Analogies to Doug Fister and Lucille Bluth

A couple of topics today, starting with last night's umpiring.

As on Monday, we were joined at the field by Alfred the amateur photographer and former Army medic. Unlike on Monday, we had no need for his medic experience, though it was a close thing. This time I was the one that went down in a heap.

About midway through our first game of the night, a batter for the team that calls themselves...I want to say Pushing Bunts, but I think that's wrong; they're a new team and their name isn't on the official documentation yet. Anyway, their batter took a cut at a fat pitch right down the middle and juuust got under it a smidge and fouled it straight back. At speed. At me. I instinctively began to turn and duck away, but I was nevertheless struck flush on the temple. I hit the turf and stayed there for maybe 10 or 15 seconds, during which time half the players on both teams were rushing toward home plate. I got up with a painful impact reminder above my ear, but otherwise none the worse for wear. I was good to go after a minute or two and thankfully didn't need to prevail upon Alfred's Army expertise. But it wasn't fun, and I felt it a bit more painfully later in the night well after I'd gone home. I took a couple Tylenol caps and I could ignore it again. Today it's pretty much fine, though I can still feel a phantom sting.

In retrospect, this was not a bad thing for my ego. Because all those players were concerned and one of them—I don't know who, I was still down on the turf, but it was a guy—said, "shit, dude, you can't get hurt, you're the good ump." Anyway, the rest of the night when several of the players came to bat they checked in. "You still OK, man? Only one pitch coming in at a time, right?" I waved them off. "I'm good, no worries. Occupational hazzard." Which is true, but I may be losing a step, because even though I've taken several errant pitches or foul balls to the shins or the sternum, I'd until now always been quick enough to get out of the way of anything at my head. But I think it must have looked pretty bad from the perspective of, well, everyone else, because there seemed to be real concern that we'd have to stop the games. I was reminded of either a World Series or playoff game several years back wherein pitcher Doug Fister of the Detroit Tigers was hit on the side of his head with a line drive back through the box. Everyone was rightly worried, but Fister just waived off the training staff and his manager, or tried to anyway, and shrugged it off like it was nothing and went back to pitching. He seemed annoyed by the attention. Of course, I also thought of Billy Wagner getting similarly tagged with a hard liner to the side of the head and he had to be carried off the field on a stretcher, so...yeah, there's a range of possibilities. At least (a) this is softball, where the ball isn't so dense and the speeds it travels aren't extreme; and (b) this was a foul tip with no extra velocity added to it by the swing of the bat. Really, the time a pissed off soccer player kicked a soccer ball at me was worse.

So we moved on and finished out the games without much other drama. The second game featured less experienced teams, which meant more errors, more weird plays, and, interestingly, a walkoff comeback victory by the team I figured would lose handily at the outset. I had to explain both the infield fly and obstruction rules to newbies, but nothing outlandish.

Alfred again shared some of his photos with me, so I'm including some here. Sadly, he did not get any shots of my close encounter with a foul ball.

Stephen and Colin celebrate finally throwing different options in rock-paper-scissors to determine which would be the home team. I think it took five tries?

I don't recall what this was about, but I'm probably saying something like, “yeah, it's an out, what do you want me to do?"

Here is when I and one of her teammates had to explain to the inexperienced first-basewoman why I called obstruction on her and ruled a runner who appeared to have been forced out to be safe at second base.

This and the next are actually from Monday, but I like them in sequence because this one shows my usual move of running with the batter toward first base in order to be in better position to both see a play at first and hear the pop of the ball being caught...

...and this shows my usual move when Joel is batting; I know he's not only going to be safe at first, but if there's a play to be made on him it will be at third, so I'm hurrying there instead. Typically I can get there by the time Joel's around second. He's not Barry Allen, but he is faster than most.

Onward to topic number two, our demented president.

The felonious moron occupying the White House held one of his mock Cabinet meetings today, wherein nothing of consequence was discussed. In fact, Felon47 was so uninterested in discussing substance that at one point he meandered off into one of his stupid "sir" stories. You know, a story he tells in which some other person addresses him reverently as "sir," which is a sure tell that it never happened. This one was about, I kid you not, Sharpie pens.

Of all the many many things this pathetic excuse for a human being says and does that are horrifying and imbecilic, this rates near or at the bottom of the list, but it still sticks in my craw because what he did with this story was have a Lucille Bluth moment on camera.

Apropos of nothing, he complained that the pens presidents have generally used in signing ceremonies, the ceremonial pens that are then typically given away as souvenirs to people attending the signing, are "thousand dollar pens" and "don't write very well" and that he really prefers the Sharpies. So he found himself talking to someone at the Sharpie company (sure, Donny) and said he'd prefer to use the Sharpie for these things but couldn't possibly use a commercially branded pen in front of the press and so on (sure, Donny), so the imaginary Sharpie guy told him they could make special Sharpies just for him, ones that say "the White House" and even have his signature on them, and that he could have them free of charge. Ever magnanimous, Felon47 insisted on paying for them (I mean, it's not his money, right, it's our money, who gives a damn about our money?) and that he used his "art of the deal" skills to buy them for five dollars a pen. "Five dollars instead of a thousand dollars, and the pens are better."

OK, two things: The ceremonial pens were nice pens, probably a couple hundred bucks a pop, but not a grand per pen. That's one of the fictitious numbers he pulls out of nowhere like when he says there are 15 points in his peace plan (that has zero points because it doesn't exist). And, the retail price of a Sharpie pen, when bought in a box of 36, is sixty-four cents. Even if we factor in the custom branding of "The White House" and all that, you can buy them retail—as I'm sure some White House staffer actually did—for a little more than a dollar apiece if bought in bulk. Good deal-making skills, you idiot. It's no wonder you don't care about inflation and the affordability of goods to American consumers, you've never pumped gas or bought groceries.

Of course, the interaction never really occurred, which means that even in his made-up fantasies about his alleged great deal-making he still fucks up and doesn't know it.

Topic three: Opening Day!

I did not get tickets to this year's opening day game, but will be at the park in person to see your Seattle Mariners on Monday night. Tonight I watched on TV, and for the first time in years did it without having to resort to skirting the system. We now have a local streaming option for the M's, and it's not all that pricey given the nature of inflation and the current economy. Of course, one could argue that the current economy means you don't add new expenses no  matter how reasonable, but the difference between the MLB.TV package I'd been using for years and that plus the new Mariner streaming product is basically the cost of one in-person game. So I put my tickets for tomorrow night on StubHub and assuming they sell will pay for it with the proceeds. It's going to be cold out there tomorrow night anyway and everyone I asked to go with me either said no immediately or bailed later, so this seemed a good option.

Meantime, the M's did play tonight and lost to the Cleveland Guardians. Because the only way the Mariners could score tonight was to hit solo home runs. Jesus, guys, I thought we'd been over this already: There are other ways to score in baseball. Put runners on base and move them along. To be fair, none of the four homers hit by the M's appeared to be "on purpose," it wasn't a case of swinging for the fences, just happy accidents on well-struck liners. But they also struck out 14 times, and the combo of four solo shots and 14 Ks and nothing else (their only other hits were two-out doubles, and not in the same frame) is not a promising way to begin the season.

Well, there's time to turn it around. 161 more to go, after all.

Tagged Umping, Baseball, President VonClownstick, Politics, Softball, Posted on March 27, 2026 at 1:41AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Link of the day

As I get set to bug out for the evening, allow me to heartily recommend today's Jeff Tiedrich column to all y'all. It sums things up rather nicely vis-à-vis the news of the day: https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/lets-all-watch-a-french-general-tell...

Not unrelatedly, I'm glad I'm not planning to fly anywhere anytime soon and would urge everyone to delay any flight plans they may have in or out of American airports.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Jeff Tiedrich, Posted on March 23, 2026 at 5:36PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Jingoism and the WBC

Woalter and new acquaintance in Miami

This year's World Baseball Classic is not proceeding to my liking. Mostly because what I still maintain is the best baseball team on planet Earth, Team Japan, was bounced out in the quarterfinals the other night.

It wasn't a great game—the other four Japan played were better, or at least more entertaining, not just because Japan won them but because they were more evocative of the kind of well-balanced, multifaceted baseball favored in Japan. The quarterfinal against Venezuela turned out to be more USA/Latin America style ball, i.e. home-run dependent. 13 runs scored in the game, ten of them on homers. And one of them on a mind-blowing error by Japan pitcher Atsuki Taneichi (of the Chiba Marines in his day job), which really did Japan in even though the score remained relatively close.

Anyway, Japan's exit from the tournament would, you might expect, also end my interest in it; usually, you'd be right, but there are two mitigating circumstances: One, my young friend Woalter, the softball player I took to my last regular season game of the year, is from Venezuela and is attending the Miami games of the WBC. So he was in the stands, cheering on his guys, when I texted him to say, "your guys beat my guys and I am holding you personally responsible." Woalter replied by sending me video of the final play, Shohei Ohtani popping out to shallow right-center field, he'd taken on his phone. Sigh. Well, if I have to be disappointed, at least he is getting his money's worth down there. He's clearly having a blast, as evidenced by the photos he sent.

A lone Venezuelan surrounded by a pack of Dominicans and having a blast

Meanwhile, there's mitigating circumstance number two: Team USA, who will play for the title tomorrow against either Venezuela or "Italy." The members of Team USA are acting like assholes. On purpose. You've got pitcher Paul Skenes entirely missing the point and declaring, "We’re America. We’ve got to assert our dominance over everybody else." You've got team manager Mark DeRosa enforcing a sort of Bob Gibson-esque "no fraternizing" rule among the players, leading to guys who are teammates during the season snubbing each other on the field in the WBC. Seattle Mariner Cal Raleigh has been the most visible doing this because he's a catcher and everyone who comes to bat has a chance to greet him, so we saw his Mariner teammates Randy Arozarena and Josh Naylor both offer him a warm greeting only to be given the cold shoulder out of what appeared to be misplaced macho bullshit (which is indeed what it turned out to be, just teamwide rather than Raleigh-specific). You've got right-wing military asshats being brought into the clubhouse to give motivational pep talks. You've got a team of guys behaving like jingoistic ugly Americans you'd hate to cross paths with on a foreign vacation, behavior that embarrasses themselves and offends their peers, in a sporting tournament that is designed to promote and share the game of baseball with the international community. DeRosa and Team USA appear to be taking cues from our current despotic regime in their manner and attitude, and I find myself rooting hard for Venezuela to kick their asses tomorrow evening.

Here's how our pal Craig Calcaterra explained this yesterday:

While the other countries in the World Baseball Classic are celebrating their culture, engaging happily with their opponents, and appear to be having a wonderful and even joyous time, Mark De Rosa's squad has leaned into jingoism, militarism, and redass chumpfuckery. I suppose that's inevitable given that American culture and identity has increasingly become little more than an economy backed by a military. But Jesus, guys, you could do a hell of a lot better.

As I type this, though, Venezuela is losing 2-1 to "Italy" in their semifinal game. They've got three innings to come back and win it. Otherwise, the championship game will be Team USA vs. a Team Italy that is 90% American. "Italy" even getting this far is a tremendous upset, but since there are only three Italians on the roster it would be far less satisfying for them to take on Team USA tomorrow.

Plus, it would make Woalter sad. And we don't want that.

Tagged Baseball, WBC, Umping, Politics, Craig Calcaterra, Posted on March 16, 2026 at 7:05PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Ump tales, WBC action, and a few links

I've been feeling pretty good lately—the Black Hole has been keeping its distance and there's been little to no slow-witted gauzy-brain to impede my thinking. So when I found myself making mistakes during last night's umpire shift I had nothing to blame it on; I was somehow off my game in some other way.

Nothing was seriously bad, the games were not close and no one took issue with me in any major way. But, being the perfectionist I am, I noted the mistakes even if no one else did (or no one else said anything, anyway).

The most egregious thing is one I don't even know if I got wrong: for the second time in the same game, a specific player slid into a close play at third base in a forceout situation. He beat the fielder to the bag, just as he did the first time, in a comical slide, just as he did the first time. But this second instance had people objecting to my call, and since the fielder did in fact have the ball ahead of the runner making it to third, it was more than conceivable that a tag had been made at an angle I couldn't see. So, I did what you're really not supposed to do as an umpire, and polled the players that were involved and/or had a better view; no one was willing to state firmly that they were right and I was wrong, but the runner himself was so wishy washy that I took it as a tell, he knew he'd been tagged. So I overturned myself and called him out. No objections. But I have no idea what the right call would have been. He was definitely not forced, but might have been tagged, and if we'd had a second ump it might have been a sure thing. Alas.

Also, on two occasions a batter hit a ball down the left field line that skirted the third-base bag and I called them both fair. In almost immediate retrospect, I knew that they weer actually foul, but too late to change the call. In these cases, though, I do have an excuse: the turf at Bobby Morris Field has been slowly and steadily migrating north over the years, which is most notable when placing the bases in their postholes because every now and then I have to take a knife and cut the turf a bit more to extend the hole in the turf for the base peg, which no longer lines up with the hole below the turf. Those holes began as squares, but are now rectangles of around five or six inches long. This also means that the third base/left field foul line, which is supposed to overlap the edge of third base, is several inches to the outside of third base. This is wrong. But in the split-second I have to make a fair/foul call as a ball skitters past the bag, my brain noted the line and said fair when it should have noted the base and said foul. Eh, at least in those cases I can shrug it off.

There were a few ball/strike calls I messed up too, which happens here and there, but when I called ball four on one batter on a pitch that did nick the top of the strike zone, it is not unreasonable for that batter to assume that will be the call the next time she gets that pitch. In her next at-bat, the same pitch came in and I called a strike on a 3-1 count, costing her a walk. It was correct, but she was annoyed at the inconsistency (and as I had just given Todd Tichenor crap for being all over the place with his zone in the WBC game the other night I sympathized). She grounded out to end the inning.

Anyway, for the most part we all had a good time despite the frigid temps and sporadic rain and I didn't make anyone too mad. Most of the players in the three games are league vets and knew me well enough to give me a pass. Or they didn't notice or care. (Like I said, the games weren't close.)

After the shift, I got home around midnight and then stayed up all night to watch the final World Baseball Classic game from Tokyo, which saw the Czech team shut out Team Japan—for my money the most well-balanced, fundamentally-sound, top-quality team on planet Earth—for seven innings before Japan realized, hey, we're the best team on planet Earth! and opened up some whoop-ass on the poor Czech relief pitchers. A nine-spot in the 8th and a 9-0 final score. But for those first seven innings it was really something; these Czech players are pros in their home country, but mostly on the order of what we'd think of as semi-pros; the starting pitcher, who was awesome in a Jamie Moyer slow-curves and changeups kind of way, earns his living as an electrician. They take vacation time from their jobs to do these tournaments. There is one (maybe two?) player on the team that is in American minor-league ball, but generally these guys play in a low-tier European pro league that pays next to nothing and keep day jobs. Their manager is a neurosurgeon. It's impressive as hell that they shut the Japanese out for seven frames. All four of Japan's games thus far in the WBC have been tremendous: the whomping and near no-hitting of Taiwan, the tightly contested game against Korea, the pitcher's duel with Australia, and then this one against Czechia. 4-0, undefeated going into the next round in Miami.

Some observations from these four Tokyo games relevant to the coming season: White Sox fans will be happy on balance with their new slugger, Munetaka Murakami, but he's streaky. Don't be surprised if he slumps here and there. Also, if the Sox are planning to use him at first base instead of third, don't expect any gold gloves. He's fine, but I've noticed a few times he's poorly positioned for a throw and wasn't reading the ball off the bat as well. But the grand slam last night was pretty. Meanwhile, Blue Jay fans will be ecstatic at the play of their new third-sacker, Kazuma Okamoto. Okamoto has gold gloves at both first and third, showed impressive range at the hot corner, and is going to draw lots of walks. Red Sox fans will probably continue to suffer at the underuse of Masataka Yoshida, who is a lot better than the Boston people think he is.

Meanwhile, Felon47’s regime of bigotry and authoritarianism has, for the moment, cost Cincinnati Reds (and former Seattle Mariners) third baseman Eugenio Suárez his chance at being a US citizen. Geno's citizenship application was cancelled even though the processing for it had already been scheduled for later this year. Why? "Because of the Venezuela thing," Suárez said, which is a slightly more polite way to say, "because I am a Latino guy and the people running this country are racist assholes." Most ballplayers don't pay much attention to politics, they don't understand how different things are today from two years ago or why, and Major League Baseball, in the person of Commissioner Idiot, is not doing anything substantive to help the scores of foreign players in the major and minor leagues. Suárez would like to be of help to his fellow would-be immigrants and other Latino players, as a source of information if nothing else. "[It's a] good platform for us as baseball players," said Suárez, "to be able to help people know [what's going on]. We need help with that." Don't expect any help from the Commissioner. Here's what he had to say when asked about Suárez's citizenship and the legitimate fear of arrest and worse from Felon47’s DHS brownshirts: “Look, obviously I worry about anything that could be disruptive to the very best players in the world being out on the field. But the prospect of that disruption, given that our players all had visas, it’s speculation at this point.” Is it really? Let me quote our pal Craig Calcaterra on this subject: "I don't know what makes anyone think that a ballplayer, even one carrying their visa, is immune from Trumpist brutality. ... How anyone could read the news over the past two or three months and think that the brutalization of Latin Americans in this country is the stuff of 'speculation' or that if someone has their paperwork in order they're all safe [is beyond me], but that's Rob Manfred for ya."

Stepping away from the diamonds to close this post out, here are some tidbits worth a link or a note:

• Paul Waldman wrote about the current White House Cabinet as "the worst in history" and at one point refers to them as "a kind of Bizarro World 1927 Yankees," thus combining three of my nerd spheres—baseball, politics, and comics—into one statement.
• Meanwhile, Dan Froomkin takes mainstream journalists to task for failing to adequately sound the alarm about Felon47 being loony-tunes and demented when it comes to his unconscionable and incoherent war on Iran. Addressing the press at large, he asks, "Doesn’t the fact that he is bombing the hell out of a country for no particular reason, endangering the region, and destabilizing the world make it incumbent upon you to be blunt about the problem, rather than dancing around it? Isn’t it time for clarity instead of euphemism? Isn’t it time to put aside your aloofness, your concerns about appearing partisan, and your fears of offending your corporate masters? Isn’t it time to tell the whole truth, in the best interests of the country and the world?" He goes on to detail what's not being reported, then continues: "When [an] obsessive pursuit of impartiality leads them to deny or obscure the objective truth, it’s gone too far. And the objective truth is that Trump is deranged. Choosing not to make that explicit doesn’t win over new readers. It doesn’t change MAGA minds. The people who think Trump is rational get their news elsewhere. It’s bad journalism. It normalizes something that is very alarming. And it pisses off their own readers."
• Jeff Tiedrich makes the observation that Felon47 accidentally told the truth in response to a reporter's question regarding the girls' school the US hit with a Tomohawk missile and the 160+ people killed in the strike:
  
  Reporter: “You just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you’re the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary wouldn’t say that, when he was asked, standing over your shoulder, on your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person saying this?"
  Felon47: “Because I just don’t know enough about it. I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation."
  Tiedrich: “'I’m insisting something is true even though I don’t know enough about it' just might be the most honest thing Donny’s ever said, even if he’s far too demented to realize that’s what he’s saying.”

That's all for now. I'm going to fix myself some dinner and watch some TV. New episode of Paradise is out.

Tagged Umping, WBC, Baseball, Politics, Republicans, President VonClownstick, Posted on March 10, 2026 at 11:06PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

New sketch, the WBC, SFA, and cabinet chaos

Masataka Yoshida homers against Korea, demonstrating that the Red Sox have criminally underused him the last two years

A few disparate things today...

• ITEM: I've Just Seen a Face! The sketch I was working on the other day is now finished and can be seen in the sketchbook.
• ITEM: Dig It! Kristi Noem got taken to the metaphorical gravel pit! May she be but the first of many to fall. Meanwhile, the nominee to replace her is quite possibly the dumbest person in either house of Congress.
• ITEM: I'm Only Sleeping! This week saw the start of the 2026 World Baseball Classic, which opened with games held in Puerto Rico, Miami, Houston, and Tokyo. Naturally, the ones I'm most interested in are being played in Tokyo and they start at 2:00am PST. So I've been even more nocturnal than usual, staying up to watch Team Japan live rather than wait and watch a recording of the game during normal waking hours like a sane person would do. And they've been really fun games, too! In the opener, Japan clobbered Taiwan in a fashion that was reminiscent of some softball games I've both played in and umpired in recent years: the 13-0 drubbing ended early by WBC mercy rule, and one 6th-inning single is all that kept Taiwan from being no-hit by the loaded Japanese squad. Last night/this morning was more of a fair fight, with the Koreans nearly matching Japan play-for-play until the home 7th, when Korea brought in Young Kyu Kim (one of their many Kims) to pitch with one on and two out and poor Kim couldn't find the strike zone. Which, to be fair, was rather variable. The home plate ump in that game—Todd Tichenor, who is generally well regarded as an MLB ump—was truly bad, not remotely consistent with high strikes, low strikes, edge strikes, pretty much nothing was certain unless it was down the middle. Even so, Kim was wild and walked Kensuke Kondoh and Seya Suzuki after intentionally walking Shohei Ohtani, forcing in the go-ahead run, then Masataka Yoshida delivered a 2-RBI hit to put Japan up by three. That was enough for closer Taisei Ota to seal the deal in the 9th with help from Ukyo Shuto, just into the game in center field after pinch-running in the home 8th, who made a leaping catch against the wall for the second out.
• ITEM: She Came in Through the Bathroom Window! Once again, the eligibility rules in the WBC are a little too lax for my taste, though I get the rationale. Players can be on a nation-team's roster not only if they're citizens or permanent residents of the country, but if one or both of their parents are/were citizens or were born in the country or if they would be granted citizenship if desired under the country's laws. That last one is mostly for Team Israel, basically if you're Jewish you can play for the land of King David. So we have, for example, three Americans playing for Korea (named Dunning, O'Brien, and Whitcomb) who have never lived in Korea but have Korean-born moms; a Great Britain team with only two British players; a Team Italy with only three Italians; 13 Americans playing for Mexico; and an entirely American Israeli team. The Latin American teams have no trouble filling out their squads (you'd think Mexico would be fine under stricter rules too), of course Japan is a baseball powerhouse, the Netherlands is well-stocked because of that kingdom's Caribbean territories, Canada has plenty of Canadians, Taiwan is stocked with their own pros, and, kind of a surprise, Team Australia is almost entirely Australian, save for a couple of guys born in South Africa to Australians. So it's improving, but between Team USA, Team Puerto Rico, Team Israel, Team Italy, and Team Great Britain, the tournament has basically five American squads out of 20. I'd say it feels like stacking the deck, but only USA and Puerto Rico have a prayer of moving on.
• ITEM: It's All Too Much! On a less pleasant topic, Kristi Noem may be out of a job, but ICE hasn't changed its ways. The new American Gestapo have a betting pool going at their El Paso area detention camp, but instead of picking winners of football games they're betting on which of the incarcerated will kill themselves. In addition to being unconscionable and cruel and spot-on emblematic of our current presidential regime, this is encouragement for these thugs to treat their prisoners—you can call them "detainees" if you want, but they're prisoners—even worse than they otherwise would. It's a low bar to begin with, but this is insane. More insane, I mean.
• ITEM: Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey! Alleged attorney general Pam Bondi has been subpoenaed to testify in Congress and there have been articles of impeachment filed against her over her coverup of the Epstein files. About fucking time. Bounce her ass out, then bring her up on charges. (I know it isn't likely to get anywhere real, but we've got to try anyway, repeatedly, and with many other Cabinet officials, preparatory to when we have a majority and can impeach Felon47 and his bearded bootlicker.)
• ITEM: Don't Let Me Down! Starfleet Academy has been surprisingly good, and dropped it's ninth episode this week. The season finale streams Wednesday night, and I'm looking forward to it—when the series started, I had no idea what to expect; could be good, could suck. But it's been largely excellent considering its target audience as a YA show. It's improved on the other streaming-era Star Trek series by having an apparent quality control process with scripts. The writing is better structured and when there are holes in the stories they're forgivable. Like in this week's penultimate episode, the villain's dastardly plan is revealed to be, essentially, a blockade of the reborn Federation of Planets; how this was accomplished stretches my suspension of disbelief, that's an enormous area of space to cover even with this post-Burn mini-Federation. But the twist worked, the story that plot point is in service of is valuable, the situation it sets up for next week's finale is compelling, so I forgive the implausibility. It helped that this week's ep was a Jonathan Frakes episode, Frakes in the director's chair always elevates the material. But, the real make-or-break for this new show will be episode ten. Will it continue to be solidly written and character-focused and maintain its themes, or will it take a page from Discovery or the first two seasons of Picard and completely drop the ball at the end of the season, wrapping things up in a sort of, "shit, we're out of time, I guess just shrug off what we did earlier and invent some deus ex machina that we can forget later?" I'd be more optimistic if Alex Kurtzman wasn't a credited writer on episode ten. At least he's just the co-scripter of the teleplay. (Am I too hard on Kurtzman? Is my bias against anyone involved with writing the JJ movies too strong? I guess we'll see next week.)
• ITEM: Get Back! Or, more accurately, go forward—we begin our annual 8-month-long social engineering trickery tonight, turning the clocks ahead an hour for no good reason. The tyranny of morning people continues, and we night owls are shoved to the ground in our grogginess and given the finger. Tonight's WBC game in Tokyo will now start at 3:00am, which is so much worse than 2:00am, because the Japanese are smarter than we are and don't do stupid Daylight Saving Time.

That's all I have for now. Umping this week was good, no highlights/lowlights to speak of. Back out there Monday evening.

Tagged Baseball, Sketches, Politics, Republicans, Star Trek, Daylight Saving Time, The Beatles, WBC, Posted on March 7, 2026 at 7:45PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Epic fury

The guy who campaigned on, among other lies, promises to avoid going to war has taken us to war. Raise your hand if you're shocked.

Secretary of Drunkenness Pete Hegseth calls this campaign of unwarranted, unexplained, and unconscionable violence "Operation Epic Fury." Well, we're furious, all right. Here's the alleged president of the United States, without any authorization or legal basis to do so, raining missiles and bombs down on a sovereign nation and assassinating a head of state for reasons he is not sharing. The rationale he and his flunkies have trotted out so far are absurd, no one takes them seriously. We know they're lies. So we can only speculate as to why he's really doing this.

It's worth noting, again, that the United States and Iran had a functional, working agreement, one that took years of negotiations and tenacity to obtain, to curtain Iran's nuclear ambitions. Felon47 tore that agreement up when he was Fraudster45 for no reason other than it was something the Black guy did. That abdication of international agreement by the U.S. led directly to last summer's bombings that Felon47 claimed, ridiculously, had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Today's unprovoked attacks put the lie to that claim, or render it irrelevant. The Tyrant of Mar-a-Lago probably did this, not for any national security reasons, but at the behest of his enablers in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and other Mideast kingdoms. And maybe to help out his fellow war criminal Bibi Netanyahu. And to make the news focus something other than the Epstein files and the spectacularly bad polling on Felon47 generally.

Felon47 has committed myriad abuses of power, so many that it's almost impossible to catalogue them all. Yet, this unconstitutional military action violating international law and inviting utter chaos on an already unstable region may well be the worst abuse in history, by any president. It's an ongoing lowering of the bar, it seems there's a new option for worst abuse of power every day, but this one is truly spectacular.

The fact that Felon47 has not been removed from power already is an indictment of the Republican party that should bury it for decades if not destroy it outright.

And I am embarrassed by, ashamed of, and, yes, epically furious with my fellow countrymen and -women, the 70 million-plus of them who preferred this demented oligarchic rapist, this convicted fraudster, this petulant septuagenarian with the intellect of an eight-year-old, this hate-filled illiterate narcissist, this bigoted sack of insecurity and misogyny, the most prolific liar ever to step onto the public stage. The 70 million-plus that said, yeah, that guy, because the alternative was a competent and accomplished woman of Afro-Indian descent, eewww.

We fucking warned you. Over and over again. But you voted for the liar, the rapist, the bigot, the moron anyway.

And the death toll just keeps on climbing, now including at least 85 schoolgirls killed in a missile strike today.

I'll end by quoting the great Will Bunch:

A cruise-missile assault aiming to change the government in Iran is, in reality, a desperate plea for regime change in Washington, D.C. Democrats, who could gain power in the House as early as this year thanks to GOP scandals and illness, must make clear that Trump’s impeachment and an end to American autocracy is their main priority.

For now, we have unnecessarily injected ourselves into a long-troubled corner of the world where there are almost no good guys, where theocratic dictators are unceasingly slaughtering the citizens of other theocratic dictators. Maybe that’s because, over the course of 250 increasingly tragic years, the United States has finally become exactly like them.

The only epic fury should be our own.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Republicans, Posted on February 28, 2026 at 8:15PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

The state of the union is critically endangered

I didn't watch Felon47’s bloviating liefest in a traditional sense on Tuesday night, but I did participate in a livestream mock-watch online. It made it somewhat entertaining. Still, the speech was a crazed stream of vomited-up garbage, a dishonest recitation of made-up "alternative facts" and baseless demonization of all who disagree with Felon47’s totalitarian agenda.

Thankfully, the speech got pretty much no traction, near as I can tell. Only 33 million viewers saw it, according to the Nielsen ratings people, fewer than last year but more than watched two of Biden's, but these days that doesn't mean a lot; the speech itself might not get seen live, but clips get shared around social media sites and get seen by plenty. Still, it's been largely forgotten already and did nothing to advance any sort of agenda; it was easily the most utterly pointless State of the Union speech ever made. It will probably be remembered mostly for shamelessly using the men's U.S. Olympic hockey team as a prop—that's going to be embarrassing for those guys in the coming years—and for being almost entirely dishonest in its content.

When he did say something true, it was still in the service of dishonesty. He said he guided the U.S. economy into "a turnaround for the ages," and that's true, he did. He wants us to believe he took a floundering economy and made it wonderful, though, which is the opposite of reality. When President Biden left office, the U.S. economy was the envy of the world. Now it's in chaos at best, working well only for what should now be called the Epstein Class, the billionaires that are the only ones seeing any benefit at all in the policies of Felon47 and his bootlicking Republican enablers. The rest of us are hurting in ways we would not be had this fucker not won the election. He also said that "cheating is rampant in our elections." That's a bald-faced lie, but it's also aspirationally true. He said that in support of the so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which in reality is a voter-suppression bill with provisions in it to gather data in service of, you guessed it, cheating in elections. 

But we all knew he was going to lie his way through the speech, we all knew it would be full of baseless grievance, racism, and attacks on Democrats. We didn't know he was going to point at the Democrats in the chamber and shout that they were "crazy," something that in a normal era would result in immediate 25th Amendment proceedings but these days is just baked in and unsurprising behavior.

So we move on. What we should be moving on to is the evidence in the Epstein files that accuses Felon47 of child rape and assaults. We should be moving on to is the complete lack of Congressional involvement in another military buildup in the Mideast. We should be moving on to the corrupt obstruction of justice perpetrated by Judge Aileen Cannon. And a slew of other things that relate to criminal and impeachable behavior by this regime.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Republicans, Posted on February 28, 2026 at 12:22AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Impeach him (again) already

I'm still climbing out of my latest black hole episode, but I have managed to catch up a bit on the news of the last week-plus. I presume most if not all of you reading this are aware of most things, no need to rehash the big stories, but I have some observations on what Felon47 has had to say about a few things.

Tomorrow night the fascist wannabe dictator will give the State of the Union address, which will be chock full of lies and outrage. I'm not interested in the generalities of his whiny grievance fantasies or his fictitious claims of great successes in ... well, anything, really, as his only real successes have been as a con man, fraudster, rapist, and in assorted financial crimes. But sometimes he reveals things in his rantings that are worth noting.

For instance, when asked about his reaction to the arrest of the rapist formerly known as Prince Andrew, Felon47 said it was "sad." It's telling that he finds it sad when a fellow member of his ultra-privileged class is held to account for criminal behavior, but the whole exchange is worth parsing:

FOX REPORTER: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?

FELON47: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing. I think it's so bad for the royal family. It's very sad. It's a very sad thing. To me, it's a very sad thing.

Firstly, the question was about "American associates of Jeffrey Epstein," and Felon47 goes immediately to himself. "I've been totally exonerated." Of course, he hasn't been exonerated, totally or otherwise. He just hasn't been charged. Yet. Then he starts to pivot to the Andrew arrest, but can't help but interject "I did nothing," which is one of his tells. Also, he does not ever actually answer the question, he answers a different question that wasn't asked. He wasn't asked what he thought of the Andrew arrest specifically, he was asked whether he thought Americans in similar positions to Andrew would now face arrest and the only American he mentioned was himself, in a lie.

As if we needed more evidence this guy is up to his armpits in Epstein-related crimes, this exchange makes me even more certain that he's guilty of everything that's been alleged regarding his association with Epstein and then some. There's more that  hasn't yet been publicly alleged and he's scared shitless that it's going to come out.

Then there's Felon47’s tantrum following the Supreme Court ruling that his tariffs are illegal. As if he didn't know that ruling was coming. As if several people hadn't told him repeatedly that the president cannot unilaterally levy duties and taxes. No, even in his addled mushbrained idiocy he knew his tariffs were illegal, but: He genuinely does not know what a tariff is—he really does think it's a fee paid by exporter nations—and more to the point, he also genuinely expects the Justices he appointed to SCOTUS to rule in his favor no matter what. They are supposed to be his operatives, just like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel and Kristi Noem are his operatives rather than actual responsible officials that take their jobs and their oaths seriously.

Sometimes they have been his operatives. Those Justices decreed the president is immune from prosecution no matter what crimes he commits so long as there's a patina of "official" surrounding it. That was a blatantly unconstitutional decision, so why not do it again here? That's a good question for another time.

But it's the comments Felon47 made I want to delve into.

In his press conference after the ruling, he said, "I'm ashamed of certain members of the court. Absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country." First off, he's incapable of shame. He's wounded by the decision, he's enraged about it, and he's vindictive as fuck, but he's not ashamed. He's pissed at two of the three Justices that he appointed and he's pissed at George W. Bush's Chief Justice Roberts for adhering to the clear language of the Constitution and the law. But he can't admit that, so he lies and says he's "ashamed" of them. Then there's the echo of what he said about former Vice President Mike Pence after the January 6 insurrection—the very same wording, "not having the courage to do what's right or our country." He's pissed off that his assumed toadies were, in his judgment, too cowardly to commit crime with him, too chicken to declare the Constitution a dead letter and appoint him king. After all, that's what he appointed Gorsuch and Barrett (and Kavanaugh) to do.

Not comprehending other possible motives, Felon47 then came close to accusing the Justices of treason. "It's my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests," he said, not bothering to elaborate. I can imagine a couple of possibilities here: he thinks foreign business interests or heads of state resent paying his tariffs—which they do not pay—and are paying off Supreme Court Justices to remove them; or, since he himself is in the thrall of foreign interests as a longtime "useful idiot"-style Russian operative, he assumes rival global factions like Europeans are conducting their own sabotage campaigns and have compromised "his" Justices.

Either way, the idea that Justices of the Supreme Court would respect the Constitution of the United States doesn't enter his thinking. He doesn't know what the Constitution says, for one thing, but regardless, laws are for people with no power, so that cannot be a motive. Has to be something else, something selfish, something he can claim grievance about.

He wasn't done, though, he also said the 6-3 ruling was "an embarrassment to [the Justices'] families, to one another." You have to wonder about that being a threat. An instruction to his shadow militia of pardoned Jan. 6 criminals and "Proud Boys" and other thugs to make those Justices' relations targets for terrorism. He has a history of doing just that kind of thing, using such phrases to incite others to carry out violence against his opposition. It's one of the few things he actually calculates and effectively communicates because it's mob-style. And mob tactics are what he knows better than anything.

Continuing to rant, Felon47 also likened tariffs to "license fees," which makes no sense to anyone, and complained that the ruling means he's not allowed to charge "one dollar" to a foreign nation. Well, it's true that he can't charge other countries for ... nothing? ... but that isn't what the ruling said. Because the ruling was about tariffs. Which are paid by Americans. Yet, he went on to threaten that he can and will use tariffs "in a much more powerful and obnoxious way" going forward, which, yay, can't wait to see that.

I look at all this and, once again, for the millionth time, marvel at the fact that the Republican Party is so utterly corrupt that they keep this moronic tyrant in power. If just a relative few of them respected their oaths of office, they would join the Democrats in impeaching and convicting this embarrassing pustule of a spoiled brat and facilitate bringing him and his entire administration of criminals up on charges immediately.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Republicans, Posted on February 24, 2026 at 12:03AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Hitting the links

My lifelong struggle with clinical depression hit a bump this week—if I'm being honest with myself, it was in the works for a while now—and I had me a good old-fashioned lost day yesterday when I didn't even get out of bed. When not asleep, I was unproductively reliving certain memories from younger days that I wish had gone differently, you know. Basically stuck in a wallow.

This shit happens once in a while, I've learned to accept it. It happens less often than it used to thanks to my Rx, and when it does happen is not as severe. Not as severe means, among other things, that I was fully able to muster the willpower to get up, take care of some things, and get some exercise today as I attempt to gain more altitude over the black hole I continually orbit. Early reports are favorable.

Anyhow, now that I'm caught up on two days' worth of email and some administrative housekeeping (still haven't tackled the taxes, though), I've been perusing the Interwebs to see what fresh horrors are in the news and have come across some links to share. To wit:

• Cory Doctorow has a suggestion for Democrats in Congress: make a big deal out of forming what he's calling a "Nuremberg caucus." Basically a committee that keeps track, publicly, with a website and regular on-camera announcements, of all the criminal behavior perpetrated by Felon47, the Cabinet, DHS/ICE/CBP, and the rest of the regime. They would publicize plans for hearings, at least, if not charges and potential trials, regarding each of the crimes noted, to take place when Democrats regain the majority—whether that be after midterm elections or when enough Republicans resign or otherwise leave office. If nothing else, politically this would be a great move as we need to see and hear more form our elected leaders about their intentions to hold the fascists accountable for the destruction they are wreaking on the nation.

  The Nuremberg Caucus could vow to repurpose ICE's $75b budget to pursue Trump's crimes, from corruption to civil rights violations to labor violations to environmental violations. It could announce its intent to fully fund the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division to undertake scrutiny of all mergers approved under Trump, and put corporations on notice that they should expect lengthy, probing inquiries into any mergers they undertake between now and the fall of Trumpism.

• On a similar topic, today's Bob Cesca Show podcast featured a discussion with Cliff Schecter about oligarchs and the need to once and for all declare as a country that no amount of wealth that effectively places an individual above the law will be allowed, that rule by the rich is the basis of the current regime and now is the time to enact massive reform. From a return to the 90% marginal tax rate to making stock buybacks illegal again to eliminating the distinction between income and capital gains, Cliff notes a plethora of suggested reforms that would not only rein in the obscene levels of wealth disparity that has exploded since the ’80s, but seriously curtail the ability of the super-wealthy to buy their way out of legal consequences for their behavior.

• This isn't new news, but I missed it at the time. A couple of months ago variants of this headline were working their way through social media sites: “Wake Up, Jeff”: Paul McCartney’s Ultimatum to Amazon Sends Shockwaves Across Culture, Business, and Politics. The article's lead paragraph includes, "McCartney announced that he would pull all McCartney-affiliated media partnerships and business collaborations from Amazon, accusing Bezos of a quiet alignment with Donald Trump." It looked legit, made sense. Paul McCartney certainly would be the sort of figure that would object to the cruelty of the current American regime and the businesses that support it. But it's bogus.

  The same piece, with other names substituted for McCartney's—musicians, sports figures, Hollywood celebs—was all over Facebook. It was created by people exploiting Mark Zuckerberg's Meta software to engage users of Facebook (and other Meta platforms) to share the posts, click through, and give advertisers more impressions. When a version using the name Bo Nix, a Denver Broncos football player, in place of McCartney's started going around, it was more obviously bogus (at least to people who follow the Denver Broncos) and a reporter for a Denver paper did a deep dive into it: https://www.denvergazette.com/2025/11/22/this-just-in-facebooks-breaking-news-is-a-total-head-fake/. Among other findings:

  Fake news hooks genuine users, who often react emotionally to it, either by celebrating or condemning its content. This creates what is called “a feedback loop”: More interactions mean more algorithmic promotion, more time spent on the platform, and higher ad exposure. Studies have shown that fake news can generate 20 times more shares than real news, turning one bot’s initial spark into widespread organic traffic.

  How does that turn into money for Meta? Indirectly but hugely. The more exposure an ad gets, the more Meta charges the advertiser. Last year, Meta made $161 billion on advertising placed on its three platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

  And here’s where it gets downright deplorable. According to a bombshell new Reuters investigation released Nov. 6, 2025, fully 10% of Meta’s ad revenue—up to $16 billion a year—comes from publishing ads that Meta knows to be outright scams or for banned products. This comes from a review of Meta’s own internal documents.

  Yet another (or really a variation on the same) reason to boycott Facebook and all Zuckerberg platforms. Yet, I still post links there because more than a few people I know treat the Internet like it's just an extension of Facebook. Maddening. There are better ways, folks.

• The House passed the latest Republican voter suppression bill today, with one Dem, Henry Cuellar (TX), joining the fascist caucus in voting yes. It needs to be killed with fire by the Senate, then either buried in a deep hole or shot into the sun. The anti-American Speaker of the House, who has already declared his opposition to abiding by law and the Constitution on other matters, tried to conflate the bill's proposed change to voting law with "open[ing] a bank account [and] buy[ing] cold medicine," and asked "why would voting be any different than that?" Well, Mr. Speaker, the fact that voting is a right enshrined by the Constitution is a factor, not that you give a damn about what the Constitution says. Also, no one has to produce a passport or a birth certificate and, if applicable, official name change documentation to buy Sudafed or open a checking account. Yet that's what you want to require to register to vote. So let's ask you that same question—why do you want voting requirements to be so exclusionary, far beyond what would be required to open a bank account? The fact that Speaker Johnson feels the need to obfuscate and distort the truth about his bill tells us that he knows full well that it's unacceptable on its face to the public at large. Asshole.
• "Attorney General" Pam Bondi appeared at a hearing in the House of Representatives today and performed as instructed by the criminal regime for which she works. Speaking with open contempt for Congress, not even pretending that her job as head of the (former) Justice Department is in any way independent of the president, and, of course, lying her ass off.
  
  

There's more, but I have to go to an HOA meeting, so this will have to do. Later, all.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, The Black Hole, Republicans, Posted on February 11, 2026 at 7:00PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Uncoded language

Last Friday the big story in the news was that the unrepentantly racist president of the United States did an overtly racist thing and members of his party were shocked, SHOCKED, to find there was gambling going on in this establishment.

To be clear, what Felon47 posted on his janky social media app was not, in and of itself, news in the strictest sense. The headlines about it should have been nothing more than "late-septuagenarian lifelong racist commits racism in public again." But the message was resoundingly offensive and deserved all the outrage it got from people not in his cult of cruelty and grievances. (I especially liked Hakeem Jeffries' reaction of "Fuck Donald Trump and his vile, racist, and malignant behavior.") The reaction from Republicans, though—the outrage voiced by GOP legislators and others within the MAGA cult—that's something else again.

These same Republicans have no issues (publicly, at least) with Felon47’s racist policies; his blaming a plane crash on "DEI"; his indiscriminate assault on Latinos;  his attempts to erase mentions of Jackie Robinson, Medgar Evers, and others from federal facilities and records; his references to majority-black nations as "shithole countries"; his slandering of Somali and Haitian immigrants en masse; nor any of the other remarks and behavior lifted right out of Mein Kampf and Stephen Miller's fantasy dystopia. But this they did. Curious.

Senator Roger Wicker (R–MS) called Felon47’s racist post "totally unacceptable" and called on Felon47 to "take it down and apologize." Congressman Mike Lawler (R–NY) said the post was a "grave failure of judgment." Senator Tim Scott (R–SC, the only African-American Republican in the Senate) called it "the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House." The post was condemned by quite a few elected Republicans, though some implied they were accepting Felon47’s ridiculous claim that it was not him but "a staffer" that posted it.

The thing about all of these GOP condemnations, though, is context.

Since they did not and do not exhibit such outrage at the rest of this regime's racism, since they did not and do not exhibit outrage and the rest of this regime's anti-American agenda, since they did not and do not publicly object to the regime's murder of both Americans in Minnesota and immigrants in detention—not to mention well over 100 Venezuelans on the open sea—it's reasonable to conclude it isn't the racism they're objecting to.

It's the overtness of the racism.

What was "totally unacceptable" to Wicker, what was a "failure of judgment" to Lawler, may well have been the lack of coding. Scott's outrage at "the most racist thing" may well be because the normal Republican rhetorical games weren't used to disguise the racism. Sen. Susan Collins (R–ME) may have been "appalled," but was she appalled at the post's content or was she appalled that the president went and ignored all the stuff she as a Republican senator has been schooled in for so many years to put a gauzy mask on bigoted remarks?

I quote the guru of Republican messaging, Lee Atwater, the disciple of arguably the most racist senator in history, Strom Thurmond, and who championed polarization and demonization as the preferred paths to political victories:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968, you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.... I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this" is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

Atwater died in 1991, but his playbook remains standard operating procedure for the Republican party and I submit that the GOP outrage over last week's social media post was about Felon47 not using the playbook—not about Felon47 being a racist. They're fine with that. The apology Wicker wants isn't for the public at large, it's for himself and his fellow Republican cultists, who still have to use code.

Tagged Politics, Republicans, President VonClownstick, Posted on February 9, 2026 at 10:07PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Chuck & Hakeem audition for Dumb & Dumber II

What the hell, Chuck? Come on.

In the midst of the Congressional debates surrounding a funding bill for the out-of-control Department of Homeland Security (a name which has always sounded fascist even when we weren't being governed by fascists), Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote a letter to Senate majority leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

The letter opens with a matter-of-fact, almost docile recitation of ICE abuses in Minnesota and elsewhere that lacked any outrage, then proceeds to its real substance, if you can call it that: a list of ten "reforms" to DHS and ICE policy that are presented as suggestions. (The exact language is, "we believe Congress needs to enact the following guardrails.")

The suggestions include several things that are already mandated by the Constitution under the Fourth Amendment. Other suggestions are banning masks, requiring ID badges and body cameras, and adherence to standards common to every other law enforcement agency.

I don't understand how this is "leadership."

These things being suggested should be demanded. The very idea that DHS would be permitted to ignore the Fourth Amendment, to act as a secret police force unaccountable to the law and without any of the regulation every other law enforcement agency in this country is expected to obey, without the Republicans agreeing to suggested reforms is in itself an outrage.

This letter plays into the regime's and the Republican party's corruption and authoritarian wishes by painting these "reforms" as, well, reforms. The law exists. The Constitution exists. Requiring DHS to abide by them is not a "reform," it's the status quo, it's just not being enforced.

Any letter from Democratic leadership to the Republican leadership on this topic should be a laundry list of all the laws DHS has broken and is breaking, a recitation of the Fourth Amendment and SCOTUS history reiterating its application to immigration and how DHS has been violating it. It should remind the Republican leadership that in supporting the regime and its lawless use of DHS agencies in this way (and others), they and their caucus are violating their oaths of office to protect and defend the Constitution. It should demand the resignation of the Speaker and the majority leader if they continue to refuse to accept the legal and Constitutional protections guaranteed to the public.

Instead we got this. A milquetoast, politely sedate and tepid suggestion that the Republicans ask DHS to please stop committing terrorism. Only it doesn't even name the terrorism.

Chuck and Hakeem need to either finally realize that they are not dealing with people of good faith, they are not dealing with honest brokers, they are not dealing with people that respect the values of a democratic republic; or, if they can't do that, they need to give up their leadership positions. Because they are failing to lead. They are being cowed, they are stuck in a reality that has not existed for two decades in which any member of Congress could be assumed to at the very least not be unAmerican. No more.

The Speaker of the House goes on television and declares that his caucus will never go along with the Fourth Amendment and no elected Democrat says anything about it. That is a failure of leadership.

The GOP leadership negotiates an end to a government shutdown in bad faith, promising something everyone knows will never happen, and enough Democrats go along with it to pass the measure. That is a failure of leadership. 

The minority leaders write a mildly-worded letter to the majority to suggest they tell DHS to not be terrorists. That is a failure of leadership.

Tagged Politics, Democrats, Republicans, Posted on February 5, 2026 at 9:12PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

The quisling caucus

Who has two thumbs and likes to piss on the Constitution? This guy.

Good day, and welcome to my rant.

We all know that Felon47, the alleged human occupying the office of President of the United States right now, is contemptuous of the Constitution, the rule of law, the concept of truth, and basic decency. That's made clear on a daily basis, and it's equally clear that he is beyond redemption, implacably corrupt and heinous. Less understood is the nature of his enablers, the Republican caucus of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Felon47 needs these enablers. They are the only reason he remains in power—if even a handful of Congressional Republicans respected their oaths of office, both Felon47 and Reichsleiter Vance would have been removed from power long before now. He retains his office at their collective will. So why do they kowtow to him when they have the real power?

Sure, brand loyalty accounts for some of it, but that only goes so far when the guy heading the brand is a corrupt totalitarian thug. Stupidity? No doubt there are plenty that fit this bill, some mind-bogglingly so. Cowardice? This is a big one, I suspect, given how much Felon47 has always valued blackmail as a tool, how rabid the MAGA base of voters can be, and how craven a lot of these people are when it comes to proximity to power.

Then there's the third category: the True Believers.

The Republican party has operated a long con on the American public. After the disgrace of Watergate and the outrage at the lack of accountability demanded of Richard Nixon, you'd think the GOP was headed for a fallow period of disfavor. But no, the party and their Hollywood-made figurehead exploited opportunities created by (a) lingering effects of their own economic policies from the Nixon/Ford years and (b) an Iranian regime willing to cut deals with the opponent of the sitting president to kick off a decades-long campaign to both inflame the bigotries and resentments of conservatives and fool a huge chunk of the electorate into voting against their own interests.

As cons go, it's been remarkably successful, as even Democratic administrations have supported reforms tailored to please conservatives (the Clinton welfare reforms, the "Defense of Marriage Act," tepid tax initiatives, even the Affordable Care Act was based on a Republican model) rather than lead Americans into a more progressive style of politics—which was largely pragmatic, acknowledging the limitations of what one could do when the electorate had been so expertly manipulated since 1980 (and before, really, going back to the Nixon "southern strategy"). The GOP Congressional majority of today is largely a product of the long con. Candidates who got the gigs by continuing, exploiting, and supercharging the tactics of the con started by Lee Atwater and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich and Ed Rollins. Lauren Boebert and Clay Higgins don't get elected without that foundation.

A lot of them don't. Looking over the roster of House Republicans, I see more than 20 names—including that of the Speaker—that are true believers in the cause of shredding the Constitution in favor of totalitarianism. I see half a dozen that are known to be corrupt. I see one that has a modicum of integrity.

One (Massey).

Granted, there are a lot of names on that list that I have no specific familiarity with, so there may in fact be more than one House Republican with a modicum of integrity, but that modicum apparently isn't enough to sway them away from being collaborators in the overthrow of our Constitutional Republic.

This all is on my mind today because I heard Speaker Mike Johnson talking about due process and how inconvenient it is and how we shouldn't have it. Talking to reporters about the House debates on measures proposed by Democrats regarding DHS/CBP/ICE, the actual, real-life SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES said this:

[Democrats] want to have a judicial warrant on top of the immigration warrant. We can't do that. ... Imagine if we had to go through the process of getting a judicial warrant to go and apprehend people who we know are here illegally. How much time would that take? ... It would take decades, probably, to do that.

Not content with that, Johnson went on to claim that Democrats don't want there to be any immigration law at all (got to get those incendiary lies in) and then this:

We've got to apply reason, we do have to apply the Constitution, we have to respect it, and those parameters need to be determined. But we are never going to go along with ... judicial warrants. It cannot be done and it should not be done.

So: Fuck due process, it's a nuisance. It can't and shouldn't be done.

Here's the thing, though: it can and has been done. For many, many years. The Obama administration deported an average of 340,000 undocumented migrants per year. The Biden administration deported 150,000. None were done without due process.

Further, Speaker Johnson, you don't have a choice in the matter. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution says so. It lays out parameters that in no way need to be determined because they're right there, in place for 250 years.

Johnson is claiming that administrative warrants issued by agencies that have demonstrated themselves to be wholly lawless and ethically bankrupt are somehow just as good as a court order (they may as well be signed "Epstein's mother"). He's making the case that it has to be that way because otherwise it's just too hard. And we'll never go along with it.

Just to drive the point home: The Speaker of the House said, on television, recorded for all to see and hear, that he and by extension his caucus in the House of Representatives, will never go along with what's in the United States Constitution.

That alone should be grounds for expulsion from Congress, and that's just on this one issue; there are countless others that Johnson and his caucus of quislings betray their oaths on. The First Amendment in particular has been treated like so much toilet paper by this Republican party. The emoluments clause is violated routinely. Article IV (section 4) even guarantees protection against "domestic violence," meaning violence perpetrated by domestic forces, something now happening every day in Minnesota and elsewhere. In a reality where the public is aware and engaged, anyone behaving like Johnson and his caucus do would face extreme pressure to resign and the ethics committee would be under extreme pressure to expel them.

Article III Section 3 defines treason as "levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to [the nation's] Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Eventually, this president will be recognized by authorities as an enemy of the United States, possibly as having levied war against it depending on how we're defining terms, and Mike Johnson along with each and every Republican in Congress that supports him will be properly labeled as treasonous.

Tagged Politics, Republicans, Posted on February 3, 2026 at 11:11PM   |   Permalink   |     |