Taco Truck Trump

     On October 14, 1912, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a tavern owner named John Schrank shot former President Teddy Roosevelt. The kinetic force of the bullet was greatly blunted by Roosevelt's steel eyeglass case and the copy of the 50 page speech he was about to deliver. Even after that, Roosevelt refused medical care and remained standing in the car he was in and delivered the entire speech, anyway.

     Roosevelt came from a completely different generation, one in which, as the saying goes, "men were men and the women were damned glad for it." So perhaps it's a little unfair to compare the 26th president to the wet-legged cowards we see in our government today. Still, the contrast between the generations is jarring.

      The NY Times recently reported that Trump and the Secret Service engaged in some subterfuge in Ankara, Turkey last July 8th. The government had received a "credible threat" that Iran was planning on firing a missile at the old Air Force One. Since none of us received that threat assessment, we have no choice but to take it at face value.

     As we all know, protecting the president is the Secret Service's top priority. Using decoys is not exactly uncommon in that agency. My Social Studies teacher, Mr. Lemkin, once informed us that Nixon was so hated that when he took off on Marine One, the Secret Service sent out several helicopters so that potential bad actors never knew which one Nixon was on.

     So, in that respect, the NY Times article was something like a nothing burger.

     What is notable, however was the manner in which the Ankara subterfuge took place. Here's how it went down:

     Trump actually boarded Air Force One in full view of the press as the presidential press corps was still standing on the tarmac. On the other side of Air Force One was a little-noticed catering truck in which the box containing food supplies was lifted. What no one knew at the times, including the occupants of Air Force One and even the press was that Trump was in that box as it was lowered to the ground.

     Trump was then ferried to another jet, a smaller C-32A, while he left his top officials on the plane that was allegedly targeted by the Iranians. That included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Stephen Miller and his Communications Director Steven Cheung. It also included the press corps that follow the president wherever he goes.

     Here's who he'd taken: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, body man Walt Nauta, his former caddy Dan Scavino and Natalie Harp, aka the human printer.

     The press was then ordered by the Secret Service to lower their window shades during the transfer. 

     Trump then flew to England on the C-32A then returned to Joint Base Andrews on the original Air Force One as if he'd been on it the whole time. It could have been choreographed by David Copperfield.

     The strange choice in flying companions notwithstanding, the first question that should enter our minds is why were the nation's two top nuclear policy-makers on the same plane not once but twice on the same day? A day, again, in which Air Force One had been credibly threatened?

     The optics are horrible, to say the least. Trump had abandoned two Cabinet Secretaries plus the traveling press pool knowing Air Force One was targeted by a nation with whom we're (needlessly) at war. Furthermore, he escaped on a catering truck as if he was an aluminum half pan. One can easily imagine Trump screaming, "Save me, you assholes, save me!" as his eyes wildly darted all over the food box.

     It brings to mind Trump seeking refuge in the White House bunker as peaceful George Floyd protesters gathered in Washington in the summer of 2020. But, while he saw to his own safety, Trump abandoned to the Iranians' mercies some of his most trusted officials and advisors. They were called "sacrificial lambs" by the Times, a not unfair assessment. 

    Compare that to Teddy Roosevelt calling for mercy for John Schrank, who otherwise almost surely would've been lynched (His predecessor, President William McKinley, also called for mercy for his assassin, saying, "Take it easy on him, boys."). Trump abandoned his top aides and the press pool, sneaking off Air Force One like a thief in the night.

     It's part and parcel to Trump's cowardice and lifelong sociopathy.

Watergate 2.0

 

     David Hearn is vindicated. Sort of.

     In the latest in an endless string of fuck ups and clusterfucks in DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office, the neolithically incompetent Pirro was forced to enter a motion tho dismiss in the case of former Olympian, David Hearn. Hearn, you might remember, is the man who'd simply reached into the Reflecting Pool and pulled up a large chunk of the pool lining that had already become detached from the bottom. He'd even videotaped himself doing so. His hand reached only an inch or two into the water and his only crime was in exposing the Trump administration's incompetence.

     The government's response was an Orwellian nightmare. The elderly former Olympian was immediately placed in handcuffs and charged. And Hearn wasn't the only person arrested just for visiting a monument that, until Trump got his grubby paws on it, used to be publicly accessible.

     And Trump should've known better than to let Pirro take point. Since taking over the US Attorney's office in DC, Pirro has lost virtually every case that was handed to her (She literally couldn't indict a ham sandwich).

     Pirro's excuse for dropping the charges was based on a fallacy- She claimed the Interior Department fed her false information, which is true, but the Department of Justice still has a duty to do its due diligence and investigate a matter before deciding to go for an indictment and trial. As former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner pointed out in the video above, it's a classic case of "ready, fire, aim".

     Then, when news started filtering out that Trump was enraged over the DOJ dropping the charges against Hearn, Pirro then tried to shift the blame yet again and claim that she didn't drop the charges but was done by one of her underlings without her knowledge. As Kirschner also notes in his podcast, there was no way that Pirro couldn't have known about the charges being dropped and that she would've had to personally sign off on that.

     But, once again, as if Trump already hadn't, Pirro serves as an object lesson as to what inevitably happens when you put Fox talking heads and TV personalities into powerful government positions. Remember what the Turks once said about clowns and palaces.

     And it's obvious to anyone why the Lincoln Reflecting Pool got so fucked up. While they were still painting it, the infamously micromanaging Trump literally took his motorcade and drove over the lining while it was still setting, which alone could've caused the damage. Then, when algae bloom became obvious a few days later, the Interior Department, without consulting with experts, poured gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the water, which degrades exactly the type of sealant they'd used.

     Chemistry did what chemistry does and large chunks of sealant began floating to the surface like mob hits. Then the Trump junta restricted or prevented access and before anyone knew it, the Thought Police began rounding up people left and right because God forbid Dear Leader should be embarrassed and revealed as wearing no clothes.

      And all this dystopian douchebaggery is coming about because of one petulant asshole who can't stand the very idea of being proven wrong about anything.

Sleeping With the Enemy

      Remember when red-faced Donald Trump walked out of that room in Helsinki after huddling with Putin for two hours? You know, while Putin was all loosey-goosey and big smiles as he held that invisible leash that was firmly wrapped around Trump's sagging neck? You remember that day, or you should. That was the press conference in which a reporter asked him if he believed the reports from his own intelligence agencies that Putin was putting contracts on our troops in Afghanistan.

     In what had to be the most embarrassing and shameful foreign policy spectacle in US history, Trump said he took the word of the sociopathic and murderous liar standing to his left over his own intelligence community.

     Well, today Trump did it yet again.

     It happened during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David when the subject of the attack on Minnesota's water infrastructure came up. The FBI and some intelligence agencies said it was the Iranians who'd carried our the cyberattack not just on Minnesota but several other states. And, as with Helsinki, Trump immediately took the side of a rogue, hostile state.

     "We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack and they blame it on Iran. I don't think so. I blame it on Minnesota because they're grossly incompetent," he said, "Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota."

     I remember months ago reading that Iran's government had brought in psychiatrists to gauge and predict Trump's thinking before trying to negotiate with him. I don't think it's a bridge too far to assume that Iran decided to target blue states knowing that Trump would react exactly as he had today at Camp David.

     Since 2024, when Gov. Tim Walz was Kamala Harris' running mate, Trump has harbored what amounts to nothing more or less than a sick, twisted obsession with him and Minnesota in general. It had a lot to do with him calling Trump's own running mate "weird". It also seemed as if Walz was more popular than Trump and Vance combined. And, finally, for the third time in a row, he lost Minnesota (Later, Trump would claim that he won Minnesota three times).

     Trump's attack on Minneesota and blaming them for what was obviously an Iranian cyberattack horrified those who'd heard aside from the spineless sycophants at the table at Camp David today. Once again Trump sided with a hostile power and against his own intelligence network.

      Oh, and he also whined about being mistreated more than anyone in American history. Of course he did.

Dr. Strangeglove

     There was a time not too long ago, when Donald Trump, who's still stubbornly referred to as the "president", channeled his inner Michael Jackson and took to wearing a single glove. It gave him the appearance of a nursing home resident who lost his other glove because the orderly forgot to pin it to his coat.

     The reason he wore the glove was obvious: Too many people began noticing the bruising on his Halloween hand, a condition blamed on taking excessive amounts of aspirin and his shaking hands. It made him look like a more or less fresh zombie who was decaying in real time.

     At the time, I immediately thought of Peter Sellers' titular character in Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick's dark comedy about nuclear annihilation and mutually-assured destruction. In the end, I decided to not make the obvious joke and cultural reference because there was no nuclear deal with the Saudis on the horizon. Now that there is, I couldn't resist revisiting it.

      Unless you live in a cave or are hiding under a flimsy desk under a teacher's advisement as if it will protect you from the thermonuclear fury of an atom bomb, then you'll know about Trump's deal with the Saudis.

     A few days ago, Trump entered into an agreement with MBS, a guy who butchers American journalists with bone saws when he isn't beheading Saudi dissidents, allowing the kingdom to enrich uranium and plutonium with no binding limits or safeguards. The Saudis' rationale, of course, is that they need to enrich nuclear material for their energy program.

     Gee, where have we heard that before? Oh yeah. Iran.

     On their side of the negotiating table, the Saudis flatly refused to allow weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations. They also flat out said that they would enrich uranium and plutonium to weapons'-grade levels (90% or more) if it became clear to them that Iran had developed a nuclear weapon.

     You know, the same reason we went to war with Iran.

     So, you know the one big difference between Iran and Saudi Arabia? Trump doesn't have any pending business deals with the Iranians.

     As proof positive that Trump isn't the master deal-maker that he'd positioned himself four decades ago, as proof positive that Obama was a far better deal-maker, let's take a stroll down Memory Lane. In 2009, the 44th president's first year in office, our government entered into a nuclear deal with the UAE.

     That deal, as with the one hashed out by President Obama with Iran, was very strict, including inspections by the IAEA. The UAE also agreed not to make its own fuel, meaning they'd have no chance of creating a warhead.

     The recent deal with Saudi Arabia, a country that historically has had Trump bent over an oil barrel while he sobs like a prison bitch, contains no such restrictions. They've come right out and said, Yes, we will build nuclear warheads if we think Iran is building one.

     If this threat doesn't ramp up Iran's own nuclear weapons ambitions, then what will?

     Basically, Trump is setting off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, a place that for eight decades has been the most unstable place on the planet.

     Ironically, the one thing that'll save the world and scuttle the deal is Trump's own stupidity. The day after this proposed deal was announced, Trump announced a new condition: That Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel and to recognize it. Saudi Arabia, as with Iran has never, ever recognized Israel and isn't likely to anytime soon. 

Thirsty

     If you're like most Americans, you're glad that FIFA's gone from America for another few decades. The tickets and concessions were criminally overpriced. Let's get back to baseball, where at least athletes are allowed to use all four of their fucking limbs.

     But, as always, Trump had to make FIFA all about himself, even though he'd never shown any particular fondness for soccer until the World Cup came to North America. You might remember when Gianni Infantino, Trump's personal Gollum, came to the White House in a very misguided attempt to show Trump the gold FIFA trophy. Trump actually asked if he could keep it.

     Chelsea won their championship. Then Trump wouldn't leave the stage and the team literally pushed him to the back. Later, Trump admitted that he stole the trophy and that it was sitting in the Oval Office. Chelsea had to settle for a replica.

     Then, when Spain beat Argentina 1-0 in the World Cup final, Trump was allowed, for some bizarre reason, to hand the FIFA trophy that he wanted to keep to Spain. Then he wouldn't leave the fucking stage. Infantino rushed across the platform to remind Trump that it was time for him to leave but he stubbornly refused to leave, posing with the team as if he had anything to do with their victory.

     Because this needy, infantile asshole always has to make everything about himself. Not only that, if Trump is anywhere within a parsec of someone else's moment of glory, he needs to steal their thunder. This is why he crashes weddings to which he's not invited, this is why he won't leave stages when sports teams try to celebrate their victories. He cannot let other people experience joy after hard-won achievements. He has to co-opt them as his own.

      Keep in mind what Trump said recently.

      “The one thing about sports is you break it down into, you know, a two-hour period. You don’t have to wait a lifetime to find out, ‘Is somebody a winner or a loser?’ You got a lot of losers, mostly losers, fortunately. It’s a good thing to have a lot of losers. I always like to hang around with losers actually because it makes me feel better." Then he added,

     "I hate guys that are very, very successful and you have to listen to their success stories. I like people that like to listen to my success." 

      But Trump doesn't just surround himself with "losers". When sports teams win championships, he insists on hanging around like some bloated version of Zelig and, in his desperate need to assimilate, tries to become unto them.

      Seriously, can anyone think of another occupant of the White House who was so pathetically thirsty and needy? Can anyone reading this think that that's a good quality to have in a commander in chief?

Womp Womp

     There was a reason why Bari Weiss's co-opted CBS was the only network to carry Trump's usual whiny grievances over the 2020 election results last night: Because they were the usual whiny grievances and networks are finally getting wise to this embittered carnival barker.

      Basically, Trump wanted to sow distrust among the American electorate in advance of the 2026 midterms and declared the entire electoral system was broken beyond repair. If that was his goal, then it stands to reason that the only people who would even give this preposterous idea any house room would be MAGA voters, aka Republican voters. Ergo, last night's spectacle could only harm Republican incumbents and candidates this November.

     To bolster his arguments, Trump said that he'd declassified a tranche of documents (it's unclear if he'd magically done this just with his mind) "proving" that China meddled in our 2020 election, switched votes from him to Biden and that the intelligence community covered it up.

     However, on review of the declassified documents, journalists and pundits couldn't find the slightest shred of proof that China or the intelligence community did any such thing. In fact, even Trump himself never once said that the government has the smoking gun of any such conspiracy. In short, there was no there there.

     The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, which has been ceaselessly slamming Trump this year, wrote, "Since Mr. Trump declassified the memo, we can quote the part he didn’t. Vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results. The systems in each voting location are not connected to the Internet or to each other, and many methods for exploiting them rely on physical proximity.” And even if some results were compromised, “audits and paper trails very likely would uncover such an effort.” 

     Another thing that Trump didn't say: In contradiction of leaked disclosures to the press, Trump never claimed that Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, Georgia's Democratic senators, weren't legitimately-elected. That would've been a first in American history: The head of the executive branch claiming that duly-elected officials weren't actually elected, after all.

     That would've been a red line even Trump wasn't willing to cross.

     It's abundantly clear why Trump is trying to steal the 2026 midterms: He knows when Democrats get back the House, they will impeach him for a third time on Day One. There's little to no chance he'll be expelled by the Senate. Democrats may take back that chamber, too, but they won't have the 57 votes they'll need for expulsion. But Trump takes impeachment seriously even if there's no real followup in the Senate.

     This is why he's leaning on Senate Republicans to pass the SAVE Act (that's he's misnaming as the SAVE America Act) despite the fact that there just isn't enough votes to pass it. It's unpopular in the Senate and it's unpopular with the people. But Trump is incapable of listening to and being guided by reason and facts. He lives in his curdled little dream world and is increasingly angry at the round hole that won't let in the square peg. 

     And, as insane as it is that Trump is still litigating election results from nearly six years ago, the facts remain clear: Trump tried, and failed, no fewer than 63 times to overturn the results. Some of those defeats came at the hands of judges that Trump himself had nominated. Two attorneys who'd worked on his behalf wound up getting disbarred and another was forced to surrender his law license. Trump's ceaseless conspiracy theories about 2020 wrecked careers and, with his usual sociopathy, Trump couldn't have cared less.

     And the media is finally catching on to the fact that this buffoon, who still can't admit that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020, that Biden beat him by 7,000,000 popular votes and won the electoral college 306 to 232, will offer nothing of any substance. Donald Trump has become the very delineation of the adage that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

     I'm no psychiatrist but to me, that's the definition of obsessive-compulsive disorder, a quality you do not want in a person with his finger on the big red button.

Georgia on His Mind

     What the hell were 77,000,000 people thinking? Is there even an inflection point anymore?

     Not that I believe or ever will believe that Trump won in 2024 or even 2016, what's indisputable is that Trump managed to get over 65,000,000 people to vote for him in each of the last three general elections. If the numbers are to be believed, Trump had conned 62,984,828 voters to cast their ballots for him in 2016. Four years later, that number actually increased to 74,223,975.

     Despite the most ruinous administration in history, after hundreds of thousands of Americans needlessly died from the worst pandemic to hit this nation in a century, after sending thousands to attack the Capitol and stealing classified documents, 11,239,147 more people voted for him, essentially saying, "Yes, we need four more years of this shit." Only Joe Biden's 81,283,501 votes from the more sane of us saved us from ruin in 2020.

     So where was that sense of urgency in 2024 when Trump refused to go away? While I will always believe to my dying day that Kamala Harris won that year, 77,302,580 still voted for Trump, meaning every time this idiot runs for president, he gets millions more to vote for him, making his supporters the largest cult in human history.

     That pretty much qualifies the United States to be, collectively, the stupidest nation on earth. God only knows what the other eight billion people on the planet think of us.

     And in the year and a half since he stole the White House again, Trump has plainly been slipping into dementia. It's not worth belaboring all the countless instances proving this. While Joe Biden's every miscue and gaffe was magnified to cartoonish dimensions, Trump seems to get a pass not only from the Beltway media but also from government officials.

 

     And no one has come out and said that Trump can no longer speak publicly without embarrassing himself and the nation. At the last G7, the other leaders, legitimately-elected ones, gave him short shrift. The picture above is perfectly representative of how isolated Trump, and the US, is. While the other world leaders were smiling and shaking hands, interacting with each other like normal human beings, Trump stood off by himself scowling at the press.

     And the day after tomorrow, Trump's going to fill up our TV screens and monitors with his sagging umber puss and declare that Georgia Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock aren't really senators, that they were never really legitimately elected.

     This will be a first in American history, one in which a "sitting president", who never won an election in his life, will openly disparage the legitimacy of actually-elected officials in Congress. Trump will do so not because he really gives a flying fuck about election integrity but because he wants to de-legitimize the Georgia 2020 election results that Biden won by nearly 12,000 votes.

     He is obsessed with Georgia. Earlier this year, he pulled off a Gestapo-like raid on Fulton County, impounding through the ODNI and Kash Patel's goons at the FBI all the paper ballots and voting machines. DNI Tulsi Gabbard was there furtively hiding behind a corner and Trump even called the FBI agents in real time to congratulate them on a job well-done. He'd even had the DOJ subpoena Fulton County election workers.

     All because he can't stand the idea of losing.

     

     Where is the inflection point, where's the red line, where's the Rubicon? How much longer are we supposed to live under this unceasing madness? What will it take for the 25th amendment to be invoked against this murderous, slouching, demented, shamelessly corrupt moron? 

“I have always depended on the kindness of fascists."

 

     One could make loose comparisons (As I had over the years) between Lindsey Graham and Blanche Dubois, the ill-fated character in Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire. Both were clearly insane Southerners who were supported by delusion that was delineated by histrionics.

     Like his late running buddy, Senator John McCain, Graham was always a warhawk so it tracks that Graham spent his last few weeks on this earth supporting Trump's idiotic war against Iran. But Graham had already pulled the rip cord on his bomb vest and blew up whatever complex and meaningful legacy he should have had.

     A decade ago, he made a game attempt to find his conscience and maybe even his spine. He wrote on Twitter, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…. and we will deserve it.” If anything, what Graham had written 10 years ago seems even more prescient now than it was in 2016. And that tweet was hardly the only time he'd publicly inveighed against Trump. Here's a fairly exhaustive list of the times Graham told the truth about Trump in 2015-6.

      One suspects Graham of assuming that Trump would lose in 2016. He never thought he'd ever have to suck up to perhaps the greatest monster this world has ever seen.

     Perhaps Graham thought he could stand on his principles, such as they were, and live to tell the tale.

     But the plain fact is that after nearly 24 years in the Senate, Graham doesn't have a single meaningful, transformative piece of legislation with his name on it. Like so many other lawmakers before him, like Mitch McConnell, Graham's genius lie in his ability to survive like a cockroach and keep getting reelected, to successfully fake relevance by basking in and staying in close proximity to those who''d actually had it.

     The man who had called out Trump for what he was- pure poison to the Republican Party and the nation in general- became just another one of his golfing buddies. Graham's one saving grace was his unwavering support of Ukraine. (In fact, he'd met with President Zelenskyy in Kyiv just hours before his death.)

     Graham had sunk to being just another one of those never-trumpers who'd bent the knee and the neck once he was shoe-horned into the Oval Office. Like Rubio, like Cruz, like JD Vance, he stood by his man even after he'd savaged his old friend John McCain in July 2015 and said McCain was only a hero because he was captured.

     Lindsey Graham became just another punchline on the Beltway- Just another politician who'd sold out his principles so he could bask in the tonic of Trump's power. He'd suggested Trump should be given a peace prize only one named after himself. Except for when he'd briefly regained his spine after the January 6th attack on the Capitol Building, Graham became just another shameless suck-up.

     But when Graham's legacy is reviewed, after the tributes and  hagiographies are written, the enduring image of Graham will be the lead image above- When Graham had a hissy fit over Democrats opposing the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Graham acted like a titty-twisted little bitch not because he wanted Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court but because Trump wanted him on it. And it didn't matter to him that Kavanaugh had been accused of rape and sexual assault. His histrionics actually became more notorious than Kavanaugh's own.

      Lindsey Graham served as an object lesson in how easily a politician's soul can be bought and sold for conferred power, the illusion of actual relevance. And it can't even be said that he was better at it than anyone else. Washington is filled with guys like Lindsey Graham and always will be. Graham only stood head and shoulders above the rest because he was more shameless and overt about it than anyone else.

The Day We Became Americans

 

     On this day 250 years ago, the Declaration of Independence was read to the American people for the first time. It took place at the old Philadelphia State House, now known as Independence Hall. As every schoolchild knows, the Declaration was signed on July 4th but the actual reading to the public took place four days later so they could coordinate readings in the other colonies and to prepare official, engrossed (handwritten) copies.

     The Continental Congress couldn't have picked a better man for the job. The honor of the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence fell to Colonel John Nixon, merchant, military officer and former sheriff of Philadelphia. He was one of the most respected men in the city and had a strong, authoritative voice.

     The Declaration was actually an evolution from the Remonstrances of the mid 1660s that were drafted and signed in most of the American colonies. These Resistance Petitions, as they came to be known, were respectful documents pleading with King Charles II to respect their autonomy. But they were nonbinding, ineffectual pleadings only and they certainly never came close to even threatening to wrest their independence by force. 

     Approximately 2000 Philadelphians crowded the square that day to hear for the first time what their representatives had hashed out behind closed doors that summer. One of the most explosive parts was the lengthy list of 27 grievances they had with the British Empire. Mostly written by Thomas Jefferson, they listed grievances such as King George III's refusal to allow the election of colonial officials, wearing them down through a process of attrition, etc.

     Essentially, it was the first moment the colonists realized they were no longer British subjects but Americans officially divorcing themselves from the authority of what was considered the mightiest nation on earth. It was at once exciting and frightening. Now that the second Continental Congress had announced independence, if the revolution failed, those who'd taken part in what was then a mere rebellion consisting of a piece of paper would've been hanged as traitors, including Jefferson.

     It was an incredibly fragile start to our independence and it's difficult to appreciate the guts that it took the Founding Fathers just to sign said declaration. When the Constitution was drafted in March of 1789, it took several years for everyone in the Continental Congress to actually sign it. Later on, John Adams would remind us that the entire Continental Congress was never under the same roof in Independence Hall at the same time because of British spies and the threat of arrest and execution.

     It's impossible to imagine such courage in our government today. The US Congress, in all its bicameral glory, is filled with dissembling, feckless characters. Indeed, our history and that of Congress is more than merely studded with convicted criminals. If Trump wrote the Declaration of Independence, there's no doubt that he would have made all 27 grievances detailing how he, and not the American people, were wronged.

      Perhaps it's unfair to compare our leaders of today to those of colonial America. The Founding Fathers were also vastly flawed, conflicted men. Some called for independence, others for conciliation and some wished to remain under the yoke of British tyranny. But in the end, they put their lives on the line and committed to a course of action where the preferred outcome was far from assured.

     And, again, it's impossible to imagine such courage from their latter-day descendants. In the 18th century, there was little room for "evolved thought" and no tolerance for dissembling. Hashing out the terms for independence was complex, sure, but their moral vision and impetus was clear.

      Our nation was created by brilliant and learned men who'd founded the greatest experiment in democracy that the world has ever seen and they'd done so in secrecy, by candlelight and on fragile pieces of parchment. They knew they were taking their lives in their own hands while they did so yet their mission was clear.

     Nowadays, we see Donald Trump bumbling his way through the G7 and the NATO summit in Ankara and, suddenly, King George III didn't look so mad, after all.

Schrödinger's Senator

      Is he dead? Is he alive? Is he both? It depends entirely on whom you ask and what their political stripe is.

     On, fittingly, Trump's 80th birthday, Mitch McConnell was rushed to the hospital after suffering what was rumored to be a cardiac event. He was unconscious and the paramedics had to do CPR on him. He's been in the hospital since and hasn't voted in the Senate since June 11th.

     His office is claiming that McConnell is working closely with his staff from his hospital bed and that it's business as usual. Nothing to see here, folks.

     And the Beltway media dutifully acts like the stenographers they are.

     But here's the thing: We wouldn't have known that McConnell was found unconscious in his DC home or that he'd been administered CPR if it wasn't for Desirée Townsend, an independent journalist and one of McConnell's neighbors.

     Townsend somehow got hold of the EMS audio recordings that detailed the life-saving measures performed on McConnell that night.

     Now, as you can expect, the GOP is circling the wagons and being completely opaque if not outright disingenuous about McConnell's condition. Up to a point, one has to understand why. After all, we're talking about a man's medical condition, which, according to HIPAA regulations, has to be kept confidential. But Mitch McConnell isn't just any other patient.

     The state of McConnell's health has national security implications. As the former Senate Majority leader, McConnell had access to top secret intelligence that few others in the country have. And that's where his wife, Elaine Chao, comes in.

     Chao, bizarrely, fled to China days after her husband's hospitalization to speak to the Chinese Vice President. One of their daughters closed down her Twitter account. Townsend said no one has been in McConnell's home since June 14th.

     Now, I don't indulge in conspiracy theories like Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who's openly accusing Chao of being a Chinese spy.

     Scott Jennings claimed he'd heard from McConnell recently and that they'd spoken for 17 minutes. But consider the source. This is Scott Jennings we're talking about, who's just a reliable right wing rodeo clown on CNN, so you have to take whatever he says with a grain of salt.

      Now, there's some cause for believing that there's the usual Republican skullduggery afoot. According to Kentucky election laws, if a US senator cannot finish their term before August 3rd, it automatically triggers a special runoff election. If the senator in question survives past August 3rd, it goes to the general election in November.

     The reason why Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, can't name a replacement is because Republicans changed the laws back in 2024 forbidding him from doing so. So, basically, The GOP is playing Weekend at Bernie's with McConnell to ensure that Thomas Massie, the outgoing US Congressman, doesn't throw his hat in the ring. Massie is the ultimate wild card and the Kentucky GOP's worst nightmare.

     They're terrified that if McConnell is indeed proven to be incapacitated prior to August 3rd, Massie will enter the special election and split the Republican vote, paving the way for a Democrat to occupy McConnell's seat.

     So the Republican Party is still clinging to McConnell's withered body for the next few weeks in the name of party primacy. 

Why I'm Not Celebrating the 4th of July

      Let me clarify something before I get going: I love my country in the way that a man still loves his first girlfriend. The magic is gone, it can't be recaptured and compatibility was an illusion all along. 

     America was never a perfect country and never will be. And on this semiquincentennial, I'm in a position to compare the America in which I'd grown up to the fascist hellscape it's become. I'm not going to belabor why I say this except to ask those in my generation if their lives are actually better now than they were a half century ago.

     Gerry Ford was the president during the bicentennial. In an otherwise bland and mercifully brief presidency, Ford presided over the 200th anniversary of our nation's independence. Vietnam was just a memory and the nation was recuperating from Watergate and Nixon's mishandling of the economy. We Americans were excited to celebrate that unique milestone.

     Although he was an ineffectual Republican, at least Ford didn't have a bloated ego like the current squatter in the White House.who's obsessed with naming everything after himself and putting up monuments in his so-called honor. Ford wasn't concerned with monetizing the presidency and making a pile of money while taking away government assistance from the poor.

     Fast forward a half a century. The America State Fair has been a clusterfuck from the beginning. The stage is literally falling apart while dancers rehearse, failing generators resulted in a busted Ferris Wheel and melted ice cream, people suffering from the heat are on life support, states are pulling out of the state pavilions, you couldn't even pack a phone booth with the people who were foolhardy enough to show up and virtually all the musical acts pulled out because they weren't notified of the partisan nature. Patriot Front, a fascist hate group, today took over the National Mall, fighter jets are flying overhead while people below ignore them and Trump's fireworks display, consisting of 880,000 pyrotechnics, is going to cause a health crisis and pollute air quality (a study that was then suppressed by the government),

     There's no way to redo this, no way to make it right. Next year will be the 251st anniversary. Who cares about that?

     And always, Trump tries to recast everything in his bloated, umber image. And while Americans struggle to gas up their cars and put food on the table, Trump admitted he'd stuffed his already bulging, bottomless pockets with $2,000,000,000 last year.

     Sorry, I'm just not feeling it. And that goes for many of us.

     We're a nation that's at war with a nation that wasn't threatening us (sound familiar?). Masked goons are sweeping across the streets of America and murdering American citizens with impunity. Jobs aren't really being created, inflation is up and our government is crawling with psychopaths and freaks who so disrespect your intelligence, they're brazenly telling us we're living in an unprecedented Golden Age.

     The Founding Fathers would be horrified.

     Happy 250th? Nope, sorry. Not feeling it.

     If it can be construed as a "celebration", then I'll "celebrate" by walking down West Peoria Avenue in Phoenix and going to the local Barnes & Noble for the first time in over two years and maybe buy a book. I may stop off at the nearby Chili's for dinner, maybe have a beer then perhaps see some of the fireworks from my patio. Then I'll work on one of my novels before going to bed, looking forward to the relief tomorrow that this grotesque spectacle is at last over.

A One Man Crime Wave

 

 

     I'd like to think if Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, he would've punched Donald Trump in the face. In Medora, North Dakota the other day, Donald Trump took part in a ribbon cutting ceremony at the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library alongside Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. As it often happens, the ribbon cutting ceremony involved gold-plated scissors.

     After they cut the ribbon, Trump then tried to slip the scissors into his jacket and eventually walked off with them. At this point in his life, Trump is like a Temu Auric Goldfinger, the Bond super villain who's obsessed with gold (He even has his own Oddjob in Steven Cheung, for fuck's sake). If he sees gold, he immediately grabs it.

     You might remember the time last year when professional Trump suck-up Gianni Infantino brought the FIFA trophy to the Oval Office and made the mistake of handing it to Trump. They had to practically pry it out of his grubby little hands after he asked, in all seriousness, "Can I keep it?"

     Hilary Shea, a licensed pathologist, put out a short video explaining the difference between a true kleptomaniac and someone with actual dementia. 

     "The stealing is usually a symptom of changes in the brain affecting memory, judgment, impulse control, or the ability to recognize ownership... I do not think that Donald Trump is actually, psychiatrically speaking, suffering from kleptomania. I do believe it is just one more sign and symptom of dementia. As always, Donald Trump has got to go."

     Considering his ongoing crime wave, especially since he stole the presidency again with Musk's help, it's very easy to conclude that Trump is a kleptomaniac. After all, his latest financial disclosures show that he hauled in $2,2 billion last year, a level of corruption that is, to use one of Trump's favorite phrases, the likes of which have never been seen before.

     But we've also seen just in this past year a serious degradation of his cognitive faculties. And when I saw Trump literally try to pocket those gold-plated scissors, I immediately thought of Barbara.

     In the last year she was living with me, long after her own dementia began presenting, Barbara got obsessed with a pair of scissors I kept in the kitchen drawer. We needed a pair for various things I regularly needed to do in the kitchen. But every so often, Barbara would remove them from the drawer and walk off with them. 

     I'd ask her to put them back and she'd always respond in a towering rage that "they're mine!" She'd developed this perverted sense of ownership.

     I'm seeing this in Trump and, naturally, it alarms me as it should alarm all of us. It got to the point Barbara couldn't or wouldn't get to the bathroom on time, or feed herself or even write her own name. And seeing her infantile sense of ownership reflected in Trump just scares the shit out of me.

It's Time To Talk About Grandpa

      Watching Donald Trump this year alone is almost like watching Dorian Gray decomposing after seeing his own portrait in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. 

      It's almost been that rapid. And we've been treated to so many examples of his incipient decrepitude that no matter how loudly Karoline Leavitt or Steven "Oddjob" Cheung shriek, "Fake news!" it doesn't alter videotape evidence of Trump slurring words, falling asleep in the middle of the day or tacking and zig-zagging down a red carpet because he can no longer walk in a straight line.

     There's also the near-nightly shit postings and re-postings on Truth Social while he's gorging himself on ice cream and throwing away sterling silver utensils as if they were made of plastic. Trump's already past the point where families would typically have an intervention and take away grandpa's car keys.

     Take the G7 in France recently. Trump needed to be supported by India's Modi because he couldn't lift his bulk up one step. Another time, while the world leaders assembled for a "family" photo, Trump wandered away like a distracted two year-old and had to be led back to the group. Then there was the handshake with French President Macron in which Trump offered his hand vertically and had to do a complex series of moves just to shake his hand.

      We know Trump's been to Walter Reed three times in the last 13 months. During at least most of those times, he was given the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or the MoCA, which is a preliminary test given to patients when their doctor thinks they're suffering some cognitive dysfunction such as dementia. The very fact that Trump persists in believing that it's an intelligence test (identifying a camel or lion?) that no else can pass is proof positive of how far he's gone 'round the bend.

     And just today in Pennsylvania, Trump resurrected his pipe dream of illegally running for a third term, as if he'll actually be able to stand up straight by January 2033. Hasn't anyone noticed that all year long during Oval Office press conferences, Trump's always sitting down and never stands behind a podium any more?

      So, if we're already at the car key snatching phase, shouldn't the government also be seriously discussing the 25th amendment? The presidency isn't a birthright or a patronage position. It belongs to the legitimately-elected person who's mentally and physically capable of undertaking the rigors of running the most powerful nation on earth. 

     Trump is neither of those things. Trump is showing clear signs of having suffered a series of strokes that have left him so feeble he can't even get out of a chair without dropping like a sack of potatoes (witness the shooting in Butler in July 2024 and when the Secret Service had to heave him out of his chair at the WH Correspondent's dinner).

     And the people who are spin-doctoring for him plainly care less about our democracy and natioal security as they do about protecting Trump's infamously egg shell-fragile ego and avoiding his ever-present wrath. His anger management issues alone should get him thrown out of office not to mention his contentious divorce from reality.

Greenwatergate.

      It can be said that the stupider a person or administration is, the likelier they'll inevitably reach a supreme irony or a perfect delineation of their stupidity. With that theory in mind, I give you the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

     Back in 1973, when my family took me to tour Washington DC as a 14 year-old boy, we saw the reflecting pool. Back then, it looked like a swamp. Algae infested the pool, it was covered with leaves. The water looked as disgusting as that on the boat rides at amusement parks. The Nixon administration plainly never gave it a single thought. With Watergate blooming like algae on a hot summer day, they plainly had bigger things to worry about.

     I left the Reflecting Pool feeling pretty underwhelmed.

     But what the Nixon administration didn't do was waste taxpayer dollars on a quick fix that was guaranteed not to work, especially after failing to consult with experts who actually knew what they were talking about. Nixon didn't dispatch the National Guard and multiple police departments to arrest people for touching the paint flakes that were floating to the surface. Nixon didn't choose that particular hill to die on.

     That's what Watergate was for.

     But the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, one of the most revered monuments in Washington DC and anywhere in the country, is the hill that Trump wants to bravely die on. He decided he wanted to improve it. And when Trump decides to try his hand at improvements, well... We all know by now what happens.

     American Flag Blue was the color he settled on (Any expert can tell you that dark colors absorb and radiate heat more effectively than light colors). So he gave a no-bid contract to a guy who's a friend of his in Palm Beach, a guy named John Cafaro who runs a company that had gotten just one government contract. Cafaro had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump and got a $1.7 million contract to install a nano bubble device that's supposed to kill algae. It was installed by Cafaro's company, one named (God, you just can't make this shit up) Greenwater Services.

     Cafaro also has a rather checkered past. Among other things, according to Cleveland.com, "In 2021, he pleaded guilty to bribing former Congressman James Traficant Jr., an Ohio Democrat, and was expected to testify against him, the Times reported. In 2020, he pleaded guilty to a campaign finance crime..."

     Of course, Trump is attracted to criminal figures like algae in a shallow, stagnant pool of water during a heat wave. Naturally, such a crook, and a generous one, at that, would get a plum contract even though he had no such relevant experience. What was supposed to be a mere $1.7 million expenditure turned into a nearly $15 million boondoggle that yielded few if any results aside from algae blooming like wildfire right after they turned the water back on.

     Within a day or so, the water turned green. Yes, the guy who'd promised to "drain the swamp" wound up giving us a new one.

     So, what did they do? They sent workers to the Reflecting Pool to pour gallons of hydrogen peroxide into it. Now, hydrogen peroxide is a great disinfectant when you have an open wound but it also does other things. For one thing, it oxidizes things like paint and acts as a stripper. Days after the hydrogen peroxide was poured into the water, the "American Flag Blue" sealant that had coated the bottom of the Reflecting Pool began peeling off and floating the surface like a mob hit in the East River.

     Naturally, Trump wasted no time in blaming the left. He got on Truth Social and raged that saboteurs had somehow jumped into the pool and cut a 250 foot-wide swath with a knife (while remaining invisible to video cameras). He accused the left of pouring corrosive chemicals into the Reflecting Pool (like hydrogen peroxide?). Basically, he blamed everyone but himself (of course).

     Now the Park Police, the DC Metro police and the Park Service are keeping guard over the pool and fighting a passive losing battle over a single-celled organism. A three time Olympian had reached into the water and pulled out a piece of paint and was promptly arrested and charged with... something. Trump uncovered a vast conspiracy, crowed about many arrests. Jeanine Pirro vows to throw the book at such dangerous left wing terrorists.

     Everything Trump touches dies, according to Rick Wilson. Everything, that is, except algae.

A Bribe With Wings

 

      On Juneteenth, Trump decided to commemorate the day not with celebrating the announcement of the end of slavery. No, perish the thought. Trump obviously thinks of the scourge of slavery with bittersweet fondness. No doubt, if he was in the White House, he would've immediately tried to make a deal with the slave-owning states because there would've been very fine (white) people on both sides.

      No. instead, Trump deliberately stole Juneteenth's thunder by rubbing our faces into his biggest violation of the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution: His $400,000,000 luxury jet gifted to him by the Qatari government. And, let's call it what it is: A bribe with wings.

     It's been described as a White House on wings. Trump called it a plane "for our country" although when reporters were given the ten cent tour, no cameras or photographs were allowed  because Trump and the psychopaths that surround him knew the optics would be horrible. The belt buckles all have the presidential seal on them as well as gold accents (of course). 

     The Air Force has spent the better part of the last year refurbishing the plane so that it meets all the requisite security standards for Air Force One. Aviation experts have estimated it cost the USAF a billion dollars or more so our government could ferry Trump's bloated carcass in even greater luxury than he'd hitherto enjoyed.

     As proof that this is indeed America's plane, it's already been mutually understood that when that merciful day comes when he's no longer in office, he gets to take the plane with him (or to his presidential library foundation, ha ha), despite the American taxpayer having spent one billion dollars or more on its refurbishment. 

     So, what can the Qataris expect for this naked $400,000,000 bribe? Well, some preferential treatment, obviously. Perhaps they don't want us looking too hard into their long, heinous record of human rights abuses. But here's something we all should be looking hard at:

 

Let's Talk About Alani Bankhead

      In any election cycle, including this one, Montana never gets mentioned with the states that are legitimately in play. In 2026, Democrats speak hopefully about North Carolina, Maine, Texas and other purple or red states that could realistically flip to Democrats. But Montana for years has been a solidly red state. Just recently, Jon Tester, a Blue Dog Democrat, lost his Senate seat.

     But for some reason, no one is talking about this year's Senate race to replace retiring Montana Senator Steve Daines. I'm not getting any indication that Bankhead's landed on the DSCC's radar or is getting any help from them at all. In fact, the one biggest weakness in her campaign is her accepting $4,000,000 in PAC money despite railing against PACS since her campaign began in January.

      But setting that aside, Bankhead has solid credentials. She's third generation military and is a retired Lt. Colonel who'd spent part of her career as a counterintelligence agent, federal law enforcement officer and as a bodyguard. She's no AOC. She has strong beliefs that people coming across the southern border have to do so legally. But she also decried the Trump administration's incalculably cruel policies and actions against migrants and even American citizens. She understands that there are serious problem in our for-profit health care system.

     She won her Democratic primary on June 2nd against a field of four other Democrats and only got serious competition from Reilly Neill, a former Montana state rep and publishing executive. That placed her in a head-to-head matchup against Kurt Alme.

     Alme got Trump's endorsement immediately after filing to run for the Senate with eight minutes to spare. He has Republican endorsements stacked to the ceiling. He also has solid credentials and, unlike virtually all of Trump's other endorsed candidates, has avoided scandal and fiery polemics his entire career. He's not only a former US Attorney with a proven track record prosecuting drug traffickers and has been a fixture in Montana politics for decades.

     In other words, a solid Republican who seems to have a "passion for service."

     He also got about 4000 fewer votes in his primary than Bankhead got in hers. 

 

      That same night, this was the result of the GOP primary..

 

     Again, it's always a slippery slope trying to predict general election outcomes by primary results. Everyone knows primary voter turnout tends to be significantly lower than that of general elections. And, let's face it, even in a state with a population of just over 1.1 million, 32,000 primary votes is nothing to brag about.

     But the number don't lie and if the DSCC was smart, they'd be putting some oomph behind her campaign because Democrats are going to need to pick up every state they can in these Senate races.

Short Man Syndrome is Back With a Vengeance!

 (By Cyril Blubberpuss, Conservative-American)

Well, I've finally hit the big time. I've just been named by future president Greg Bovino as his 2028 campaign manager! Granted, the learning curve is high as I've never run a campaign at any level, much less a major presidential campaign. But that didn't stop Roy Cohn, who doubled as both Joe McCarthy's legal counsel and as my father Ambrose's campaign manager when he successfully ran for Congress in 1952. 

     Admittedly, that was kind of an uneasy alliance as Cohn set father's teeth on edge by occasionally showing up at campaign strategy meetings wearing nothing but a short bathrobe and followed by several young, effeminate men speaking with lisps. During his illustrious quarter term in Congress, father would say Cohn was "squishy but the little cocksucker gets the job done."

      The first order of business is organizing and coordinating fundraisers. This requires reaching out to groups with colorful red and black flags and featuring very passionate young men with affected German accents. One of those groups is Patriot Front, an up and coming organization of other young, passionate men who huddle closely together in U-Haul trucks so they can march together in khaki cargo pants only to get chased out by soccer moms and paraplegic retirees.

      It's brilliant branding and no doubt they will give the Bovino campaign their valuable marketing insight. For now, our national campaign headquarters is in the basement of the Fourth Reich Army Surplus store in El Centro, California where Commander Bovino buys his entire wardrobe. In fact, we just cleared out the German munitions locker and are temporarily repurposing it as a phone bank so we can cold call patriots.

 

     My kid brother Cecil is also on board with Bovino's campaign or at least he was until yesterday. Cecil volunteered to man the phone banks until we started getting irate calls from angry parents complaining that a strange man was calling them up and asking their prepubescent sons if they had boyfriends. The way I look at it, Cecil was doing his job in being ever-vigilant against the homosexual agenda. God knows we don't need that element in our campaign. Cecil's entreaties to be reassigned to an authority position over the Bovino Youth League (nicknamed the "Tender Age Commanders") fell on deaf ears.

     It doesn't surprise me that many of our initial donations are coming in from Europe, such as from the AfD in Germany as well as from Italy and Argentina. This, to me, is proof positive that Commandeer Bovino's appeal is rapidly spreading across national borders and is becoming a movement.

      We've also started sending out fundraising emails in which campaign contributors are classed in tiers according to the size of their donations. Those donating $5-$25 are called Bunker Dwellers, $26-$50 gets you Rat Liner status and those contributing $51 and up will earn you the coveted ICE King designation. Let's see Elon Musk and Peter Thiel turn that down!

     Our organization and campaign is small and nascent so there's nowhere to look but up, which is a common position for Commander Bovino. But, mark my words, the day will come when President Bovino draws himself up to his full height and looks other world leaders square in the belt buckle and show them who's boss!

The Art of the Deal

     Don't let the mainstream media or the government breathlessly lie to you. There is no peace deal. Not really. Certain conditions have to be met. Vance said that before a deal is finalized, Iran has to modify its nuclear program, including oversight. But those who have seen this so-called deal say that no such precondition is in its language. This isn't a real, permanent peace deal, no actual ceasefire. It's a framework deal only. It's the deal before the deal.

     Essentially, Iran gets to keep every atom of its fissionable uranium. There will be no oversight, no weapons inspectors will be allowed in, no limits, even, as to how much they can enrich it.

     In order to make a viable nuclear warhead, a nation must enrich its uranium to at least 90%. When President Obama struck his historic deal with Iran, the ceiling for enrichment was a mere 3.67%.

     With this idiotic deal, there apparently is no limit, so now Trump is so obsessed with getting out of this war, he's no longer concerned about Iran getting a nuclear weapon, after all. Likewise, he's no longer talking about regime change or the pro-democracy protesters or their executions. And, after telling everyone the Iranians wouldn't get a wooden nickle from us... Well, let's talk about that for a minute.

     Remember when right wingers were screaming themselves hoarse (and some of them still are) about Obama "giving" Iran "billions of dollars"? Here's what President Obama did: He'd merely unfrozen Iran's assets, some $1.7 billion. In other words, he gave Iran back its own money as part of the deal.

     Under Trump, he's poised to give Iran $25 billion. That's approximately 15 times what they got out of Obama, which was, again. their money to begin with. This $25 billion is coming right out of the US Treasure. But that's just the rotten tip of the iceberg.

     Part of the deal also involves giving Iran $300,000,000,000 for reconstruction. To put that into perspective, that's 500 to 600% of Iran''s annual budget or 100% of its GDP for a year. Just to pay for all the shit that we'd bombed back to the Stone Age (including over 160 little schoolgirls). Israel got in on the action, also bombing Iran, but you don't see Israel coughing up a single shekel, do you?

     So what did we get in return? Iran has agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz... which was already open before we decided to bomb the shit out of Iran.

      This means that, just to get things back to a semblance where they were before, we'll have to pay Iran reparations costing us $300 billion, pay them an additional $25 billion, we have no limits on how much they can enrich their uranium and it only cost us 13 American lives. Oh, and Iran destroyed all of our Middle East bases.

     The art of the deal, ladies and gentlemen.

     And, of course, Trump will declare it better than any deal struck by either Biden or Obama and he'll strut around like the proverbial pigeon that knocks over the chess pieces and shits on the board and pretending it won.