Splitsville

 On the topic of Marjorie Taylor Greene: So what?

For me, this lives in a realm of those who chose to laud Liz Cheney for finally standing up for the country which she took an oath to defend and preserve. A screeching horde of MAGAts with malicious intent, fueled by a a cowardly tangerine's rhetoric, attempted to sieze control of the United States Congress. They even threatened to hang the sitting Vice President. The fact that Liz hit her breaking point with the First Trumpreich at that moment is nothing more than a civil servant coming to grips with the responsibilities of the job for which she was elected. 

Marge's moment of clarity, notable because it came during a government shutdown about health care, was directly connected to her realization that her own adult children were being affected by the potential loss of Affordable Care Act subsidies. Suddenly, after years of being the darling of the red baseball cap herd, she was on the outside looking in. When her former gang's boss turned on her in his nasty, antisocial media way, she figured it was time to pack her things and go. In his usual rambling and vindictive stlyle, the convicted felon made a very public breakup with the woman he now refers to as "Wacky Marjorie" because according to him all she can do is "COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!" He could not possibly, without any awareness of irony, understand just how ridiculous that assertion is.

Meanwhile, the government has reopened, and Marge is preparing for her not too hasty exit. First she'll need to make sure her pension is vested before she sets out on a brand new adventure. Opening a gym somewhere, maybe? Working tirelessly to keep the Affordable Care Act intact? Or perhaps simply bidding her time until the eventual collapse of all that is Trumpian and she can jump back into a vortex called The Republican Party which will see her as "a breath of fresh air."

Let me see if I can sum my feelings for that in a word: Ew.

Ignore Alien Orders

Let's see if I am getting this right: There is a kerfuffle going on about members of the "intelligence community" and the military following unlawful orders. Killing someone without due process or cause would seem to be part of that batch, at least from where I am sitting. That just happens to be with easy access to the Costitution of the United States as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  Always thinking ahead, our nation's leaders chose to put these documents where people like you and me can access them, just in case there was any questions about how the Law should be meted out. 

Some Schoolhouse Rock for you all: The Three Branches of Government. Not perhaps as memorable or tuneful as "I'm Just A Bill," this little ditty reminds us that those three branches are there to keep an eye on one another with a little system we call "checks and balances." It would be easy to forget that in a nation that is currently dominated by a bunch of MAGAts controlling the highest offices in our land that there is a judicial system that extends out beyond the so-called Supreme Court. To that end, I point you toward U.S. District Judge James Boasberg who ruled that the current administration identify the officials involved in authorizing an unprecedented deportation operation in March that sent the men to a prison known for abusive treatment.

Up pops the name of Kristi "Puppy Terminator" Noem, who chose to defy the court's order to stop sending one hundred Venezualans to El Salvador's CECOT, euphemistically labeled a "terrorist confinement center." Anyone who ignores the judge's orders is breaking the law, which puts a whole lot of folks in line for being good at following orders, except these were not legal. 

There are plenty of other examples of this kind of chicanery, a great deal of it having to do with Krist's passion for generating photo-ops that would make John Bunell blush. There is no current law of the books for egregious showboating by a government official, but I offer the ICE Queen up as America's Most Wanted, right along with the rest of the Clown Car the convicted Felon refers to as his cabinet. 

That is what retired astronaut and former US Naval officer Mark Kelly was talking about. Alas, there is no Schoolhouse Rock ditty that covers this foolishness. 

Anticipatory

 In the wiggly world of blog posting, this comes to you from the distant past. Before the parade. Before the football. Before the pushing away from the table with the promise of never eating another bite.

Until dessert. 

Now it's Friday, and I suppose I could say that the sales have commenced but that feels more than a little disingenuous since the economy will continue to chug along aided and abetted by "Pre-Black Friday Sales" and the illusory promise of a two thousand dollar check coming to us from Dear Leader. This is primarily a payoff, a kind of bribe to get us all to take him at his word that trillions of dollars are flowing into our coffers. Go out and spend, spend, spend. 

If you were able to finance your Thanksgiving dinner, that is. 

Now it's the big turnaround into a mild return to "normal," in which we will all get up and go about our days in anticipation of yet another break from the monotony of our non-holiday existence. After all these years, I still have not become fully accustomed to the three weeks of vacation offered to me as a public school teacher. It is not without a touch of irony that I face this time with the mild notion of trying not to stimulate the economy, but all that empty time begs to be filled up with commerce. 

"You've got a few empty days, why not buy stuff?" whispers the supply-side demon on my shoulder. "Why not take the family out to dinner?"

I cast you out, foul demon! With the possible exception of keeping my eye out for a deal on a new electric toothbrush. I mean, ours still works and all, but it has a new disconcerting beep after the second brushing on one charge. 

From vantage point still two days away from the mother of all sales since the last one, I tell myself that I can control this urge. Just like I can stay away from that last slice of pie. 

We Gather Together

 I am thankful that Robert F Kennedy Junior is not having dinner with me this Thanksgiving. 

I am thankful that no one has seen fit to take a wrecking ball to the east side of my home. 

I am thankful that I didn't fall for that "endless pasta bowl" ruse from Olive Garden. 

I am thankful for fantasy football, where dreams can still come true. 

I am thankful for a place to sit down when I need to tie my shoes.

I am thankful for our robot overlord who seems to be content vacuuming our rugs. 

I am thankful that as an a adult I have almost mastered being able to refold a roadmap. 

I am thankful that solitaire is not, in fact, the only game in town. 

I am thankful that I will probably never meet the telemarketers whose time I wasted face to face. 

I am thankful for the time lag between digital photos and my awkward teenage years. 

I am thankful that I am probably finished dealing with other's disappointment that I never saw the Dead:Live.

I am thankful for the somewhat elusive idea of Peace On Earth.

I am thankful that the Sound of Music was sung by Julie Andrews and not Ethel Merman.

I am thankful that still, after all these years, I believe that a man can fly. 

I am thankful for those around me and those whose spirit continues to hang around. 

I am thankful that I get an opportunity to see how this all turns out. 

A Very LIttle Advice

 The message we are getting from (checks notes) a Julius Domingus Vance is this: "The thing that I'd ask for the American people is a little bit of patience."

The VP (Vice Piggy) was suggesting is that we, as a country, have been less than patient with the Second Trumpreich. Somehow their assurances that this cabal would "immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One" has not led to any sort of savings for the average consumer. As a matter of fact, Jeff "I Sent My Wife To Space And All I Got Was This T-Shirt" Bezos said recently, “If you're an individual considering purchasing a big-screen TV, you might want to wait, hold onto your money, and see what transpires. The same is true with a new automobile, refrigerator, or whatever else. Just remove some risk from the equation.”

Well kids, I checked with some of the folks to whom I send monthly checks and that "patience" thing doesn't really fly with them. As for Mister Bezos, It seems as though the endearing story about how he was still driving a 1996 Honda to the office might be a little stale. This was a tale best told when his estimated worth was "around ten billion dollars." The estimate of the stored wealth of that Amazon Guy is now more than two hundred billion dollars. 

Be patient? With a guy who owns a super yacht called the Koru, with its "support vessel" Abeona? 

When do you suppose these idjits last visited their local Safeway? Did they happen to notice the price for a loaf of bread hovers around seven dollars, and that most of us are in fact "waiting patiently" before we buy our next major appliance? 

There was some wild talk a couple weeks ago about sending American consumers some sort of tariff rebate check. Everyone was supposed to get "about two thousand dollars." That check would cover about twenty-two percent of the expenses for a family of four living here in Oakland. 

Maybe that's not the solution you were hoping for?

Just be patient. 

Frankly

 Hey, I don't want to crowd into your holiday reverie with more news about the malevolent yam that has taken over our government, but I feel not commenting might lead to some sort of condition that could interfere with my needed rest and relaxation. 

I know. Selfish, aren't I?

But here goes: Last week contained a few instances of what we have come to expect from the convicted felon and "alleged" pedophile. Most everyone caught the "Quiet, Piggy!" incident in which the "president" became annoyed with a female reporter asking questions about the Trumpstein files and rather than simply going on, or sighing or anything that might have constituted adult behavior, he chose to point a finger at ABC News' White House Correpsondent Mary Bruce and let fly with what must have been a case of mistaken identity. After all, ABC's parent company Disney owns The Muppets as well and the doddering old fool must have believed he was talking to a hunk of felt and foam. Certainly no adult would resort to such childish behavior. Or perhaps you prefer his press minion's explanation: “The president is very frank and honest with everyone in the room."  According to a woman whose lips have been referred to as being like "a machine gun" by her boss his “frankness” is “one of the many reasons that the American people reelected this president.” And still she persisted, “He gets frustrated with reporters when you lie about him, when you spread fake news about him and his administration, but he also is the most transparent president in history.”

Okay.

How about another instance of this "frankness?" A week ago, a group of six Democratic lawmakers', all of whom served in the military or intelligence service, put out a video in which they told members of the United States armed forces that it was their duty to "refuse illegal orders." The convicted felon's response was to type out his social media response: “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand — We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.” And of course, he went on: “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand — We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.” And on:  "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!"

So, as you can see, calling a woman reporter "piggy" is actually quite tame compared to the tirade unleashed on a group of veterans of our military. 

Or maybe it's just how a seventy-nine year old convicted felon has been allowed to behave all his life. 

Now if we can just figure out a way to spin this into my annual "what I'm thankful for" speech at the table.

Portable Feast

 I take some good-natured ribbing from my wife about sharing food. 

"Would you like a bite of mine?" she asks me sweetly.

At which point I tend to respond in the way that I have for all of these years, long before I was in any sort of committed relationship: "Thank you, no. I ordered the thing on the menu that appealed to me. It is currently sitting in front of me and I intend to enjoy it to the fullest. I am pretty sure that if I had wanted to try what you're having I would have ordered that instead." 

This makes me a cad, I know. Or worse. 

I have made peace with that. And, what's more, it seems that my wife has as well. 

When we order Chinese food, the suggestion of "family style" is lost on me. I'll have the sweet and sour pork thank you very much. The vegetable surprise will have to remain an unknown treasure for me until that is the only thing on the menu. 

This comes from years of searching out the cheeseburger in restaurants across the globe. Only in the second half of my life have I opened myself up to the idea of expanding my palate. It also didn't help that I grew up with a crew of friends who made eating pizza a race. It was important to eat with one hand while the other was poised to grab the next slice. Having two brothers made dinner time a contest to be sure that we each got our fair share. Just keep your hands and feet away from their mouths. As an adult among my friends I was anointed with "The Thresher." 

Share my food? Who knows when I will eat again? This is about survival, baby. 

Which makes things like potlucks a sum zero equation. "Would you like to sample some of my casserole?" 

No. I'll have the hamburgers I brought and grilled myself. Thank you. 

Immature? 

You bet. 

But I don't go hungry. 

Trouble Waiting To Happen

 Trouble came to town last Wednesday. 

After weeks of threats, ICE came to Oakland. I suppose that's how we know winter is on its way.

This particular morning the Oakland Police Department announced that an “outside law enforcement agency” had been carrying out an operation within city limits. This "operation" consisted of attempting to arrest the father or grandfather of a child being dropped off at school. In all the excitement and confusion, driver of the suspect vehicle later crashed into an uninvolved car. Which is pretty much how the Police Department got to find out about it. Before that, “OPD was not notified of any outside agency conducting investigative operations in that area of Oakland,” said a department spokesperson. 

So just a few days back I was writing here about homicides in Oakland. I was describing the relative dangers of living here in the big city, and the challenges city authorities and law enforcement face in getting Oaktown back on the straight and narrow. 

Throw into this mix an SUV full of armed and masked individuals operating without notifying the local police, using tactics that can only be described as haphazard. It seems like my suggestion that contacting the local police might have helped make the "operation" run more smoothly and might have resulted in less chaos, but I am not a trained officer of the law. 

I do know that the children at Hoover Elementary spent most of the day on lockdown, along with nearby Harriet Tubman Preschool as the neighborhood waited for calm to return. Even though I am not a trained officer of the law, I am a teacher of elementary school children and I can assure you that it will be some time before the images of camouflaged heavily armed masked men going door to door down the street from their houses leave their impressionable little brains. 

 How is this helping anyone?

Only A Year?

 Someone posted online a regret: "If things had gone differently, we could have been reading about Uncle Tim's stuffing recipe right now."

This would be a reference to Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz, who makes a fine hot dish and ran for Vice President. 

A year ago. 

How could this be? Not the hot dish, since that's a matter of scientific fact. Instead I would like to focus on the otherworldly way in which time has passes since the 2024 election. Who among us had "The Chief Executive will call out a reporter during a press briefing by screeching, 'Quiet, Piggy!'" on their Presidential Bingo card?  Or the pending invasion of Venezuela? How about the installation of Home Depot bric-a-brac in the Oval Office while an entire wing of the White House is reduced to rubble?

It might be worth noting that the guy who regularly referred to his predecessor as "Sleepy Joe" has been photographed numerous times over the past ten months sleeping on the job. Keeping in mind, of course, that when he's asleep he might be less dangerous. 

The biggest military operation of all over the past year has not taken place in Greenland, as suggested early on, but in the streets of America. Land of the Free. Home of the Brave. Americans being snatched up off the streets without any sort of due process, without any sort of Constitutionally guaranteed rights. 

Oh, which reminds me: Remember how a year ago the United States Constitution wasn't just a set of suggestions or best practices? We had that a year ago. We had a choice between a former prosecutor and a convicted felon to run our country and when the votes came in, well, you know how this story ends. 

Or do we? 

Even though we have traveled decades, even centuries into the past with the current administration, my guess and fervent hope that we will all remember where the reset button is once this storm has passed. What sort of devastation could take place in the next three years. 

I shudder to imagine.   

The Door

 Does the name Larry Summers ring a bell? 

No? He was Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001. He was also the director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010.

Still no?

President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006? 

Economics professor at Harvard? 

Still no? 

Okay, well maybe you'll remember him from such bravura performances as, “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein."  As a result of his name popping up all over the recently released Epstein emails, he warbled, “While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”

The revealed correspondence includes Summers making sexist comments and seeking Epstein’s romantic advice. Sort of like a pedo-Hitch, with Jeffery Epstein taking the Will Smith role. 

Which was enough to have Senator Elizabeth Warren call for Summer's resignation from Harvard: “For decades, Larry Summers has demonstrated his attraction to serving the wealthy and well-connected, but his willingness to cozy up to a convicted sex offender demonstrates monumentally bad judgment. If he had so little ability to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein even after all that was publicly known about Epstein’s sex offenses involving underage girls, then Summers cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers, and institutions — or teach a generation of students at Harvard or anywhere else.” 

"Stepping back" would not seem to be enough for the Massachusetts Senator. More like, "don't let the door hit you on the way out."

A little like the message sent to Andrew, who is no longer prince of anything. 

So if you're wondering about precedence, look no further. Sure, we could get boxes and boxes of flight records and video and visitor logs, but how much more proof do we need that the convicted felon, star of his own Access Hollywood admission tape, and adjudicated rapist needs to be shown the same door? 

Close To Home

 You might get tired of hearing about people killing people with guns. 

I know I do.

But in this crazy mixed up world where the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans, sometimes proximity is enough to tweak even the hardest hearts. 

Last week in Oakland there were two shootings of note to me. The first one took place up the hill from me at Skyline High School. If you need a reference point beyond the immediate visceral one, this is Tom Hank's high school alma mater. A fifteen year old student was shot in a bathroom. He is expected to survive, and two suspects are in custody. This is the third shooting connected to this school in the past two years, but since it's Oakland and part of the conflict resolution program in our city seems to involve firearms. 

The next day the Athletic Director of Laney College and former football coach for Laney, and before that Skyline High, was shot in the back of the head. He died early the next morning. A suspect was taken into custody in this shooting as well. The killing of Coach John Beam, the subject of an episode of the now ironically titled Netflix series "Last Chance U" pushed the shootings in Oakland into the national spotlight. 

Since people tend to kill people with guns in Oakland without writing manifestos or making grand schemes for killing as many other human beings as possible this trend often goes unnoticed. In 2021, there were one hundred thirty-four homicides in Oakland. The following year there were one hundred twenty-six. There was relief in 2024 when the total number of murders dipped below one hundred for the first time since 2019. In round numbers, this suggests that there are two murders for every hundred people in Oaktown. 

City leaders tend to promote all the other wonderful aspects of life in the East Bay. The diversity. The art. The history. All of which is very real. But for far too many residents it seems that life is cheap, even if it is diverse. 

Guns. You don't need an advanced degree to see the source of the problem. And maybe this most recent ugly flurry will make us all pause and reflect on increasing the peace. I would love to make the news for doing something really unique: a ceasefire. 

Cents

 A penny for your thoughts.

If you were to go by this metric, I'll guess that I'm up to around seventy-five dollars from this little corner of Al Gore's Internet. This assumes that I've got  one thought per post. Which seems about right. I may have other thoughts throughout the course of the week, but this is the best place to verify them. 

The thing is, the last penny was minted in Philadelphia last Wednesday. Where are my thought pennies supposed to come from now? I suppose I could take them on account, getting a nickel for every five thoughts. At this rate, I could make a quarter in less than a month. Every year I'd make three and a half bucks or so. 

Again, this suggests that I am limited to that one thought per day. Then there's the truth about the way I can, periodically, recycle thoughts. 

Is anyone keeping track of this? 

I have a few hundred pennies sitting around in rolls and loose in jars or scattered about on dressers. I would expect that these should come in handy when those around me show up with their thoughts. 

All of this accounting might have been avoided if the deficit model had not been introduced so very long ago. As I have mentioned, the offer is generally made for the one penny for your thoughts. But then if you insert your opinion into the mix, we say that you're putting your two cents in. 

How do you suppose that's going to work out? 

What?

 I am amazed at the things that we humans up with put. Not the least of these would be prepositions at the end of sentences. 

Let's start with the "breaking news" about the weather trends across the globe as the seasons begin to change. Polar vortex? Atmospheric river? Cities turning into the New Atlantis? Because we were not willing to embrace the stark reality of climate change. We are those frogs in the pot of water, enjoying the spa effect as we are slowly boiled alive. 

How about the global conflicts? We can shrug off most of them simply because the buildings being blown up somewhat indiscriminately are not next door. We like to kid ourselves that the world is not at war because drones have not landed in our own back yards. Approximately six hundred forty people are dying every day in places like Ukraine, Sudan, and Ethiopia. The United States government, apparently not content to simply kidnap and intimidate its own citizens, have decided to take on the global threat of Venezuela. The newly re-branded Department of War is taking its new moniker seriously and going full steam ahead without even tapping the breaks as it blew past Congress to initiate Operation Southern Spear. 

Happy here in our economic vortex to fret about putting Thanksgiving dinner on the table while twenty-five thousand people die each day from hunger on our planet. Ten thousand of those deaths are children. Fifty-six of those daily deaths from starvation are Americans. 

The stupid, evil narcissist currently tearing down the White House is a convicted felon who was caught sending hush money to an adult film actress to cover up his affair. Before he was elected the first time, a videotape was released with him bragging about all the things "stars" could do to women and they were directly in line with what you would expect from a man who was found guilty of raping a woman in a New York department store. And now we all stand around wondering just what might be inside The Epstein Files. 

How do we continue to stumble around with our eyes fixed squarely on the ground while events continue to lead us ever closer to one cliff after another? How do these people keep their jobs? How do they stay out of jail? How do we continue to put up with it? How did we elect that same stupid, evil narcissist a second time? 

I guess that's where we're at. 

Rhetorical

 One might expect that victims of sexual abuse and harassment might be sympathetic to the plight of others experiencing similar trauma. Empathetic, even. 

When Megyn Kelly was a rising star at Faux News, she was subjected to a great many unsolicited advances from men at the company all the way to the very top: Roger Ailes. Her former  boss asked her to get up and "twirl" for him. “So I was asked to do the spin, and God help me, I did it. I know people think it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, you have to spin around.’ But I remember feeling like: I put myself through school; I was offered partnership at Jones Day, one of the best law firms in the world; I argued before federal courts of appeal all over the nation; I came here, I’m covering the U.S. Supreme Court; I graduated with honors from all of my programs — and now he wants me to twirl. And I did it.”

She added, “If you don’t get how demeaning that is, I can’t help you. In retrospect, I’d give anything if I had said ‘no.'"

These were reflections from 2019, when a film recounting the harassment scandal that enveloped Faux News and would eventually lead to the resignation of Mister Ailes as well as pundit Bill O'Reilly and commentator Eric Bolling. It seemed, at last, that the "me too" movement had some teeth. 

“I do know somebody very, very close to this case who is in a position to know virtually everything. And this person has told me from the start, years and years ago, that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person’s view, was not a pedophile. This is this person’s view, who was there for a lot of this, but that he was into the barely legal type. Like, he liked 1fifteen-year-old girls. I’m just giving you facts that he wasn’t into, like, eight-year-olds. But he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passerby.”

This was the rationalization from one (checks notes) Megyn Kelly in the aftermath of the revelation of emails from a man generally considered to be the worst of the worst. 

Who just happened to have demonstrable ties to (checks notes) well, you all know who. 

And so what happened in six years? Should women, especially those considered minors in most states with the lurid exception of Florida where so very much of the alleged abuses took place, be subjected to harassment, rape, and abuse because they didn't happen to work for Faux News? 

That last one was (checks notes) a rhetorical question.

In The Fray

 Some people were surprised when Geraldo Rivera's show erupted in violence when he invited self-described racists onto his talk show to talk on the same stage as civil rights leader Roy Innis and Rabbi A Bruce Goldman. That was in 1988.

When the Charlie Kirk Memorial tour made its way through Berkeley, California earlier this week, would we have expected any different? 

The trouble started when protesters showed up to the big show, featuring alleged comedian Rob Schneider and author Frank Turek, a Christian mentor of the organization's late founder, Charlie Kirk. Among the "thoughts" shared by Mister Schneider was this bit: He said California paying slavery reparations was akin to "paying child support for a child you never had to a woman you never (had relations)."

He brought this brand of witty repartee to Zellerbach Hall, just a few yards from Sproul Plaza where in 1964 the Free Speech Movement began. Maybe a little history lesson might have helped fill in the void that apparently exists between the expectations organizers of the event had about just what Free Speech means. 

Shouting "fire" in a crowded movie house is not free speech. Standing up on a stage with a microphone in an auditorium on a campus that exists as almost a cartoonish parody of the liberal bastion found in the Golden State and declaring that being woke is wrong. Oh, and if he had a dime for ever gender, "I'd have twenty cents." 

Certainly I respect the right of Mister Schneider to speak his mind, not matter how tiny it is, but to imagine that there would not be some sort of blowback from making a show of those ideas is disingenuous. Say what you might about Charlie Kirk, but he put himself in a place where he encouraged debate. That's not what is happening on the Turning Point Tour that is supposed to be inspired by his legacy. Interestingly, the other guy on the bill, Frank Turek once suggested, "Conservatives try to adjust their behavior to fit the facts of nature. Liberals try to adjust the facts of nature to fit their behavior." It seems like he might have that backwards, but I respect his right to put it on a T-shirt. 

I just don't have to buy it. 

And when you show up on a college campus that has been the headwaters of liberal thought for more than six decades hoping to rub their collective nose in some of this "free speech," you're probably going to end up paying for it in one way or another. That said, I agree completely with Governor Newsom when he reminded us all that non-violence is the way to have your voice heard. Not easy to remember in the fray. 

It Doesn't Take Much To Control A Mind Like That

 Since the murder of Charlie Kirk it seems that certain members of the "media" have been emboldened to bring out their worst. Young Tucker Carlson brought a guest onto his podcast, since he lacks major network exposure these days, who discussed chemtrails. More specifically, Young Tucker announced, “The government has finally admitted that chemtrails are real. It’s called geoengineering, and it’s far worse than anything you imagined. Dane Wigington explains.” 

Dane Wiginton, not a made up name by the way, is one of the foremost whackjob voices in the chemtrail loony bin. He appeared on Young Tucker's show to reinvigorate the claims that the condensing water from jet exhaust is actually a stream of chemicals designed to control the weather, or if you want to get really up into the front row of tin foil hats, bioengineering. 

This is nothing new. Folks started worrying about those lines in the sky all the way back in the 1920s, and that only ramped up during World War II, when the number of "suspicious" aircraft expanded mightily. By the 1990s, air travel created the perfect storm that was capped off by Al Gore's invention of the Internet, allowing "experts" to sit in front of their keyboards and pound out their "theories" for consumption and regurgitation for anyone else sitting in front of their keyboard with a loose brain cell or two. 

It's just such a good thing that we live in a world in which conspiracy theories and babble can easily be distinguished from facts. It would really be a shame if anyone in any position of real authority would grab hold of this nonsense and try to apply it to real life where we all live. 

Like this guy who stumbled on an article that claimed President Barack Obama had received millions of dollars over the past decade or so for the use of his name in "Obamacare." This guy went on to share this tidbit of information with his eleven million social media followers, without noticing that it came from a web site devoted to political satire. This guy, who also happens to be a convicted felon, never bothered to clear up the matter. Instead a few days later he hopped to another chestnut about President Obama's birthplace and religious affiliation. “A man using a different name. Swore on a Bible he doesn’t believe in. And betrayed a country he wasn’t born in.” 

Again, it's just a darn good thing that no one in any position of real influence or power spreads this kind of harmful hooey. 

Or at least that's what the Muslim Alien Overlords want us to think. 

Easy Money

 "So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the 'most wealthy person in the world.'"

Not everyone is as up on Joyce Carol Oates as they might be. The eighty-seven year old author of fifty-eight novels is also a prolific poster on the artist formerly known as Twitter. The sample above shows what an accomplished author can bring to the often tired and pedantic online world. 

Except for certain islands in this tepid stream. 

Ahem. 

I repost this here in an effort to try and support my point that is nothing new: excess wealth does not make one full. The suggestion that money cannot buy happiness is nothing new, but that leaves me with the quandary as to why so many cohabiting couples argue about money. The constant illusion projected on us by virtually all media tells us that marrying a prince or princess will be the path to living happily ever after. Or that we might by simply investing a dollar in a lottery ticket, all our problems would be solved. 

Shareholders recently voted to pay Elongated Mush one trillion dollars. That's twelve zeroes. It's the kind of number that exists primarily in hypothetical rants from government officials and eight year olds who want to impress you with the place value they have only barely begun to understand. It's the kind of number that describes astronomical distance. The nearest star after our own sun is twenty-four million miles away. 

If someone gave you a trillion dollars, wouldn't you be happy? 

Grateful? 

Nope. 

Judging by the response from the world's first trillion dollar man, it would only make you more bitter and defensive, causing you to attempt to justify the outrageous sum awarded you by folks who see this as their opportunity to get just a fraction of return on their money. 

Then there are those whose lives are lived in quiet desperation, from paycheck to paycheck, hoping that no one decides to cancel the assistance programs that keep them awake and alive, arguing about how they are going to afford another holiday dinner. The average median income for full time workers in the United States is just under sixty thousand dollars a year. Go ahead and toss additional health care increases and the current rate of inflation and you might begin to wonder what anyone in that position has to be happy about. 

Then remember these are the people who go out and look for joy. Maybe in the faces of children. Or the sunset. Or the opportunity to get up the next day and try to make this math work. 

Hold 'Em

 Catherine Cortez Masto

Dick Durbin

John Fetterman

Maggie Hassan

Tim Kaine

Angus King

Jacky Rosen

Jeanne Shaheen

I am hoping to set up a poker game soon with these folks. I figure I can just sit back and bluff for what seems like a long time but these United States senators will all fold before things get really interesting. I am hoping that I will make enough money to cover my health care once I am retired and Medicare no longer exists. 

These are the eight votes who caved to the Republican "pressure" to reopen the government. They did so just five days after the country as a whole made their voices heard at the ballot box. Democrats across the country scored major victories, pushing back hard on the draconian measures of Project 2025. Progressives, liberals, communists. Whatever you choose to call them in order to make it sound worse, they all came out and voted overwhelmingly against the Orange Beast's referendum. 

Five days later, these senators chose to embolden the beast for the "promise" of a vote sometime in the future on the affordable care tax credits which was the reason they walked out in the first place. 

We all know just how good this regime is at keeping promises. 

Especially when it comes to the huddled masses. 

Back in the early twenty-first century, there was this idea: Affordable Health Care. It took a decade, but once the Affordable Care Act was put into place, the first steps toward coverage for all Americans became a reality. Which was just about the time when Republicans began to try and tear it down. 

Without a replacement. 

Now we stand at the edge of an abyss. 

I'm putting together a poker game. Anyone else want in? 

Time Is Money

 The clock was a gift. My father built it from a kit and presented it to my new wife and me on the advent of our nuptials. It was a replica of the old Regulator clock that hung on the wall at my parents' house at the top of the stairs. The sonorous ticking and the chiming on the half hour became part of our new household sounds. 

When we moved into our new house, the clock was one of the first items to find a spot: On the living room wall, across from our bedroom door where it became the heartbeat of our home. 

Periodically we would have a guest spend the night on the couch and they would inquire as to the possibility of stifling the tick-tocking and the ding-donging. With the pendulum stilled, the night could pass without all that racket. 

Then, after decades of being lulled to sleep ourselves by the tick-tocking and ding-donging, I went to make my weekly wind of the springs to keep things running. 

And it stopped. Something inside gave up. All those years, hours, minutes, and suddenly the clock stopped. The gift from my father who art in heaven had given up the ghost. This was in December of 2024. After some discussion and research, my wife and son carefully removed the clock from the wall and took it to the repairman we found on Al Gore's Internet. 

Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Updates were few and far between. At one point my wife informed me that the gentleman who was working on our family heirloom had suffered a heart attack. More months passed. My wife went off to Europe on vacation. Three more weeks passed, and when she returned she told me the news: The clock was ready.

We showed up on Saturday afternoon, checkbook in hand. No worries, we were told, we could pay with a card. We did. A lot. It wasn't a question about whether or not we would pay it. It was part of the family. Our heartbeat. our soundtrack, our timepiece. It wasn't a question of the money. 

It was a matter of time. 

If I Had A Rocket Launcher

 So this guy walks up to the Buddha and says, "Make me one with everything."

And he turns him into a sandwich. 

This past week, "justice" prevailed against the forces of ignorance. Sean Dunn, known to most of the planet as "the sandwich guy" was acquitted on charges of low-level misdemeanor assault after he threw a sub sandwich at a border patrol officer in Washington, DC back on August 10. 

There are lots of ways the trial might have gone, starting with the choice of condiments and meats used to create the alleged projectile. Officer Greg Lairmore testified that the sandwich “exploded all over” his chest and claimed he could smell mustard and onions. But a photo showed that the sandwich was still in its wrapper on the ground after it hit Lairmore in his bulletproof vest. Please sit with that for a moment, specifically the "bulletproof" part. I am sure the government's team did extensive research and testing with various wrappers and styles of slicing to determine just exactly how such a thing could go horribly wrong. 

My first question to the prosecution would probably have been, "What were US Border Patrol agents doing in Washington DC?" 

You may recall this past summer was that of our discontent. ICE was showing up across the country, looking for popsicle vendors and day care workers to haul off to detention centers free from the impediments of due process or warrants. It is this environment of government sponsored terror that caused Sean Dunn, a former Justice Department paralegal, to extreme measures. He too the law, and in this case a footlong, into his own hands and made a stand. As you may or may not know, this only proved to incite more anger and vitriol from the Dark Side, with newly-minted US Attorney for Washington DC, Jeanine Pirro, to take swift action. She insisted that Mister Dunn be charged with a felony. To no one's actual surprise, the evidence and the system would not stand for that, and so the case limped on to trial with the misdemeanor charge. 

Sean Dunn was found not guilty, giving this week of relative good news just a little extra spice. A muslim communist is now running New York City. A woman was finally elected governor of Virginia. And our lunches are no longer considered deadly weapons. 

Gee it's great to be an American. 

Into The Gap

 I have, over time, learned to talk the talk. 

Sports. 

I played some football, long before I turned sixteen. I was on my junior high wrestling team. I even went out for track, mostly because it was something to do after school in the spring. 

I was never really good at any of those endeavors. I was a kid who was picked last for most any game, and experienced the charms of being the round, slow kid. 

I was also the son of season ticket holders to the University of Colorado football team. I spent many a Saturday afternoon in those stands. Sometimes I sat with my parents. Sometimes was patrolling the aisles, selling hot dogs or ice cold Coca Cola. And all that time, I was absorbing the culture. Scores, statistics, and hopes for a big win next week. 

In high school, football season was spent in the seats and on the field as part of the marching band that had a better record than the boys scrambling to beat the cross-town rival. But it was in the gymnasium that my love for basketball blossomed. For all the lack of success I witnessed on the gridiron, I was witness to amazing basketball. The Boulder High Panthers won the Colorado State Championship when I was a junior, and came within one ill-fated game of repeating when I was a senior. 

Somewhere in the midst of all this was the looming specter of baseball. The reason my grandparents split up so many years ago. It was from here that I acquired my grandfather's devotion to the Chicago Cubs. It hung in the back of my sports closet, primarily as an amusing anecdote to describe that "wait 'til next year" feeling that all but a very few fans experience each and every season. 

I dragged all of that history out to California where I got to see more than my share of winning from a revitalized Golden State Warriors basketball squad. Championship parades? How about that? Even the Denver Broncos, whose legacy I was also trapped won a few Super Bowls. 

So I learned to talk to others about sports. Because it's so much more interesting than the weather. One particular father who shows up early with his daughters each morning will inevitably ask me, "Didja see the game last night?" 

The honest answer is "No," but I come equipped with decades of cliches and experience that allow me to speak as if I had. Which is where all the talk comes in. It is a bonding moment that doesn't cost a penny to connect. The price I pay is that I can expect that the next day he will return and ask what I thought about the most recent headline on the sports page. 

I suppose I could throw a wrench in the works and ask him if he's seen the most recent Paul Thomas Anderson film. Or his opinion on tariffs. 

But that's not why we're here, exactly. We are here to find ways to bridge a gap. 

Thank you, sports. 

A Mace-ing

 "REAL MEN PROTECT WOMEN!" 

"SUING FOR DEFAMATION!"

If these words look familiar to you, it's possible that you have stumbled into a zone in which caps lock is a viable means of communication. As a tech teacher in an elementary school I have made a practice over the years of telling students that the caps lock button is evil and should not be used. The reasoning behind this is simple: Most of the time when you start shouting, as I like to refer to it, you tend to forget that you are shouting and then everything you write comes out like a scream. 

Hard to make any sort of valid point if you can't differentiate the important thoughts from the usual screeching. 

That was Nancy Mace, by the way, who was howling into the void. Maybe you heard about her behavior at the Charleston airport on the morning of October 30. It seems as though she was unhappy about the security afforded her after she had arrived late and at a different door than she was supposed to. Separate narrative accounts written by officers state Mace was “loudly” cursing and making derogatory comments about the department when approached by officers. Nancy was then escorted to her gate, while reportedly continuing to use profanity and complaining about how she had been treated.

She then chose to promote the non-incident using a tag line made infamous by her lord and master, he of the free Qatari jet: “BREAKING NEWS: Nancy Mace arrives at the airport – with no security. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

For their part, the TSA and law enforcement assigned to the Mace detail were somewhat taken aback. The Republican Attorney General, Alan Wilson, had this to say: “Disrespecting the men and women who keep our airports safe is unacceptable. Law enforcement and TSA agents show up every day to protect the public, and right now, they’re not even getting paid. They deserve respect and appreciation. Not profanity. Not threats. Not tantrums. This is not an isolated incident. It has become a pattern of reckless and disrespectful behavior by Nancy Mace, and South Carolinians deserve better from someone who claims to represent them.”

Oh, did I mention that Nancy would like to be elected Governor of the Palmetto State? With an attitude like that, might I suggest a slot at the Department of Homeland Security? I hear ICE is hiring. 

For The People

 Democracy has come to the USA. - Leonard Cohen "Democracy"

A much more clever person than myself made a post on the night of November 4, Election Night: "genuinely beautiful that new york elected a muslim lefty mayor the same day that dick cheney died"

I might quibble with the lack of capitalization or the distinction between beauty and irony, but the thought still holds. In the middle of what feels like the end of the world as we know it, there was room to rejoice. The most populous city in these United in name States has elected an avowed socialist, someone from whom the right leaning establishment has pledged to flee Manhattan if such a thing came to pass.

It has.

The Orange Wurst, from his bunker deep beneath the renovated bathroom, sent out his own analysis:  “…AND SO IT BEGINS!” 

There's your upper case letters, the solid show of force we have come to expect from this regime. If you're unable to make a coherent point, capitalize it. 

What does that ominous sounding missive mean? Reasonable people, and I do count my readers as such, will flinch only because the way things have been going lately it seems that invading Venezuela would be a predictable next step in the face of the electoral rejection of all that this convicted felon stands for. Democratic women won governorships in New Jersey and Virginia. In Virginia's case, Abigail Spanberger was the first woman to take that seat in the state's two hundred thirty-seven year history. Someone commented on the announcement coming early on election night: "That was fast." I countered with the observation that waiting more than two centuries for a woman to be elected governor didn't necessarily qualify as "fast." 

So I did have some clever social media myself. 

And here in California, voters decided to allow the redistricting of the Golden State. This should have the effect of allowing five additional seats for Democratic representatives with midterms coming in 2026. 

That feels like a victory. 

Maybe not the triumph we were all hoping for, but it will have to do.  

"Dick"

 The fact that Dick "Dick" Cheney survived five heart attacks, the first of which occurred when he was just thirty-seven years old, suggests that he might have been in league with Satan. 

Or maybe he was, not unlike the Grinch, born with a heart that was two sizes too small. But whatever the reason, his heart or his shoes, "Dick" has gone off at last to his final reward forty-seven years after his first cardiac episode. No one knows precisely what kept him alive for all those years, but a combination of medical science and the aforementioned contract with Lucifer seemed to do the trick. 

It was right here on this spot that I spent eight solid years imagining how this day might feel. I understand this makes me a bad person, and I am willing to take that distinction for the team. My team being the side that was against the war in Iraq. And Afghanistan. And wherever "terrorists" stood between us and the oil we so richly deserved. 

Did anyone point out that "Dick" was CEO of Halliburton before he slithered into the office of Vice President of the United States? How about the assertion, "No blood for oil?" A couple decades ago, there was a large swath of the American people who would have liked to see "Dick" put on trial for war crimes. 

No, really. 

Of course this was all in the distant past, before the circus came to town. The circus being the First Trumpreich, and the town was Washington DC. Suddenly the pinhead and his puppetmaster "Dick" didn't seem so bad. Keeping in mind of course that this had to be worse than a Vice President of the United States shooting his friend in the face. 

Somewhere in there, the Grinch got a press agent and decided that the best way for him to eventually find his way into Paradise was to come down hard on the New New World Order, the one brought to us by the former game show host. "Dick" said, "In our nation’s two hundred forty-six-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump." 

Coming from "Dick," that's some pretty stark reality. 

Now "Dick" is gone, but the path he laid for those who followed still provides a roadmap to the present. I suppose you could say that he stomped on the Terra, but it's more correct to point out how many Americans he stepped on in his lust for glory. 

Aloha, "Dick."

What Are Words For?

 Over the past few weeks I have been burdened by words. 

There are only so many topics that our cat will discuss before he slinks off for a nap. One is food. The other is how quickly can the food be delivered so that he can get back to his nap. 

While my wife has been a way the words have stacked up not unlike jets awaiting clearance at the San Francisco International Airport. I have dutifully attempted to parcel them out to those in need of my verbiage, or at least to those who are kind enough to tolerate it. 

And then there's this place. There have been plenty of early mornings when, after being prodded awake by yet another debate over whether three in the morning is too early for his feline highness to receive his num nums, I have lay awake with phrases and sentences that provide me distraction from the half-empty house in which I found myself. 

Note: I do not mean to be specist, but the cat whose personality at times pervades our shared environment disappears abruptly after the previously discussed needs have been met. This leaves me with a word surplus that I do not experience while another sentient human being is roaming around the house, attempting to figure out what to fee that cat. 

So I reflect on the times when I used to keep a journal. Or way back when I had a manual typewriter sitting on my desk throughout high school. There was always some stray thought or misbegotten conclusion being tapped out there. 

Because for so very long I was looking for an audience. 

And here you are. Back in junior high school I started writing great long treatises on the relationships I wandered through, which stemmed from an early exposure to Harriet The Spy and eventually morphed into page after page of notes to my high school girlfriend. Even now I sometimes sit across from my patient wife as she reads these posts, with the expectation of further discussion. 

And the praise for being especially witty. 

Let's face it: the cat just doesn't get sarcasm. 

Drive

 I don't like to drive. It's "not my thing."

My son and my wife are more than happy to slide behind the wheel when we go anywhere. 

Fine by me. 

However, when it's time to do a long haul, like down to Los Angeles or north to Alaska, I'm your guy. If I'm going to be trapped in a motor vehicle, I would just as soon play an active role in the passage of miles. 

This does not mean that I will be submitting my application to KC Diesel Driving School anytime soon. I will support anyone who finds interstate truck driving as a vocation. It's a noble trade, and one in which I had at one time romanticized myself playing a part. Mostly for the CB radio chatter. 

But no longer. Once I found out that Kristi "Hide Your Puppies" Noem told a group of reporters, “ I have driven semis over many many years and eighteen wheelers and understand they’re difficult to stop, maneuver.” No thanks. Truck driving has now been sullied for me. Much in the same way that wearing a bunch of unnecessary combat gear and mirrored shades to do her office job, Secretary Noem had placed a solid stigma for me on that career choice. 

At the same time, she has made one of the most ridiculously blatant racist assertions about "foreigners" that I could have imagined possible in a simpler time. As she described the newest phase of "The Midway Blitz," the ICE Princess let us know she believes, “Putting these foreigners in tractor trailers like the ones you see behind me becomes extremely dangerous.” It's those people who are making our highways unsafe for your standard issue American. 

What the lady who believes Old Yeller is a comedy didn't tell you is that she has her own lengthy rap sheet of speeding tickets, seat belt violations and a citation for driving without a driver's license. Currently Cruella de Noem is driven about by a group of masked thugs, so we are not currently in danger of her behind the wheel, and the two jets she got from the Coast Guard to the tune of around two hundred million dollars will probably keep her off the Interstates for the time being. 

Which doesn't make me feel any safer. Or any more like taking a drive. 

Nots

 Haves and have nots. 

There are a lot of have nots here in the less than fully United States. 

Jeff Bezos makes two hundred thousand dollars a minute. 

I do not. I make substantially less. Not to the degree that I have to apply for food assistance. I will not be purchasing a second home for my retirement, nor will I be buying a yacht for the purpose of providing me with a destination to which I can fly my private jet. I will say unequivocally that there are plenty of Americans who have it worse than me. 

This should give me some solace, right? After nearly thirty years into my teaching career, I can finally start to consider laying down my burden and becoming that illusory landed gentry who might spend his golden years coming up with home improvement projects and imagining trips to places I always wanted to see before I can no longer see. 

This will only happen if I find a way to avoid major health complications that could befall me or my beloved spouse. Health insurance currently has a great big question mark hanging over it. So does food. And yes I feel pretty clever about having solar panels on my house already because electricity has gone the way of beef in terms of price. 

Of course, if you're Mister Bezos, you can weather this storm for a good long while. As a matter of fact, over the past forty years, the gulf between those of us who can get by and those who insist that eventually their piles of cash will trickle down to save our literal bacon has increased to a frightening degree. The idea that we might all end up crackers made from dead people doesn't seem like science fiction but a practical use of available resources. I can even imagine that there will eventually a government program in which citizens will be encouraged to offer their family members up to become part of this solution for a nominal fee. 

Like the six hundred dollar checks we all received for living through COVID. 

And all the while, the Great Orange Cankle who is by no means one of the wealthiest men in the world is busy spending his time and our money refurbishing White House bathrooms and constructing the Epstein Ballroom. 

In the wealthiest country in the world, nearly fifty million Americans live with food insecurity. Fourteen million of those are children. Millions of Americans live in substandard housing, with millions more facing eviction from the place they call home. 

When something gets stretched like that, one might expect it to break. 

It's just a matter of when. 

Family Matters

 Andrew is no longer a Prince. 

Not because he changed his name to some indecipherable rune as princes here in the states have done. Our Prince did that as a matter of personal choice. Andrew didn't have that kind of freedom. 

Nope. "Randy Andy" had his titles stripped from him by his older brother, the King of England. In what sort of nefarious dealings would one have to be caught to be kicked out of the palace? Certainly brother Andrew's reputation preceded him via a nickname from his playboy youth. And to be fair, it's not as if King Chuck led a life of chastity and virtue. The affairs of the residents of Buckingham Palace are the one thing that keeps them mildly relevant. 

So what brought about this major shift across the pond?

Jeffery Epstein, of course. The ghost of pedophiles past, present and future. The family of Virginia Giuffre praised the decision, noting “Today, an ordinary American girl from an ordinary American family brought down a British prince with her truth and extraordinary courage.” If the name Virginia Giuffre doesn't ring a bell, she was the founder of Victims Refuse Silence, since rebranded to Speak Out, Act, Reclaim, and advocacy group for victims of human trafficking and sexual abuse. Virginia was one of the most outspoken of the survivors of Epstein's Island. Her detailed accounts of the horrifying grooming and abuse she and others suffered at the hands of the world's most notorious pedophile. 

The King could finally stand no more, so he kicked his disgraced brother out of the family house. And took his titles away. 

Which is what should happen to all those found to be guilty of consorting with that kind of monster. 

All the bombs being dropped on "suspected drug smugglers" and "renovations" at the People's House are just a smoke screen to keep the Man Who Would Be King from being kicked to the curb himself. 

Meanwhile, the United States Government run by minions of the top of Epstein's list remains closed to keep the truth from seeing the light of day. 

At this point, he seems desperate enough to use atomic weapons to deflect the ugly truth as he digs a bunker still deeper in a hole where he can hide. 

Strip the former game show host of all his titles and he'll be just what we always knew he was: A third-rate excuse for a human being. 

Crazy Stupid Lug

 Okay. 

Yesterday I said he was stupid. 

I would like to amend that assessment. 

He's crazy and stupid.

This is not a good combination for anyone in charge of one of the largest militaries in the world. And, by no means coincidence, the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. Which was already a scary enough thought considering the chances that this bloated sack of protoplasm might mistake the Diet Coke Button on his desk for the launch button. 

But, as I have just suggested, on any given day it might not be a mistake. Just a vindictive momentary lapse of the protocol for which he has shown no interest. And just in case there was any doubt, this is the guy who would call in a missile strike on the nearest McDonalds for being out of McRib sandwiches. Why not "test" a few tactical nukes over to war ravaged Portland? 

I can see you're skeptical. 

Maybe you missed this: "The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

As with all the psychotic policy announcements from this regime, this one came from social media. Not through any established channels. Just barfed up on the stoop and left for us to find when we woke up the following day.

There's a lot to unpack there, but I think I'll start with the all caps "I HATED" to do it. This is a guy whose pointy head wouldn't get irony if it landed on him and started to wiggle. But he does do sarcasm. It is the chief ingredient of his smarm. He didn't hate to update our nuclear weapons. He reveled in it, much in the same way he is now reinvigorating the notion of missile envy. This is the same tiny mind that pushed us back to calling it The Department of War.

Just like his tariffs, this is not a new idea. The Arms Race was lost by all of us decades ago, and it only took a stupid and crazy guy to get his hands on the launch codes to plunge us all back into the 1960s. Or the 1860s. The worst of all possible worlds. Stupid and crazy.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

 “I’m putting out an order. I’m going to sign an executive order. When we build aircraft carriers, it’s steam for the catapults, and it’s hydraulic for the elevators." This was just part of the meandering babble the Orange Menace spewed at U.S. Naval personnel aboard the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, George Washington this past week. 

It would be simple enough to jump on the "cognitive decline" bandwagon and say that this seventy-nine year old bloated husk of a man was having trouble keeping his thoughts in order. Perhaps his little trolley has jumped the track, but it seems quite likely that he was never that bright in the first place. On a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, he started babbling about steam. “The problem [with electric] is when it breaks, you have to send up to MIT to get the most brilliant people in the world. Fly them out—it’s ridiculous. The steam—they said they can fix it with a hammer and blowtorch, and it works just as well, if not better, and I love the sight of that beautiful steam pouring off that deck. With the electric, you don’t have that.” 

And that whole magnet problem he continues to have. Back in January he was babbling on about how unreliable they are. “Think of it, magnets. Now all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets. Why didn’t they use John Deere? Why didn’t they bring in the John Deere people? Do you like John Deere? I like John Deere.” For the record, John Deere does use magnets as promotional tools as well as hitches for their equipment. 

The United States Navy uses nuclear power and magnets. We are one quarter of the way through the twenty-first century. If you haven't been able to keep up with the advancements made beyond the smartphone, you should keep your mouth shut when grownups are talking. If it were up to me, I wouldn't let the convicted felon have access to the TV remote because it's a near certainty that he would find a way to make it stop working. 

Not because of some perceived "decline." He was never that bright to start with. He bankrupted his own casinos. He can't pronounce acetaminophen. 

He's stupid. He deserves bad things to happen to him because of it. Because smart people learn to ask for help when they don't know something. 

He doesn't know how magnets work. 

He hasn't read the Constitution. 

He hasn't read anything. 

He is stupid. And you can't fix that.