Oh, Really?

 What a horrible, awful, frightening mess this country would be in had we stuck with that addled old man who stuttered. 

Or if we had gone with that lady who laughed like a hyena and had ties to law enforcement. 

And what about Hillary's emails, anyway?

Sorry. I'm having a moment here. Alex Jones, who would most definitely know a sociopath when he sees one, has declared the former game show host and golf cheat unfit to lead. “This is what I’m talking about, the way Trump’s behaving. Way more erratic. His speech, you know, is not coherent a lot of the time. You can’t deny this is happening.” 

Well heck, Mister Jones, thanks for pointing this out. Of course it's not as if this guy's rants about electric boats and shark attacks weren't out there on display for everyone to see on the days and weeks leading up to the 2024 election. Speaking of stupidity on parade, this is the guy who spent forty-five million dollars to get a poorly planned and executed display of military might for his birthday. That same day I participated in an event on the other side of the continent that ended up costing me just a few pennies for cardboard and magic markers for the sign I made, reminding anyone who cared to listen that America is no place for kings. 

Twice more since that day back in June of 2025 I have taken to the streets to point out the vacuum of leadership we are experiencing while the convicted felon sleeps through cabinet meetings because he has stayed up past his bedtime hammering out alternately offensive and nonsensical social media posts. Now, as the adjudicated rapist's approval ratings have begun to flirt with negative territory, Alex Jones would like us all to know that the Orange Worst has lost his way. “We’ve never seen rhetoric out of presidents like this when we go to war, even if you’re for this war. This is really bad PR, folks,” warned the man who insisted that the Sandy Hook Massacre was a hoax. 

Stupid is a stupid does, indeed. 

Hate Speech

 It is difficult to focus on "the one thing" that makes me most upset about having a former game show host for a "president." 

Today I will choose this: The announcement of national and international policy on the social media network owned by this coward of a cretin. 

This past Saturday, he made this threat: “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD! President DONALD J. TRUMP,””That was followed on Sunday, Easter morning by, "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah." 

One might expect that this came from the basement of some MAGAt's home he shares with his mother, rather than the "leader of the free world." Difficult to find anything particularly "presidential" in the vicious and ultimately racist threats against a country with whom he is the reason the conflict exists in the first place. 

The fact that his own administration routinely has to race to catch up on whatever late-night rants he fires off from the fancy new toilets in what is left of the White House. It is worth noting that he and his rabid War Czar Pistol Pete Hegsbreath seem to be in some terrifying game of who can generate more war crimes while his handlers struggle to explain "what the president meant." 

It's actually pretty simple: The "president" meant that he is full-goose bozo. One or two bricks shy of a load. He's all oatmeal north of the eyebrows. The Trump trolley has jumped the track. Over the weekend, there were rumblings across many different Internet platforms that the convicted felon may have been rushed to the hospital. The response, as you might imagine was less concerned that anticipatory. Would this be the weekend that the solution to all our problems came? Some sort of holy intervention brought forth as a reminder that there is something bigger than (small h) him? 

It was not, of course, to be as the rumors of his demise had been exaggerated, but not without some merit. 

Sleep tight, America. 

Luna Sea

 Sorry. 

Amid all the other distractions here on Earth, I have failed to acknowledge the flight of Artemis II. Four astronauts are on their way to the moon. Or near it, anyway. 

What with all the things blowing up these days, it's hard to pay attention to the controlled burn of a NASA launch that didn't explode like so very many of the Space X firework shows. 

This certainly points to a degree of talent and tenacity on the part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Strapping four humans into what is essentially a high explosive and aiming it not just into the upper atmosphere, but into the space between us and our moon? That must make all those billionaires selling tickets to their zero-gravity carnival rides blush. 

To be transparent, this is a reboot of a show that NASA put on more than fifty years ago. Back when these missions were named for Artemis' brother, and the rockets were named Saturn. 

We're not sending men to Saturn. Or Mars for that matter. Not yet. We have picked up this gauntlet laid down by (checks notes) the uncle of the guy who likes taking cold plunges with faux rock stars while wearing his jeans. We are moving ahead with a space program while wars rage on across the globe. 

Just like they did when the first Apollo missions were being launched. 

Now we're headed back to the stars. Or the moon. But we're doing it with a sense of hope for the future. Or maybe just as an exit strategy. 

Inevitable Collapse

 I tried to remember how things looked and felt during those Final Days of the Nixon Administration. As the Watergate hearings continued to cave in the protective web of lies surrounding his administration, Richard Nixon continued to isolate himself as the walls came tumbling down.

Metaphorically speaking. the ruins of the White House became solidly less metaphorical some fifty years later when a failed businessman tried to run much of the same playbook on a country that naively believed that they had seen the worst. It speaks volumes to me that the antics of George W. Bush and his crew seem petty and cute when placed beside the crimes of the Second Trumpreich. It was George W., whom I routinely referred to in this space as "President Pinhead," that suggested, "I don't want s, me mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf." 

A pretty sad state of affairs when you could stand to take an optics lesson from the lesser of two Bushes. 

And yet, here we are. The firings have begun just ahead of the criminal charges. KristICE Barbie Noem left her position as head of the Department of Homeland Security so she could spend more time being embarrassed at home. Pam "It's Bondage With An I" Bondi cleared out her desk at the Attorney General's Office with what we can only assume is a box full of overlooked Epstein Files. These two may be the lucky ones, as their boss continues to insist that, “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”

Well, that and erect a monstrosity of a ballroom designed to cover up a super secret underground military base. So secret, in fact, that he shared pictures of it with the press. 

If this show lasts all the way until the scheduled Ultimate Fighting Championship scheduled for the South Lawn on our nation's 250th birthday, it will be a miracle. 

A painful, bitter and all but unbearable miracle. 

Errant

 I understand that the life of one innocent victim stacked up next to the hundreds of deaths occurring every day in Iran may not be politics as usual, but the loss of seven month old Kaori Patterson-Moore in Brooklyn last week still strikes a chord. 

An ominous one. 

While it is true that my own sight has been diverted to atrocities such as the bombing of a girls' school in Minab Hormozgan at the opening of the war, Neil Young's refrain is never far from my mind: There's one more kid that'll never go to school - Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool

Kaori was being pushed in a stroller when shots rang out. Her parents looked down, terrified to see that their baby was bleeding. Her father rushed her to the nearest hospital where she was pronounced dead. 

Seven months old. 

It should be made clear that Kaori was no more the target of those gunshots than the hundreds of children who died in the unlawful attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School. The truly misguided notion of "stray bullets" and "smart bombs" does not cover up the loss of life. It merely reminds us that all those bullets and bombs have to go somewhere. Those errant shots do not excuse the murder of innocent victims. 

In Brooklyn, authorities continue to hunt for the gunman who killed little Kaori. 

In Washington, Senators led by Georgia's Raphael Warnock have begun their investigation into the deaths of all those little girls in Iran. 

Meanwhile, across the globe, "mistakes" are being made with deadly weapons. Someone really needs to take these toys away. 

Forever. 

Marking Period

 It is no coincidence that my irrational fear of Sharpies is connected to my very rational fear of the Orange Worst. As a teacher, I am constantly on the lookout for children with indelible markers. Most of your standard pens and pencils, including those water-based smelly marking pens can be wiped away with a damp cloth. And for those fledgling taggers who use the teacher's dry-erase marker to leave their wit or wisdom on school property might consider another line of delinquency. 

Then there's the convicted felon and war criminal who is so fond of the permanent Brand Name Sharpie that he spent nearly five full minutes of a televised Cabinet Meeting to discuss his fixation on this particular writing instrument.  It was, perhaps, an attempt to create some sort of allegory about government waste, but ended up becoming an ironic counterpoint: While we're busy kibitzing about what pen we should use to hand out during document signings, people are dying across the globe in a war that this pinhead started. 

Then there's the actual marking of territory, which my mother always used to say when describing the behavior of "taggers" was bad toilet training. When it comes to the former game show host, however, he is not content to merely scrawl his name in Sharpie or even spray paint. He hires crews of people to go out and attach new letters using tarps and scaffolding to slap his name on government buildings like the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the US Institute of Peace. And now he wants to put his scribbled signature on all our currency. 

A former opponent and now full-on MAGA supplicant, Florida Governor Ron "of the Satan" DeSantis has declared that the Palm Beach Airport will now bear the name of an adjudicated rapist. John Oliver did a whole segment on how the National Park Service annual passes will now be defaced with the face of the Orange Worst. He then offered a solution: stickers to cover the unwanted visage of the accused pedophile with something, anything, better. 

And yes, someday this folly will all come to an end. The next administration will have their hands full scrubbing off all that marking. A ridiculous and unfortunate task compared to fixing the economy and returning any semblance of our international standing, but necessary to be rid of any remnants of the Sharpie King. When that time comes, I suggest you give a public school teacher a call. We're pretty clever when it comes to getting rid of "permanent" marks. 

Strait Talk

 "All ​of those countries that can’t get jet fuel ​because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation ​of Iran, I have a suggestion for ​you: Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, ‌and ⁠Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT."

These were the suggestions the Orange Felon offered up to those countries who were unwilling to join in the illegal war started by (checks notes) the Orange Felon. 

Just for amusement's sake, let's pretend that you were a world leader from, oh let's say a country in Europe and you were trying to decide to get involved in a war in the Middle East. Would you have come along if you were asked nicely? A coalition of the politely asked, perhaps? 

Or maybe he could have asked in the first place, before he started "decapitating" and "obliterating" things. Or if there had been some sort of plan in the first place.

I dunno, maybe one that provided continencies for one of the most vital waterways on the planet?

Instead, the Orange Worst and his cronies flew in, guns and bombs ablazin' without giving the Strait of Hormuz a second thought. The military capabilities, rumored to be destroyed by the Trumpreich, still managed to put together a nice bit of a blockade on the pinch point of most of the world's oil supply. In case you missed this tidbit, the next time you're driving past a gas station in the United States, take a peek at the price per gallon.

Oh. That's right. You can't drive past a gas station because you can't afford to drive past a gas station. 

Meanwhile, the great nations of Europe and elsewhere are being held hostage by an accused pedophile while he tries to work on his short game. It seems the infantile pyromaniac would now like help putting out the fire he started. 

Come on! Build up some delayed courage and help me clean up this mess I made. 

With all due respect, which is the tiniest bit I can assure you, no. 

Thank you for your attention this matter.