 36%
$TRUMP memecoin: ↓ 64%
$MELANIA memecoin: Down from above $13 to less than $1.
Trump Bails Out Crypto
Pres. Donald Trump yesterday announced he’s bailing out the should-be-failing crypto-currency industry. He said he’s creating a federal crypto-currency reserve, meaning that the government will invest in crypto.
The Crypto Strategic Reserve will consist of five crypto-currencies that Trump apparently will use taxpayer dollars to boost: Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, and Cardano.
Hilariously, Trump forgot to list Bitcoin and Ethereum in his first announcement and then added them later like a professional person. Trump said the reserve will “elevate” crypto-currencies so that they can go high enough to destroy the world with their inevitable collapse and yes I added that last part.
All five of the made-up currencies rose on Trump’s announcement and he definitely didn’t buy any beforehand. The five currencies also happen to be the top five crypto holdings of BitwiseInvest, whose bit-wise investors just happen to include a company that just happens to be owned by David Sacks, who just happens to be Trump’s crypto czar.
Trump during his first administration labeled crypto-currencies a “scam,” which was widely misunderstood at the time as an insult.
Kennedy Urges People to Get Measles Vaccine Before It’s More Too Late
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. I’m sorry but it’s true Kennedy, Jr., yesterday wrote an op-ed for the Fox website in which he urged people to get vaccinated for the measles outbreak that began last month the month before last month.
Vaccines are typically encouraged before virulent diseases have sickened more than a hundred people and killed at least one kid for the first time in more than a decade, but at least he’s trying! Act as if! Here’s Kennedy, pretty successfully imitating a sane person:
“Prior to the introduction of the vaccine in the 1960s, virtually every child in the United States contracted measles. For example, in the United States, from 1953 to 1962, on average there were 530,217 confirmed cases and 440 deaths…”
“As healthcare providers, community leaders, and policymakers, we have a shared responsibility to protect public health. This includes ensuring that accurate information about vaccine safety and efficacy is disseminated. We must engage with communities to understand their concerns, provide culturally competent education, and make vaccines readily accessible for all those who want them…
“Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons.”
Anyway, it’s important to acknowledge when public officials finally make the right choice in response to political pressure, extortion, and threats from Big Pharma.
OTOH Kennedy’s symptoms of sanity may already be fading. According to STAT News, HHS is considering tanking a $600 million contract for rapid development of new flu vaccines that could include effective human vaccines against bird flu.
Three Quickies
Acting State Department Assistant Administrator for Global Health Nicholas Enrich is no longer acting anything or administrating anything. Yesterday, he issued a memo detailing the precise volume in metric tonnage of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s full-of-shitness. Rubio had claimed he had a working system to exempt life-or-death aid from DOGE’s stupid budget cuts. Enrich revealed that was bullshit, so Rubio placed him on administrative leave.
Forbes reports that Friday’s economic blackout didn’t even dent Amazon’s online sales. One analytics tracker reported that transactions were about one percent higher than the average for recent Fridays. So apparently we didn’t destroy capitalism! Which is fine because we’re just getting started (see list below!) and also because now that this first economic blackout is over, it’s okay again to upgrade to a paid TFN subscription.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) is running for mayor of New York City despite the fact that people can literally see that he’s Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo’s opponents include incumbent Mayor and acting Trump Secretary of New York City Eric Adams, City Comptroller Brad Landers, former City Comptroller Scott Stringer, state Senators Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, Republican Curtis Jesus this guy’s still alive? Sliwa, anyone who’s ever read a newspaper, nursing-home residents, and women.
TCB
NEWSFUCKER DU JOUR Everyone say hi to Teresa, who just upgraded to paid — in pesos?!? — and managed to sneak a worthy plug into the message she let me share with you Newsfuckers about why she upgraded:
Thank you, Teresa! And thanks for the suggestion, I checked out the site and it even has info about voting in non-presidential elections at the state and local level, like this year!
If you’re like Teresa and TFN helps the news go down a little more smoothly for you, please consider making a donation or upgrading to paid to help keep TFN providing much-needed hilariousness.
TAKING ACTION Upcoming days listed for action/inaction:
March 7-14: Amazon Blackout — No Amazon, no Whole Foods, no Prime orders, and TFN is gonna throw in the Washington Post, too.
March 14: National Strike and march on Washington.
March 21-28: Nestlé Blackout (water wars, child labor)
March 28: Economic Blackout #2
April 7-13: Walmart Blackout (‘nuff said)
April 18: Economic Blackout #3
April 21-27: General Mills Blackout (no idea why, but sign me up on general principles)
Resources
CONNECTING Come say hi on Bluesky, Mastodon or Spoutible!
Go get ‘em, kids!
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
" ,,, undiskilosed location. (Undisclosed slalomcation? I’ll keep working on it.)"
Straight from the vowels of the alphabet!
Co-president Elon is supposedly cleaning out “waste and fraud “at the same time second in power. Trump is giving taxpayer money to another billionaire to bail out crypto. Seems like a conflict of interest to me. Oh wait I forgot, that’s the motto of this regime.