Utterly disgraceful

A courageous leader (left) and a cowardly bully (right)

Another Friday in the POTUS47 administration, another calamitous incident from the White House.

Today the president, along with vice-bully JD Vampire, hosted Vlodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, intending for the two heads of state to sign an agreement that would extort mineral mining rights from Ukraine in order to retain some support in Ukraine's war effort against Russia.

The signing of that alleged agreement didn't happen. Because the U.S. president and vice-president instead chose to verbally pistol-whip a U.S. ally for being insufficiently grateful.

Which is, of course, utter bullshit. Zelenskyy has been unfailingly polite and thankful for the support the U.S. has given him, never made any distinction between aid from the Biden administration and aid from the current guy, and has been a genuine statesman the entire time when it has to have been difficult. His nation is fighting for its very existence and he needs help.

What he wouldn't do, what no one with an ounce of integrity ever should do, was grovel to and slobber over POTUS47.

Because he didn't get the obsequious praise he wanted, our weak-minded, massively insecure head of state behaved like a petulant child and the meeting ended.

I wrote my congresspeople again today, citing that meeting as yet another reason we cannot afford four years of this president. Whether one supports Ukraine in its war effort or not, the behavior POTUS47 engaged in today hurts this nation, hurts its reputation, hurts its ability to function in the world. And that's on top of the damage he's done and continues to do domestically, which is at least equally catastrophic.

I implore everyone to share this article from the Guardian, which includes video of the event, with friends and acquaintances and others who might not be as tuned in to politics as the rest of us. It's easy to digest, not a deep analysis, just here it is, and here are some quotes in reaction.

The deeper analysis pieces are also worth one's time, but harder to get someone not already interested to read. Two from The Atlantic, one by Tom Nichols—which includes the line, "Trump and Vance acted like a couple of Kremlin sock puppets instead of American leaders"—the other by David Frum, stand out.

Nichols:

Leave aside, if only for a moment, the utter boorishness with which President Donald Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance treated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House today. Also leave aside the spectacle of American leaders publicly pummeling a friend as if he were an enemy. All of the ghastliness inflicted on Zelensky today should not obscure the geopolitical reality of what just happened: The president of the United States ambushed a loyal ally, presumably so that he can soon make a deal with the dictator of Russia to sell out a European nation fighting for its very existence.

...

[The] meeting reeked of a planned attack, with Trump unloading Russian talking points on Zelensky (such as blaming Ukraine for risking global war), all of it designed to humiliate the Ukrainian leader on national television and give Trump the pretext to do what he has indicated repeatedly he wants to do: side with Russian President Vladimir Putin and bring the war to an end on Russia’s terms. ... Vance is usually an invisible backbencher in this administration, with few duties other than some occasional trolling of Trump’s critics. (The actual business of furthering Trump’s policies is apparently now Elon Musk’s job.) This time, however, he was brought in to troll not other Americans, but a foreign leader. Marco Rubio—in theory, America’s top diplomat—was also there, but he sat glumly and silently while Vance pontificated like an obnoxious graduate student.

...

Baiting Zelensky into fighting in front of the media was likely the plan all along, and Trump and Vance were soon both yelling at Zelensky. (“This is going to be great television,” Trump said during the meeting.)

Frum:

Today’s meeting gave the lie to any claim that this administration’s policy is driven by any strategic effort to advance the interests of the United States, however misguided. Trump and Vance displayed in the Oval Office a highly personal hatred. There was no effort here to make a case for American interests. 

...

The American people need to reckon with the mess Trump and Vance are making of this country’s once-good name—and the services they are performing for dictators and aggressors. There may not be a deep cause here. Trump likes and admires bad people because he is himself a bad person. When Vance executed his personal pivot from Never Trump to Always Trump, he needed a way to prove that he had truly crossed over to the dark side beyond any possibility of reversion or redemption; perhaps his support for Russia allowed him to do that. But however shallow their motives, the consequences are profound.

Write/call your congresspeople. Particularly if they're Republicans. Tell them the childish tantrums of an insecure wannabe-tyrant do nothing to "make America great." Tell them the Ukrainians deserve all the support we can give them. Tell them the United States cannot tolerate four years of POTUS47 and the sooner he's expelled from office the better.

Posted on February 28, 2025 at 7:12PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Balancing act

I've been trying to occupy myself with non-politics things the past few days, mostly successfully, as I climb my way out of a mild (moderate?) black-hole episode that consumed my entire Friday and Saturday. I had a physical yesterday—first one in a couple of years thanks to some insurance issues—during which we discussed the merits of moderating my news consumption vis-à-vis my fucked-up brain chemistry. But in this, the time of madness, we can't stay away too long or we risk, well, everything, so I checked back in today.

There's a lot of shit happening and I had to stop diving into it after a while. Every day, it seems, there's a new five-alarm fire to absorb and new reasons to write/call your Congresspeople. Here are the "highlights" from my checking back in:

I learned that POTUS47 has tapped Dan Bongino—aka Alex Jones lite—to be the number two guy at the FBI, under top dog Kash Patel. I don't know why this surprised me, as this  outrageous, manifestly unqualified rage factory is essentially an average POTUS47 appointee, but it is yet another sycophantic moron in a position of authority. And as we've seen over the past month, such people cause great harm both when they intend to and when they don't.

I read more about how POTUS47’s firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the top Judge Advocate Generals in the armed forces is likely a prelude to an attempt to use the military illegally, which is a fun thing to think about. Pete Hegseth, aka Drunky McSexist SecDef, flat-out said on TV that the JAGs were fired because they respected the law and he and POTUS47 want lawyers who "don’t exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything."

I saw that last night the House of Representatives passed (barely: 217 Republicans for, 214 Democrats and one Republican against) a budget resolution—not an actual budget, this is, like, step one of a longer process—that showed in stark terms what Republicans want to prioritize. Their plan would raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, putting the lie to the oft-repeated claim that Republicans want less debt; cut taxes, vastly for wealthier Americans and corporations, by $4.5 trillion to further expand the wealth gap in this country; and eliminate well over $1 trillion in spending on things like Medicaid, health assistance, SNAP, and staffing the government, because fuck sick people, poor people, and public employees. What could possibly go wrong.

I read about POTUS47 releasing a genuinely insane video touting "Trump Gaza," which is so absurd as to merit no consideration at all, except as it relates to our president's accelerating estrangement from reality and the gullibility of his cultists. I learned from that same article that POTUS47 intends to sell citizenship to the United States as if it were some sort of country club rather than a country. Here's what he said: "We’re going to be be selling a gold card. You have a green card, this is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you green card privileges, plus. It’s going to be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful. It’s never been done before, anything like this." That last part is correct—we've never had anything quite as batshit crazy as an immigration gold card proposed before because we've never had a president as staggeringly corrupt and despotic as this one before.

I discovered that the Washington Post, once the standard-bearer for American journalism, has declared that its editorial pages will henceforth be devoted to pieces focused on "personal liberties and free markets." And I don't think it's a stretch to say that they aren't looking for the ACLU perspective on personal liberties. Post owner Jeff Bezos said in the declaration that "viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others." The Post's editor promptly resigned rather than continue on with a publication now promoting oligarchy and kowtowing to the new, fascist White House.

On the other hand, I also see that Republicans in Congress, unlike POTUS47, still care about elections. No, no, I don't mean they still care about democracy or any of that quaint "government of, by, and for the people" stuff, I mean they still care about having to run for reelection. Thus, when their constituents let them know in no uncertain terms that they're failing them they start to move off of their devoted loyalty to Dear Leader just a smidge. Not enough, not yet, but it's a start. True, mostly we're seeing stuff like this, from Georgia Congressman Rich McCormick: “I’m not against anything [Elon Musk] is doing, but I’m concerned. I’m concerned that maybe we’re moving a little bit too fast.” Pretty weak sauce, but it shows he's feeling a little heat. So, Georgians—and others in Republican districts—turn that oven up to maximum and keep telling your representatives that you're not interested in living under tyrannical rule.

Finding a balance between keeping current on important matters and finding time to enjoy things is proving to be more challenging than even I expected it to be. But I'm working on it.

Posted on February 26, 2025 at 9:51PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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The work is mysterious and important

The celebratory fruit head of mourning

Let's talk about Severance for a minute. I have questions.

If you haven't been watching the utterly fantastic Apple TV+ show, you're missing out. A friend who hasn't seen it asked me a while back, "what other shows is it like?" as a shorthand way of seeing if she'd like it, but the answer is, "none, there are no other shows similar to Severance." I mean, it's a workplace drama, sort of, I guess, but don't look for any other connections to, say, ER or Hill St. Blues. The closest parallel to it that I've seen is probably the film Being John Malkovich, which is still very much different. It's uniquely weird and incredibly well-written. So check it out if you haven't already. (Or if you kind of forgot about it because it took three years for season two to drop after COVID and writers' and actors' strikes combined to delay production.)

Then maybe you too will be wondering:

• Just what is Milchick's backstory? At times he looks to be a gung-ho Lumon partisan, but with his new supervisory gig he seems to recognize himself as a sort of Uncle Tom, and not just because of the racism-tinged gift he got from the higher-ups. He appears to really want to make things better for the severeds, and aware that he's balancing on a knife's edge to do it, but is now doubling down on being the good employee. I think. He's a tough nut to crack.
• What the hell has Irving been doing all this time on the outside with his research into Lumon? Who has he been talking to on the pay phone?
• How much, if any, of Burt and Fields' religious rationale is for real and how much, if any, is a cover story? What's Burt's real history with Lumon? Is he an OG Lumon architect or was he doing something else with them pre-severance? Or is Fields just drunk?
• Who was the guy with all the keys that was going through Irving's things? Is it Donovan? Someone else? How does he know about Irving's research? (I don't recall if that might be something Helena learned while "undercover"; I don't think so.) Is he in cahoots with Burt, going into the apartment while Burt had Irving occupied elsewhere? And what did the guy do, if anything, to Radar? Radar wasn't growling and barking at the intruder?
• WTF is up with the goats?
• Why is Gemma/Ms. Casey "essential?" What is she doing in that sub-basement when not doing wellness sessions with the severeds? We know that "Ms. Casey" only exists on the severed floor, so is she just, I don't know, comatose or something down below, or does she have a third persona? Or is she Gemma down there?
• Is Helena doing what she's been doing all season just as a way to spy on and manipulate the gang, or is she also motivated by intense loneliness and jealousy of Helly R. and Mark S.'s spark for each other? I think her line that she "didn't like" who she was on the outside was at least partly honest, and when she joked with Mark Scout that he would "be the first" guy she'd ever introduce to her father she wasn't making that up. Britt Lower plays that double role with uncanny subtlety.
• Is Miss Huang severed? If so, holy moly. If not, also weird, as Dylan has asked multiple times, "why are you a child?" She's on a fellowship? What's "wintertide material?" Is Wintertide some sort of Lumon college, maybe?
• What were Ricken's other books? That's not really important to the plot, I just wonder. I want more revelatory observations like, "Bullies are nothing but bull and lies," and especially like, "What separates man from machine is that machines cannot think for themselves. Also they are made of metal, whereas man is made of skin."
• Will Dylan tell his co-workers about his family visits? If he does, will Milchick cancel them?
• Why didn't the production crew make the hole in Mark's head more realistically tiny? Big as that seemed to be he (and all the severeds, presumably) would be at constant risk of massive infection. :) (Yeah, yeah, nerdy nitpick that means nothing, I just think it wouldn't have been that hard to put a magnifying lens in the shot for a hole that more realistically would have been about 1/16"-1/8" in diameter.)
• And, of course, what is the macrodata, why is it being refined, and what's the "Cold Harbor" project intended to do? (I think we can safely assume it's not, as Irving once postulated, to take the swear words out of movies.) If even the upper echelon at Lumon says the work is mysterious, how much do they even know about it?

Tune in Thursday for probably no clear answers and even more questions, because that's how good this show is.

 

Tagged TV, Severance, Posted on February 23, 2025 at 6:37PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Catching Up With the Chaos and Catastrophe

I've been trying to stay current on the news, despite the arguably ill effect that has on my psyche, but it's been so much so fast that I'd fallen behind. I'm nearly up to date now, though there's probably something horrendous that happened late today that has escaped my notice thus far. (UPDATE: There is.)

Here are the trying-not-to-panic-about-it-yet topics from recent days that we should all be shouting to our Congresspeople about:

• The Senate confirmed yet another disastrous cabinet officer, one that in a sane world would have gotten zero votes. No, let me clarify: The Republican senators confirmed yet another disastrous cabinet officer that should have gotten zero votes. The final tally for Kash Patel to be director of the FBI was 51 Republicans in favor, 47 Democrats and two Republicans against (those two being Lisa Murkowski, who occasionally starts looking like she'd be better off switching parties before she says or does something horrible, and Susan Collins, who almost never acts on her supposed "deep concerns" but did on this occasion). Patel is a MAGA zealot who perjured himself multiple times in his conformation hearings and has made it crystal clear that he intends to use his new position as a mob boss might, not to investigate crimes and espionage but to weaponize the FBI to punish opponents of POTUS47’s agenda. The FBI director has a ten-year term, so, you know, cool-cool-cool.

  "My Senate Republican colleagues are willfully ignoring myriad red flags about Mr. Patel," said Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, "especially his recurring instinct to threaten retribution against his perceived enemies." Senator Sheldon Whitehouse was more overtly outraged, telling his Republican colleagues that they "will own the consequences of Kash Patel's misbehavior. ... Unlike any FBI director before, this guy is a vitriolic partisan.... He is a completely sycophantic suck-up when it comes to Donald Trump. He wrote children's books in which 'King Donald' rules and his loyal little functionary 'Kash' brings 'justice' to him, pursuing the slugs of the FBI. Do you think that when the FBI is asked to investigate corruption in Trumpworld, do you think Kash Patel will rise to the occasion or do you think he'll participate in a coverup? This is not Democrats saying this, what we're doing is relating what he has said and what he has done." Even a few old-style Republicans joined in the warnings. "If Kash Patel becomes director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as President Trump has suggested he should, he will be the poster child of vindictiveness." That was Paul Rozenweig, a Homeland Security official under George W. Bush.

  Patel joins recent additions to the Bizarro Cabinet Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., making a triumvirate of Worst People that will vie for most dangerous cabinet officer in an ever-alternating pennant race of calamity.

  Mr. Patel’s confirmation is even more appalling given disturbing reports about his foreign ties, conflicts of interest, and alleged involvement in recent FBI firings. The Senate’s failure to collectively demand a real investigation prior to his confirmation represents a gross abdication of their constitutional advice and consent responsibility. As the Senate continues to consider the president’s nominees, we demand that senators take this responsibility seriously and do better for their constituents and our country. As it stands, today’s disgraceful confirmation jeopardizes the integrity and independence of our nation’s top law enforcement agency. Our communities, our rights, and our democracy deserve better.

  —Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

  
  
  

• POTUS47 wants to destroy the Post Office. His plan, apparently, is to somehow reorganize the Postal Service as an arm of the Commerce Department under yet another dangerous chaos agent cabinet secretary, Howard Lutnik. Naturally, like all POTUS47 priorities, this would be manifestly illegal. I didn't know this before, but the Post Office has only been an independent agency since 1970; before that Postmasters General were appointed as cabinet officers. Now the U.S. Postal Service, the 1970 law removed the Post Office from the cabinet and reorganized it as an independent agency specifically in order to shield it from political fuckery. The law was prompted by a postal workers' strike over poor treatment that Nixon called out the National Guard to break; pre-reorg, postal workers were barred from unionizing and the new structure guaranteed them collective-bargaining rights. The introductory section of the law on the books reads:

  The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by Act of Congress, and supported by the people. The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities. The costs of establishing and maintaining the Postal Service shall not be apportioned to impair the overall value of such service to the people.

  The law further specifies the new agency's independence and non-partisanship, mandating that the Postal board of governors be Senate-confirmed and that no more than five of the eleven members may affiliate with any one political party, that the Postmaster General be selected by and answerable to the board, and specifically reserves to Congress the power to amend or change the law in any way.

  I don't think it far-fetched in the slightest to assume that this is a priority for the administration for two reasons: 1) As a means of voter suppression—in their ongoing march to destroy democracy, a Republican tenet has always been to make voting as difficult as possible, and mail-in voting, as we have statewide here in Washington and as is an optional feature in most other states, makes it just too convenient for citizens to exercise their franchise and oppose the wannabe dictator currently occupying the White House (or, as I heard it referred to on a podcast recently, "Casa de Idiota"); 2) As a means of shifting more public money into the hands of oligarchs—mail delivery would be contracted out to private operators, contracts for which would be overseen not only by POTUS47, but people like Phony Stark and the Cabinet of Billionaires.
  
  

• POTUS47 is whining about his airplane. The specially modified Boeing 747s that function as Air Force One have been in service for a few decades now, and our whiny spoiled brat diaper-baby president thinks he deserves the newest and best planes, not 30-year-old vehicles with the cootie-stank of Clinton and Obama and Biden in them. Boeing has been building new ones—as a matter of course when these things age they get replaced—but not fast enough for 47’s liking. So he has, according to the New York Times, "empowered Elon Musk to explore drastic options to prod Boeing to move faster, including relaxing security clearance standards for some who work on the presidential planes." Which, sure, that sounds super smart—especially since Phony Stark's vehicles tend to catch fire and blow up—but the Times piece goes on to say this, which gets at the heart of 47’s grievance: “[The] administration has even discussed whether a luxury jet could be acquired and refitted during the wait, according to five people with knowledge of the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe closely held deliberations.” Our president wants a luxury jet, instead of Air Force One, and even took a look at a plane owned until recently by the Qatari royal family as a replacement. The Times didn't specify whether the Qatari plane had enough gold-plated toilets in it to meet 47’s standard.

  I saw this piece and, with the recent troubles Boeing has had with its planes losing doors and missing bolts and such in mind, had some less-than-generous whimsical thoughts about it that I intended to post. But once again our pal Craig Calcaterra was thinking along the same lines and used better words:

  Even I have to acknowledge when President Trump is right about something. And folks, he's right about this. Boeing must deliver these jets with great haste! I thus offer my full-throated endorsement of the relaxation of whatever safety and security concerns typically apply to the delivery of aircraft and heartily agree with the idea of putting the man behind the safety and performance record of Tesla vehicles and SpaceX rockets in charge of President Trump's planes. God bless America.

  It's a comforting image, isn't it?

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Craig Calcaterra, Posted on February 21, 2025 at 10:05PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Baseball is coming

It's getting closer to Julio Time again!

Lots more chaos and catastrophe to talk about over the past couple of days, but let's take a break from that, ever so briefly, and talk about baseball broadly and Your Seattle Mariners in particular. Because spring training has begun, my season ticket group is prepping for our draft, and even the bad stuff on this subject is so, so much happier than anything occurring in our ongoing POTUS47 national nightmare. So to take my mind off our new fascist FBI director, our new pro-measles HHS secretary, our pro-plane-crash DOT head, the fact that the president is owned by the Kremlin, and that Phony Stark (h/t Joanne Carducci) is now sabotaging Social Security and the IRS, I dove into stats, quotes from camp, and other such frivolities. Here goes.

 

As always happens at the start of spring camps, people in the sports press act like they know what will happen and predict final MLB season standings. Most of these prognosticators seem to be pegging the 2025 Mariners as an 85-win team. ZiPS gives them 86. But these forecasters have not been paying attention and don't understand that the M's were massive underachievers the past four years because of their field manager, their approach to batting, and their alleged "hitting coach," who was so useless that any player wanting help with a slump or a mechanical issue or anything, really, had to seek outside aid on their own time—which there isn't a lot of during a season. People don't seem to get this, even after a way-too-late regime change in the dugout last August exposed it to the world.

The other day I did a little I-told-you-soing in regards to former Mariner infielder Ty France, now with the Minnesota Twins, who told reporters without naming any names that his last two seasons were ruined by the former Mariner "braintrust." Today I see similar remarks from Julio Rodríguez.

Julio, talking about the Mariners' disappointing 2024, said, "The beginning of the year was like, ‘It is what it is.’ But I feel I definitely took with me those last six weeks, what we did as a team, what we did as an organization and just kind of how we continued to push forward." I readily admit that I may be reading too much into this with some confirmation bias, but what I get from that is, Julio and the rest of the lineup were doing precisely what the team's manager and alleged hitting coach had asked of them, it wasn't working, and therefore "it is what it is" and complacency reigned as it had for years—the entirety of Julio's big-league career, in fact. Then with six weeks left in the season, upper management belatedly realized they had a crap field manager and an even crappier batting coach and philosophy. Those people were fired and actual smart people, namely former Seattle players Dan Wilson and Edgar Martínez, took their places and the team took off.

The M's were a .500 club before the changeover, a .618 club after. (The World Series champion Dodgers had an overall .605 winning percentage.)

The M's as a team batted .216/.301/.365 before, .255/.347/.417 after, with little difference in personnel. (MLB average: .243/.312/.399; champion Dodgers: .258/.335/.446.)

If this team could win 90, 90, and 88 games the prior three seasons (2021-2023) under their former utter garbage manager and batting instructor, they should be able to do at least that well in 2025 under Dan Wilson and the batting team of Edgar Martínez and Kevin Seitzer.

Yes, the M's completely whiffed on improving their infield. Yes, depending on Jorge Polanco to be an everyday presence is anxiety-inducing. Yes, first base is not a position where you typically find a platoon situation. Yes, the term "designated hitter" could quickly become a laugh line in the Seattle lineup.

Still.

I mean, I'm looking at the guys the M's will be counting on the most this year and noting the difference pre-changeover to post-changeover:

Top line: before regime change Bottom line: after regime change
	BA/OBP/SLG	K%	BB%	HR%	RBI%
Randy Arozarena	.214/.331/.383	25.3	12.1	3.2	8.3
	.236/.336/.407	28.7	8.4	2.8	12.6
Cal Raleigh	.212/.302/.436	29.4	10.8	5.6	16.3
	.246/.345/.437	23.6	12.2	4.7	14.8
Luke Raley	.233/.307/.426	30.6	5.4	4.2	11.0
	.276/.366/.598	26.5	7.8	6.9	18.6
Victor Robles	.256/.330/.369	20.9	7.3	1.6	6.8
	.407/.475/.558	12.5	6.7	1.0	14.4
Julio Rodriguez	.260/.310/.364	27.1	5.5	2.4	8.4
	.313/.364/.537	21.0	8.0	5.6	18.6

Aside from Arozarena, those are massive changes. A couple of guys—J.P. Crawford, Polanco—didn't improve, and others didn't have enough at-bats to give a decent sample. But then I look at guys that had terrible ’24s that were good in ’23 in Crawford (.266/.380/.438 in ’23) and Mitch Garver (.270/.370/.500 in ’23 playing about half-time). Throw Arozarena, who was a ’23 All-Star, in with that group too. It's actually a pretty good lineup. Nobody expects Victor Robles to bat .400 or Julio to carry a .360+ on-base all season long, but without spending all their time fretting about barrel rates and exit velocity these guys will put up good numbers.

That said, if they can find some more depth for third base, I wouldn't complain. Polanco doesn't inspire any confidence in me, even after his having knee surgery over the offseason to deal with injuries that hampered him last year, but he's the best available option and this club can carry him even if he turns out to just be an adequate-glove-no-hit type at this point. But it'd be nice to have someone on the bench to step in once in a while besides Dylan Moore. Maybe Donovan Solano can be that guy? Occasionally? When he isn't needed at first base?

Oddly, my biggest concern with the Mariners right now is relief pitching. Once can always hope that Dan Wilson will trend a little more old-school and use his starters for 6-7-8 innings on the regular, but assuming he doesn't things are fairly iffy beyond fireballing Andres Muñoz. On the other hand, the pitching side of things has been quite competent even when the batting sucked, so perhaps they'll do well with another crop of who's-that-guy and never-heard-of-hims alongside Muñoz and maybe Matt Brash.

Will they be good enough to win the division? Well, that one's hard to say. Houston isn't as good as they have been, which helps. The Rangers have a decent offense but, as usual, very questionable pitching. The A's and Angels will stink. It'll be a three-team race, and at this point there's no reason to think the M's can't finish atop the pile.

 

Meanwhile, Commissioner Rob Manfred managed to insult ESPN while announcing MLB was breaking its contract with them after this season. The league issued a statement that read, in part, "in recent years, we have seen ESPN scale back their baseball coverage and investment in a way that is not consistent with the sport’s appeal or performance on their platform." Really? That seems to be outside of MLB's authority to declare. And probably irrelevant. ESPN is a cable station, and cable as a business model is dying an ever-quickening death. As such, ESPN requested a renegotiation of some of the terms of the deal and MLB threw a hissy fit. "Given that MLB provides strong viewership, valuable demographics, and the exclusive right to cover unique events like the Home Run Derby, ESPN’s demand to reduce rights fees is simply unacceptable," the statement continued, before basically saying they'd take their business to other services in a manner that reminded me of Eric Cartman from South Park whining "Screw you guys, I'm going home."

If Manfred and company can recover from their little tantrum, they should recognize that this is probably for the good—getting away from the cable model is a necessity, as if the ongoing problems with regional sports networks going bankrupt hasn't made that clear already. Short term, they'll have to take less money from more distribution models to replace ESPN's playoff coverage and, if anyone continues to care, Home Run Derby/All-Star Week programming. Losing the ESPN exclusive Game of the Week is a financial hit, sure, but get creative. MLB already has smaller deals with streamers Apple TV+ and Roku for games throughout the season. Maybe investigate going back to a broadcast TV Game of the Week beyond the Saturday Fox game; broadcast TV is losing out to streamers, they might want back into the mix, and for years MLB had shared broadcast rights between ABC and NBC. Maybe don't try to replace the ESPN weekly game at all, maybe investigate a whole new system that fully embraces streaming options for every viewer wanting to watch their teams.

But no, that would require admitting the cable model is doomed and being proactive with individual teams about jettisoning their cable contracts.

Clearly the league will be dragged kicking and screaming into the future as more cable arrangements bite the dust from RSN bankruptcies or the staving off of such ruin, as ESPN seems to be doing here.

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners, Posted on February 20, 2025 at 11:44PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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The Borowitz Report

Things continue to spiral down into catastrophe with POTUS47 and his bosses Elon and Vlad, and sure, I've got opinions and thoughts about that, but I'm not going to share them just now because (a) I'm at least a day behind the news and whatever I post here now would likely be obsolete already, superseded by even more catastrophic horribleness; and (b) this is one of those "things other people said" posts.

Leading off, Andy Borowitz. The satirist has been on a roll of late, and, sure, he's been given a mountain of material so you can only imagine what didn't make his cut for publication. Here are a few of Andy's recent gems:

RFK Jr.’s Confirmation Hailed By National Alliance of Funeral Directors

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary on Thursday received a rousing thumbs-up from some of his most prominent supporters, the National Alliance of Funeral Directors.

“For years, the funeral industry has suffered as a result of the Democratic Party’s unabashed anti-death agenda,” the group said in an official statement. “We are confident that Secretary Kennedy will make death great again.”

But the confirmation drew a less enthusiastic reaction from one of Kennedy’s detractors, the worm who spent several years feasting on his brain.

“As a worm, you’d expect me to be pro-death,” the worm said. “But this is insane.”

In a more muted comment, Dr. Mehmet Oz said, “Well, at least I won’t be the biggest quack in the government.”

Putin Agrees to Negotiate with Musk over Ownership of Trump

MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—Vladimir Putin has entered into negotiations with Elon Musk over the ownership of Donald J. Trump, the Kremlin confirmed on Tuesday.

Those negotiations, however, are proving contentious, as the Russian president is arguing that, having fully owned Trump between 2017 and 2021, he is entitled to a majority stake now.

For his part, Musk claims that he purchased Trump outright by spending nearly $300 million on his 2024 campaign.

In one heated exchange, Musk reportedly told the Russian leader, “You’re being greedy, Vlad—you already own Tulsi.”

Europe United in Belief That JD Vance is a Prick

MUNICH (The Borowitz Report)—Crediting the vice president with ushering in a new era of European solidarity, attendees at the Munich Security Conference left Friday’s session united in the belief that JD Vance is a prick.

“I came to Munich full of skepticism that we as a group of nations could find common ground on anything,” Danish delegate Hartvig Dorkelson said. “That all changed the moment that asshat Vance opened his mouth.”

Though he was grateful that all the nations of Europe could agree that Vance is a ginormous dick, Dorkelson warned against taking this historic consensus for granted.

“I worry that our unity could be short-lived,” he said. “So we must invite that fucker to speak again next year.”

Next up, via our friend Craig, is US District Court Judge Ana Reyes, who presided over a hearing regarding POTUS47’s executive order banning transgender Americans from the military. She had the following exchange with Department of Justice lawyer Jason Lynch, after failing to get a clear response from Lynch about whether the language of the EO is prejudicial. “The government is not willing to take a position [that] to categorically call a group of people selfish is demeaning?” she said. “The answer is ‘yes it is,’ ‘no it isn’t,’ or ‘I can’t say.’” Lynch continued to evade, which begat this:

REYES: This is a policy from the President of the United States affecting thousands of people ... [that calls] an entire group of people lying dishonest people who are undisciplined, immodest, and have no integrity. How is that anything other than showing animus?

LYNCH: I don't have an answer for you.

REYES: You do have an answer, you just don't want to give it.

The EO also attacks "radical gender ideology," a term no lawyer has been able to define in court.

REYES: If you can't articulate what radical gender ideology means, how is the defense secretary going to know what it means?

LYNCH: I'm loathe to speculate [what the president meant].

REYES: It's not like I randomly picked you off the street. You're the government's representative here.

May we have more like this from the courts, please.

Batting third, Joanne Carducci (AKA @JoJoFromJerz), who on a podcast dubbed Elon Musk "Phony Stark," which made me laugh heartily.

And the cleanup hitter, a poor sap named Staci White in Nebraska, who voted for POTUS47 and has entered the "find out" portion of FAFO:

Dang, why didn't I just pick Kamala?

Good question.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Andy Borowitz, Posted on February 20, 2025 at 12:29AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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The world sucks, and other observations

Quality TV as an escape from the world crumbling around us

It's been a rough week. Following a rough few weeks. I mean, in the world. I've already mentioned how it's been influencing my state of mind, and it continues to. But there is life beyond the chaos and destruction raging all around us. For now, anyway.

Some stray items and thoughts on the past week or so:

• I had some folks over the other night for food and conversation and general socializing, which was good. It was good in that some of these folks I hadn't seen in a long time and it's always good to catch up a bit; it was good that some people got to meet some other people that had only existed as faceless anecdotes before; it was good in the very base sense that human interaction is necessary. I've not had as much of that as I'd like of late.
• Some of the human interactions of late weren't good, though, including a near-fistfight at one of my umpiring shifts the other day. It made no sense to me, was based entirely, it seems, on some machismo bullshit carried over from prior seasons—the sort of Phil Nevin/Anthony Rendon/Jesse Winker-type posturing I have no patience for even on the best of days—and it ruined an otherwise decent afternoon/evening. I had to stop being Fun Umpire Guy on a dime and immediately shift into Guy In Charge With Authority, warn players, and was a hair's breadth from ejecting multiple men and women (!! it's almost never the women, but this time...) before one of the team captains settled his crew down a literal instant under the wire. There are on occasion days when I half-expect some sort of nonsense to occur during a shift, but never in the winter time. The teams that sign up for winter league are the die-hards that play all the time, that are so familiar to each other and to we the umpires that it's generally easy-going. (The real assholery tends to happen in the summer, when guys that are bitter about not making their JV teams in college sign up for a slot and ruin things with uber-competitiveness.) Fortunately, my relationship with the involved teams is good enough that when I saw a bunch of the players the next night everyone was cool and ready to play a conflict-free game, but hoo-boy was I not receptive to being told by rec-league softball players in a stakes-less environment that I needed to abide by some macho code of utter crapola because they were pissed off about a guy on the other team lining one back through the box. Half a dozen f-ing Phil Nevins in my face at the end of that game. Get a grip.
• Apple TV has some really good programming. If you've got budget for only one streaming service, that's probably the one you want—not just the best-of-the-best Ted Lassos and For All Mankinds, but there's great stuff in Severance, Silo, Shrinking, The Big Door Prize, The Morning Show, Sunny, Dark Matter, and the two shows I binged through in the past week: Constellation and Shining Girls. Both are just single-season, eight-episode series; the former deserves a renewal and more but won't get it, the latter wrapped up at an end point. Constellation—I had to watch it with that name, right?—is a mind-bending story following an astronaut who survives a massive accident on the ISS and returns to Earth to find things not as she left them; we learn over the course of things that two other former astronauts experienced much the same thing in years past and it's a WTF sort of mystery and psycho-thriller sci-fi exploration with quantum physics. Shining Girls is a more gritty, Earthbound murder-mystery sort of thing that also hinges on mind-bending quantum physics weirdness that stars Elisabeth Moss and only disappoints a little bit when it gets to the end and the source of the mind-bendiness is located but remains unexplained. Ambitious and well-done, both of them.
• Ty France has a job again. The former Seattle Mariner first baseman signed for the upcoming season with the Minnesota Twins and explained to reporters why he's coming off of some bad seasons. Spoiler warning: I was right. France had some smallish injury issues last year, but as he said to the press, it wasn't really the injury. He doesn't name-drop former Mariners manager Scott Servais or former Mariner "batting coach" Jarret DeHart, but he said that after he hit a rough patch early in 2023, he focused on analytics—Stacast-type nonsense like launch angles and barrel rates—which are the only things DeHart seemed to know anything about or care at all about. “There was a lot of it—the analytical side—where I tried to tap into, that I shouldn't tap into,” he said. “I should just worry about being a baseball player and hitting the ball.” After leaving the Mariners and the Servais/DeHart school of not-hitting, France started coming back into his own with Cincinnati. “When I’m at my best, I’m not focused on analytics. I’m just simplifying hitting ... the last year or two hasn’t been fun baseball for me. I think my time in Cincinnati last year, having that reset, I found that joy again." Do I still think Ty France is going to win a batting title or two? Well, I'm not as sure as I was when he first came to the M's, but if he can stay away from Jarret DeHart and keep from getting hurt too much, then...yeah, it wouldn't surprise me at all.
• And, back to the collapse of the nation, I thought last night's "A" block form Rachel Maddow was worth passing around. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and though it's not like Hanford is in my back yard, it is in my state. And similar issues are rampant across the country now that POTUS47 and his boss Elon are taking a blowtorch to the government. It just astounds me that this is allowed to happen—every single elected Republican, it seems, is on board with destroying the United States. The Senators just confirm these dangerously unqualified and destructive cabinet officers without objection, the Representatives in the House have the power to impeach all of these agents of chaos and disaster but don't see any need. They've all got to go. All of them.

Tagged Politics, TV, President VonClownstick, Baseball, Rachel Maddow, Umping, Posted on February 19, 2025 at 2:21AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Crisis Overload

Our new DNI is a threat to national security

Hi, Internet. I know, it's been a few days. And it's not like there wasn't a ton of stuff happening in the world to opine about.

New outrages from the POTUS47 regime are flying in on what feels like an hourly basis, but I kind of hit a wall. I mean, I can write here about how this country is looking into the abyss because of Republican support for a fascist president, or conversely about how at least the judiciary is still operating under the Constitution (for now) and how Democratic leaders have found their spines. But let's be real, my readership is tiny and this basically serves as a means for me to vent rather than a way to communicate with people who need to be told/shown what's going on.

I can, and have (repeatedly), written to my Congressional representatives, imploring them to not only do anything they can to stand in the way of the criminal behavior of POTUS47 and company but to in turn implore their colleagues from across the aisle to wake the hell up and smell the autocracy—a majority of both Houses of Congress appears content to simply allow their power as a co-equal branch of government to be usurped, something that very majority would rail against if it were being usurped by anyone else. (I've also written specifically to Senator Cantwell to chastise her for voting to confirm some of the unqualified and dangerous cabinet nominees. In what universe is fossil-fuel fetishist Doug Burgum an appropriate nominee for Secretary of the Interior?!)

It does make me feel like I'm doing something, as does my monthly contribution to the ACLU, but the fear and powerlessness is getting weightier.

Which is, I know, exactly what the autocrats want. So I can't let it overwhelm for very long.

Tall order, given that:

• Today 52 United States Senators confirmed a Russian operative to be Director of National Intelligence. International relations and alliances are now damaged in even more incalculable ways than they were by the confirmations of Pete Hegselth (who was booed soundly yesterday at a military base in Germany), Kristi Noem (who cosplays whenever she appears on TV and declared that migrants who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in recent days are given full due process despite having been given none whatsoever when apprehended), and Pam Bondi (who has issued threats promising reprisals to anyone—including the judicial branch of government—that "interferes with Federal law enforcement").
• Over the weekend the Vice President of the United States said that judges should be ignored and that the Executive Branch should defy court orders.
• On Monday POTUS47 fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics, the agency responsible for overseeing ethics rules and financial disclosures for the executive branch. I'm actually kind of surprised it took him three weeks do do that; I guess he didn't know the office existed before.
• Unofficial Secretary of Corruption Elon Musk held a press conference in the Oval Office yesterday—making unspoken power moves to show that he's the boss, not the guy sitting at the Resolute Desk—during which he lied his ass off about "waste" and "fraud" he's "discovered" while taking a meat-axe to government agencies and about being "transparent" about everything his alleged department does. He did admit to a couple of things, though—replying to a question asking how "we can trust what you say," Elon said, "Some of the things that I say will be incorrect"; on the subject of conflicts of interest, he admitted in between lies that "You can see: am I doing something that benefits one of my companies, or not. It’s totally obvious," and yes, Elon, it is totally obvious that you are self-dealing and favoring your own businesses.

I want to post about fun things. About the fact that today pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training and that Ty France got himself a gig. About the twists and turns in the second season of the amazing show "Severance." About some of the interesting nuggets in the book I'm reading, "What's Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing" (did you know Toby Ziegler was almost portrayed by Eugene Levy? Can you imagine??!). About comics, about staff parties for side gigs, about how quiet and serene it is on Super Bowl Sunday when one doesn't give a damn about football.

But instead I'm fretting about this. Because it's that fucking serious.

In the wake of the sanctioned-by-the-president theft of all Americans' taxpayer data, I have frozen my credit just in case. Elon can sell, possibly already has sold, this data to malevolent actors in and out of world governments. I suspect ID scamming and frauds of that nature will soon see a significant spike, though I wonder if we'll know about it given how many avenues of investigation have been decapitated and that the Senate is primed to confirm yet another criminal when they vote on FBI Director in the coming days.

Once again, everyone who decided not to vote because they couldn't be bothered to make a choice between the smart black lady and the stupid con man can go to hell.

Here are some bits that other folks said/wrote over the past few days that deserve sharing...

 

Craig Calcaterra on POTUS47’s cadre defying court orders:

At some point one of the judges whose orders are being ignored will have to either jail the DOJ attorney of record or issue a bench warrant for the jailing of an executive branch official in order to force compliance. If they do not do that and, instead, allow their orders to be ignored unchecked, it will by definition subvert the Constitution, thereby rendering it a dead letter;

If a judge whose orders are being ignored jails the DOJ attorney or issues a bench warrant for the jailing of an executive branch official and the agencies in question nonetheless continue to violate the orders via subordinates or by presidential order it will by definition subvert the Constitution, thereby rendering it a dead letter;

If a judge whose orders are being ignored either jails the DOJ attorney or issues a bench warrant for the jailing of an executive branch official and the president attempts to "pardon" them – nonsensical in this case but I wouldn't put it past him – that would be the same thing as the president declaring that the executive branch is not subject to the courts, which will by definition subvert the Constitution, thereby rendering it a dead letter;

Of course the president may simply say, without the pretextual use of the pardon power, that he doesn't have to listen to the courts, which accomplishes the same thing;

If the U.S. Marshals in charge of enforcing court orders and apprehending those who violate them refuse to comply with a court's order to jail the DOJ attorney or the executive branch official in question, the courts will thereby have been stripped of their enforcement power, which will by definition subvert the Constitution, thereby rendering it a dead letter.

If I have missed an option here – other than, you know, actual compliance with court orders – please let me know. But from what I can tell we are about to witness nothing short of the final conceivable stress test of the foundations of American democracy. We have never been anywhere close to this place before. There has certainly never been an executive branch that seems as willing to assert compete dictatorial control of the government as the Trump administration is at this moment. And, to be sure, there has never been a branch of the government that has been willing to cede its own power like the Republican-controlled Congress apparently is.

Mary Trump on Elon's presser in the Oval:

One of the reasons Musk's fits in so well with the Trump regime is because he has absolutely no sense of self-awareness, and he clearly missed the irony when he went off about unelected bureaucrats, considering he's kind of the poster child for those.

“If there's not a good feedback loop from the people to the government, and if you have rule of the bureaucrat, if the bureaucracy is in charge, and then what meaning does democracy actually have? If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the President and the Senate and the house, then we don't live in a democracy if we live in a bureaucracy. So it's incredibly important that we close that feedback loop. We fix that feedback loop and that the public's elected representatives, the president, the House, and the Senate decide what happens as opposed to a large unelected bureaucracy.”

Bureaucracy is not a form of government. Democracy and bureaucracy are not in tension. Fascist states have bureaucracies, too, as we are finding out. Unfortunately, therefore, we have to continue to listen to this malicious Nazi because he has all of the power and let us not kid ourselves otherwise.

 Jeremy Novak:

Trump’s victory and MAGA’s ascendance is not the revolution. What we are witnessing in the executive branch of government right now is not the revolution.

It is a desperate power grab by elites.

This is the elites gone haywire, grasping for further power to ensure they are not held to account. It is what causes the regular people to rise up.

And it is the least self-aware power grab in history. The people currently running the government think they are the ones conducting the revolution. In reality, they are the establishment angering the common people of this country and sparking an uprising.

If anyone thinks that Elon Musk is the leader of the revolution, they are delusional. He has survived off of family wealth and government largesse to amass his fortune. He is the definition of elite. He has no idea what regular people go through.

The same is true for Donald Trump. Sure, he might talk like a regular person and endear himself to them as a result. But he talks like that because he can afford to. A normal person starting from nothing and trying to get ahead in life could never talk like the does; they’d never be taken seriously. Like Musk, he’s part of the elite.

Despite the revolutionary rhetoric of MAGA, they are really just cosplaying revolutionaries to keep their base fired up and voting.

 I better stop now. I've got other things to do.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Posted on February 12, 2025 at 9:01PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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We're not even three weeks in

The Bizarro Cabinet just got another supervillain, as Russell Vought—architect of Project 2025, champion of pain and chaos, and admitted enemy of the Constitution—was confirmed by every Republican in the United States Senate. (It's fitting that our new Director of the Office of Management and Budget shares a surname with the evil corporation that employs Homelander and the other psychopathic superpowered maniacs from the comic-book series and TV show "The Boys"; I mean, it makes it very easy for him to be on brand.)

All of the Republicans in the Senate have just declared themselves to be anti-American and in blatant violation of their oaths of office. Every one now is under grounds for expulsion. Of course, they're also running the joint, so they won't actually be expelled. But I want Democratic leaders to remember this and other confirmation votes when they regain Senate control, assuming we actually have elections in 2026.

This guy, along with Kash Patel and possibly Tulsi Gabbard, is the most dangerous of all of POTUS47’s absurd nominees. RFK Jr. and now-Secretary of Defense Hegseth are also horrifyingly bad, but Vought is straight-up destruction personified. And all 53 Republican Senators voted "aye."

Assuming we survive this presidential term as something still resembling the United States of America—and, yeah, that's a big "if"—I don't see how the Republican Party can come back from what it's become. Its very name has already become an Orwellian term of irony, just as Presidential Puppet-Master Elon's "Department of Government Efficiency" is really about being "efficient" in destroying the government.

I realize people out there don't want to come here for yet another screed about the political hellscape we now live in. It'd be more fun to post about the great TV on now—anyone watched "Paradise" on Hulu yet? It's terrific—or how I'm eager to see the upcoming Fantastic Four film, or even complain some more about the Commissioner of Baseball being a fool and a disgusting boil on the face of the sport. But the calamities just keep coming and the speed at which our country is dissolving into oligarchic chaos is relentless.

I am heartened that Democratic leaders have (belatedly) started standing up for us, the law, and sanity. I am hopeful that the pushback we have already seen is but a glimmer of the backlash to come. But normal avenues of resistance seem impossibly inadequate to the moment—yes, regaining control of Congress in the Midterms will be enormous, but we have to get there first and still have elections not under the control of King Elon and his puppet the orange-faced moron.

We'd have a real chance at saving ourselves from this self-inflicted bloodletting if even a portion of elected Republicans respected their oaths. But today they have doubled down on betrayal. They are insurrectionists just as much as the January 6th rioters were, and if they are not ether stopped or driven to grow consciences, that war Captain Pike told folks about in the SNW pilot seems inevitable.

Please absorb the two videos below for further edification. And please make use of the link in the sidebar to write your representatives and let them know you want this country to remain a democratic republic.

 

 

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Star Trek, Posted on February 6, 2025 at 7:59PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Daily outrage

So, POTUS47 just went on TV with a war criminal and declared that he wants the United States to occupy the Gaza strip in perpetuity. What was it Vizzini said in The Princess Bride? "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders—the most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well-known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!'" OK, one could argue (incorrectly) that Israel and Gaza aren't in Asia, and yes, neither Netanyahu or Hamas or the PLO or anyone like that is Sicilian. But here's 47 going all in on both of those "classic blunders." (I'm realizing as I type this that Vizzini dies right after he says that line, so maybe this isn't the best reference. Still.)

It's just another day in the USA under POTUS47. Outrageous behavior from the executive branch of government? Check. Illegal acts committed and/or proposed? Check.

But despite all that happened today, the thing I keep going back to is the language in the memos. I refer to the memos from Unelected Elon to the entire Federal workforce, one to Inspectors General, and one gutting the DOJ.

The first one, the "Fork in the Road" memo that cribbed much of its language from an email Elon used to fire employees at Twitter, says that POTUS47 has "reformed the federal hiring process to focus on merit," which is a line that should precede the loudest and longest laugh track ever recorded. More importantly, it also says that "employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward," while leaving to the reader's imagination what is and is not "suitable" and what conduct fits what standard. It's the line that puts the lie to the prior one about merit-based hiring: Going forward, "merit" is equated with the "enhanced standards of suitability and conduct," which will not relate to competence or productivity in civil service work. That was the old, not-enhanced standard. The new, enhanced standards relate to toadyism and willingness to commit crimes and one's level of resistance to inflicting harm.

Next, the IG memo, which attempts to illegally fire Inspectors General "due to changing priorities." The Office of Inspector General was established to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the executive branch. That is their only job. Therefore, firing them "due to changing priorities" is an admission that this new regime is in favor of waste, fraud, and abuse.

Then the decapitation if law enforcement. Department of Justice prosecutors were fired because, according to the memo, "the leadership of the Department [cannot] trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully." Well, guess what, that is not the job of anyone in the Department of Justice. The DOJ and the FBI are supposed to be apolitical, independent agencies. They are wholly unconcerned with implementing the agenda of any president. The memo here admits in broad daylight that this regime is opposed to law. Boiled down, this memo says quite plainly that the agenda they wish to implement is against the law, therefore these people that enforce the law must be fired.

It boggles the mind that we haven't heard from any elected officials that the 47 regime has declared out in the open that they intend to crime all day long for every day they're in power.

Yes, some have quite properly expressed outrage over the specifics of these firings and other illegal actions. Adam Schiff has been awesome, a number of Congresspeople have stepped up. But someone needs to get on a less granual messaging campaign highlighting the fact that the regime has overtly declared itself to be  unlawful, criminal, and tyrannical.

Charges need to be brought. Articles of impeachment need to be drawn up. Will they succeed? Likely not, but that doesn't mean you don't act. This isn't frivolous, this isn't petty, this isn't the sort of made-up bullshit grievance whining that Republicans have engaged in since Gingrich. This is real, and Democrats need to stand up to the bullies across the aisle and not be cowed by Republican hypocrisy and gaslighting.

Posted on February 4, 2025 at 6:15PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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In which I parrot Craig C again

An neo-Nazi has staged a coup and it must not stand

I was going to write a bit of a screed today about how Elon has completely upended critical parts of the Federal government in defiance of law and without any authority to do so. I hadn't quite landed on how to articulate it, though, by the time I read today's edition of Craig Calcaterra's "Cup of Coffee." And, once more, Craig said what I would have said, only better. So I'll simply share his words with a "yes, 100% that" concurrence.

Since Friday, people working for Elon Musk, who do not appear to be government employees of any kind, have taken over the United States Treasury's and the Office of Personnel Management's payment mechanisms, have downloaded the most sensitive personal information of millions of Americans imaginable to private servers, and have locked actual government employees out.

Musk and his people have also taken over the General Services Administration, which is the agency responsible for government contracting. Which means he has taken possession of all the financial and personal information of everyone who does business with the federal government, including the details of government contracts, bids, company filings, and other information.

Musk and his people also have taken over the U.S. Agency for International Development, specifically taking control of its security systems, personnel files, and intelligence reports much of which is classified information and which pertains to thousands upon thousands of U.S. government workers operating overseas, many in classified roles. When Musk's people arrived at USAID headquarters its security officials, quite properly, attempted to bar access. Musk's people threatened to call in U.S. Marshalls and take the information at gunpoint, after which they forced their way in, took possession of the information they sought, and placed USAID officials on leave.

Which is to say, Elon Musk has, unilaterally and without any legal authority whatsoever:

• Unlawfully taken control of the United States Treasury and intends to unilaterally cut off payments to disfavored populations both here and abroad in defiance of Congress, the courts, and the American people;
• Unlawfully taken possession of personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans and thousands of U.S. government workers and has unlawfully downloaded that data to his private servers; and
• Unlawfully obtained the financial and personal information of everyone who does business with the federal government, including classified information.

It is impossible to overstate the levels of illegality we're witnessing. Off the top of my head this would appear constitute theft of U.S. government property, theft of public funds, the violation of taxpayer confidentiality, the unlawful releasing of names, sources, and methods of U.S. overseas activity, and I'm sure multiple other offenses. Just as it is impossible to overstate the illegality, it is likewise impossible to overstate the seriousness of this situation. If any other person or actor had done even a fraction of what Elon Musk and those at his command have done over the past three days they would find themselves in federal prison for decades if not for life.

That being said, I honestly don't know what can possibly be done here given Trump's dictatorial control over government right now, the certainty that he would prevent the DOJ, FBI, or any other authority from investigating any of this, and the certainty that he would issue preemptive pardons for Musk and his team should anyone even think about snooping around. But a coup has occurred. A coup perpetrated by a drug-addled Nazi sympathizer and a small team of extremely young men who likely have no idea how many laws they have broken, even if that's no defense to their crimes. The nightmare will not end unless and until Elon Musk and those he has ordered to infiltrate the United States government are in shackles.

Every Democratic Member of Congress, starting with ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, Elizabeth Warren, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden, and the ranking members of committees dealing with national security and government contracting should be holding emergency news conferences, raising the alarm, and demanding access to federal facilities, with TV cameras in tow, so it can be documented what they find or, more likely, how they are unlawfully turned away. As for the rest of us: this is the sort of thing for which a general strike is the only possible response, not that I expect such a thing could be effectively pulled off in this country.

Honestly, though, I have no idea what happens next. We are in completely uncharted waters. Nothing like this has ever happened in this history of the United States. But something has to happen in response.

Tagged Politics, Craig Calcaterra, President VonClownstick, Posted on February 3, 2025 at 5:02PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Bright spots in the gloom

Mack the anti-knife

As POTUS47 and his criminal coterie continue to wreak havoc and destruction upon our very way of life, people can still enjoy themselves. I mean, many of us can, and, you know, for now. We'll see if that remains true in a few months.

But this past Saturday, fun was had. My friend Mack McCoy and I—yes, I have tried calling him "Bones," but it just doesn't stick—share a birthday, and Mack had dibs on celebrating on the nearest Saturday to it this time around. And he didn't skimp. Mack rented out the Northwest Room at Ray's Boathouse for the evening and hosted upwards of 60 people with food, drink, and karaoke. I can't fathom what that must have cost, but it weren't cheap and despite my having been shunted to a corner with eight of my softball teammates with no table or chairs when dinner came around (due to some snafu with counting RSVPs and/or crashers of the plus-more-than-1 variety) we all greatly appreciated it. As Mack put it to me, "I had a good year, and this seemed like a good way to share a bit of that." Mack the mensch.

After the program, which consisted of some silliness and some speechifying by a few folks and a rendition of "Rocket Mack" (apologies to Bernie Taupin), and the very good meal nine of us ate while standing in a corner of a tented patio while everyone else was seated comfortably in the main room, Mack kicked off the karaoke portion of the evening, as that's one of his go-to activities. It was largely as one might expect such a thing to be, especially when there's an open bar. And Mack choosing to sing "The Warrior" was somehow incongruous; that's, I don't know, a Mack-from-the-mirror-universe thing. I was convinced to participate—Men at Work's "Overkill," which was sort of within my range, and The Traveling Wilburys' "End of the Line," which was not—and though I am certain I sounded horrible, I'm equally certain I was no more horrible than anyone else that got up there.

More than anything, though, it was a good excuse to hang out with all of my teammates from the Smiling Potatoes of Death softball squad and enjoy the company of some really swell folks. As well as have a good meal on Mack's dime.

A nice respite form the chaos and calamities of the greater world.

Tagged Friends, Softball, Posted on February 3, 2025 at 4:49PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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