Nation Has "Other Plans" for Child's 79th-Birthday Party

Even Republican leaders have other plans or found something to suddenly come up

June 11: Trump’s bestest friends would rather go home than go to his birthday … Broadcast news planning to ignore Trump’s party in favor of airing literally anything else … Immigration protests spread throughout the country and Congress … Senate’s Big Beautiful Bill of death will preserve billions in fraud for “health” insurers …

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Pres. Donald Trump yesterday at Ft. Bragg, NC, prepared for his birthday party Saturday by practicing dancing alone. (Uncredited / White House photo.)

It’s the classic, philosophical quandary. If a military parade falls on a president’s birthday in the heart of a democratic country, but no one hears or sees it, is he still an insecure, intolerant, incurious, immoral, impulsive, impotent, innumerate, illegitimate, illiterate, ahistorical, tyrannical, antidemocratic, buffoonish, baboonish, fucktwaddle of a one-man clown-show rapist?

For the first time in history, this is not a hypothetical question, as plans are coming together for Pres. Donald Trump’s parade on Saturday to celebrate the Army’s 250th birthday but really his 79th. The intent, of course, is to project (unearned) power and claim a mantle of public approval. To show, in other words, that the country is behind his assault on the country and its principles.

Except a lot of real principals won’t be there. The plans may be coming together, but national leaders are not. The birthday boy is apparently SOL on RSVPs from VIPs and his party — a $25-million rolling Viagra prescription for our president — is looking like a birthday-boy-cott.

For one thing, America’s three big broadcast networks have other plans for the event that Trump hilariously scheduled at 6pm eastern on a Saturday. The networks would love to be there, of course, it’s just that, as they told Variety, they had, uh, prior commitments…

• ABC: United Football League (UFL) championship.

• CBS: Local programming and the evening news.

• NBC: U.S. Open golf.

It gets hilariouser. ABC’s UFL championship — pitting the Michigan Panthers against, ironically, the Washington Defenders — doesn’t start until 8pm, when Trump’s party is over. So, because TFN can be just as petty as the president, I looked up ABC’s schedule for 6pm - 8pm and here’s what ABC’s running instead of showing how Trump’s shindig of tanks will shindig-up the streets:

Local programming! They’re not even offering network coverage for local stations to air instead of whatever-the-fuck game shows and infomercials they’ve got. Instead of saying “wow” at Trump’s display, America will be buying ShamWow.

And if you’re wondering whether CBS and NBC could at least drop by Trump’s party afterward for a recap or highlights or something, their schedules starting at 8pm are even more humiliating:

• CBS: “Elsbeth” and “48 Hours.” (Note: “Elsbeth” is a repeat, the programming equivalent of spitting in Trump’s face.)

• NBC: “Destination X” and “Yes, Chef!” two shows I’m 50% sure they made up this week just to have an excuse.

Surely, Fox’s broadcast network will show up, though, you Newsfuckers might say. But no. The Fox cable network will obviously dedicate two hours of live fellating to the event. Expect the “crowd” shots to consist of lots of close-ups and the aerial angles to come from about five feet off the ground.

And the Fox broadcast network? That’ll be Yankees/Red Sox or Padres/Diamondbacks.

Instead, the networks told Variety, they’ll include coverage of Trump’s party/parade on their streaming networks, the programming equivalent of deporting it to an El Salvador prison. And the birthday-boy-cott doesn’t end at TV.

Top Republicans aren’t going.

Oh, sure, Trump’s emotional support clowns will spill delightfully out of his cabinet: the Agriculture clown, Defense clown, Interior clown, and more, along with various minor assistant clowns, deputy assistant clowns, and underclowns.

But congressional Republicans? Republicans who are free to choose between being there and being literally anywhere else? Fuck, as they say, that shit.

Like a national-level Mean Girl, Politico asked 50 GOP members of Congress whether they’re going to Trump’s party, with or without a gift. Any Newsfuckers wanna guess how many said yes? Seven. As in dwarves. Including not a single senator. Meet the obeisant seven who’ll be scrambling last minute to find just the right Happy Birthday (President) card:

• Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL)

• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)

• Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA)

• Rep. John McGuire (R-VA)

• Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI)

• Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL)

• Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY)

As of now, the most powerful members of Trump’s party are skipping Trump’s party. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) won’t say. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) would rather be in South Dakota.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) is leading the House majority in bailing. Republican House Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) didn’t bother to whip up an excuse.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) had another birthday party to attend, his daughter’s 18th, making Burchett the only one with an alternative that Trump might forgive as Trump, too, would rather be at an 18-year-old girl’s party.

Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-MD) will exercise the freedom to caucus with his couch, even though he lives less than two hours from Trump’s party. Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) didn’t appropriate time on his schedule to help blow out Trump’s candles. Cole said, “I just didn’t get to go home last week and I’d like to get to go this week.”

Surely the chairs of the Armed Services committees will be there for a party disguised as a celebration of the Army’s 250th birthday, though? Non.

Both Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) would rather fly thousands of miles away to attend someone else’s party…

…the military-industrial complex orgy at this weekend’s Paris Air Show. That’s right, they’d rather be in France.

And even some veterans are boycotting, after being explicitly invited to attend — and offered a spot of honor:

The Army recently asked the Vietnam Veterans of America chapter in Northern Virginia if it would provide 25 veterans to sit in the official reviewing stand. The group said no.

In other words, people who went to Vietnam won’t go to Trump’s party. One quagmire’s enough for any lifetime. (Also offering their regrets, the Oklahoma National Guard.)

So with all these no-shows, what’s Trump doing to gin up attendance and make sure the images dozens of people see on the streaming-service parade coverage aren’t lines of spectators one deep?

Obviously, Trump’s threatening people who show up. "If there’s any protester that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force," Trump said, “they will be met with very heavy force."

In fact, protesters are coming out. Just not to his party. No Kings protests and rallies are being planned in every state — but not in DC — and will doubtless draw more people than Trump’s birthday party of sadness, where the only magic trick will be tank treads turning Washington streets into lines of rubble.

Here’s the problem Trump’s causing himself by illegally, unconstitutionally threatening violence against the fundamental American rights of free speech and assembly: Even some of his fans will understand that they, too, might be met with very big force if they’re mistaken for protesters or even just near protesters.

So the same tactical genius that led Trump to warn voters not to vote for him by mail is now warning the people he wants to come to his birthday party that he might beat the shit out of them even though many of them are probably already incontinent.

Of course, there are other factors turning people off the military, too…

WOKE Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth yesterday re-renamed seven U.S. military bases that Pres. Joe Biden had renamed because they used to honor treasonous traitors who fought for slavery. Rather than restoring those Confederate names, Hegseth yet again found other people with the same names or partial names, and re-renamed the bases to honor those people, keeping the Confederate names, but now claiming they’re honoring someone else. Imagine the multiple levels of mortification for anyone of any political stripe stationed there.

Now, is any of this more important than Trump sending the U.S. military into the streets of other cities not to parade but to suppress and oppress the people?

Newsfucker, it is not. But humiliating him in the process just might be.

Protests Against Trump’s Militarization Spread

Whatever Trump’s parade was meant to signify, by sending military troops onto the streets of U.S. cities to face off against the people of this country, yeah, Trump’s parade is looking a whole lot like something other than American. And if his militarized, unwarranted, unwanted immigration raids weren’t already igniting political opposition around the country, deploying the troops is.

The Associated Press rounds up photos from some of yesterday’s protests in Louisville, KY; Washington, DC; San Francisco, CA; Brookhaven, GA; Philadelphia, PA; Las Vegas, NV; and Omaha, NE. Even some congressional Republicans were protesting meekly…

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the Appropriations Committee chair, said she draws the line at sending in the Marines, as Trump has done.

Taking a much harder line against even using the California National Guard without the request of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), was the Trump of 2020, who said:

“We can’t move in the National Guard. I can call insurrection, but there’s no reason to ever do that — even in a Portland case — we can’t call in the National Guard unless we’re requested by a governor.”

Well, that guy’s gonna get tossed in a camp.

Also pissed at the raids themselves, a growing number of American businesses and workers.

Desperate to round up…someone…and fresh out of both immigrant criminals and tattoo-havers…the Trump administration is now admitting that the place to find immigrants is…

…hard at work keeping our economy going.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided an Omaha, NE, meat-packing plant yesterday. They hauled away busloads of workers. Were they all immigrants? Maybe!

Here’s the fun part, buried too deep in an otherwise commendable report. The workers were split up not depending on which ones were citizens, but on which ones could prove it:

“Employees were separated by those who had documents showing they were U.S. citizens, those who had valid work documents and those who did not have documents…”

And the company, Glenn Valley Foods, is pissed because they use the federal system that’s supposed to verify worker status. In other words, they’re doing everything they’re supposed to do.

ICE’s response: The system, they told Glenn Valley Foods, “is broken.”

In other words, every company no matter how law-abiding is now in the crosshairs and every worker, no matter how citizened, could have to show their papers to escape the buses.

Senate GOP Saves Billions for Health Insurers in Big Beautiful Bill of Death

Republicans supposedly are so desperate to save money in Pres. Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act of death that they’re scrounging for change between the cushions despite their terror of sticking their fingers into whatever Vice President JD Vance might have deposited there.

And as TFN — and almost only TFN — has been telling you, Republicans have had the option of ending billions of dollars in fraudulent Medicare Advantage payments to health-insurance companies. They could just write the bill to … not let insurers charge the government for covering patients with diseases they don’t actually have. They already have a bipartisan bill just sitting there that would do just that.

Yesterday, TFN told you that Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) revealed that House Republicans consciously decided not to go after that money in the House bill of death.

Well, now Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-SD) has said that the Senate GOP also decided to let insurers keep the estimated $100 billion over the next decade that we’ll pay them for — and, again, we can’t newsfuck this enough — covering diseases and conditions that their policy-holders don’t actually have.

So, just to recap, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act of death will strip government health insurance from millions of people in the name of fighting fraud, but preserve private health insurance payments in the billions for fraudulent diseases.

Five Quickies

• A new report shows the share of the world population that’s Christian is slipping, while the portions claimed by Islam and nonbelief are growing. Over the decade ending in 2020, the world population of Christians decreased slightly to 28.8% while the Muslim population grew to 25.6%. Another 24.2% don’t associate with any religion. The report’s lead author said, “[F]or every person around the world who becomes Christian, there are three people who are raised Christian who leave.” Come on in, folks, the water’s fine and non-holy.

• The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded yesterday that Israeli attacks on various aspects of Palestinian life, including literal life but also schools and churches, amount to war crimes. “In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination,” the commission reported.

• The acting enforcement chief for the not-currently-enforcing Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) quit yesterday. Cara Peterson had worked at the CFPB since its creation in 2011 to fight financial firms ripping off their customers. Peterson’s farewell email said, “I have served under every director and acting director in the bureau’s history and never before have I seen the ability to perform our core mission so under attack.” Under current acting director Russell Vought, the CFPB is doing virtually no financial protection of any consumers.

• Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) has won the Democratic primary to run for governor in November. She’ll face Jack Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by Pres. Donald Trump and so will probably lose. Sherrill only got 34% of the vote, but it was a big field and she won easily. The vote was roughly split between progressives and radical centrists, but I think it’s fair to call Sherrill a frontrunner in the general election. (And if she wins that could very well mean one fewer Blue Dog vote in the House Democratic caucus.)

• ABC News yesterday fired longtime correspondent Terry Moran after he filed a freelance report on the nutritional regimen of Stephen Miller, top aide and deputy xenophobe to Pres. Donald Trump. Specifically, Moran reported that Miller’s “hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.” In fact, Miller is believed to feed his hates to Trump. This factual error appears to have led to Moran’s firing. That, or the right-wing snowflakes canceled him for his free speech. I sporadically worked with Moran back in the ‘90s at ABC and recall liking the guy, for sure, and he’s a long-time pro, but yeah this is the kind of thing you can’t say at corporate media. Which is why I’m grateful every day to you Newsfuckers sustaining me here on Substack.

TCB

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Go get ‘em, kids! Even Trump’s friends are abandoning him…

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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.