Daily Kos Radio - Kagro In The Morning

David Waldman returns for yet another week of driving the snakes out, today solo, as Greg Dworkin is on assignment. Chuck Schumer’s book tour is not off to a great start, although he could’ve sold plenty of copies to throw at the target on his dunk tank. Listen, plenty of calculation went into these CR votes, by plenty of calculating Democrats, calculating the perfect number of days before their elections before becoming too “anti-Trump” Democrats. It’s just pragmatic to allow Donald K. Trump to be a little bit of a dictator for about 6 or 9 more months to allow campaign donations to build. It’s how the game is played. Donald, however, is not the pragmatic sort. “Dictator” is the only game he’s playing. Rules are for suckers… Ok, rules are also good for the LULZ. Take the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, please. Trump will tell you… Well, Trump will tell you anything, that’s irrelevant. The next step, was when a judge then called bullshit and blocked the order. Trump then did it anyhow, as his lawyers invoked the ”fin

Welcome to Advanced Civics with Professor David Waldman. David’s been teaching this course since about the turn of the century, yet it seems as if there is always more to learn. Heck, I’ve been held back over this last decade, and I still don’t quite get it. Basically, the Senate is voting on the 2025 budget because maybe that’s better than not voting on it? Voting for it would piss off Elon Musk, but voting against it would piss off Donald K. Trump. It’s a quandary! Luckily for Senate Democrats, they have valiant leader Chuck Schumer, Donald’s newest best buddy, ready to push those glasses down to the end of his nose and… look into this. Whether Chuck’s decision is horrible/wise or horrible-wise he’ll be hearing all about it at his series of upcoming townhall meetings that he probably still believes are a “book tour”. Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock voted NO! Yay! But on what, and to what end? This is where it gets weedy. David tells us about clotures, the process of invoking clotures, and… how to ch

Hey, at least the sound system was working today, when Greg Dworkin dropped by with his Raft o’ Stories! Senate Dems are wrestling with the question of whether they should screw up, or do the right thing. Sounds easy! But it never really is, even if we think we know the right answer. (And the biggest union representing federal workers just happens to agree, too.) But time’s running out to unify behind a single, coherent position (if there is one). And the one thing nobody expected has just happened: House Republicans had unified! Hey, by the way, have we misunderstood—or just been too credulous—in accepting the characterization of Trump as “transactional?” That might not be quite right. Or even right at all. We do know that he sucks for the economy, though. Even though we’re also not supposed to think of the “stonk” market as the economy. The thing is, Trump thinks he can move seamlessly from “I’ll fix it on Day One,” to “You knew you were signing up for pain.” Tesla hatred is purifying hatred. Even if you do

That’s the last time KITM hires that local kid “Big Balls” to do IT work. Yesterday’s show file wasn’t recorded… which one could only wish happened to the first 15 minutes of today’s show as David Waldman on-the-fly set up the KITM VoIP connection to Greg Dworkin. It’s the economy, stupid, and no one could possibly handle it more stupidly than Donald K. Trump. Inflation was lower than expected in February… remember February? That was so long ago. Trump’s own advisors are terrified because they see what’s coming. Americans are finally getting the picture, as if that really matters. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hasn’t yet seen the underside of the bus but can tell you that it’s a wonderful place to be. Go see Crazy Don for crazy deals! Right behind the White House just off Pennsylvania Avenue! Green card holder, American spouse, kid on the way, Mahmoud Khali was disappeared after using his Constitutional rights in a politically incorrect (for March 2025) manner. Columbia, gem of private higher education, d

Social Security workers aren’t allowed to read this story, but heading into the weekend, David Waldman and KITM have remained under the DOGE radar! Keep your fingers crossed! The first thing we do is… let’s kill all the Democratic consultants. Ok, that sounds “a little harsh”, and the one thing any consultant will tell you, is that you absolutely do not want to sound “a little harsh”, EVER. Except for when you’re knifing a friend and colleague in the back for sounding “a little harsh”. That’s just pragmatic expediency. Everyone, except possibly that person that you knifed, will forget in no time… Therefore, feel free to knife friends and colleagues in the back as often as needed. It always works! Do Republicans lie to each other like Democrats do? They lie so often, it’s hard to tell. Will Trump really be counting the gold bars in Fort Knox? Are scientists randomly dressing mice in little fedoras and bonnets? Is the Enola Gay just too gay? The blunders are stacking up everywhere. But the thing is, if stupid l

David Waldman serves up a lot on today’s KITM, but no nothingburgers! You need to head over to Bondi’s for those. Greg Dworkin tried unplugging and replugging Connecticut this morning but they’re still offline up there. Place your bets right now. Will Republicans or Democrats destroy the United States first? Of course, Dems are the “good guys”, right? They stand for… uhm, their intentions are… hmm. It’s just that their Ping-Pong paddles are kind of small and hard to read. Donald K. Trump demands that Al Green be forced to take an IQ test. Representative Green probably should, if he believes that any “fellow” Democrats would have joined his opposition to Trump. Do you think that they would have censured a couple hundred Democrats? I guess we’ll never know, will we? As Democrats Anonymous member “Elissa” said in her rebuttal: … Well, it doesn’t matter “what” she said, it’s that she wouldn’t say anything that consultants say she shouldn’t say, which is very important when you consider “the audience” that she was

No, David Waldman did not watch the speech, or the Oscars, or the Super Bowl, all right? (The TV’s been stuck on the History Channel since David lost the remote.) Greg Dworkin is still on Skype, which is now shutting down, forcing an alternative. Greg will be choosing between Zoom or his dial-up fax machine in the basement, whichever has the most pleasant ringtone. Donald K. Trump presented his State of Denial “address”… It was a “Joint Address” to the Gops who love humiliation, and the Dems, who are learning to. Of course, some Democrats boycotted, but most did not. Some had signs, most did not. Al Green stood up, and was ejected. The rest chose not to join him. Expediency seems to be the hill they have chosen to die on, and there’s certainly little disarray there. With Democrats keeping a low profile until 2026 2028 2030… it once again falls upon Trump to do all the heavy lifting. The plan has always been to keep the masses just at the precipice of an uprising, but this administration might be slightly ov

Fat Tuesday! Grab your donuts and breakfast beer and March 4th with David Waldman this morning. This year for Mardi Gras, Cybertruck-shaped piñatas will be roaming the streets!  Happy Tariff Day! Trees, a major source of income for both Canada and Joyce Kilmer, will be going up like eggs, as will just about everything, since just about everything comes from Canada, Mexico or China. The only thing going down will be stocks, and they’re going way down. Donald K. Trump will be going viral tonight, up or down, he DNGAF. Can you imagine Dems treating this thing like the locals at a town hall? Well, imagine away, because they aren’t going to do that. They will bring some people, release some statements mentioning those people, and… ...sorry, my fingers fell asleep typing that. Elon Musk is of course, a visionary-genius, as of course, reflected by his visionarily genius child-naming. Which one was at the White House recently… “5138008”? “88-14WYTB01? “D3L3TDG0VT”? Nope, it was “X Æ A-Xii”… accent on the ”Æ”. (You kn

Ok, where was I? Oh yes, I finished Friday’s summary describing the time Donald K. Trump extorted Ukraine President Zelenskyy to falsely promote Russian interests. Back in those days we used to impeach Presidents for that kind of stuff. Anyhow... David Waldman is here with the KITM Oscars Analysis. He has heard some “good buzz” about this movie “Oppenheimer” that he might want to check out… No spoilers, please! Greg Dworkin is here with a big Raft O’ Stories™, loaded with Plenty O’ X links (I know, but the guy still uses Skype too. Some things take time to let go of.) New Yorkers knew Trump was a mob boss, now the world knows. Everybody knew this was a trap going in. SNL probably had their skit written last Thursday. It’s weird, but we also all knew what the Trump & crew’s reaction to the trap’s gigantic failure would be also. The surprise might be in how this unified Europe against the burgeoning Axis of assholes. Pete Hegseth rotates the turrets away from Russia and levels the guns on Mexico. Which pand

David Waldman delivers us to the end of the month, and yes, the end of the week. KITM’s superpower is to not work on weekends. You don’t see Donald K. Trump work weekends, or weekdays. It’s too much work for him to remember what he said yesterday. Elon Musk is the go-getter, destroying civilization, trolling billions, uploading federal grants with one hand and downloading IVF deposits with the other. Or perhaps the “real power” behind the autocoup is the “husband” and “wife” team of Stephen and Katie Miller. That would explain a lot of things. Chinese crypto guy Justin Sun paid up front on his fraud case, so now the SEC can discover new priorities. (That’s all chump crypto change to North Korea) The FBI raids the EPA without probable cause because that isn’t really needed for a shakedown. Meanwhile, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has cracked the case of 40 tons of gold bars shoplifted from Fort Knox. That would seem hard to believe until you consider Donald K. Trump flushed a billion down the toilet to own the

David Waldman gives us a few more things to think about, laugh about, get kind of grumpy about, on today’s KITM. Guess what? Dr. Greg Dworkin says America’s got a fever! And the only prescription... is more F-bombs! Covid “alarmists” were closer to the truth than anyone else. (IMO, “alarmist” has been pretty much the way to go for around a decade.) DOGE douches unplugged our healthcare ventilator and were surprised after the heart wouldn’t reboot. Oops! Ebola prevention was shut off… There! Fixed, good as new… They weren’t in America, anyhow. Speaking of Americans, Billions in professional services contracts in Veterans Affairs were to be cut for… whatever. Then someone checked into it and discovered that they were doing some really important stuff there. Who’d guess that so many consequential things would be actually happening? Elon will have to check in with “DataRepublican”, the new Q of MAGA, more often.  Whatever your problem is, Elon Musk has got just the thing to fix it. DOGE noticed that the FAA missp

Right pukka, innit? Another KITM today featuring the brilliant púcaí doodlebugging of David Waldman and Greg Dworkin! The Gop big beautiful awful bill passed the House last night. Clever and feisty Dems were clever and feisty but not quite successful... yet played a great game. Should Democrats strategize and triangulate and stick up for minorities while appealing to the majority? Yes! Or… they could just pick out some principles and hills to die on and take those damn hills or find themselves simply primaried out...  Or they could wait. MAGA policies aren’t popular, and Donald K. Trump is despicable. People see zero difference between Glenn Youngkin and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Gop town halls aren’t as comfy as they used to be. There’s a chance that we could live to see Republicans crumble, but with medical research lab funding halted, we have no one to figure out what that chance might be. Traffic-cone-on-the-face research device, Gesundheit II, hoped to study the deadly spread of sneezing. (Gesundheit I

David Waldman counts down the days until our national apocalypse, yet with so many tied down the backstretch, this race is a tough call! For supposed “auditors”, nothing about DOGE adds up. Monday, Elon gave federal workers until three to… Uhm, today Elon gave federal workers until three to… Tomorrow, Elon will give federal workers until three to… Trump could barely get a semi-fired up today, as his EO has ED. Musk was able to cut 20 DOGE staff today who couldn’t look themselves in the mirror anymore. Meanwhile, “fired” staffers keep finding themselves “unfired”. Those who did send in responses will have the answers fed into AI and anyone determined to be funnier than Musk will be dismissed immediately… (Those people would also be expected to be more liberal, naturally.) DOGE’s dealings are illegal and even unconstitutional, but now the challenge is determining who is DOGE’s head douche. Trump is so opposed to leaving a paper trail that he skips on chances to cover his own ass. DOGE was designed to attack lib

This weekend KITM Headquarters sent David Waldman and Greg Dworkin an email directing them to list five ways that they contribute to the civil discourse. These overachievers came up with something like two hours' worth! Gop town halls are experiencing F5 blowback from constituents, but it’s a gentle breeze compared to what they’re expecting to be hit with soon. This is the kind of thing local news loves to cover, and local protesters love to attend. People in power may want to hide, but for people who want to be in power, town halls are the place to be seen. Suddenly, no one wants to take credit for their thugs. Never Trump Republicans are divided on a host of issues but know how to get in front of a camera. They are enough of a threat to this administration to earn immediate attention from the Brown Shirts. On the other hand, Democrats are unifying behind nearby hedges to work on their guacamole bar charts, as their “Hope” poster mostly refers to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Ok, there is Senator Chris M

It’s Friday, the day David Waldman pitches us into the maelstrom.  We get today’s last dangle before we drop. The weekend is when Elon Musk really lets his Big Balls loose. Well not “his”, per se, those are in a jar at some IVF lab. The rest of us are menaced by whatever his giant ketamine cookie jar of a head is coming up with. The weekdays are for Trump to crop-dust us with EOs, edicts and royal proclamations. Trump will thus eliminate judges who are too judgey and deliver your mail from now on. Jan 6 rioters will soon be deputized. Pete Hic! Seth will purge all generals left of Jack D. Ripper. Trump’s first priority, however, is to take whatever Vlad will allow him. Israel is angry to come up short on their hostage body count. Hamas better move fast before the renovators come in. Trumpy America makes things humiliating for Saudi Arabia, along with every other Middle Eastern faction since the dawn of time. Ah, but we are only weeks away from March 15 and the beginning of spring cleanup

Greg Dworkin walks us through some familiar and relevant Watergate history, beginning with the saga of John Mitchell, which serves as necessary background to today’s corruption, only part of which manifests itself in the form of Eric Adams’ corruption. Another fun development on this front: a NY Bar Association complaint against Count Boveula. Of course, there are a million other angles on Trump’s corruption, like this one out of left field, on NYC congestion pricing. The Adams story is just today’s appetizer. And that’s just the domestic model. Looking abroad, we find other worrisome precedent—and the potential for new disasters—in Germany. And, of course, the potential for compounding old disasters, as in Ukraine. Checking back in on the growing library of Trump “administration” attorney conflicts of interest, Walt Nauta’s lawyer just remembered he’s in government now, and resigned his case. Another story we had to check back in on: Trump’s targeting of the Merit Service Protection Board. While we were wait

David Waldman is not here today! But what is “here”, anyway? David recorded a brand-new show that went over by four minutes — that’s hundreds of extra words! So, he is virtually here today… but what is “virtually”, anyhow? KITM is still OG podcasting, the way they did it back in the twenty teens, none of that funny new stuff, or the funny old stuff, or any of that funny stuff, just the real stuff! (which is often funny) The Trump White House is one step away from adding a laugh track to its ICE videos. DOGE has made Trump II exponentially more incompetent and horrific. Are they saving $8 million? $8 billion? $8 trillion? $8? Who knows? Because that isn’t the point. The National Science Foundation fired probationary employees and threw in some permanent employees and at-will workers. If anyone had a problem, they could take it up with the board (who were fired) or tell reporters to make a FOIA request through staff (who were also fired). That doesn’t sound like saving money, it sounds like eliminating witnesse

David Waldman and Greg Dworkin return in a Tuesday KITM that feels like a Monday KITM but is more like a Friday KITM that feels like a Thursday KITM. You will understand once you hear the Wednesday KITM. A Delta airliner landed on its roof in Minneapolis yesterday. Is that how they are supposed to land? It doesn’t seem so… unfortunately the people in charge of that at the FAA don’t work there anymore. OSHA also eliminated safety guidelines warning of a diversity of dangers. Thousands of government employees have been fired because of performance, though “good” or “bad” performance has not been specified. Next up, the Social Security Administration, because there is no “yours” or “their” money, it’s “woke” or “based” money. MAGA is finding out that Musk just doesn’t think they are that cool. One thing’s for certain; you can’t blame Trump or Musk for this, because “Trump” and “Musk” and “DOGE” and the “Gulf of America” are just words in some mass hallucination that you have chosen to believe. Pick the red or bl

David Waldman delivers the first KITM following the declaration of the historic Luigi Doctrine this weekend. Dems in exile plot their counterattack to be waged once they find the Elmer’s to glue together their big piece of posterboard onto that easel that goes behind their outraged speeches. Greg Dworkin is out fighting weather not fit for man nor beast. Greg’s not presumed lost; in fact, we presume he might turn up tomorrow. Elon Musk is sucking America dry.  Anyone willing to reciprocate will be rewarded. Supergenius Elon knows when you are laughing “with” him and when you aren’t. Elon’s son, WD-40, will tell him as he already has more accounting experience and common sense than all DOGErs combined. OSHA guidelines are banned from warning about a diversity of dangers. Hundreds of officials hired to keep nukes from going nuclear are fired, maybe, then rehired, maybe. Maybe they aren’t really fired, they just won’t be paid, or maybe they’ll be arrested today, who knows? If employees were involved with DEI, at