Blue Georgia

Thomas Friedman: I've actually never looked at Twitter, never looked at Facebook, never looked at Instagram, never looked at TikTok, and never smoked a cigarette. And my plan is to die saying all five.

Bill Maher: We seem to be in a war with Venezuela. Venezuela is not the drug country.

Thomas Friedman: They do so much crazy stuff that is dishonest, it's so hard to trust them anymore.

Bill Maher: Should we be talking about climate change more as a national security issue?

Thomas Friedman: Two things are happening faster than people think. One is climate change, and the other is AI. I think both are coming at us much faster than people realize.

Bill Maher: Headline in your paper today, 'Most voters say U.S. can't repair severe divisions.'

Tom Friedman: We aren't divided. We are being divided by companies for profit… [Social media] is now a giant industry to make people stupid and angry.

Van Jones: What a small, insecure man Hegseth is... Every girl dad should be offended by what he said. The women who are in our armed forces can kick his ass any day of the week.

Tom Friedman: What I really enjoy doing is traveling with the U.S. military. Because what you see is our real strength.

Tom Friedman on Hegseth's speech to the generals: These guys are doing this whole lethality thing, and we're fighting spirit, and do more push ups and get rid of your beard... meanwhile, Putin every day is fighting a hybrid war, and we're leaving on the field the greatest freedom fight on the planet

Tom Friedman: I'm actually looking more at independents because the question is not what's happening now, what's going to happen in the midterms? There is some crazy shit going on… not just this, but the whole authoritarian movement. Really scary stuff.

Van Jones' reply is 😬

Bill Maher: I've never understood the bizarre Republican obsession with taking healthcare away from people... Kaiser predicts premium payments in '26 will more than double if the ACA enhanced premium tax credits expire

Tom Friedman: What people say to you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public... What Hamas wanted from the very beginning was to get Israel stuck in the sands of Gaza forever, because they knew, that's how they could bleed them.

Van Jones on Israel: "Revenge is not a strategy," says October 7 was like "40,000 Americans being murdered in one day." And while they fight Hamas, they also face a "soft power global information war" with a generation that "just thinks they’re doing bad stuff."

Kat Abughazaleh: I think Kristi Noem should have consequences. I think she should be tried at The Hague... It is not normal to have masked men repel down from helicopters into apartment buildings, to arrest families in the middle of the night.

Kat Abughazaleh on Chicago ICE facility: It's a war zone. It's a war zone with the government waging war on peaceful protesters.

Watch Mike Johnson, Roger Marshall, and Tom Emmer cry about "fake polls" — Marshall didn't even knowing which poll he was trashing.

The playbook is deny, deflect, blame the media.

Melanie Stansbury: If your best argument is making up some crazy lie about American's health care, about giving it to people who don't qualify in the first place for it, and posting racist memes online, then you're losing the argument.

John Avlon on the Trump coin: It's hard to put into words just how insane this is.

Erin Burnett: This is not normal.

Avlon: We have an unwritten rule in America; you don't put living people on coins.

Margaret Hoover: It's a federal law.

Tomi Lahren: Do you think Bad Bunny is a good choice for the Super Bowl?

Krystal Ball: I don't know why it's a big deal. Seems like a great American artist.

Lahren: He's not an American artist.

Ball: He's Puerto Rican. That's part of America, dear.

Maria Cardona: She needs to crack a book.

Trump's spiritual advisor Robert Morris just pleaded guilty to five counts of lewd and indecent acts with a child.

Jessica Tarlov: It's kind of reminding me of 2020, when everyone who would fan out in front of the cameras would say, Donald Trump won. Joe Biden wasn't really elected, and then they get in a courtroom and their tails between their legs, and they're like, no, no, no, I don't think that.

Karoline Leavitt's press briefing in 29 seconds.

Q: Is it the administration's position that hospitals should not have to treat people who come into the emergency department who are not here legally?

Karoline Leavitt: No, that's not our position.

Brianna Keilar: The Washington Post poll... more Americans are blaming President Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown than Democrats.

Marshall: I can tell you that's a very biased poll... Who was it from?

Keilar: If it's biased, you should know which one it is.

ICYMI

Democratic Representative Madeleine Dean telling House Speaker Mike Johnson that Trump is "unwell" and "unhinged" prompting Johnson to reply, "a lot of folks on your side are too."

Here's the entire Mike Johnson press conference in 26 seconds. See if you notice a theme.

"President Tramp."

How it started.... How it's going ....
💪⚖️🗳️👻

Kaitlan Collins: People who are in the country illegally cannot get these subsidies.

Scott Jennings: Sure they can. Who do you think pays when they go to the emergency room?

Collins: Going to the emergency room is not getting an Obamacare subsidy.

Karen Finney: You're being dishonest.

There's always a video with Trump.

"I actually think the president would be blamed if there is a shutdown... I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president... He's the one that has to get people together... if you say who gets fired, it always has to be the top."

Daniel Dale debunks the claim that Dems want to give free health care to illegal immigrants.

- Undocumented immigrants can't get Obamacare / Medicaid
- Emergency care is already guaranteed by Reagan-era law
- Federal funds are hospital reimbursements, not insurance
- Trump's BBB reduced them

"What Democrats are pushing is to continue the federal subsidies to help Americans afford their Obamacare coverage, which are set to expire at the end of this year, and to reverse deep cuts to Medicaid that Trump signed into law and his sweeping domestic policy bill."