Hugh Jackman sang a parody of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. Bette Midler performed a satirical rewrite of Wind Beneath My Wings. John Lithgow wrote and recited a poem entitled The Mighty Colbert. Jake Tapper hand-delivered a painting of Colbert as Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. And Jimmy Fallon offered a pointed take on Frank Sinatra’s My Way: “And now the end is near / And so you face the final curtain / But Trump, he made it clear / He wants you gone / Of that we’re certain.”
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Merci Alex Newhook!
For there below ground sits the Dark God, strong to call men to judgment; he sees all, and writes it in his memory.
Una Grande Libre reads the sign above the entrance to a bar-restaurant in Madrid’s Usera neighbourhood. This was Francisco Franco’s motto for Spain – one, great, free – and it is accompanied by a large portrait of the dictator superimposed on to the window.
The exteriors of El Cangrejo in Ciudad Real and Casa Pepe in Despeñaperros are a little bit more subtle, but not much: decorated ostentatiously in the red and yellow of the Spanish flag. The accompanying historical symbols on display, such as the yoke and arrows of the Falange and the Eagle of San Juan, remove any doubt: the year is 2026 and you have encountered one of Spain’s network of bars and restaurants that proudly glorify Franco and his dictatorship.
... full articleHe hears but half who hears one party only.
The recently proposed budget from the Trump administration includes a $1.6 billion cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The reduction would eliminate NOAA climate, weather and ocean research labs; zero out grants aimed at improving rainfall and flood prediction; and cut the Integrated Ocean Observing System, which monitors what’s happening in the ocean, where hurricanes strengthen and where coastal flooding begins. This comes on top of the 2025 DOGE layoffs of some 880 people from the agency.
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