Worst

 “I will not enter into debate. The things that I say are certainly not meant as attacks on anyone. The message of the Gospel is very clear: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’” This is how the first U.S. born Pope chose to respond to the vitriolic attack by the convicted felon currently taking refuge in the ruins of the White House. 

In case you missed it, the convicted felon took to his social media to insist that “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” This came from the same account that threatened to destroy an entire civilization a week ago, and had also included an image that depicted the aforementioned user in white and red robes with one hand resting on the forehead of a sick man while the other emanated light. 

So, first of all, posting horrendous things online is not a crime, per se, but one does wonder how it is that any respectable social media platform would allow that kind of ugliness. 

Unless the social media platform in question was being run by a thirty-four time convicted felon. Currently holding steady at twice impeached, adjudicated rapist owner of a social media platform named, as ironically as possible, Truth. 

What is Truth? Some would tell you that truth is that which corresponds to reality. Given the haphazard nature of the Orange Worst's views on the world including sharks, windmills and other living things, one could probably make a case that he wouldn't know truth if it walked up and handed him a subpoena. 

The Vice President, Jimmy Duggan Vance, is a practicing Catholic who already had the distinction of killing a Pope. He is currently trying to figure out how his eternal future will be affected by serving a boss who seems to care so little about other humans and peace on this plane. The sins of the Orange Worst are already written down, annotated and ready for release as soon as the Department of Justice starts following the law signed by (checks notes) the Orange Worst. 

Meanwhile, any actual judgement awaits for the Worst. 

Have your popcorn ready. 

When The Wheels Come Off

 Things will have to change a whole lot more and quickly for me to point to Viktor Orbán's defeat as a tide that is turning. Much in the same way that the number of special election wins for Democrats here in the United States does not suggest that we are out of the proverbial woods. 

That being said, let me take a moment to run a few laps around the loss of one of the convicted felon's authoritarian all-stars. Just before Sunday's election, the Orange Worst took a break from ignoring the war he started in Iran to post, “My Administration stands ready to use the full Economic Might of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s Economy, as we have done for our Great Allies in the past, if Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian People ever need it.” Just prior to dropping by Pakistan to foul up negotiation with the aforementioned Iran war, Jeffery Depstien Vance popped by Budapest to place an ill-fated thumb on the scale of international politics. 

For the record, Josh Duhamel Vance went 0 for 2 on his globetrotting mission, failing to re-elect his boss' fellow despot and not being able to get Iran to back down from their commitment to repel the Christian invaders. Maybe somebody should have mentioned John Deere Vance's track record with foreign leaders, like the Pope, one of whom died shortly after his visit and the new guy who declined any visit to the United States while the adjudicated rapist is still in charge. 

Meanwhile, back in Budapest, a record voter turnout helped bring an end to the sixteen year rule of former Prime Minister Orbán. European Union leaders as a group exhaled as this Putin Puppet was pushed aside for a renewed commitment to the EU and its member nations in hopes of turning around years of corruption and stagnation for the Hungarian people. Along with the defeat of Orbán, the reform party headed by new Prime Minsiter Péter Magyar, Tisza, is expected to gain a supermajority in the Hungarian parliament. 

Notable in this development: Orbán managed to do something that his American counterpart could never do. He conceded defeat.

This is what happens when you send Jiminy Doofus out to do a big boy's job. 

It's also what happens when people vote.

Vote as if your life depended on it. 

Because it does. 

Club

 I was being asked by the media to care about a golf tournament. 

With baseball just starting and the basketball season winding down, this has always been a tough spot for sports. The Stanley Cup is still months from being given away to the hockey team that manages not to succumb to the tedium of two months of playoffs. The Masters is the best chance we are told to see the pageantry of trophy celebrations on full display for spectators. 

Maybe we are supposed to care because Tiger Woods will not be playing in this year's tournament. Who will rise to that occasion and take Tiger's place? Who will get all hopped up on goofballs and drive his very expensive SUV into oncoming traffic before calling his "good friend" the "president" when authorities arrive to take him into custody? 

Then there's this other major challenge getting me to care about golf. There's this little matter of the more than one hundred million dollars American taxpayers are paying so that the aforementioned "president" could whack a ball and chase it on courses that (checks notes) the aforementioned "president" owns. Compound this financial burden with the seemingly unrelenting images of this convicted felon out on the greens while the country falls deeper and deeper into a dystopian caricature of itself thanks to his "leadership." I suppose we should be happy that he isn't actually playing a fiddle instead of whacking a ball and chasing it. 

So this Masters thing. It's been a big deal for a long time. Ninety two years, with only a two year break for that little inconvenience called World War II. The World Series, that's baseball, has a longer stretch than that, and Lord Stanley's Cup has been awarded more than one hundred times. But I guess we should give some appreciation to this pantheon of championships. Providing that we don't bother mentioning that it wasn't until 1990 that the golf club where the tournament has been held all those years allowed its first black member admission. Or that it took until 2012 for women to be allowed into the club. Of course that skews a little different when you consider that club rules stated that players would be assigned caddies by the club, all of whom were black. 

Ah, the storied tradition of The Masters. Aren't you glad you asked me to pay attention? 

I won't be watching. 

Again. 

A Break

 What I wanted was a break. 

What I got was food poisoning. 

For those of you who have been reading this blog from the beginning, the phrase "last piece of lasagna" might bring with it a faint air of nostalgia, or perhaps a little sympathetic nausea. It was not, to paraphrase Carl Denham, the lasagna that got me. 'Twas burrito that killed the beast. 

Carne asada will now be added to the list of phrases that will give me pause when considering my meal choices. 

Some four days after the Burrito Express came rushing out of me with all the urgency one might imagine a digestive system stuck on reverse could manage, solid food was something that my vacation was sadly missing. There was one day when I felt as if I had proceded to the normal lane, but my guts did not approve. They let me know that dry toast and Gatorade would be on the menu until everything was all settled down there, thank you very much. 

This meant that even day trips to some nearby bed and breakfast were off the table. So was my daily exercise regimen. As I spent those days sitting around my house waiting for the next gastric eruption, waiting for the scourge to fully depart, I felt the enforced low-key staycation weighing on my soul. Sure, I had made it out into the yard before the cursed burrito experience to trim up the trees, making way for Spring's renewal, but the reality of my situation was embedded in my diminished physicality. 

I watched a lot of TV. I tried not to bother my wife or my cat with my needs. I was only moderately successful with this, as my usual tireless approach to maintaining order took a miss and I spent a lot of time wondering just exactly how long it would take until I was "all better." 

There is no reset button. It takes time. Thankfully Spring Break allowed me this luxury. For this I have decided to be thankful. And as far as breaks go, I will be taking a break from Burrito Express. 

Women's Work

 Okay. 

So maybe it's the patriarchy. 

In spite of our best efforts, it seems as though white males make up the majority of leadership spots on our landscape. For example, we don't tend to flinch when we make a list of "the richest men in the world." We just assume that women lag so far behind that it's not worth including them in this accounting. Contrastingly it is unfortunate to note that the only two members of the convicted felon's current cabinet to be tossed out of that clown car were women. Idiots like Pistol Pete Hegseth and Robert "guess what the F stands for" Kennedy Jr. continue to hold down office space in the Kremlin West. 

This ruling party to which I have no interest in an invitation from continues to carry on in its boys' club way, denigrating and destroying anything that does not fit in their cartoon version of a masculine world. 

What about Hillary's emails? What about Kamala's laugh? There are still far too many knuckle-draggers willing to insist that we would not be better off currently if either of those women had won election. 

Or if that's too big a setting for you, let's take the confrontation between coaches Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley in the aftermath of Staley's South Carolina women's team win in the NCAA semifinals. Coach Geno used the opportunity to fly off the handle criticizing the officiating and then had an angry interaction with Coach Staley before stalking off the court without shaking hands with the winning team. 

The one coached by a woman. 

Since then, Coach Geno has been apologetic about his part of the ugliness, but the question remains: would he have gone screaming after an opposing male coach? 

Given the current global uptick in wars and "military operations," I noticed that in spite of there being thirty countries with women as heads of state, not one of those countries is currently involved in armed conflict outside of their own borders. If you're looking for examples of that, you would have to search bac.k a few decades to Margaret Thatcher and her little escapade in the Falklands. 

Meanwhile, in spite of that seemingly "large" number of women in charge of the globe, they only comprise eight percent of all head of state or government positions worldwide. Contrast that to the stunning number of women named in the Epstein Files. 

As victims. 

Sleep tight, America. 

Risk Management

 From Al Gore's Internet: Threatening children, such as using empty threats or fear-based ultimatums, in an ineffective parenting style that damages trust, breeds resistance and causes anxiety.

For the sake of those of you who may feel that you have stumbled on some of my wife's work regarding family dynamics, I will say that I am working in a more metaphorical vein. In this particular model, the "parent" will be played by the convicted felon and nominal "president" of the United States. We will be the children.

Have you felt anxious over the past ten months? Ten years? Do you experienced trust issues with the current regime? How about the breeding of resistance? 

If you answered "yes" to any of these then you may be an American citizen. 

Unfortunately in this version of family discord, the "co-equal" branches of our parenting scheme seems to be broken. "Wait 'til your father gets home," is a pretty solid non-starter here since the problem is that even when daddy is on the golf course or sitting on the toilet late at night, the threats keep coming. More promises of punishments alternating with assurances of some sort of intangible reward that benefits only those in positions of power. Meanwhile, our economy continues to circle the drain while daddy's friends get rich on speculation that the threat of nuclear was is just a threat. 

Nothing more. 

While we sit alone in our metaphorical bedrooms, wishing that daddy would die, imagining a savior will ride in and save us all from the terror in which we currently live. Someone who will stand up to daddy and make him stop being so awful. "Don't you worry about it honey," with a reassuring pat on the head, "That bad man won't be able to hurt us anymore." Right after they write a strongly worded social media post with the caveat that unless daddy's friends move out first that there's not much to be done, but if we could just send a little more money to the committee to keep mommy safe we'll see what we can do. 

Not a very healthy dynamic. 

Another two weeks? 

Out

 I understand why we won't have Eric Swalwell to kick around anymore. Won't be running for governor of California. Won't be warming a chair in the United States House of Representatives. And most of all, according to one of the women who accused former Representative Swalwell of sexual abuse and harassment, "For me, justice won't be until he can't ever harm a woman ever again, and he has faced the consequences for the women that he has harmed."

Meanwhile, just a few doors down in Congress, Buildings and Grounds are busy scraping the name of the door of the offices of Ernest Anthony "Tony" Gonzales, former Representative from Texas. "Tony" also chose to resign after he admitted to an affair with a former aide who later committed suicide. 

By resigning before they were expelled, both men will be allowed to keep their pension benefits. 

And, if you were to listen to South Carolina's Representative Nancy Mace, you might expect to hear about more potential expulsions and/or resignations in the coming months. "Congress is not above the law. It never was," she said. "Two down, more to go."

All of this housecleaning takes place in the shadow of what used to be The People's House. That huddled Orange Mass over there continues to slither behind something every time the lights come on. There are loads of evidence tying this convicted felon to abuse of his office, federal funds, and harassment and sexual abuse that would make Messrs. Swalwell and Gonzales blush. Just a reminder that this felon was convicted of falsifying business records in connection with a case involving paying an adult film star to keep quiet about the affair he was having with her while his third wife was locked away in The Tower, caring for his infant son. And in spite of all the efforts to obscure the release of the files pertaining to the sex trafficking empire of Jeffery Epstein, one of the bits that managed to squeeze out into public view was credible evidence that the Orange Mass raped a thirteen year old girl. 

Former Representatives Swalwell and Gonzales don't have access to the machinery available to the Orange Mass to distract the public, but this is the sort of thing that should fall under the category, "No one is above the law." 

Representative Mace, a rape survivor herself, has stated she wants to see "anyone who raped underage girls in handcuffs and behind bars," including calling for the prosecution of Prince Andrew. She believes that Mister Epstein was murdered. Out of the other corner of her mouth, however, she finds the Orange Mass to be a "wonderful leader," perhaps because he has endorsed her campaign for governor of South Carolina. 

Confused? 

You probably shouldn't be. 

Full Stop

 I have one video game that I play, aside from the somewhat tedious and OCD repetitions of computer solitaire. It is called "Civilization." There are a lot of newer versions of this game, but I tend to favor the one that I started playing a couple decades ago. It was a reaction to kicking free from the first-person shooters that we had discouraged my son from playing. The very high-minded concept of this set of code is that starting thousands of years BC you are charged with guiding one of several tribes through centuries of development, hoping to survive drought and disease and other warring tribes to eventually create a modern world in which these former barbarians to inhabit. You could win the game through diplomatic means, or by beating those other civilizations to outer space. Or through do mination, crushing those other poor unfortunate peoples' lives under my cyber-despotic bootheel. 

Which raises the question, "So, if you don't want your son roaming around the universe with a ray gun, zapping aliens, why is okay for you to destroy other civilizations with a moderately superior military technology?" Well, I have spent a good deal of time rationalizing my motives, but I can say that my high-minded response centers around the notion that this is Civilization after all. Kill or be killed, isn't that the way?

The Orange Worst has been ramping up his rhetoric as his marbles continue to disappear. On the morning of his threatened destruction of the infrastructure of Iran, he let this one fly: "a whole civilization will die tonight." Not eliminating the war machinery or retaking the Strait of Hormuz by force. "A civilization will die tonight." Speculation has run rampant over the past few days as the countdown to meet the convicted felon's demands. The war crimes for which this idiot is already culpable continues to grow. This is the guy who somehow has his tiny hands on the buttons not just for Diet Coke on Demand, but the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Billions of dollars and thousands of lives have already been thrown into the flames in attempts to, what do we keep saying, distract from the horrors that this infantile tyrant who couldn't run a casino in Atlantic City or keep his trousers zipped.

Why hasn't anyone run into the Oval Office, or onto the golf course, thrown this enfeebled failure to the ground, handcuffed him and taken him someplace where he cannot harm another human being? 

We used to have a Congress. We used to have a sense of morality. 

I hate to say it, but we let this happen. And even if tomorrow shows up and the literal Cradle of Civilization is still standing, we should have done something different. The fate of the planet should not be left up to a Narcissistic doddering old fool with delusions of grandeur. 

"Oh, he didn't really mean it." Or, "What he really meant was..."

It should stop. 

Now. 

Hey, the stock market went up. 

Or in two weeks. 

Whatever. 

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. 

J-Dop Demon Hunter

 Due to the demands of "the economy and national security and things like that," Julius Domingo Vance hasn't had a chance to take a peek at the concern in which he is most invested. "I've already had a couple of times where I'm like, 'All right, we're going to Area 51. We're going out to New Mexico. We're gonna sort of get to the bottom of this.' And then the timing of the trip just didn't work out. But trust me, anybody who's curious about this, I'm more curious than anybody, and I've got three years of the very tippy top of the classification. I'm gonna get to the bottom of it,"

Hear that folks? The very tippy top of the classification. 

Juan Demarco Vance is going to figure out what all this fuss is about extraterrestrials. Don't you worry about it. 

Or maybe you should worry about it. 

A little bit. 

"Celestial beings, who fly around and do weird things to people" are not necessarily otherworldly visitors. According to Jose Delecata Vance, "I don't think they're aliens. I think they're demons."

This one goes out to all those who feel comfortable with using the twenty-fifth amendment to get the convicted felon out of office, just to be replaced by someone even scarier. Jimmy Dean Vance continued, "I think that the desire to describe everything celestial [as] otherworldly, to describe it as aliens - I mean, every great world religion, including Christianity, the one that I believe in, has understood that there are weird things out there. And there are things that are very difficult to explain .And I naturally go, when I hear about sort of extra-natural phenomenon, that's where I go to, is the Christian understanding."

This is how the recently released UFO files will be dealt with if Jaime Dingus Vance ever gets a chance to break away from his pressing calendar events like berating visiting world leaders and killing popes. Which makes one wonder how Jerry Douglas Vance might use his "Christian understanding" to get to the bottom of those unredacted Trumpstein Files. 

If only the former game show host had been molesting underage extraterrestrials. 

Insert Your Golf/Driving Joke Here

 You cannot make stuff like this up:

Tiger Woods has been forbidden to drive President Donald Trump’s grandchildren around.

Mister Woods' most recent experiments in testing the aerodynamic properties of his black Range Rover was apparently an afterthought. Clear thinking Secret Service agents figured that Tiger might not be the ideal chauffer for the children of (checks notes) one Donald Trump Junior, who claims to be "the other son" of the convicted felon. His ex-wife, Vanessa, has been "dating" the golf legend and it would seem that not everyone is pleased with this coupling, including the Secret Service who are charged with keeping those with that easily identifiable surname. 

In case you don't follow golf, or TMZ, a man identified as "Tiger" was involved in a rollover crash late last Friday on Jupiter Island. That's in Florida. This is the fourth such incident involving "Tiger" since 2009. When asked for his take on the relative safety of his grandchildren, the former game show host and noted golf cheat said, “I feel so badly. He’s got some difficulty. There was an accident and that’s all I know. Very close friend of mine. He’s an amazing person, amazing man. But some difficulty.” The alleged pedophile's comments suggest that he is not good at feeling, which makes perfect sense, but I don't know if anyone bothered to ask "Tiger" about his pal in the ruins of the White House. 

“I feel so badly,” Tiger said. “He’s got some difficulty. There was an incident and that’s all I know. Very close friend of mine. He’s an amazing person, amazing man. But some difficulty.”

Why isn't this billionaire hiring an Uber instead of keeping a lawyer on retainer to take care of hid DUIs? It's like the old saying, "Better to ask for forgiveness instead of waiting for a ride." 

Meanwhile, it sounds like Vanessa and Tiger's relationship might be headed for splitsville, but one has to wonder why her dating app keeps coming up with these losers.