MONDAY, MARCH 9, 2026
We won't mention this again: As soon as Kristi Noem got sacked, the piling-on got started.
In Sunday's New York Times, Maureen Dowd took her turn at the helm of this ship. Along the way, she joined a cast of thousands in retyping the highlighted script:
‘Wuthering Heights,’ MAGA Style
Eat your heart out, Emerald Fennell.
You may have the alluring stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi cavorting on the moors in your crimson adaptation of “Wuthering Heights.” But for radioactive romance, you can’t beat Washington.
Emily Brontë’s Cathy and Heathcliff are selfish, manipulative creatures, destroying each other and all around them as they indulge their passions and egos. But their damage was kept to one windswept village.
With MAGA’s version of “Wuthering Heights,” the far less alluring but equally intertwined Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski have been cavorting over the swamp, scandalizing the capital as they’ve spread their cruelty far and wide. (To Lewandowski’s credit, he didn’t try to kill a dog like Heathcliff did. That’s Noem’s department.)
Holiday Barbie, as Robbie’s Cathy has been dubbed for her ostentatious dresses and hairstyles, pales in comparison with the costumes and Rapunzel extensions of ICE Barbie. Imprisoned in her marriage to Edgar Linton, Robbie’s Cathy gleams in elaborate gowns and necklaces. But Noem topped that. When she went to see migrants in prison in El Salvador, she sported a baseball cap with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement logo—and a gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona that’s worth $50,000.
And so on from there.
It's true! Incessant costuming seemed to prevail during Noem's adventures at DHS. That said:
To our eye, the point of the costuming at that gulag-style prison was plainly not the gold watch.
To our eye, the El Salvador shoot looked like a scene straight out of some sequel to Apocalypse Now. The half-naked male prisoners were all half naked. Quite plainly, the lady was not.
We don't think the focus was really the watch! We promise not to roll our eyes at this timid bit of scripting again.
Additional bonus disclosure: We thought Emerald Fennell was right on target with her 2020 directorial debut, Promising Young Woman.
We haven't seen her version of Wuthering Heights.
Somerby is correct.
BalasPadamAll Republican voters are bigots.
Somerby-haters claiming that's not what Somerby meant, in 3...2...1...
Padam...Ignition...
PadamSomerby whisperers roll our their hackneyed whine once again: BOOM!
PadamSo much fucking winning!!! "One week into President Trump’s war on Iran, the most severe shock to energy markets since the 1970s is cascading through the world economy. The disruption quickly fed into higher gasoline and diesel prices at the pump, and higher mortgage rates and borrowing costs for the U.S. government, endangering Trump’s economic priorities." Also too, no fertilizer for crops. Just goes to show what a horrible prejudiced sadist David in Cal is. All these mangled brown Muslim bodies are worth the cost to me. But I am a grad of Uni of Chicago and career man, so I got mine, fuck you. Also helps I will be dead before SS& Medicare goes tits up.
BalasPadam“Trump’s economic priorities."
Padamlol, the only economic priorities that fat tub of lard has are spelled “Trump”. Didn’t that lying sack of shit just tell us a week ago that he won “affordability”? I’m pretty sure he did, right dickface?
The investing public is not so pessimistic. Today’s Dow Jones closed up 239 points
PadamHow long can Iran keep the Strait of Hormuz closed? On the one hand, Iran has a lot of underground missiles that are hard to locate and take out. And, drones can be launched from anywhere. On the other hand, Iran is being totally pounded by Israel and the US. With almost no defense left, Iran's enemies can strike at will any where they want to.
PadamBalancing these two factors, my guess is that the Strait will be back to normal in less than the 4 weeks Trump originally talked about. Anyone else care to make a prediction?
We need to ask Netanyahu, you fucking fascist dickface
PadamI predict you are a fucking Nazi bitch troll. Fuck off you fucking asshole.
PadamDavid in Cal thinks Iranians are the cowardly pushovers Americans are.
PadamMy bet is that any optimistic garbage fed to you by the Liar in Chief would be consumed by you without question. Want to revisit your comments about the girls school bombing? Trump says Iran killed those children with misguided Tomahawks. Swallowing that too?
PadamTrump changed his tune. At a presser today, I saw him say it was under investigation.
PadamTrump is a lying shit poster, just like you fuckface.
PadamI see. You're swallowing that it's under investigation. You can file that along with the murder of an ICU nurse in Minneapolis. Virtually everything that this regime doesn't want to admit to is " under investigation" until that time comes in which there has been so much additional bullshit out of them that the question no longer comes up. But you know that and gladly play along.
PadamApocalypse Now was a total sausage fest. You want Noem in a movie, just go with anything Sybil Danning or Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.
BalasPadamThe ridiculous ad campaign that got her fired was a cowgirl fetish look that was all hers.
Sure dickface, orange chickenshit knew nothing about it. Lol
PadamNo one cares about Noems wardrobe or the film Wuthering Heights, which has been widely panned, not sure why.
BalasPadamThe horrific acts of ICE agents under Noem's direction dictate that glamorizing her by describing her wardrobe or treating her firing like celebrity gossip (as Maureen Dowd does) is obscene. What she did is serious, criminal, immoral, way worse than shooting her dog, and should not be trivialized by the NY Times and Dowd or by Somerby. Somerby's reactions to news are becoming more sickening as the acts of this govt get worse.
Noah Berlatsky strikes an appropriate tone:
"The US committed its first major atrocity of Trump’s war on Iran during the first day of bombing.
On February 28, a missile directly hit Shajareh Tayyebeh school in southern Iran. The school building was destroyed; dozens of young girls between seven and 12 years old were killed. It is believed that around 168 people died altogether. The Guardian reported on horrific details from verified videos; in one, they say, “a very small child’s severed arm is pulled from the rubble. Colourful backpacks covered with blood and concrete dust sit among the ruins.”
The school appears to have been deliberately targeted, perhaps because the location was the site of a Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base 15 years ago. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted that “we, of course, never target civilian targets,” but large-scale bombing raids often hit and kill civilians, including children. This is one reason that it is immoral, as well as illegal, to launch a war of aggression."
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/iran-elementary-school-bombing
Somerby should be ashamed of himself, but like the Republicans, he has no shame.
At least Somerby notes that every Republican voter is a bigot, which is more than you can say for the media.
PadamThe fanny burp proved too sneaky for my wits, slipping out uncontested.
BalasPadamUnfortunately, once released, a fanny burp cannot easily be reabsorbed.
-Fanny Horn
Say what you 3will about the Republican Party, but you can't say they don't run a global pedophile ring.
BalasPadam