The Memory Hole

 

      I remember everything about January 6, 2021 just as I recall everything about September 11, 2001. It was the second time within 20 years that our nation was attacked. Except, the last time, it was attacked from within by 1600 of the stupidest people who ever lived and, by proxy, a discolored, demented  criminal named Donald fucking Trump.

      The pawns, of course, went to trial and many were sent to prison while Trump, a bug-eyed psychopath named John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani never saw the inside of a courtroom, much less a jail cell.

      Congressmen, albeit the more sensible ones, realized who'd kept them alive during a riot that wound up killing nine people. It was the DC police who fought a mob of lunatics and were handed an impossible task: Securing the Capitol. The rules of engagement handed down from the DoD were simple: Not to engage the mob.

     Congress swiftly moved to give some of the officers gold medallions. Several Republicans voted against it while pretending to be outraged over the word "insurrection" (even though that's exactly what January 6 was). Then Congress commissioned a plaque to be made commemorating the police's role in guarding the Capitol building and all in it.

     Then it disappeared.

     Since it was commissioned by an Act of Congress, by law it was supposed to be displayed. But Mike Johnson hasn't unveiled it. Trump's law firm, formerly the DOJ, is trying to dismiss an officer's lawsuit to display the plaque. Now congressmembers are reduced to putting up crude facsimiles of it on their office doors.

     It's rumored to be sitting in storage. More likely, it's sitting on a landfill somewhere in Virginia.

     So, what happened? Is it really up to the majority party to put up a plaque created by an Act of Congress and mandated to be displayed? Why was the Republican Party allowed to flaunt the law? Who got rid of it? Who decreed that it never be displayed?

     Why wasn't it put up during the Biden administration?

     And why are the feckless cunts of the Democrat Party not raising a bigger stink about this?

     Every day that goes by without that plaque displayed on a federal building is an insult to the men and women who put their lives on the line (and, in five cases, lost their lives) that day. 

     But the invertebrates in the worthless Republican caucus are in such lockstep with Donald Trump, the guy who'd started the riot five years ago today, that they can't bring themselves to put up a plaque reminding us all of perhaps their Dear Leader's greatest crime.

     What a pack of wet-legged cunts.

Dead Men Do Tell Tales

 

     Two days ago, as he was taking a brief vacation from the front nine at Mar a Lago, the rotting corpse of Donald Trump was pulled from his casket and propped up to hold a press conference. And when a reporter asked the stubbornly semi-sentient cadaver if he'd notified oil companies about Venezuela's invasion, the waste of trace elements said, 

      "Before and after. They want to go in and they’re going to do a great job."

     Then they installed him back in his coffin in preparation of the next chapter of Weekend at Bernie's.

     So there you have it. Once again, it was never about fentanyl (which is primarily made in Mexico, not Venezuela) and it certainly wasn't about running afoul of the 1934 National Firearms Act pertaining to just two kinds of weapons. It's about the oil. It was always about the oil.

     This was an admission that would be stunning if one refuses to consider Trump's naked corruption. What his admission essentially confirmed was that US Delta Force operators risked their lives and Venezuelans lost their lives so Trump could reward his wealthiest donors after all the bribes they lavished on him for his ballroom.

     Since Trump bypasses Congress any and every time he thinks he doesn't absolutely need it, it shouldn't surprise any one that Trump never gave a heads-up to the Gang of Eight, much less get permission from Congress to engage in what's nothing more or less than an act of war upon a sovereign nation.

     What sets Trump apart from other right wing scumbags that had illegally invaded sovereign nations is that Trump is brazenly telling everyone what the real reasons were. Whereas his predecessors hid behind mealy-mouthed rationales such as democracy and so forth, Trump is coming out and admitting it was done at the behest of oil companies. There doesn't seem to be an exit strategy in place, with little to no heed being paid to the fate of the people of Venezuela.

     And, as geopolitical analysts have already conjectured, Trump's invasion of Venezuela could wind up giving a giant permission structure for other authoritarian nations to invade other countries such as Russia with Ukraine and China with Taiwan. The ripple effect could be catastrophic.

     If it wasn't for the deaths and devastation in Venezuela, it would be comical watching an illegitimate president accusing someone else of being an illegitimate president and that Maduro's prosecution is literally being held right around the corner from where Trump himself was prosecuted, and convicted, of fraud.

     And today, we're hearing that the DOJ is quietly backing off one of its key charges against Maduro, being the head of “Cartel de los Soles”. And the reason why they're backing off those charges is that the government is finally coming to the conclusion that the “Cartel de los Soles” doesn't exist any more than does antifa. It's more like a verbal designation to describe high-ranking Venezuelan officials who'd enriched themselves through drug shipments. The name translates to "cartel of the suns", a mocking reference to the suns that Venezuelan generals wear to denote rank.

      So, just days into Maduro's and his wife's kidnapping, the federal government has to retool its charges, just as it had to with James Comey, because of Trump's "ready fire aim" bullshit.

      We could be hopeful and dream of the day when Trump gets impeached for the third time over this murderous stunt. We can hope that he trades places with Maduro some day at that courthouse in the Southern District of New York.

       But we've been there before, haven't we? 

Ink and Iron Has Arrived

      This is the unboxing of my newest novel, Ink and Iron, just arrived from the printer in Las Vegas. The formatting, indents and margins are perfect and it's a substantial read at 455 pages. Note my new editor, Midnight, in the foreground. I just rescued her last night and she's eating us out of house and home. She's also a real cuddle bug and is very comfortable with people. Anyway, Ink and Iron is available in paperback for just  $12.99 or on Kindle for $4.99.

Good Times at Pottersville

 

Easy Come, Easy Go

 

BREAKING: Trump has been officially stripped of his FIFA Peace Prize. pic.twitter.com/2lMODA5B5n

— Former Republican 🇺🇸 (@Sjacobs2020) January 3, 2026

Tell Me If This Sounds Familiar

 

 

    Another oil-rich nation invaded in the name of regime change. Another dictator with a cheesy mustache toppled. Another pack of lies to justify invading said oil-rich nation. Does any of this sound familiar?

     Seven years ago almost to the day, DNI Tulsi Gabbard warned us about this. Of course, at the time, she was just winding up her presidential ambitions in preparation for crashing and burning in the 2020 Democratic primaries but one has to admit she was right.

     Early this morning, America did what one would think was the unthinkable and we invaded and bombed a sovereign nation and even kidnapped its head of state. Nicholas Maduro is now in New York awaiting charges of trafficking in drugs. We even kidnapped his wife.

     Let's get one thing straight- I'm no fan of Maduro. Like Trump last year and 2016, he robbed his way to power and nakedly stole Venezuela's last election. And, like Trump, he tanked his own nation's economy, not because Socialism doesn't work, but simply because he's a corrupt asshole.

     But regime change spearheaded by the US government has a very, very poor history. Iran. Vietnam. Chile. El Salvador. Nicaragua. Iraq. Afghanistan. The list goes on. Since WWII, the United States, usually under Republican leadership, has done the bidding of giant corporate interests whether it be fruit companies or oil cartels. In the 80+ years since the end of WWII, we've toppled no fewer than 60 democratic nations virtually every time their leaders don''t toe the right wing corporate line.

     Venezuela is the latest casualty of those interests.

     As with Iraq 23 years ago and their phantom weapons of mass destruction, we, too, have invented a false rationale to bomb the capital city of a sovereign nation and capture its head of state. Now Trump is saying we're going to "run" Venezuela as if it's a distressed company under receivership. This is coming from a buffoon who can't even run the United States except as a banana republic.

     It started with the US military bombing back to the Stone Age over 20 boats, probably all fishing boats, out of the water under the guise of combating drug trafficking. Keep in mind, this is being engineered by a clown who'd pardoned no fewer than four drug dealers.

     And now, Trump is openly admitting it was all about capturing Venezuela's oil reserves, the largest in the world. He's not even pretending, any more. It's all about the oil, always has been, always will be.

     Just like Iraq.

     Did Venezuela need regime change? Absolutely, it did. But their fate, their destiny, as Gabbard said seven years ago, should've been left in their hands, not in our grasping ones.

Ink and Iron Is Out

 

     In case you've been wondering where I've been for the past week, look at the lead image above (click on it for a high-resolution image). Not long after I wrapped up The Final Bullet, I began working on Ink and Iron, the next installment in the Scott Carson saga. The Kindle edition went live yesterday and the paperback edition hit the market this morning. 

     The revisions and formatting were, as usual, a nightmare, with my copy editor not sending me the edits until just before Christmas. Then, even after those were made, I had to wrestle with margins and indents with the native file and all the technical bullshit you never see in the movies. So that's why I've been MIA this past week. But, finally, all my work paid off yesterday.

     The synopsis:

     "In the wake of the Great Molasses Flood of January 1919, Boston faces another crisis. No sooner than the city’s North End cleans up the disaster’s devastation: The city’s police are taking steps toward a historic strike that threatens to unleash anarchy that ineffectual Mayor Andrew Peters is powerless to stop. Bad pay, long hours and inhumane working conditions are the source of their discontent.

     Stepping into the storm clouds is Moira Delmonico, a young Socialist cub reporter with the Boston Globe. Moira’s not interested in making friends among Boston’s power elite, especially future president and Governor Calvin Coolidge. He’s vowed to crush the strike by any means, including deploying 5000 members of the State Guard. Moira has skin in the game: Her beau, Patrolman Tommy Donahue, is one of the 1137 police who will strike. Moira risks her new job with every article she writes.
     Joined by her mother, legendary New York Times crime journalist, Kelley Delmonico, and her brother, NYC officer Angelo Delmonico, Jr., Moira confronts the corrupt Brahmins on Beacon Hill. Throwing in her lot with Boston bootleggers the Gustin Gang, she battles the governor, Commissioner and a shadowy strike-breaker named Callahan.
     Fueling the chaos is a series of murders of active and retired policemen. Found on their bodies is a note warning against affiliation with the American Federation of Labor. The strike becomes a major turning point in American history, with deaths, injuries and hundreds of thousands in damage. And young Moira’s career in journalism may end barely after it’s started."

     It's a substantial read, weighing in at just under 142,000 words, and it surprised me to learn that I wrote the first draft in just under five months. And it offers a different slant on the 1919 police strike than the one given by Dennis Lehane in The Given Day. It's been said that at the core of all fiction is the question, "Who am I?" This is indeed the question Moira Delmonico continually asks herself as she desperately tries to separate herself from her mother and her overwhelming legacy. It gives me a chance to introduce a new lead character as well as expand the Scott Carson saga into the early 20th century. I hope you give it a chance and leave a review.

The Weird, Improbable Evolution of Marjorie Taylor-Greene

 

     I'm amazed that I seem to be the only one who'd noticed this and made mention of it, but Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene (GA-14) has only been in office for less than one year of either Trump administration. She was sworn into office on January 3, 2021 in the twilight of Trump's first term and will spend less than a year in Congress in the second one. She will retire after five years in service in the US House on January 5, 2026.

     Shooting star analogies are certainly called for and justified. For five years in the House, and for a couple of years before that, Greene had firmly established herself as a right wing gadfly and providing endless laugh reels for late night comedians. She'd made a fool of herself next to Lauren Boebert by heckling President Joe Biden during his States of the Union addresses. Jewish space lasers. Gazpacho Police. Masks during the COVID crisis. And, before that, stalking and harassing David Hogg through the streets of DC. Shouting into AOC's congressional office mail slot. The list goes on.

     Most notoriously, she was Donald Trump's cheerleader throughout his all-too-brief exile. She entered office as a fire-breathing  QAnon right winger and honestly thought that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Three days after she was sworn into office, Trump sent an angry mob to attack the Capitol building to stop the certification and counting of the electoral votes. And, even as she sheltered in place, she kept insisting that the rioters were antifa and other left wing groups until a fellow Republican, Kat Cammack, had to take her by the shoulders and remind her the rioters were wearing MAGA hats.

     By this time, Greene had proven to be such a troublemaker that she was expelled from the House Freedom caucus (such a drastic and dramatic departure that the caucus to this day hasn't ever admitted to doing so). She lost her committee assignments, thereby technically making her one of the least powerful and influential people in the House. Yet, she still held sway over Republican voters well beyond Georgia 14.

     She'd cynically made friends with then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Bided her time. Learned how things really worked on Capitol Hill and, yes, became more politically sophisticated. She realized that throwing bombs is not the way to get things done in government.

     But in this, her only year as a congresswoman during a Trump regime, Greene underwent a gradual evolution. In fact, it's so eerie and improbable that one suspects it isn't genuine, yet it seems to be just that. She began breaking with Trump on a wide variety of issues, such as Trump denying states the right to impose regulations on AI companies for a decade. the lapse of the ACA subsidies at the end of the year, SNAP aid not going out during the shutdown (77.000 in Greene's district survive on SNAP benefits). Declaring the mass deaths in Gaza at the hands of Israel a "genocide". Abortion. Greene wants it outlawed and calls it "murder" whereas Trump wants to leave it up to the states.

     Then there were Trump's remarks on Charlie Kirk's memorial service, in which he said, “He was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose. He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them.” Green later told Robert Draper of the NY Times, “That was absolutely the worst statement. It just shows where his heart is. And that’s the difference, with her having a sincere Christian faith, and proves that he does not have any faith.” Which, one must admit, was a strange turnaround for someone who'd spent virtually her entire congressional career squirting vitriol at people.

     Then there was the Epstein files.

     For Donald Trump, that was a bridge too far. Greene was one of only four Republicans who'd put their name on the discharge petition that forced a vote on the DOJ releasing the Epstein files. Trump called Greene and Boebert and basically demanded they remove their names from the petition, thereby lowering the count to below the minimum 218 that would have forced a vote.

     Then, at a closed door House Oversight committee hearing, Greene listened to and spoke to victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Greene then publicly threatened to disclose the names of the powerful men who'd also sexually abused them. Pretty soon, Trump called her office.

     To quote Draper, "Greene was in her Capitol Hill office, and according to a staff member, everyone in the suite of rooms could hear him yelling at her as she listened to him on speakerphone. Greene says she expressed her perplexity over his intransigence. According to Greene, Trump replied, 'My friends will get hurt.'" In other words, I will get hurt.

     Now, it's important to take this in its proper context. As far as we know, Marjorie Taylor-Greene had never been sexually assaulted nor has she claimed to be. So this empathy for Epstein's victims isn't merely another case of a Republican's thoughts evolving only when it personally affected them. Green has two daughters, so she was thinking about what would happen to them.

     In well under a year, Marjorie Taylor-Greene went from being Athena to Cassandra. As with the Cassandra of Greek mythology, Trump bestowed upon Greene compliments and so forth (Though never, pointedly, a government job). Then, when she stopped returning Trump's transactional praise, he doomed her, never to be believed.

     If anything, this seemed to steel her resolve until the day came when she was in open warfare against Trump. He went from, “She’s loved and respected, and she’s tough and smart and kind,” to calling her "Marjorie Traitor Brown".

     The very day after Trump had affixed that idiotic nickname to Greene, the congresswoman got an anonymous email threatening her son, Derek's, life. When she relayed this information to Trump, he essentially told her she had no one but herself to blame.

      Even for Trump, that was especially shiftless and cold-blooded and I actually felt sorry for Greene and her family when I read that.

      Draper went on to write, "When she urged Trump to invite some of Epstein’s female victims to the Oval Office, she says, he angrily informed her that they had done nothing to merit the honor. It would be the last conversation Greene and Trump would ever have." 

      And, since this fall especially, Marjorie Taylor-Greene has been making a lot of sense. These days, I find myself nodding my head reading her words instead of shaking it. After nearly five years of hysterics, she seems to have finally found her Inner Sane Person.

      This doesn't mean that she's going to turn into a banana peel-burning liberal. She still believes in America First and what passes for Trump's policies. She's groping her way toward the light but she isn't quite there, yet. She's rightfully criticized the administration for slow-walking the Epstein files' release but still can't even bring herself to suspect that Donald Trump has been doing so because he's frantically trying to protect himself, because he knows his name's all over those files and that he's been personally dictating to Pam Bondi how to go about protecting him.

     In short, she still can't bring herself to believe that Trump was pals with Epstein for so long because they shared an unhealthy obsession for underage girls. But he's prompting death threats aimed at her children then shrugs his shoulders and blames her and, for any mother, that's crossing a big, red line.

     But Greene has come light years from the bomb-thrower she was in the beginning of her political career. She still thinks Trump walks on water but she sees that he's doing so with feet of clay. And she's just reaching the point of fully understanding that, in MAGA World, women become invisible the minute they stop toeing the party line. 

      Marjorie Taylor-Greene's political evolution is finite and will stop eventually well short of her becoming a liberal. She's always going to be a conservative and that's her right, of course. She will always be a Christian and that's OK, too. But MTG now knows through a newfound sense of empowerment, some weird version of right wing feminism, that she no longer has to hitch her wagon to powerful Republican men like Kevin McCarthy or Donald Trump.

     And I couldn't be happier for her. 

Good Times at Pottersville

 

Bad Santa

      For the last three years of my life, I haven't celebrated Christmas. That's my new normal.

      Since Barbara died in September 2023, there has been no one to shop for, no one to cook for. This is my second Christmas here in Arizona and, hopefully, my last. Today and last year, I'd opened up my laptop, see how others celebrate Christmas, the way I used to. Then I work on one book or another. Then I go to bed at night.

     That's it. That's my new normal.

     Yet, I realize that billions all over the world still celebrate Christmas in more joyous and traditional ways, the ways I used to observe it: Making children and other loved ones happy. Visiting family bearing gifts. Wrapping presents and stuffing stockings, trimming the tree, preparing for holiday meals, going out of their way to make people, even random strangers, happy.

     But there are some among us who just don't get it, never have and never will.

     That includes virtually everyone who works in this kakistocracy of a government who still insist on putting someone who is at the very least a suspected pedophile on the phone with children on Christmas Eve. And, with Trump's dementia reaching epic proportions, that never ever promises a good outcome. To cite just two examples from last night:

     One little girl made the mistake of calling Mar a Lago. This was the exchange:

     "What would you like Santa to bring?"

     "Uh... not coal?"

     "Not coal, you don't want coal. Well coal is — you mean clean, beautiful coal. I had to do that, I'm sorry. Coal is clean and beautiful, just remember that. But you don't want clean, beautiful coal, right?"

     Even talking to a little kid on Christmas Eve, Trump couldn't resist spouting hoary right wing talking points about the superiority of coal, one of the planet's most pernicious pollution agents.

     Another time, as Trump and Melania practically sat on opposite sides of the Florida peninsula, Trump spoke to another child.

     "We track Santa. We want to make sure that Santa is being good. We want to make sure that he's not infiltrated, that we're not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa. Santa loves Oklahoma like I do. You know, Oklahoma was very good to me in the election."

     Moments earlier, he said,

     "You sound so beautiful and cute. How old are you?"

     "I am eight."

     Meanwhile, I could imagine Melania muttering into the phone, "Who gives fuck about Christmas? I only do this until I renegotiate prenup."

      Meanwhile, Stephen Miller was giving the gift of Christmas Eve deportations:

 

     Then, of course, Trump did as he does every Christmas day and wrote, ""Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country, but are failing badly..."

     

     And then there was this video released by the sons of Josef Goebbels at DHS, one that looks like something out of the opening credits of the The Americans.

Merry Christmas, America. We are blessed to share a nation and a Savior. pic.twitter.com/SDYujiojXS

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) December 24, 2025

      People, we cannot allow this to become the new normal because these moral palsies simply have no concept of the true meaning of Christmas or any other holiday. We cannot lose our capacity for outrage and we need to call out these psychopaths at every available opportunity.

Streetwalker Elegy

Complete and total fraud. pic.twitter.com/STt97pz9DX

— ADAM (@AdameMedia) December 20, 2025

      JD Vance really is the ultimate career-driven, right wing whore. Back when Trump was still running for office the first time, Vance called him, "America's Hitler". As regards the Epstein files, Vance had said, "What possible interest would the US government have in keeping Epstein’s clients secret? Oh…" Then Trump's sons put the full court press on Dad the second time around and talked him into putting Vance on the GOP ticket. From that time on, Vance has been a smirking, wise-ass sidekick of Trump and a supporter of his every act of evil. One can easily imagine Vance smiling and secretly muttering, "25th amendment, 25th amendment" every time Trump jabbers and nods off in the Cabinet Briefing room. He knows he's a pedophile but he doesn't mind being in service to him because Trump is the Trojan Horse that'll get him out of the Naval Observatory and behind the Resolute Desk. That's because JD Vance (aka John Donald Bowman) is a soulless husk and a whore of the lowest magnitude. He hasn't changed his mind about Trump. He's only changed his attitude toward him. And he hadn't the slightest compunction about switching from being a Never Trumper to an Ever Trumper.

Will the Real Slick Willie Please Stand Up?

 (By Cyril Blubberpuss, Conservative-American)

Well, the Department of Justice has finally made their legal-ish release of some of the Epstein files, so let the liberal pinheads who read this septic tank of a blog make hay over that! As Abigail Jackson said, this is the most transparent administration in history and as is well known, the president welcomes any chance to expose himself.

     There are virtually no pictures of the president and, as for the one that did slip out, our sharp-eyed Justice Department took care of that immediately. Come on, don't look at me like that! It was a picture of a picture, which we all know is inadmissible in a court of law. And just because over 500 documents were completely blacked out, it doesn't mean they referenced the man who'd fought tooth and nail to prevent them from getting out.

    Instead, we ought to focus on what we are allowed to see by Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche: Slick Willie! Yes, There are several photos of Bill Clinton innocently standing next to Jeffrey Epstein. Yes, President Clinton never went to Epstein's Little St. Thomas Island nor has a single woman accused him of any impropriety. But we all know sexual assault victims are very hesitant to bring charges against presidents for fear of reprisals. Hell, Katie Johnson can tell you all about that!

    So, that's the president you ought to be looking at and, thanks to Bondi and Blanche, the human memory holes, we get to see Slick Willie in all his glory, fully clothed, conducting Clinton Foundation business and often in the company of just men and never underage girls.

     Oh, he is a slick one, all right!

     

    The one thing I didn't appreciate was the DoJ releasing photos of my beloved baby brother, Cecil. My younger sibling just wanted to see the sights. Little St. Thomas had a rejuvenating effect on him and he felt like a kid again, as evidenced by him in his tightie whities chasing Epstein's cabana boys in spirited games of hide and seek and having slap fights with Michael Jackson over who got to put sun tan lotion on their favorite ones.

    In fact, during my one visit to Epstein's Island in 2016, in which I was honored with a mask in my likeness in his strange dentist's office, I remember seeing a morbidly obese man who looked surprisingly like President Trump but definitely wasn't who was hiding his face and screaming at his Secret Service detail, "Get me out of here, you fat fucks!"

    Word in MAGA World has it that it was a body double, perhaps that Spanish potato farmer who shares an eerie but enviable resemblance to President Trump.

    And, lest you accuse the DoJ of being less than forthcoming,  Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has promised the release of even more documents in the weeks to come. Serialized transparency! What more could you want?

     

    All things considered in light of the DoJ's injudiciousness in releasing those misleading photos of my brother, I'm very glad I never gave in to my daughter Bertha's pleas to take her to Epstein's Island. She's already watched her favorite show, the only season of Lady Ice Road Truckers of Alaska, at least 12 times. She wanted to go to Little St. Thomas to bond with those young female models brought over by Brunel.

     But she did slip out one night and broke into Epstein's Manhattan townhouse, hoping to see some young ladies there. She would've gotten away with it if she hadn't gotten on that swing that was bolted to the ceiling, which then gave way under her weight, reducing a Louis XVI table to splinters. What can I say? My baby, as with my kid brother, is still very much a child at heart.

When America Was Ruled By a Venomous Toad

     Once upon a time, America was oppressed by a monarchy. It taxed us without giving us representation in the British government. Then a group of wise men held something called a Constitutional Convention in 1774. They embarked on a Great Political Experiment and sought freedom from oppression and we fought for, and secured our freedom and sovereignty.

      It came to be known as the Great Experiment, the first Democratic Republic in world history, where, in theory, a free people had a voice in their own destiny. When a lady asked Benjamin Franklin, "Do we have a monarchy or a republic?", Dr. Franklin famously replied, "A republic, madam... if we can keep it." 

     For upwards of 240 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we'd kept our democratic republic. Our system of government, our influence on the world stage strengthened and other nations wanted what we had. We weren't perfect but we at least held out the promise and hope for other nations who also had yearned for their freedom and a voice in their own destiny.

     Then a crooked orange toad drifted down an escalator one day and started changing all that. He stood behind a podium and began belching out racist remarks and bragging about how wealthy he was. It was like watching a pig walk on its hind legs. We couldn't take our eyes off him. But the morbid fascination should have ended there.

     Yet it didn't. What started out as a publicity stunt designed to get a better contract on television before a mercenary audience that was paid $50 a head to be there bloomed into something much worse. It was like watching a corpse flower blossom, stinking up the nation with evils and bigotries we should have put to rest long ago.

     But, you see, we hadn't. Because the orange toad reminded us of our toxic ideologies from the past and we decided, instead of keeping them in the shadows of the past, to resurrect them. Because venomous toads have no real use for unity unless they couch it in terms of letting them have their way without opposition and to give them our silent, obedient consent. Because the fat toad who'd drifted down that escalator thrives on hatred and division, like all authoritarians.

     A month later, he began savaging war veterans who'd actually suffered and sacrificed and we chucked our own chins in what passed for actual thought and said, "By God, he's right." He began insulting families of sons who'd made the supreme sacrifice on far-flung battlefields. He began mocking disabled journalists and we thought, "Wow, he tells it like it is. How refreshing."

     We decided we wanted to hand the bloated, venomous toad the most awesome power over invested in one human being and placed him in the seat of power. He began by preventing people from entering our country based on their religion, then watched with approval as he tear-gassed migrants at the border, tore children from their mothers' arms and placed them in cages. Then he tear-gassed his own people so he could hold an upside own Bible he didn't own to preen before a church at which he didn't worship. And we marveled at his godliness and piety.

     We raged about wearing "diapers" on our faces during the deadliest pandemic in a century that he'd ignored in literally hundreds of ways. He'd refused to give medical supplies to blue states that didn't sufficiently bloat his ego. Hundreds of thousands died 

     The American people finally woke up and voted him out by a landslide. Then he attacked his own government because his ego couldn't handle that. He got people killed. Then a toadie in Florida killed a prosecution by claiming the prosecutor was illegally-appointed. The toad never went to prison or saw the inside of a courtroom. He stole hundreds of classified and top secret documents. The toad never went to prison or saw the inside of a courtroom over that.

      After four of the most ruinous years in American history, 81,000,000 people decided enough was enough. We elected a man to effectively run the government and mostly good things happened. The economy improved. Many jobs were created. We regained our prestige among other nations that cringed when they were in the toad's company.

     Then the unthinkable happened. America went back to sleep. 77,000,000 Americans thought, "Yes, I want four more years of that shit" despite the toad croaking even worse evils and villainies the next time around. We wanted to go back to those Dark Ages because we uncritically believed the lies spewing from the venomous toad's distended mouth.

     Then masked men in black began fanning out across the nation, pulling brown people out of their homes, their cars, their work places. Oh look! It's the Thought Police come to life! It's the American Gestapo! Isn't it wonderful? That'll teach the liberals.

     Except the people being victimized were the toad's own supporters. Their husbands and wives and children were getting deported and beaten. How could this happen? Did their votes, their money, their volunteer time not sufficiently immunize them from the toad's wrath? They bleated, "I love you, Mr President but..." The toad belched more bile at them.

     The toad's subjects could no longer afford food, quality health care and the venomous toad croaked, "I don't want to hear about affordability!" Instead, he gave them empty lies abut how wonderful things were and $2000 checks and how horrible they really had it a year ago.

     The venomous toad got more erratic, childish and angrier despite being slathered with vacuous honors given to him by his own toadies. He is once again destroying alliances, cozying up to tyrants who know him for the attention-starved amphibian that he is. People are once again losing their jobs, their savings and still they bleat, "I love you, Mr, President, but..."

     Because as long as their ancient  bigotries are being ritualized and legitimized, as long as those nasty liberals get owned, it's all worthwhile until the venomous toad's retribution for fictional and unspecified grievances personally affects them. 

     The Great Experiment is crashing and burning before our very eyes like a slow-motion Hindenburg because we have convinced ourselves that we are powerless to stop it. We sincerely believe that despite being the nation that had defeated Germany in two world wars, smashed Nazism in Europe, put men n the moon and safely brought them back and developed vaccines for the worst diseases on earth.

     What, oh what shall we do? We've set fire to our own house to spite our liberal neighbors and now can't put out the fire because the fire department won't show up. Surely, the pursuit of self-perpetuating, masochistic misery to trigger a few liberals we don't know is much better than the pursuit of happiness, correct?

     But we seem to have forgotten that, like a machine, democracies and republics, as Dr. Franklin said, are not self-executing and have to be maintained. Evolution has to be observed, adjustments made, the system strengthened. And we should best remember that if we are to maintain this experiment long after the venonous old toad is an orange stain on the American psyche.

BAH Humbug

     Imagine if Ebeneezer Scrooge was president (big leap, I know) and he delivered an address from the Diplomatic Room of the White House. Well, after last night, we don't need to rely on imagination. Trump's "mystery address" was more like a mini MAGA rally. At a merciful 18 minutes long (the same time gap as the missing Watergate tapes), Donald Trump did the predictable.

     In a way, it was surprising he didn't consign the "surplus population" to government-run workhouses. It was the ultimate nothing burger after days of speculation. Could it be Venezuela and our one-sided war with them? Could it be about tariffs? The Epstein files due to be released this Friday (with heavy redactions, no doubt)?

     Nopers. In reality, it was the usual laundry list of grievances and finger-pointing. The economy was in the toilet under Biden, I saved it, blah blah blah.

    The fact-free assertions taken as the gospel by the mainstream media ran on and on. I tuned in to a live-stream for all of 10 seconds and I heard two or three lies and was forced to turn it off. USA Today wrote, "President Donald Trump delivered a forceful defense of his first 11 months in office during a primetime address from the White House, pointing the finger at Democrats for Americans' economic anxieties in a combative speech that sets the tone for the 2026 midterm elections."

     Number One, he's not the president but an obscenely successful thief, it wasn't a "forceful defense" of anything and it certainly didn't "set the tone" for the midterms. It was an angry yet listless stream of lies and chicanery and the tone for the midterms was already established early in this shitshow posing as an actual administration. Poll after poll has been telling the Republicans with the insistence of a Greek chorus that they're going to get buttfucked back to the pre-Cambrian Age without lube come November 2026.

     In point of fact, Trump inherited a strong, robust economy from Joe Biden and, predictably, he's transforming it into that of a third world, right wing banana republic's. Unemployment had hit a high of 4.6% last month (economists start getting worried when it hits 5.1%). And 69% of Americans don't agree with him on the economy because his approval ratings on that is at 31%.

     But, with Trump, it's always, "I reject your reality and substitute my own".

 

     Practically smothered in Christmas greenery, Trump looked like a senile old man found in the woods after wandering off and had to subsist on a jar of pickles he brought with him from the nursing home. "Boy, are we making progress!" he proclaimed, perhaps referring to his unwavering agenda of sledgehammering the middle class out of existence. 

     And here's where the chicanery comes in: Trump announced he was giving "warrior dividends", $1776 checks to 1.4 million service members. In reality, those generous checks are just the Basic Housing Allowance (or BAH) already owed to them and allocated by Congress. In other words, "Here's the money I owe you. Aren't I a great guy?"

     This came on the same day the House passed a spending bill that refused to extend the ACA subsidies, a steaming pile of dog shit that's all but guaranteed of not passing in the Senate, a bill that made even Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York throw F bombs around, calling the bill "absolute bullshit " and "political malpractice." And this result in the House is exactly what Trump wants as he's gone on record as saying he simply wasn't interested in extending the subsidies, something Democrats wanted to extend for three years.

     And Republicans know they're about to get tsunamied out of their majority in the House and maybe even in the Senate. But they just can't stop shooting themselves in the foot and committing evil. "I'm a snake. You knew that when you elected me."

"This May Be the Last Time You Ever See Me..."

     Someone once defined for me the difference between an egomaniac and a megalomaniac- "An egomaniac is someone who thinks the world revolves around them," he said, "and a megalomaniac thinks the universe revolves around them."

     I think, after decades of being afflicted by Donald Trump, we know which one he is.

     Last night, the bodies of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, were found by their daughter in their Los Angeles home. Police have since arrested their son, Nick, 32, on suspicion of their murders and he's currently being held on $4,000,000 bond.

     Of course, Donald Trump wasted no time in making it all about himself.

     “Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.

     "He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

     Being the toxic, raging megalomaniac he is, Trump saw the double tragedy through a lens trained, as always, on himself. His opinion of a person, living or dead, inevitably rests entirely on their opinion of him. Mr. Reiner was an outspoken critic of Trump and the GOP in general. And savaging a dead man before his body's even cold is part and parcel to Trump's warped psychopathology.

     And Trump's assertion that Mr. Reiner and his spouse were killed because of his "TDS" is beyond absurd and heartless and is a new low even for him. In fact, they were so unforgivable, even other right wingers have been dog-piling on Trump, including Rep. Thomas Massie, Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Ana Navarro and Piers Morgan. Even the Charlie Kirk Show criticized Trump for his despicable comments.

 

     Ironically, in his last TV appearance, Reiner himself predicted the day before Charlie Kirk's death, "This may be the last time you ever see me..." Of course, he wasn't talking about his imminent demise but state-sponsored censorship. His appearance on CNN came on the heels of Jimmy Kimmel's five day suspension.

     And, speaking of Charlie Kirk again, people were outraged over his murder. I, myself, was one of them. There's no excuse for murdering someone and permanently abducting them from their family. The backlash was wildly disproportionate, with people getting doxxed, fired and pilloried on social media just for criticizing Kirk. The hagiographies were furiously written, lawmakers even introduced legislation mandating statues of Kirk to be erected on college campuses at the risk of losing their government funding.

     But this new right wing backlash was not over Reiner's politics but aimed at Trump, showing that we as a nation still have a shred of decency and enough moral character to decry homicidal violence. Yet, there Donald Trump stands, fucking things up as he inevitably does in the wake of a tragedy such as the Brown University shooting in Rhode Island, making everything about himself and referring to himself in the third person.

The Numbers Don't Lie

     ...but someone continues to.

     Yesterday, Trump whined and raged on Truth Social that people weren't giving him enough credit for the economy. This is to be expected, since Trump is as incapable of changing as the images on a threadbare piece of Super 8 film. Trump's always whining about not getting enough credit, enough attention, enough praise. He's like a spoiled kid who whines that the party clown is getting more attention than him at his birthday party then pops his balloon animals.

     But this seemed to be in response to an AP-NORC survey that showed his numbers were at their alltime lowest. Specifically, it showed that his approval numbers on the economy were at 31%, down nine points since March. And, for once, Trump is paying attention to unfavorable numbers. 

    “When will Polls reflect the Greatness of America at this point in time, and how bad it was just one year ago?” he whined. "I inherited a MESS from the Biden Administration — The Worst Inflation in History, and the Highest Prices our Country has ever seen. In other words, Affordability, just 13 months ago, was a DISASTER for the American People, but now, it’s totally different! Prices are coming down FAST, Energy, Oil and Gasoline, are hitting five year lows, and the Stock Market today just hit an All Time High. Tariffs are bringing in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we are respected as a Nation again."

     Then he held his breath until he passed out while the other kids walked over him and clustered around the party clown.

     Very little of what Trump said, of course, is moored to reality. The only thing that was true was that gas and oil prices are coming down to pandemic levels but that was largely on account of his sledgehammering of the economy during the pandemic.

     In reality, Trump inherited a strong and robust economy from the Biden administration and, typical of Republicans, then proceeded to fuck it up. And while the stock market may be surging right now, a bull market on Wall Street has little to no impact on Main Street. Just over 50% of Americans own stocks but most of those stocks are held by the 1%.

     And voters aren't totally stupid, even MAGA voters. Americans tend to vote on kitchen table issues and with their wallets. They were fed the usual bullshit by Trump when he was on the campaign trail last year. They actually believed they were worse off under Biden than they were four years earlier when Trump was running roughshod over the economy.

     But everyone has to buy food and if grocery bills are higher now than they were four years ago, people will notice it. Beef prices, for example, are through the roof. I went to my local supermarket just yesterday and couldn't believe the price of meat. One pound of lean ground beef should not nor should ever cost anywhere near $10, yet that's what people are paying.

     And Trump's insistence that he should get credit for this fictional economy and his rage at the numbers shows he doesn't respect the opinions of the American people. Surveys and polls are ways in which people tell others what they think and believe. He showed a similar disregard for our opinions when he resisted the 2020 election results and insisted the election was rigged. Then he started a riot that got nine people killed.

     But it's not just the economy in which he's failing. Trump's also losing support in droves among minority communities, particularly Hispanic and Black voters. The recent elections in New Jersey, Virginia, New York City and, most recently, Miami (In which Eileen Higgins won by nearly 20 points and became the first Democrat elected mayor in Miami in nearly three decades) are showing that Trump's support among major demographics is slipping.

     These aren't outliers but the shape of things to come. 

     For instance, in the Virginia gubernatorial election, won by Abigail Spanberger, Hispanic voters moved away from the GOP by 15% and Black voters 13%. And in New Jersey, the shift was much more dramatic.

     Latinos deserted the GOP by 24% and Black voters: 28%.

     No wonder Republicans are shitting their pants in advance of next year's midterms.

     These recent election results aren't mere isolated incidents. They show a depth and breadth of a shift in public opinion that spans not only different states but different regions. And, in ruby red Indiana, Trump failed miserably to change their electoral map that would've stolen the sole two seats held by congressional Democrats when the Indiana Senate voted to not redraw the map.

     People are moving on from this second great MAGA experiment which, like the first, only promises doom and destruction. Democrats will take back the House and they stand a better than even chance of retaking the Senate, as well, Trump is sweating over the prospect of a third impeachment and, with his crumbling support in the Senate, he's understandably fearing he'll get ejected from office.

     Because three's the charm, as they say. 

Good Times At Gotham City

 

A Republican Profile in Courage

     “You don’t seem to know how to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys,” said Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island to Kristi Noem.

     Magaziner had grilled Noem on hers and ICE's track record of indiscriminately rounding up American citizens who were guilty of no serious crimes or even none at all as well as US veterans. Noem had disingenuously claimed at the hearing, as she had in the past, that no veterans have been deported under her watch or people without criminal records.

     Of course, being the idiot she is, she stepped right into Magaziner's trap and the Rhode Island congressman who then pulled the snare: An iPad with the face of a military veteran, a man who'd taken two bullets in Panama and was arrested and deported to South Korea. He then had another veteran, Jim Brown, stand up in the hearing room, one who's had his wife imprisoned for four months while she awaits deportation.

     Predictably, she looked like a deer in the headlights and offered vague platitudes about appreciating military service, "I'll look into it", blah blah blah. Then Rep. Dan Goldman's turn came and he grilled Noem abut illegally deporting people legally living in the US under asylum status. Rep. LaMonica McIver had had her turn and basically laughed in Noem's face.

     Then Rep Julie Johnson from Texas was about to ask her questions when Noem announced she had to leave the hearing to attend a FEMA meeting (Yes, a "scheduling conflict"). As she left the hearing room, she was roundly heckled by people. Here's the thing: According to Rep. Jared Moskowitz, the FEMA meeting was abruptly canceled right after Noem scuttled away from the hearing.

     To put it mildly, it wasn't a good look for Noem.

     I've seen countless hearings and confirmation hearings in both chambers in the nearly 21 years I've been blogging. They've ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime, with right wingers making fools of themselves screaming and crying (Think Brett Kavanaugh) and being openly combative and belligerent with the lawmakers who'd questioned them. But the one thing virtually all them had in common was an ability to remain in the hot seat regardless of how foolish they looked.

     But Noem, a woman who loves to cosplay as the tough cop she isn't, couldn't remain to answer questions from legislators. Yes, the woman whose goons subject innocent people to the third degree at airports, workplaces and so forth, didn't have the intestinal fortitude to defend her own policies. Instead, she lied, blamed the Biden administration for "breaking the asylum process" then fled like a whipped cur.

     It was a shameful, cringey display of the cowardice of right wingers going back to the time of the Nazis in the bunker. I pray I live long enough to see the day when right wingers like Trump, Noem, Stephen Miller and all the other Republican rat fuckers are chased from this country and forced to use rat lines to see to their own escapes as we relentlessly pursue them.

Moe, Larry! Wild Hyacinth!

     I can't get enough of Pee Wee German screaming like a titty-twisted little Nazi bitch on Fox. Every time someone mentions the subject of immigration, Miller reacts like Curly Howard to Wild Hyacinth. Woo woo woo woo woo!

Just Come Out and Say It

     You don't like Somalis because they're Black.

     Those of you who've paid even cursory attention to current events knows about Dozy Don's latest jihad against Minnesota, particularly Minneapolis. Ho hum. It's a wearisomely tale oft told by now- A Democratic city in a Democratically-controlled state. He's planning ICE raids and he's gunning specifically for Somalis.

     But this time, one gets the sense that Trump is planning to invade Minnesota based on his undisguised loathing of Ilhan Omar, the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota's 5th district. She came into Congress midway through Trump's first stolen term and has been a target of the right literally from Day One.

     The fact that she's black and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress is just part of it. What's drawn the most venom from racist Republicans (pardon the tautology) is her unwavering criticism of Israel. But to Trump, whose orange-tinted skin is thinner than gas station toilet paper, the unforgivable aspect of her public service is her criticism of him.

    Watch the clip at the head and pick out all the examples of racism, misogyny and projection in that short clip. In the first 15 seconds of the video, he insults Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, Somalis and their entire nation and all the reporter had to say was that Mayor Frey was proud to represent the Somali community, the largest in the nation.

     First, he calls Mayor Frey "a fool" then says Somalia isn't even a country. (Narrator: Yes it is, you ignorant twat waffle) Then three seconds later, he dismisses Somalia as a place where "people just walk around killing each other".

     Keep in mind, this was said by the "president" of the only country on earth in which at least 35,000 people die each year from gun violence, a nation in which gun violence is the number cause of death among children under 18.

     By 26 seconds in, he accuses Somalis for taking "billions and billions of dollars from our country", sidestepping past the fact that he and his greaseball sons have made literally billions and billions of dollars through a crooked cryptocurrency scheme made possible by a white collar crook whom he's just happened to pardon.

     We're not even a half a minute in.

     Seven seconds later, he accuses her of having married her brother, a despicable right wing lie that's been debunked 100 times over the years. Again, keep in mind that this is a guy who openly fantasizes about having sex with his own daughter, Ivanka. Incest? Yeah, don't go near that, buddy.

     Seconds later, he calls her "a fraud". Yeah, right. This is the same guy whose eponymous university was found to have defrauded many victims and had to shell out $25,000,000 to them. This is the same guy who was convicted last year on 34 counts of fraud. Onward.

     By 42 seconds in, he says "she shouldn't be allowed to be a congresswoman", despite the fact that, unlike Trump, she was elected and has been reelected several more times by large margins in fair, Democratic elections. But Trump doesn't like democracy if the "wrong" people get elected, the wrong people obviously being women of color.

     Four seconds later, he says, "she should be thrown the hell out of our country." Keep in mind, Omar has more of a reason to be in this country than Melania, who'd sleazed her way in through an incredibly dodgy "Einstein" visa and showing barely enough intellectual wherewithall to color coordinate her clothes with her lipstick.

     By 40 seconds in, he announces Somalis "have destroyed Minnesota", for which there is not the slightest bit of evidence. Three seconds later he attacks the governor, Tim Walz, as being "incompetent." Incompetent, huh? This is coming from the asshole who presided over a net job loss of 2.9 million, let hundreds of thousands of Americans die through his inaction during the pandemic and sledgehammered our prestige all over the world.

     We're not even a minute in. 

     A few seconds later, he called Walz "crooked." Need I belabor the irony of that?

     "He should be ashamed". Uh huh. Again, loss of international prestige. 400,000 needlessly dead Americans by Inauguration Day 2021, a violent mob sicced on the Capitol because he didn't like the outcome of the election, stolen documents, at least 27 women accusing him of sexual assault, fighting to keep the Epstein files from coming out, murdering fishermen in the Caribbean. The list, as always, goes on.

     There's another minute and a half of this vile shit left. Are you really going to make me listen to it? My arteries are ready to explode and I don't even have high blood pressure.