This, Too, Shall Pass

     Maybe it's encroaching old age and diminished energy. Maybe it's outrage fatigue. I don't know what the problem is.

     The day I began blogging over 21 years ago, I recall having written five or six posts that first day. Four and a half years later during the last time Iran had seen this level of unrest, I was posting up to two dozen times a day.

     I'd always prided myself on being able to write 100,000-200,000 word novels while still maintaining this blog. Yeah, there many times when I had to push myself to write something. But there was always this stubborn sense of responsibility, obligation, if you will, to write about what's going on politically in this world, in this country. Yes, many times it's a grind but, until lately, the words still got written.

     But lately, I've been sitting on my patio looking out over Phoenix like an invalid. I spend hours and hours a day out here. Then, when the sun sinks into the west and I prepare to make dinner, I look at what I'd written and am amazed at how unproductive I've been. Some days, yes, I wear my pajama bottoms, keenly aware of how that feeds into the blogger stereotype. My new rescue cat, Midnight, zips around the house as if making a mockery of my lack of energy and motivation.

     Some would reflexively refer to what's afflicting me as "writer's block". I don't believe in that. I think it was Stephen King who'd dismissed writer's block as just a lack of interest or focus. But in my case, I don't think either applies. It's a curious and troubling form of paralysis with a dimly-realized provenance. 

     I may or may not have stated months or years ago about how difficult it was for me to get back my writer's identity. When Barbara began her final, awful decline in 2022-2023, I found I didn't have the time or energy to write and my writer's identity transformed into something else- Barbara's sole caretaker. Before and after she went in the hospital and, eventually, that nursing home, I tried, and failed, to complete no fewer than six novels. Even after she died in September 2023, I still couldn't put anything together. It was a loss of identity, an especially pernicious form of Imposter Syndrome, something virtually every writer goes through at some point. You're only as good as your last book, after all.

     I fought like hell to get that identity back. In the fewer than two years I've been in Phoenix, I've written two novels and, until lately, was proceeding rapidly with two others. My novella, The Final Bullet, was the first novel I'd published in nearly four and a half years, my first since Hollywoodland in December 2020. That's quite a drop-off for someone who was used to publishing 1-2 books a year.

     I'm in the home stretch of one but lately, I've gone from writing several thousand words a day to several hundred. I tell myself that I want to get the denouement right, that I don't want to have to engage in major carpentry when I start the revision process.

     But, deep down, I know better. And this paralysis has metastasized into my blogging.

     Now, anyone who knows anything at all about me knows that I never considered this dying form of citizen journalism anywhere nearly as important as my long fiction. Writing has been the sole constant in my life since my senior year of high school in 1977. Barb is long dead and no longer needs my care. And in this, the twilight of my life, this is the only identity I have left. It's the only thing that validates me as a human being, that gives my life purpose.

     Yet, as stated, there's another facet to my writing life. This damned blog writing about damned politicians. It's a stubborn sense of responsibility, undertaking this endeavor in the most thankless of mediums. And I've been prolific since coming to Phoenix. It's not as if the place inspires me. I can't wait to leave Arizona for good and get back to my beloved Massachusetts. Maybe it's a growing sense of my own mortality. It'd been said often that the older he got, the more prolific Isaac Asimov got. I think it was because he recognized the end was drawing near and that that little white light at the end of the tunnel was turning into a blinding spotlight.

     So maybe that's it.

     And lately, I've been afflicted with this crippling sense of paralysis, especially as regards the pages of this blog. In the nearly 18 years I've been running it, I've written well over 4500 posts. That's millions of words, easy. Sometimes I post daily for weeks on end. But now, I feel thick-tongued, incapable of weighing in on anything without sounding like an ignoramus. If I ever feel that way, my default setting is to not write anything, to put it off for another day and see if I'm in a better frame of mind.

     And it all started last Saturday when we bombed Iran again. I'm awestruck, and not in a good way, at the hideousness we've unleashed on the Iranian people. It's obvious to me that our so-called Commander in Chief is a blithering fucking idiot who never had any exit strategy in mind, never even questioned the ramifications of starting a proxy war for Israel's benefit. I'm horrified that we callously killed over 500 Iranians, including 85 schoolgirls.

     Yes, their Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was a brutal repressive dictator but we can't be the assassins much less the policemen of the world. He was their responsibility. And now we're about to unleash sectarian violence, if not civil war, in Iran and destabilizing the entire region. It was waged with simple-mindedness but the consequences are far more complex and I don't feel as if I'm up to the task. That's better done by people with far better minds than mine, people who have a better grasp of what's going on with the Middle East.

     But this sense of paralysis, hopefully, will prove to be just a blip on my intellectual and emotional radar. This, too, shall pass. Hopefully.

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Pictures Straight

 

     Yesterday, former NY senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was deposed by the House Oversight Committee in Chappaqua, NY over her alleged connection to Jeffrey Epstein. Cue Yakety Sax.

     Seriously, if that shitshow of a deposition had a soundtrack, it would've been written by Boots Randolph.

     A little context for those of you who haven't been following this story:

     In their ongoing obsession with the Clintons, the Republicans on the House Oversight Committee decided to compel the Clintons' testimony as regards the Epstein files. At first, they refused and when Republicans began gleefully making plans to refer them to the DOJ (hereafter referred to as Donald Trump's law firm) for contempt of Congress, they relented and decided to talk... but in an open door session.

     Republicans couldn't have that because God forbid something embarrassing should slip out about Donald Trump. They demanded a closed door hearing.

     So, yesterday the secretary met with the committee in Chappaqua. The chairman, James Comer, read the rules aloud before the start of the testimony, which included a prohibition on photography within the room. Their own rules, in other words.

     But Lauren Boebert was never one for following rules, even the ones set down by her own party. Instead, she took out her cell phone, took two pictures of Clinton and promptly sent them to Benny Hill, excuse me, Benny Johnson, which he breathlessly put on his Twitter feed. The leak was uncovered within moments, bringing the hearing to a screeching halt.

     As usual, Boebert was defiant, asking, "Why not?" when asked why she'd leaked the photos to a right wing rodeo clown like Johnson. Later, she was more contrite after obviously getting a dressing down by party leadership.

     But, of course, since this is the Clinton Derangement Syndrome GOP we're talking about, that wasn't the only laugh line of the day. After her six hour-long deposition, Clinton walked outside and took the podium. "I think they could have spent the day more productively," she drily said.

     Because the Republicans grilled her not just about Jeffrey Epstein, a man she never met, but also about UFOs and Pizzagate, a long-discredited right wing conspiracy theory naming the Clintons as being involved in a child sex trafficking ring beneath Comet Ping Pong Pizza and a non-existent basement.

     James Comer knew this was his one shot at compelling Clinton's testimony and, by God, he was going to get his money's worth. One is amazed they never mentioned her emails and Benghazi, for which Secretary Clinton had already given testimony for 13 hours years ago.

     But UFOs and Pizzagate?

     It's obvious they got the wrong First Lady. There's a growing movement on Capitol Hill of deposing Melania Trump as well as Donald. The Epstein files that have been released have shown nothing more incriminating than Bill Clinton in a hot tub and standing next to Jeffrey Epstein. There are also no emails alleging that Clinton sexually abused a minor, unlike someone else we can think of.

     Essentially, someone in the Republican Party leaked a couple of anodyne photos of Secretary Clinton when they weren't supposed to while the DOJ  deleted photos of Howard Lutnick walking next to Epstein on his pedophile island.

     This was supposed to be James Comer's long-delayed orgasm, when he was supposed to spooge all over the faces of the Clintons, the one glorious moment that would make up for all the empty wells of persecuting the Bidens and the Clintons. Instead, his orgasm was ruined by one of his own, a woman most famous for jerking off a guy in a theater.

     And, once again, just as Secretary Clinton had during her marathon Benghazi hearing, she made chumps of the GOP. 

     Stick a fork in these assclowns. They're done. 

Republicans, Trump Couldn't Care Less

    The most extraordinary thing about Trump's State of the Union Address, and the one thing brought up most often by the media, was its length. "Marathon", "record-setting" and so forth are used to describe a 107 minute diatribe that sounded more like a MAGA rally than a State of the Union address.

    Just about everything I predicted last night came to pass. I have, after all, been writing about this venomous orange toad for going on 11 years. He's as predictable as a fart after a Mexican dinner. He bragged about the economy, slung insults at Democrats, the Supreme Court, immigrants. That's why I abdicated my self-enforced responsibilities as a political blogger last night. What's the point?

     However, the usual autopsies have to be conducted, the toxicology determined, the political prognosis advanced.

     It started with what is now becoming a tradition: Rep. Al Green getting booted out of the chamber. Green held up a sign just feet from Trump reading "Black People Aren't Apes." Steve Scalise, cock-gobbler extraordinaire, ripped the sign out of his hands like a random bleacher bum at a MAGA rally and Green was thrown out of the House chamber. Because God forbid anyone, especially a Black man, should call Trump out for his racist post showing the Obamas as apes.

     In the run-up to the speech. Democratic "leaders" cautioned restraint, telling the rank and file basically to sit down and shut up. Green was one of those who didn't listen. Neither did Reps Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar, who heckled Trump as mercilessly as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert did to Joe Biden, the last democratically-elected president we ever had. 

     It was a dramatic escalation from Rep. Melanie Stansbury's simple sign last year that said, "This Is Not Normal."

     While not once mentioning DHS or ICE, Trump inveighed against immigrants during what has been appraised as the most racist State of the Union in American history. All Trump needed to do was carry a noose to the podium.

     Before the address, one pundit predicted that Trump would tell about 40 lies. O ye of too much faith! For Trump, lying is an autonomic reflex. He lies like the rest of us breathe. If he ever told the truth about anything, he'd spontaneously combust.

     Let's pick one thing he lied about: The economy. He'd bragged about presiding over the greatest economy we'd ever had. He bragged about GDP being higher than in the Biden years. During the Biden years, In President Joe Biden's final year in office, the Gross Domestic Product rose to 2.8%. In the last quarter under Trump, it's half that. Yes, inflation was rampant under Biden but that was attributable largely to the COVID-19 pandemic that was allowed to get out of control thanks to Trump's sociopathic inattention.

     Under Trump, inflation is largely driven by his ridiculous (and now illegal) tariffs which, again, are taxes on the American consumers and companies. It's also caused by Trump's equally insane immigration crackdown that has decimated farms and businesses from coast to coast. With fewer migrant workers to harvest the crops, inventory becomes scarcer and prices skyrocket. Supply and demand, after all.

     And Trump's boasting about prices going down are at stark odds with the reality facing everyday Americans. As stupid and gullible as they are, Republican voters nonetheless only have to look at their bank balances before realizing they're not, in fact, better off than they were a year ago.

     Essentially, Trump rejected the reality and substituted his own. And it's not him that has to directly face the voters. That'll be the congressmen and senators that have to go home and hold town halls, at least, those who still have the guts to face their enraged and dissatisfied constituents.

     In his self-congratulatory speech, Trump gave the Republican party nothing to run on for this year's midterms. He offered nothing but, at best, a few rotten planks to take back to their states and districts. And, again, the voters aren't having it. Trump's approval rating in every poll on the economy and trade are underwater. That's unlikely to change. Remember the $2000 checks we were supposed to get last year? If all the approximately $133 billion we've taken in from added tariffs were handed to every American, it would total fewer than $400 per head. And the government has no intention of sharing even that pittance with any of us.

     Of course, Trump wouldn't tell us that.

     The national average for a gallon of gasoline stands at about $2.94. Trump, a guy who's never had to go to a gas station in his life, claimed it was $1.85.   

     He started out sounding like a carnival barker on meth then as the speech wore on, he began sunsetting as his Adderall wore off. Nonetheless, JD Vance and Mike Johnson continued popping up every few minutes like Jack in the Box clowns, especially after he said he had the right to bypass Congress and unilaterally do whatever he wanted, which is exactly how autocrats think.

     The roar is getting louder by the minute and every Republican in that chamber knew what it is: the blue tsunami that will engulf the GOP and this failing administration. And Trump couldn't care less except inasfar as an inevitable third impeachment.

I'm Not Doing My Job Tonight

     And, if you're in this shitty avocation, I'd urge you not to, either.

     What's the sense? We know that tonight's State of Union will be densely packed with lies, bile and nastiness. He'll probably whine about the 2020 election, tell us the economy is the best of all time, brag about bombing Iran (and probably spilling military secrets), boast about bringing law and order to Minneapolis, rag on Democrats and Republican RINOs, squirt sewage at the Supreme Court for taking away his favorite ball: His cherished tariffs.

     Or, he just may decide to punch the microphone for 90 minutes, growling and scowling incoherently to the delight of Mike Johnson and JD Vance (or whatever fake name he's going by this week). It's all the same thing.

     Back in the day, regardless of who was president, regardless of their political stripe, I felt an obligation to cover the SOTU in real time. But that was when we actually had real presidents delivering the State of the Union and not frauds like Bush or Trump.

     But what's the point?

     Instead, I would urge you to watch the first season of Daredevil Born Again and parse the similarities between Wilson Fisk and Trump. Watch Kingpin's speeches and you'll hear Trump speaking, only with the superior diction and gravitas of Vincent D'onofrio.

      Republicans will give him countless standing ovations like Italians from a century ago gave Mussolini. Right wing pundits will proclaim this as the greatest SOTU of all time. Some things never change. And what can one expect from the guy who told over 30,000 lies during his first term?

"I can destroy the country!"

     Right about now, Donnie Dumbo is spackling the walls of the White House with Heinz ketchup. This morning, the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping tariffs as illegal. Trump had tried to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), thereby circumventing Congress. The Constitution in Article 1 invests Congress with the power to raise or lower tariffs. Trump saw the IEEPA as yet another way to do an end run around Congress.

     The problem for Trump was that he was never able to show just cause for invoking IEEPA or to show what the big emergency was. The lower courts had struck down Trump's tariffs and, as always, he just naturally assumed his lackeys on the Supreme Court would give him what he thinks he's entitled to.

     Another problem was that two of those lackeys, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, sided with Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberals on the court. Now Trump is fuming at them, calling them "an embarrassment to their families". He obviously looks upon the Supreme Court as a giant permission structure granting him the power to do whatever he wants.

     And now he's screaming and kicking his feet like a three year-old whose parents won't buy him that candy bar at the grocery store. For the foreseeable future, no sandcastle within reach of his cloven hooves will be safe.

     Of course, Trump never thinks he ever breaks laws. And when he does, he thinks they should be retroactively made legal or overlooked. And if the SCOTUS rules against him on the rare occasions they do, well, there must be a good reason for them to do so other than Trump being a serial crook who wants to run the US like a king or dictator.

     Naturally, Trump had that covered in his snarling, conspiratorial press conference today: The justices were in the grip of shadowy foreign influences. Of course, it's up to us to decide what those foreign influences were.

     And, it goes without saying that Trump is already showing his contempt for the high court by scheming ways to circumvent their ruling. Of course, he's no longer allowed to victimize nations, namely our biggest trade partners, All he can basically do is the equivalent of leaving flaming bags of dog shit on their stoop, ring the doorbell and run away.

     And what's perhaps the real source of Trump's discontent is the one thing to which the MSM should pay greater attention. This was what Trump said today:

     “But I am allowed to cut off any and all trade or business with that same country; in other words, I can destroy the trade, I can destroy the country! I'm even allowed to impose a foreign country-destroying embargo, I can embargo! I can do anything I want, but I can't charge $1!”

     That's patently false. The SCOTUS never said that he couldn't charge nations tariffs. He just cannot do it unilaterally without the consent of the US Congress. But the real source of his rage was in his inability to "destroy" nations with tariffs that are senseless and sadistically putative. Trump is incapable of actually creating anything worthwhile unless it's wealth for him or generational wealth for his family. 

     And tyrants like Trump always find it easier to destroy than to create. That's the true test of statesmanship. Does a head of state create rather than destroy? When it comes to Trump, I think we can agree on the fact that he fails the statesmanship test every single time.

No Forever Wars, Eh?

 

     As we speak, our orange venomous toad masquerading as an actual head of state is sending the USS Gerald R. Ford, a huge, state of the art aircraft carrier, toward Iran. The U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, another massive aircraft carrier, and three guided-missile destroyers have already arrived.

     It shouldn't surprise anyone that Donald Trump has conveniently jettisoned yet another campaign promise. Just as he promised in 2024 to bring back manufacturing jobs, to make life more affordable for Americans and 100 other carrots on 100 sticks, it's obvious that the only promises he's kept are the ones that have visited untold misery on tens if not hundreds of millions all over the world, particularly his fascist immigration crackdown.

     The government has just wrapped up a second round of negotiations with the Iranian government an the results were what you'd expect of a kakistocracy straight out of Mike Judge. The Trump "administration" decided to make Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program the sole focus of the negotiations. Typically, Iran dug in its heels.

     Last year, when the Iranian protests resulted in thousands of deaths. Trump rattled his saber and feigned sympathy and support for the dead Iranians. Then, in its newest round of saber-rattling, suddenly, the Trump administration isn't even mentioning the protesters and doesn't seem concerned about the state-sponsored executions that will follow later this year.

     To all but guarantee the failure of the "negotiations", Trump sent to Geneva the Three Stooges: Intellectual flyweight Marco Rubio, professional son in law Jared Kushner and the Zelig of the administration, Steve Witkoff.

     In his ridiculous and dangerous posturing as the policeman of the world, Trump tipped his hand by mentioning Venezuela in the same breath as Iran. He's said it wouldn't be like Venezuela and he's right. What happened in Venezuela was an illegal, extra-judicial kidnapping. Iran would be a lot more difficult.

     If we invade Iran, nearly every other Muslim nation in the Middle East would dogpile on us. Iran also has a sizable and potent military. It would take decades to pacify Iran, if that's even possible (Afghanistan, anyone?). It would cost trillions, just like the Iraq war that cost us over 4500 American lives.

     Trump also tipped his hand by mentioning Venezuela because at the time he was bombing those fishing boats, any idiot could see it wasn't about regime change (Maduro's loyalists remained in charge after we kidnapped him). It was about the oil because Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. We were brazenly stealing their oil tankers.

     Iran has the third largest. Do the math, people. If and when we invade Iran, rest assured, it'll be all about the oil.

The Ultimate Bellwether

     Marjorie Taylor-Greene's seat in GA-14 has been vacant since she left Congress on January 5th. Her resignation sparked a free for all in Republican circles in the district, which alone is an indication of how vulnerable Republicans see Greene's old seat. No fewer than 16 have thrown their hats in the ring.

     The primaries will be held on March 10th and the wide Republican field all but guarantees that none of them will get even close to the necessary 50% to avoid a runoff election in April. On the Democratic side is former Marine Shawn Harris, who ran against Greene in 2024 and had his ass handed back to him. Harris lost to Greene by nearly 30%. 

     Georgia 14 is a sprawling district that covers a whopping 10 counties in northwest Georgia, nudging against the state lines in Alabama and Tennessee. In 2024, Greene took all 10 and the only one in which Harris was competitive was in Cobb County. To look at the electoral map from 2024, most people would say that it's not looking very rosy for the Democrats in that district.

     However, 15 months is an eternity in political time. Since Greene easily won re-election in November 2024, a lot of Republican voters have grown disenchanted with either Greene, Trump or both. The fallout of their very public spat in the twilight of Greene's congressional career did no favors to either.

     So, suppose GA-14 went blue? Well, it would be like AOC losing her next re-election bid in NY-14, a deeply blue district encompassing Queens and the Bronx, in which congressional and state-wide elections going back decades always heavily favored Democrats. If that ever happened, Republicans would be short-stroking that all the way to the Rapture.

     Obviously, that won't happen in any of our lifetimes. In fact, it's far likelier that GA-14 could elect Harris.

      Out of all 20 candidates for Greene's seat, only Shawn Harris has a shot of getting 50% or more of the vote in the primary. Avoiding a runoff election in April would present him as a popular candidate at least on the Democratic side. Clay Fuller, a local DA who's seen as the GOP frontrunner and has gotten Trump's problematic endorsement, has been surprisingly measured and pragmatic regarding his chances. Recently, Fuller said when asked if the seat could be flipped by the Democrats,

     "Absolutely, and we've got to operate that way. If Georgia 14 turns blue, it would be a tragedy for the president's agenda, and we as a party need to start having an honest conversation about that."

     Republicans are every bit the political animals that Democrats are and virtually all politicians have a preternatural awareness of what matters to their constituents or would-be constituents. They know their disaffections and many tailor their campaign strategies to address those issues.

     But Harris is a known quantity in GA-14 and he did get nearly 135,000 votes in '24. That year, he ran against an established Republican in Greene. This time around, he won't be facing those headwinds.

     What worries me about Harris' campaign is that he seems to be relying on Trump fatigue to pull this out and he's going to have to give Democratic voters in that district more than just, "I'm not Trump." Voters tend to be pretty hidebound, especially Republican voters who see Democrats one-dimensionally as tax and spend liberals who want to take away their money. He needs to focus on issues that matter to those voters at the kitchen table. Immigration. Affordability. Tariffs. To assure them he's going to fight hard for ways to put money in their pockets, not subtract money from them.

     If he wants to reach out to Republican voters and Independents, then by all means, he should. In fact, he'd be stupid if he didn't. But he's going to need to do more than capitalize on exhaustion with Trump. There are enough Democrats and Independents in GA-14 to pull out this election. He just has to give them solid reasons to vote for him. And if Harris flips this district, it would be the ultimate repudiation of Trump's policies.

"Suicide is only one option"?!

      Right wingers have historically been hostile to Social Security since FDR and Congress created it back in the 1930s. In the decades since, they've tried to privatize it, put it on the craps tables of Wall Street or to abolish it entirely. They got their hopes up when Elon Musk's children's crusade, otherwise known as DOGE, came in and created chaos.

     But what came out last January 26th was a new low for even this Sauron-inspired administration. Govexec.com published an article today about the Social Security Administration training its employees to act as crisis workers, which is absurd enough. But at one point during their three hour-long training they were told to tell those with suicidal thoughts that "Suicide is only one option".

     Obviously this alarmed Social Security workers to the point where they went to their supervisors to ask for clarification. They literally couldn't believe what they heard, that the government's official position was that suicide was actually an option. 

     The sheer evil intent of such a guideline is difficult to believe even among us who thought we'd charted the full depths of this administration's depravity and full-throated commitment to evil. 

     I have no doubt that those of us on SS have considered self-extinction as a way out, especially after getting their benefits suspended, delayed or outright destroyed. For many of us, Social Security is our one revenue stream and, if it ever gets interrupted or destroyed, your creditors won't give a damn about the drama unfolding between you and the SSA. They want their money or else.

     Obviously, this DOGE-inspired sturm und drang will give people suicidal thoughts, especially if they see nothing but starvation and living on the streets as their future. I've been there. Several times. When Barbara died in 2023, I literally wanted to die and I stopped taking my heart meds, just waiting for that third and final heart attack to do me a favor and reunite me with her in the afterlife. 

     After all, for reasons I still don't comprehend, I completely lost my fear of death after my first heart attack in 2022. After Barb's death, it got so bad that a Facebook friend of mine called the Hudson, MA police department all the way from London UK to do a wellness check on me. I found another reason to live five weeks after her passing, which I won't go into.

     But if anyone understands suicidal ideations, it's yours truly. 

     Again, right wingers have been hammering away at Social Security partly because they loath the very idea of government that actually works for the people. They love the idea of old people working until they drop dead so they never get on the SS rolls.

     But telling people that suicide is one viable option? People, that's pure, weapons-grade evil. That's one step removed from Soylent Green.

     As most psychologists will tell you, about 90% of those who express suicidal thoughts are really just crying out for help. And if you work in a public or private sector job that deals with the public, you have a responsibility to tell them that suicide is simply not an option and to put them in touch with mental health care professionals who are better trained to handle it.

     Psychologically, those floating ideas of self extinction are among the most vulnerable people in society and they obviously deserve compassion, understanding and easy integration to mental health services.

     They should never be told that "suicide is only one option". If someone had told me that in September, 2023, I would've said, "Thank you" and hurtled myself into the Great Beyond.

     But only a government fully in the service of evil would say that to the most vulnerable among us, to the point of practically encouraging them to kill themselves just to reduce the Social Security rolls. It goes to show in unmistakable terms of how much this government under Trump holds in complete and utter contempt the lives of American citizens, especially those living under the direst pressure.

     And, as always, it's always Republicans who are doing the most damage to Social Security and its recipients, sneering at how it's an entitlement program and a form of welfare, that senior citizens aren't entitled to live out the rest of their lives in solvency and dignity. And it's always those millionaire and billionaire scumbags who will never need Social Security who are the ones who want to steal it from the rest of us.

 

The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is a hotline for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone else. To speak with a trained listener, call or text 988. Visit 988lifeline.org for crisis chat services or for more information. 

Greatest Economy Ever!

 

Pam Bondi's Come to Jesús Moment

 

     During Pam Bondi's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, we saw and heard pretty much what you'd expect from Bondi and then some: Accusations of Trump Derangement Syndrome, partisan sniping, personal insults, interruptions, deflections, lies, etc. But there was a moment of startling clarity in which Rep. Jesús Garcia (D-IL-4) said to Bondi, 

     "You're one of the worst attorney generals in our history and an instrument of Donald Trump's lawless authoritarian agenda, and I'm glad the American people are seeing who you are, how you act, and the lack of good values. My Democratic colleagues have focused on your cover-up of the Epstein files and your passion for protecting pedophiles and child traffickers. That alone is grounds for impeachment."

Rep. Jesús García comes out swinging: "You're one of the worst attorney generals in our history and an instrument of Donald Trump's lawless authoritarian agenda, and I'm glad the American people are seeing who you are." pic.twitter.com/RkQ2xilgoo

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 11, 2026

    That's pretty fucking unambiguous and is an unmistakable lack of confidence in what risibly passes for Bondi's "leadership" of the Justice Department. In fact, it's pretty difficult to catalogue all the ways in which Bondi embarrassed herself and the DOJ and her testimony. 

     Let's just say the Democrats, in a relatively rare show of backbone, sharpened their knives in advance of the hearing. It's kind of like the verbal version of Julius Caesar's assassination in the Senate.

 

     Some of the loudest fireworks came when Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) claimed her five minutes with Bondi. Rep. Balint said in part, "The Epstein files contain evidence of a multi-decade international criminal conspiracy involving some of the wealthiest and the most powerful people in the world. And obviously, as you know, President Trump's name is all over them, but so are the names of other senior Trump officials. Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce, John Phelan, the Secretary of the Navy, and Stephen Feinberg, the Deputy Secretary of Defense."

      After some shouting, interruptions and back and fort, Bondi, predictably, mentioned the Clintons then accused Balint of antisemitism. Balint shot back, ""Oh, do you want to go there, Attorney General? Do you want to go there? Are you serious? Talking about anti-Semitism to a woman who lost her grandfather in the Holocaust? Really?"

     Basically, Bondi acted like a rabid alley cat suspended over boiling water toward any Democrat who even looked at her. Balint. Garcia. Jamie Raskin. Dan Goldman. You get the idea.

      

 (Kent Nishimura / REUTERS)

    Yet, one of the biggest takeaways from Bondi's primate poo-flinging yesterday was what wasn't said. An observant photographer caught this photograph of a "burn book" in Bondi's hands consisting of the search results of Democrats who'd accessed the Epstein emails on the DOJ's server.

     So, while refusing to answer pointed questions from Democrats (and Thomas Massie) about covering for three top administration officials, refusing to release millions more Epstein files, Pam Bondi had assembled a burn book to use against Democrats for exercising due diligence and reviewing the unredacted Epstein files and was stupid enough to bring it with her.

     The weaponization of the DOJ, indeed.

     Bondi's performance was so hideous, even right winger Erick Erickson insisted on his Substack page that her horrible performance should result in her firing. It was obvious to everyone who watched that her shit show of a hearing was played for an audience of one. But the problem is that Trump doesn't like angry women. Trump wants women to act the way he wants them to.

     This picture taken during the hearing should be shown all over the world. The people standing up behind Bondi are just some of Epstein's victims and Bondi never once acknowledged them. Her DOJ's piecemeal, haphazard release of the Epstein files had redacted the names of powerful men associated with Epstein while releasing the names of all but one of his victims.

     That requires a rarified, special kind of weapons-grade evil that we've never seen out of the Department of Justice. Rep. Garcia was right: Bondi is the worst Attorney General this nation has ever seen and she needs to go. But with the rabid pack of assclowns currently infesting the DOJ, what confidence do we have that we'll get anyone better?

A Profile in Courage

"Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not." - Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. 

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." - President John F. Kennnedy. 

"I'm not scared of a germ. I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats." - HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Greenland Discovers Bad Bunny

 

(By Cyril Bubberpuss, Conservative-American) 

Say what you want about our president but one thing is undeniable- He is a man of strong principles and beliefs. During the Super Bowl halftime show yesterday, the president called me on my satellite phone to grouse. He kept calling Bad Bunny "a fake American," a phrase he got from his good friend, Jake Paul, who himself is a proud resident of Puerto Rico in a valiant ongoing attempt to keep the liberal Democrats from stealing his money through taxes.

     Try as I had to remind the president that Puerto Rico is a US territory, thereby making Bad Bunny an American, the president wouldn't hear it. "That's your opinion, Cyril," he said before making some off-color remarks about his female dancers.

     We may be in Greenland, a vast island of 57,000 Eskimos, but that doesn't mean we can't still cling to our American roots. So we huddled together in what passes for Nuuk's only sports bar, where wages are made every day on dog sled races. So, while we watched the New England Patriots act like the practice squad for the Seattle Seahawks, I girded myself for the halftime show that we in MAGA World have dreaded for months.

 

     Finally, the ordeal began, which Cecil seemed to welcome after 90 minutes of griping about why the NFL cheerleaders couldn't be junior high-aged boys. It was the longest 13 minutes of my life and felt like 15. I couldn't understand a word he said. When Ricky Martin took the stage, I thought he'd offer some much-needed translation but, alas, we were disappointed. 

 

    My baby girl, Bertha, seemed pleased with the show as she frequently said, "Yeah, baby, shake that moneymaker", even though I realized she was looking at Bad Bunny's female dancers about whom the president was making off-color remarks ("Look at that little one. That's the kind Jeffrey used to go for.").

 

     But I always distrusted Bad Bunny and that stage name that reminds me of Donnie Darko. It used to give Cecil nightmares when he was a teenager growing up and he's always had a fear of rabbits ever since.

     But Mr. Bunny did get 135,000,000 viewers to watch him, numbers even the ratings-obsessed Mr. Trump can't disparage, no doubt mostly from those who tuned in out of some morbid fascination over someone who speaks a language that isn't American. But, being the good American that I am, I dutifully logged on to X to watch the patriotic alternative: Turning Point USA's Halftime show headlined by Kid Rock.

     Unfortunately, that Hall of Fame of Hasbeens couldn't be shown on X on account of licensing issues. Not to be deterred, I went to Youtube, where a whopping 5,000,000 tuned in to watch the exciting spectacle of Bob Richie tell people to dust off their Bibles. I'm telling you, people, that's as exciting as it gets.

    While I was on the phone with the president, I heard partygoers at Mar a Lago  and I heard Bad Bunny's show playing in the background. I wondered why the president wasn't tuning to the real halftime show. The president offered a succinct answer:

      "What about Bob?"

"It's All With Little Kids."

Trump's Justice Department is in possession of thousands of videos of children being graped by wealthy and powerful men.

Those men WERE being blackmailed by Epstein. But by not releasing their names, these men must now be loyal to Trump to protect their identities.

Trump is… pic.twitter.com/Xvy6tiRbOJ

— Jake Broe (@RealJakeBroe) February 7, 2026

     Over the years, I've written scathing posts about Jimmy O'Keefe. You might remember that O'Keefe is a right wing operative famous for his misleading, deceptive videos. Pretending as if he was dressed in a pimp costume with co-conspirator Hannah Giles, they'd filmed an ACORN employee giving them advice on how to avoid paying taxes. ACORN had smelled a rat and punked them.

     The right wing outrage was fierce. Congress suspended funding for ACORN. Bobby Jindal also suspended funding for ACORN despite Louisiana providing no funding for it. Right wingers hated ACORN because they helped register the "wrong" people to vote, i.e. Democratic voters. O'Keefe, and Brietbart, used deceptively-edited videos to give the right wing just the proper amount of ginned up outrage to defund ACORN.

     Then O'Keefe went to prison for trying to bug then Senator Mary Landrieu's senate office. I had a lot of fun with that back then. Then he got kicked out of the Project Veritas that he'd founded. I had fun with that, too.

     But one is perplexed as to how to approach this.

     O'Keefe is still using guerilla journalism, surreptitiously filming people in the hopes of getting them to make embarrassing admissions. Except this time, he's not targeting liberals, but people like Pam Bondi. That's Pam Bondi, as in the AG of the United States. Apparently, O'Keefe, in the greatest 180 since Scrooge and the Grinch, has somehow found his inner journalist and is trolling the administration as regards the Epstein Files.

     In other words, Jimmy O'Keefe has successfully transformed himself from a useless idiot to a useful idiot.

     First, some context: Last year, O'Keefe sent an operative to interview Pam Bondi, except Bondi didn't know she was being interviewed. They met at a restaurant on April 28, 2025 an Bondi told her some of what she knew about the Epstein files, which was at stark odds with what she was telling the American people.

     At one point, Bondi made the startling admission that there were tens of thousands of videos of little kids being abused by Epstein and other powerful men. Now, who knows what Bondi was thinking in making such an admission to anyone, let alone a random stranger in a restaurant. And I'm still stupefied as to why this didn't make a bigger wave than it had when O'Keefe released it last year.

     But the video is getting a second set of legs in the wake of an accusation by an Air Force veteran named Jake Broe who'd alleged that Trump is using those same Epstein files to blackmail the people in those videos, which is perfectly in keeping with Trump's mobster mentality.

     That's right. The guy who's mentioned in the Epstein files far more than anyone else (over 38,000 times just in the new batch and counting) is using them to blackmail other men. And Trump can do that because his personal law firm formerly known as the DOJ has complete control of those files, millions of which the DOJ had said they would never release (in violation of federal law).

      So, in case you're still wondering how Trump got rich scumbags to pony up at least $400,000,000 for his bloated ballroom, wonder no more.

Accept No Substitutes

    There's something beyond brazen about a serial crook like Donald Trump saying that the only election results he'll accept are the ones he'll be allowed to steal. He said as much in 2024 just before the election that, yes, he stole with a certain South African Nazi's help.

    And Republicans all over the country at every level are shitting their pants at the certainty of voter backlash on Election Day this year. In keeping with the fascist bunker mindset, they're not recalibrating their message and trying to be more appealing to those voters. Instead, they're resorting to gerrymandering, voter suppression and the usual dirty Republican tricks. Their policies suck and swallow with gusto and they know it. Selling rank and file voters on their policies would be like trying to sell ICE merchandise in Minneapolis. 

    The first and biggest salvo against the will and voice of the people was when Trump essentially ransacked Fulton County, Georgia of its 2020 election records, including sensitive and highly personal voter data. To justify this, Trump is still pissing and moaning about a redneck state having the temerity to go for Biden that year.

    But even the guy who made dementia cool again must know that no matter what, the 2020 election's long over. It's not like he can jump into a time machine and make himself the president from 2021-2025. It's not as if he's going to get back pay. In short, he can't change history no matter how many times he posts on Truth Social.

 

(Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)

     It would be a mistake to think that Trump is actually relitigating his grievances from 2020. He's simply recycling those grievances as a pretext for going after Fulton County, where he was arrested and booked in 2024 before being hit with charges by the office of a Black woman. Fulton County is just a dress rehearsal for what he's planning on doing to other states and counties.

     Otherwise, if it really is all about 2020, then why order DNI Tulsi Gabbard to lurk in the warehouse and supervise the raid (which was a real good look for her, by the way. It makes her look like Mrs. Kravitz spying on Samantha Stevens.)? Why personally call FBI agents during the raid to rah rah them and congratulate them? Why have a Cabinet-level intelligence official supervising the whole thing?

     And why did Pam Bondi send a letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stating that if he just turns over the voter data from 2020, they'd see less heat from ICE? Nice state you got here. Be a shame if...

     Now he's talking about a partial GOP nationalization of this year's elections, 15 states to be more precise (although he hasn't specified which states need Uncle Sam's avuncular "help" but odds are all or at least most of them have Democratic governors).

     Republicans, of course, seeing their incumbencies jeopardized, are only too willing do so his bidding. The four Republican scumbags sent to Capitol Hill from Minnesota recently proposed legislation that would halt election funds to their own state if they didn't cave in to Trump's ransom demands to turn over electoral data.

     Trump's also going after absentee ballots... again. This would essentially end all voting in Washington State since historically, they use nothing but mail-in ballots. It would also halt elections in Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, and Utah. Which I wouldn't expect a fucking idiot like Trump to know or care about. Steve Bannon's also predicting that ICE will "surround the polls" on election day.

     And then, there's this bizarre 50 state conference call between election officials and the DOJ that will be held at the end of the month.

     Republicans are right to soil their pants. Five days ago, Taylor Rehmet flipped a Texas state Senate seat in SD-9 (Fort Worth) that had been reliably red as far back as anyone could remember. But it wasn't just that Rehmet merely overperformed by losing with grace or eking out a win. He destroyed his Republican opponent, Leigh Wambsganss. (Immediately losing interest in Wambsganss, Trump said, "I’m not involved in that. That’s a local Texas race." despite having endorsed him in the 11th hour.)

     Overperformance? Far from it. Rehmet beat Wambsganss by 14 points (despite being outspent by nearly 6-1)  in a district that Trump carried in '24 by 17 points. This represents a 31 point shift in a solidly conservative SD. Even more alarmingly, it represented a whopping 50 percent shift in the Latino vote in that district. Suddenly, deporting their own kind was no longer a viable way to own the libs.

     It's always risky to look at any one election result as a bellwether, especially one that's a local race and not even state-wide. But those numbers in SD-9 can't be interpreted as anything less than a wake-up call to complacent Republicans. And Rehmet's win this week is just another Democratic win to add to the growing pile of Democrats winning local and state-wide races that saw Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger get sent to the governor's mansions in New Jersey and Virginia, respectively.

     So is it any wonder why Trump and his fascist goons are raiding warehouses and arresting anyone with skin color as brown as a paper bag? Trump said early this year that if Republicans don't reclaim the House and Senate that, "I'll get impeached", which is perhaps the only honest thing he's ever said in this term. 

     He said the quiet part out loud. He doesn't give a shit if the Republicans win or not. He's panicking that if the Democrats take over both chambers of Congress, there's a chance he'll get impeached for a third time and thrown out of office (although a conviction would require 60 votes in the Senate). Trump essentially told those Republicans, "Win, you losers, and save me!"

     But keep in mind that last December, with the passage of the Epstein discharge petition that had barely gotten 218 votes, all but one Republican (Clay Higgins) voted in the roll call vote to release the Epstein files. When the Democrats take the House and the fat man falls, you'll be amazed how many Republicans will tap dance on his political grave.

You Take Greenland, I'll Take Staten Isle

 (By Cyril Blubberpuss, Conservative-American)

Doing movie reviews is not my forte. After all, I've only essayed one in my long history with this liberal sewer of a blog. But every once in a great while, a shockingly brilliant movie will come down the pike (I'm thinking of 2000 Mules and Hillbilly Elegy) that will just scream to be reviewed by everybody. So what made me put on my Rex Reed cap?

    Melania: the Movie, of course, the film that dares ask, "What will Eurotrash put up with for a life of glamor and ridicule?"

    We just had the film's premiere here in Nuuk, the bustling metropolis and capital of Greenland (soon to be renamed Trumpville or DonaldBurg). We'd had a special tent set up by some of the locals that served as a makeshift movie theater, which actually had a concession stand that sold whale blubber and lutefisk, which is actually almost edible if you bang your head on a hard surface and sever the olfactory nerve.

    Anyway, once the film began, it was obvious the last few stragglers would have almost filled the back row of wooden chairs that were set up. My Danish counterpart, the Three Card Monte dealer from Aarhus, provided a steady stream of ribald jokes in some sort of Scandinavian version of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

    Despite my counterpart's uncharitable retitling of the movie (Gold Digger: The Girl With the Pyrite Touch), this comeback movie by sexual adventurer Brett Ratner more than deserves a fair hearing at least before it will get savaged by the liberal eggheads over at Rotten Tomatoes.

     And, in his defense, it was difficult for Mr. Ratner to film the First Lady exiting a tower or mansion, into a waiting limousine and onto a private plane over and over and over without it looking repetitive yet somehow he succeeded in doing so 37 times.

    Just based on her ability to shun those not in the 1% and running away from them over the film's hour and 48 minutes I think qualifies it as an action movie. Think of it as Rush Hour only with First Lady Melania Trump being the only one on the highway and getting nothing but green lights. Honestly, the First Lady's ceaseless efforts to avoid that rabble led me to conclude that the $27,000,000 she pocketed wasn't nearly enough.

     

    In fact, here's a production still that, incredibly, didn't make it in the actual movie. It was a deleted scene that, hopefully, will be in the Special Features section of the DVD (that will be out by tomorrow) in which Melania catches sight of some of those bottom-feeding well-wishers who actually got within a quarter mile of her and at 30,000 feet, too!

     

     Of course, everyone's a critic and my kid brother Cecil began grousing midway through the movie about the near total lack of scenes with a preteen Barron Trump (although one hilarious scene showed Barron with his father and the future president asking him what his name was, which made the kid cry).

      

    My baby girl, Bertha, wasn't very enchanted, either, and hoped that the First Lady would have at least one scene dressed in a flannel checkered shirt and snow pants, the preferred costume for Lady Ice Road Truckers of Alaska.

    Still, the trick to being pleased by a movie made by professionals and executives currying favor with a disturbingly generous administration is to walk in without any preconceived notions or high expectations and Melania: A New Movie certainly didn't disappoint. In fact, the final scene brought tears to my eyes.

     In a brilliant nod to Home Alone II, there was an unscripted moment in which Melania is walking into Trump Tower wearing a black leather trench coat embossed with the words, "I Still Don't Give Flying Fuck. Do You?" A little Puerto Rican boy asks her for directions and Melania then points the unwitting little wetback into a pack of waiting ICE agents. The tears were those of laughter, let me assure you.

 

      By the way, I don't know who the comedian is, but some Greenlandic wag pinned this to the outside of the tent and believe you me, the president will find out who did it and will send ICE to Greenland as soon as he can figure out where to deport them to.