A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
Jon Stewart examines chaos in the MAGA-verse, as escalating ICE raids in Los Angeles erupt in protests, Stephen Miller hunts for nonviolent immigrants, Elon plays the Epstein card on Trump, and the Trump-Elon alpha male war reveals itself as a sensitive baby feud.
If anyone comes out worse than Donald "Hoover Cleveland" Trump in this sketch, it’s Stephen Miller. He asked why ICE wasn’t raiding Home Depot and where did this all start? At Home Depot. Hoover Cleveland may be exploiting the situation, but Miller is just as responsible for starting it. Too bad Stewart’s joke about what Miller says during sex ignored that Miller’s wife Katie is now working with Elon Musk. She already self-deported.
By the way, protestors summoning Waymo cars just to set them on fire strikes me as a SciFi is Now moment. Didn’t something like that happen in Total Recall?
Los Angeles residents pushed back against President Trump's authoritarian immigration raids this past weekend after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller pushed ICE officials to increase the pace of their deportations.
Seth takes a closer look at the Trump administration sending federal troops to Los Angeles in response to protests over immigration raids.
The Trump-Musk feud created another SciFi is Now moment when Hoover Cleveland threatened to cancel Musk’s contracts and Musk threatened to decomission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, stranding astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). Yikes! Seth is right; billionaires should not be in charge of government and critical space missions should not be privatized.
Moving on to the ICE raids and protests they provoked, Dr. Phil embedding himself with ICE reminds me of what I first wrote on this blog in 2019: "Trump isn't staffing an administration; he's casting a reality show." Too bad all the rest of us are in The Trump Show AKA The Worst Wing, too.
That’s too much of a bummer even for doomer me, so I’m closing this post with Donald Trump's Chief Enemy: Stairs, last night’s cold open for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Members of the California National Guard arrived in Los Angeles Sunday morning in response to Friday and Saturday's protest against federal immigration raids. President Donald Trump moved to deploy the 2,000 members over the opposition of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who called the move inflammatory and unnecessary. Julian Castro, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and now an MSNBC political analyst, along with Don Calloway, host of The Caucus Room Podcast and CEO of Pine Street Strategies, and republican strategist and MSNBC political analyst Susan Del Percio discuss these latest developments, and more.
Hoover Cleveland has not invoked the Insurrection Act, but I’ve been worried it about since last June, when I wrote: “I think the parts of Comstock Act that are currently unconstitutional need to be repealed, restricting the ability of anti-choice advocates to reanimate them. I have the same opinion of the Insurrection Act, which is also being touted as a way for the more extreme right-wing activists, including Hoover Cleveland, to suppress dissent.” I quoted that in MSNBC examines Project 2025, part 1, where I added “The Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups have decided to revive zombie laws to consolidate their power given the opportunity.” It’s not as if I and others didn’t warn people!
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., joins Morning Joe to discuss the president's handling of Los Angeles protests and why he says Trump is trying to distract the public from the impact of his big bill.
I’m with Mika; “many things can be true at the same time.” Hoover Cleveland is exploiting the situation in my old hometown, but it isn’t just a distraction from the budget bill that Elon Musk called “a disgusting abomination” or the Trump-Musk feud. My wife thinks the latter is a distraction, albeit a very entertaining one. That’s what I was thinking of blogging about today, but I decided that Hoover Cleveland escalating domestic tensions was more important.
I expect I will examine the situation through comedy tomorrow, as the late-night talk-show hosts will chime in, especially Jimmy Kimmel, who records his show only a few miles away from the protests. Stay tuned.
We're bringing you a first look at the brand new BBC Earth series: Mammals.
Found on every continent, and in every ocean, Mammals are some of the most adaptable animals on our planet. Join David Attenborough as he follows the journeys of our closest relatives in the animal kingdom.
Born to survive. Built to thrive. #Mammals. Coming Soon.
Coldplay's ‘Paradise’ interwoven with the Mammals score by Thomas Farnon, performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
How this earned a nomination for Best Documentary but not Outstanding Nature Documentary is beyond me. Then again, that category already has seven nominees, two more than usual, so maybe there just wasn't room.
Follow over the jump for the trailers to The Commandant's Shadow, Queendom, and The Sing Sing Chronicles plus the two craft categories in which Mammals earned nominations.
A full-scale flame war has broken out between the world's most famous besties, causing their former buddy Kanye West to wade into the fray, and an intern is running Homeland Security's terrorism prevention unit.
Yes, it's bad when Kanye West is the voice of reason. As for Thomas Fugate, the 22-year-old former Heritage Foundation intern now in charge of terrorism prevention, I bet he submitted his resume through Project 2025. Only the best people.
Michael Kosta unpacks the latest in Musk and Trump’s messy bromance breakup: Elon doubling down on critiques against the Big Beautiful Bill, Trump’s parent-level guilt, Kanye West calling for a ceasefire, and threats of an Epstein files leak. Plus, Grace Kuhlenschmidt explains that the president is merely playing a game of 7D chess.
"The thing that was always going to happen is now happening." It was always a matter of when, not if. I'm just surprised at how quickly matters escalated.
The new head of U.S. Terror Prevention is a 22 year old who graduated from college twelve months ago, Elon went nuclear on Donald Trump - said that he’s in the Epstein Files which is why they have not been made public and Musk agreed with a post that said Trump should be impeached and replaced with JD Vance, the MAGAs are hard at work trying to downplay the rift between their king and benefactor, and the judge at the Diddy trial in New York threatened to ban him from the courtroom.
This is a surprisingly concise and focused video description for Jimmy K, which tells my readers and me how much the feud is taking up all the oxygen in the room. About the only new take is Musk agreeing with a call for Hoover Cleveland's impeachment and JD Vance replacing him. I expect Vance will keep his mouth shut, especially if he agrees. Maybe Sean "Diddy" Combs should follow Vance's example.
Seth takes a closer look at Trump threatening to take away Elon Musk's government contracts and Musk saying Trump was in the Epstein files.
I'm glad to see some focus on the House Republicans who voted for the bill and Joni Ernst ("Joni Hearse") getting grief from their constituents. They deserve it. Also, I was wondering when the other late night hosts would follow Jimmy Kimmel playing 'TACO Man' for Trump. It took a week!
Colbert satirizing the feud as an episode of Couples Therapy isn't just brilliant comedy. It's also cross-promotion of another Paramount property, as Couples Therapy is a Showtime series. As I wrote most recently in 'SNL' celebrates Mother's Day 2025, "'It's not just news value that's driving it.' Or comedy value, for that matter."
Stay tuned as I return to the News & Doc Emmy Awards for tomorrow's Sunday entertainment feature.
As I promisedtwice, it's time for the next installment in my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards by examining The Sixth and the rest of the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. The Sixth on the sixth!*
Since it is the only nominee in this category with another nomination and that is for Best Documentary, I begin with THE SIXTH | Trailer from Change Content.
THE SIXTH (www.thesixthmovie.com) is a feature documentary produced in collaboration with A24. From Academy Award® winning filmmakers Andrea Nix Fine & Sean Fine, THE SIXTH takes you inside the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol through six personal accounts, including Rep. Jamie Raskin and MPD Chief Robert Contee. This harrowing yet hopeful film, is a powerful reminder that the fate of democracy is in all our hands.
This isn't the first time the News & Doc Emmy Awards recognized coverage of January 6th; for starters, CNN's 'Live from the Capitol: January 6th, One Year Later' won two News & Doc Emmy Awards in 2023. It is the first time I've covered a nominated documentary about the event, although it probably won't be the last. In the meantime, this is still my favorite to win this category, although it is facing worthy competition and isn't a guaranteed winner. After all, Good Night Oppy had six nominations and was my pick to win Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary two years ago, but lost to How to Survive a Pandemic. Something similar could happen here.
Follow over the jump to watch the trailers or the equivalent for the rest of the nominees in this category and another look at Best Documentary.
One of the oldest names in weight loss has lost most of its value and filed for bankruptcy. This video explores the brand's history while identifying some of the biggest reasons behind its decline.
As I usually do, I'm sharing Company Man Mike's list.
Rebranding strikes me as a milder version of Hooters' identity crisis with a side helping of external factors including the pandemic — bad timing, indeed! Speaking of external factors, Weight Watchers had been able to weather its competition until weight loss drugs like Ozempic came along. It didn't take them long to drive Weight Watchers into bankruptcy. As I wrote last month, "WeightWatchers decided that if they couldn't beat Ozempic and other weight loss drugs, they'd join them. Too bad things moved so quickly that they were [too] late to that party."
Oprah Winfrey leaving the company followed by its bankruptcy demonstrates that it was the loss of celebrity influence that may have been the last straw. The company had been depending on celebrity endorsers for decades and without its last one, it declined rapidly.
While I've often seen private equity as a cause of debt leading to failure, I've come across stock buybacks by themselves justthreetimes, and only seen both once in the case of Ruby Tuesday. Now I can say I've run across the combination twice.
I close by quoting a comment and my response on last month's post.
fry1laurie: So Weight Watchers is trying to shed 751,471,011.70 pounds (of debt).
Me: Welcome to Crazy Eddie's Motie News! HAHAHA! I'm glad the United Kingdom didn't abandon the pound for the Euro just so you could make this joke!
Stay tuned for the promised next installment in my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards tomorrow, when I plan on examining The Sixth and the rest of the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. I decided blogging about The Sixth on the sixth would be more appropriate than today.
Democrats can now call the Donald Trump-Republican budget bill a "disgusting abomination" and they’d be quoting Elon Musk every time they do it, says MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. Now that the budget bill is in the Senate, Lawrence explains that Republican senators are now able to stop the bill or risk Musk funding an opponent in their reelection campaign to the Senate next year.
When I read or heard speculation on when, not if, Donald "Hoover Cleveland" Trump and Elon Musk would have a falling out, the assumption would be that Hoover Cleveland would initiate it. Nope. I guess Musk is the bigger prima donna. Surprise! What's not a surprise is that Musk is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. What Musk wants will probably make the final result crueler, not kinder.
Elon Musk issued a blistering criticism of the massive Republican bill for President Donald Trump’s agenda Tuesday, posting on X that it is a "disgusting abomination." "I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore," Musk wrote. "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. The Morning Joe panel discusses.
MSNBC quoted Axios's reporting, which listed four reasons for Musk opposing the budget bill, none of which involve increasing the deficit, and all of which harm him, or at least make him look and feel bad.
That's a wrap for today's topical post. Stay tuned for the next installment in my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards tomorrow, when I plan on examining The Sixth and the rest of the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary.
Jon Stewart tracks Elon Musk's White House crash, from the high of being Trump's "first buddy" to the low of his black-eyed DOGE send-off. Now that the 100-day honeymoon is over, Jon also checks in on Trump's other struggling cabinet members, like the FBI's burned-out deputy director, Dan Bongino.
Sen. Joni Ernst horrified constituents with a heartless comment about people who will lose Medicaid coverage under the GOP’s budget bill, Elon Musk denied reports that he is a heavy user of ketamine and psychedelics, and President Trump reposted a wild conspiracy theory about his predecessor.
Greer's premise/conceit is that Trump is like The King in Yellow and drives mad all who oppose him. I'd say he drives just about everyone mad by giving them permission to be their worst selves.
I'd say Senator Ernst succumbed to the curse. May the rest of us not follow suit.
I'm moving past Elon Musk's alleged drug use to Hoover Cleveland's re-"truthed" kooky claim that Joe Biden was replaced by a "robot clone" in 2020. As Stephen points out, robots are not clones, and the imagined replacement would have been worse than the original, both of which remind me of one of the lines in The Way of the (Political) K00K, "Never allow logic or reason get in the way of a good k00k." It also shows Hoover Cleveland's vulnerability to conspiracy theories. I wrote that in 2017 and repeated it immediately before the election. The old dog, and by that I mean Trump and not Biden, is still performing his old tricks.
Seth takes a closer look at President Trump reposting a far-right conspiracy theory that former President Biden was executed five years ago and is a robotically engineered clone, The New York Times reporting that Elon Musk was engaged in increasingly intense drug use during the Trump campaign and more.
Here's a term Seth could have found in his thesaurus to characterize the week's news, dystopian. That would have covered it.
Elon Musk is out of the White House and Trump held a farewell press conference for him, Elon had a mysterious black eye, the New York Times published a crazy story about him claiming that he has been taking a wide variety of drugs, Trump blew the lid off a bombshell cover-up by reposting a theory claiming that Biden was cloned and replaced by a robot, he took time over the weekend to weigh in on whether or not he would pardon Diddy, reality TV stars Todd & Julie Chrisley are already back to shooting their show after Trump pardoned them, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst had a town hall in Butler over the weekend where she told her constituents we’re all going to die, Stephen Miller was on Lara Trump’s show over the weekend where he took a rare break from deporting children to talk about his own, and while many Americans are now buying food on credit, some companies are trying to capitalize on that desperation.
The Truth Social user Hoover Cleveland re-"truthed" is even more confused than I thought. While there is a football player named Michael Robinson, he went to Penn State, played for the 49ers and Seahawks in the NFL, and is now an analyst for the NFL Network. That's not who I think the original poster meant. Instead, I think he meant Michelle Obama's brother, Craig Robinson, who was the men's basketball coach at Oregon State from 2008 to 2014, when Michelle was First Lady. Wow, they were in two places with two identities at the same time! Explain that, conspiracy theorist, while maintaining they're the same person. They're not.
The former president pushed back against Trump’s claim that he is a robot clone of himself.
*Snork*
On a more serious note, there is a method behind the madness of Hoover Cleveland spreading this. It's an even more bonkers version of Biden using an autopen to sign pardons for Hunter Biden and others. "That wasn't really Biden" would be even more effective than "Biden didn't actually sign the pardons" — if it were true. It's not, not that it being BS will stop Hoover Cleveland.
Stay tuned to see what I write tomorrow. Maybe it will be the results of the primary elections in New Jersey and Virginia, which could be good news. I hope so.
Hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean starts June 1 with NOAA forecasting six to ten storms that will earn names on the list of hurricanes this year. CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar reports, and CNN’s Victor Blackwell speaks with former FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell about the state of hurricane preparedness.
First, the charts, beginning with the list of storm names.
The new storm name is Dexter, replacing Dorian. I expect to see Dexter memes when it develops, especially if becomes a threat to the mainland U.S. Serial killer vibes!
Now for the numbers.
Most of the forecast range is above average, which the next chart shows as a 60% chance of an above average season.
Stay tuned to see if I resume my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards, or if I post tonight's monologues instead. It depends on whether the comedians return tonight and if I feel up to a long awards nominations post.
Happy June and happy Sunday! As I promised yesterday, I'm kicking off the month by examining the nominees for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary as the Sunday entertainment feature because Alex Jones is as much an entertainment story as he is a legal one.
The American Experience episode "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal" earned three nominations at the News & Doc Emmy Awards and technically leads The Truth vs. Alex Jones with two nominations, but the situation mirrors the field for Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary because The Truth vs. Alex Jones's other nomination is for Best Documentary, which balances out "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal" earning nominations for Outstanding Writing – Documentary and Outstanding Direction – Documentary in my handicapping, so both are tied in my book. The other nominees in this category, Cult Massacre: One Day In Jonestown, Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, and Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, have only this one nomination.
In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal, a working-class neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, discovered that their homes, schools and playgrounds were built on top of a former chemical waste dump, which was now leaking toxic substances and wreaking havoc on their health. Through interviews with many of the extraordinary housewives turned activists, the film shows how they effectively challenged those in power, forced America to reckon with the human cost of unregulated industry, and created a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.
POISONED GROUND: THE TRAGEDY AT LOVE CANAL tells the dramatic and inspiring story of the ordinary women who fought against overwhelming odds for the health and safety of their families.
When I first started teaching environmental science, one of the lab exercises was to watch a video about Love Canal and fill out a worksheet. That assignment disappeared the next time I taught the class, but the memory stuck with me. I'm too close to the end of my career and the actual episode is a touch too long to show in class, but I will definitely recommend this to my students for extra credit. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
Survivors and eyewitnesses tell the immersive story of Jim Jones' idealistic organization's final hours that spiraled into a mass casualty event. Watch Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown on Hulu!
Connecting this documentary to 9/11: One Day in America indicates both its pedigree and how this could easily have been a nominee for Outstanding Historical Documentary (same with "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal"). Doing so would have put it in direct competition with Tsunami: Race Against Time, also by the same team, and I don't think they, Hulu, and National Geographic would have appreciated that. It's better off here, although I'd be surprised if that allows it to win this category.
A mother discovers the daughter she gave up for adoption many years ago has disappeared—and she will stop at nothing to find her. INTO THE FIRE: THE LOST DAUGHTER, directed by Ryan White and produced by Charlize Theron, comes to Netflix September 12.
"[P]roduced by Charlize Theron" — Theron is no stranger to true crime, having won an Oscar for portraying serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.
To stop serial killers you need to think like one. Follow FBI specialist Dr. Ann Burgess as she explores the minds of notorious murderers in the new series Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, premiering on July 11.
From award-winning executive producers Dakota and Elle Fanning and critically acclaimed collaborators comes “Mastermind: To Think Like A Killer,” a fascinating new perspective on the woman whose crime hunting innovations changed history. To stop serial killers, psychiatric nurse and professor Dr. Ann Burgess must first learn to think like one. With unprecedented access to the mastermind behind the development of modern serial-killer profiling, the series tells Burgess’ tenacious story and her compassion for victims which puts her at the center of America’s most infamous true-crime cases. From the widely known Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy to lesser-known cases like the Ski Mask Rapist, Burgess investigates and studies the damaged psyches of victims and their attackers, putting two halves of the same story together to catch a killer. Largely an unsung heroine until now, Dr.Burgess impacted not only the FBI, she also radically championed the plight of women in America.
As a fan of the prematurely canceled Mindhunter and run extended on streaming Criminal Minds, I'm glad to see the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Units receiving the documentary treatment they deserve. Also, Dakota Fanning is familiar with historical crime, having played one of the detectives in The Alienist, while her sister Elle, better known for playing Catherine the Great in TheGreat, also portrayed a defendant in a movie about true crime, The Girl from Plainville. Together, that puts them on the same level as Charlize Theron. Those credentials might have impressed the Television Academy if their documentaries had been nominated at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, but I'm not so sure they will be enough to convince the documentarians and journalists here. As I usually write when I cover awards shows, electorates matter.
For the first time in this series, I'm examining the nominees for Best Documentary. I've been holding off because the category has nine nominees this year. The Grab leads with four nominations, followed by American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders and Mammals with three each, Hollywood Black, The Sixth, and The Truth vs. Alex Jones, all with two, and The Commandant's Shadow, Queendom, and The Sing Sing Chronicles with just this one. The Grab and American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders are facing off for Outstanding Investigative Documentary, The Sixth leads the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary, The Truth vs. Alex Jones is contending with Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary, and Mammals leads the rest of the field without a subject area nomination. That's four more opportunities to examine the nominees, after which I'll make my call.
Right now, I have The Grab in first, but I'm not making a final call until I write about the rest of the nominees.
I still think The Grab is first, but I'll change or solidify my choice after I write about Mammals.
Follow over the jump for the craft categories in which Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal earned nominations.
