Screaming into the void

As the outrages continue—as the military misadventures further destabilize the world, as the criminality rolls on mostly unchecked, as Felon47 demonstrates more and more insanity—I figured it was time for another letter to Congress.

It's not exactly a rewarding exercise. I've got the best representation in the House and pretty decent representation in the Senate, so I'm expressing my frustration to people who already share it. But what else can we do?

Anyway, here's my latest missive. If you are inclined to send one off as well, there's a link in the sidebar that makes it super easy. It might not help. But it can't hurt. Particularly if you have less principled or more malleable people representing you than those of us in WA-7.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Congress, Posted on April 6, 2026 at 11:19PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Art imitating life imitating art

After listening to some recap analysis of Felon47’s pointless address to the nation last night—no, I didn't watch the thing itself, that clearly wasn't going to be useful—I decided to switch gears into some comic-book inspired escapism and watch the latest two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again. But it turned out not to be much in the way of escapism.

The series reimagines a more-than-a-decade-old Marvel Comics storyline wherein Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, becomes mayor of New York City. It's good, well-done in a way that's true to the characters and compelling to watch (though brutally violent in spots), but also depressing because the parallels between Fisk's governance of New York and Felon47’s governance of the United States are a bit too on the nose.

Not intentionally, of course. The source material predates even the administration of Fraudster45, and the scripts for the series were being written before the 2024 election campaign. But how could it not parallel?

The premise of placing a career criminal in a position of massive political power demands plotlines and story tropes that show staggering corruption, manipulation of the press, mob-tactic intimidation, shocking levels of cruelty, even an extra-legal "police force" terrorizing the public. So it's really inevitable that the real-life career criminal given a position of massive political power mirrors the fictional one.

Thankfully, the real-life analog of Wilson Fisk is not nearly as smart. Fisk is a cruel, psychologically broken, utterly corrupt narcissist, but he has intelligence enough to be truly terrifying. Our alleged president is, by contrast, one of the stupidest people on Earth. Which is its own kind of terrifying, to be sure, but does set him apart.

Fisk is opposed by our hero, Matt Murdock aka Daredevil, a lawyer by trade and, despite his tactics of masked vigilantism, believer in the rule of law ultimately taking down Fisk and his corrupt empire. Also on the side of good is internet journalist BB Urich, who by day produces videos that show New Yorkers supporting Fisk's outwardly keeping-us-safe policies while by night making subversive videos that mock Fisk as "Mayor Kingpin," exposing what she can of Fisk's corrupt and violent underbelly. We don't have Daredevil to oppose Felon47, but we do have rule of law, at least for now. We don't have a BB Urich either, and we could use one; but there are journalists outside the mainstream that keep digging for evidence of criminality that might finally take the regime down.

As the series approaches resolution, we know Fisk will be deposed and receive some sort of comeuppance; sadly, we don't have the same surety for his real-life analog. But it does give me a weird sort of hope.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Daredevil, TV, Comics, Posted on April 2, 2026 at 4:56PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

No Kings, rainouts, and roboumps

I went to my local No Kings protest rally on Saturday. Like last time, I opted for the one just a couple of blocks from my house rather than go to the big one downtown, for good or ill. I was on my own, so it wasn't a social thing. Anyway, the turnout was pretty decent for an ancillary/satellite event and I'm glad to have participated. I threw together a quick-and-dirty (by my standard) sign and walked the length of the several blocks long designated area a few times, then across the street, then back again, for a couple of hours. Chatted with a few fellow protesters, mostly about the Mariners but also about our shared outrage at the modern Republican party, which is now basically the new American Bund.

Below are some of the signs people had at my local event.

Then yesterday I had a four-game umpiring shift that only lasted two games; the rains came and the infield became muddy and slippery, so I called the other two off and they'll be rescheduled. Hopefully for a warmer, sunnier day.

Meanwhile, baseball's opening weekend had some good games and also saw the introduction of ABS, the "automated ball-strike system," colloquially known as the "roboumps." In its present form, I actually kind of like ABS. How it works is, if the pitcher, catcher, or batter disagrees with an umpire's call of a pitch, he can tap his helmet and say "challenge." Then the technology which just recorded the pitch on camera replays it through it's computerized wizardry and notes where the pitch crossed the vertical plane matching the front of home plate. If by the system's boundaries—which are calibrated for each individual batter based on his height—it even nicks the edge of the strike zone, it is a strike, otherwise a ball, regardless of what the umpire said it was. Each team gets two failed challenges per game, after which they can't ask for any more.

The fact that it's limited to two unsuccessful challenges per team gives the system an element of strategy to it—do you challenge one early in the game? If it's an obvious miss, sure, but if it's close do you risk it? So I like that. Also, when you've been unlucky enough to draw C.B. Bucknor as your home-plate ump, at least you know you'll have an opportunity to show him he was wrong a few times. But when I really like it is when the challenges fail. That's obviously my bias as a rec league umpire, but I quite enjoyed when in Friday evening's Mariners/Guardians game, HP ump Will Little was proven right all four times he was challenged and the system was off the table for the rest of the game. Little's been one of the better umps for a while now and here's real evidence to back it up.

But I fear the current version of ABS will be short-lived. Things in the early going are trending more toward the C.B. Bucknor side of things than to the Will Little side, with the majority of challenges being successful. The great sportswriter Joe Posnanski has also opined that the day is coming soon when every pitch will be called by cameras and computer tech and the home-plate ump will be essentially just like the other base umpires, there for safe/out calls and random weirdnesses. That I won't appreciate. I like human frailties. I like having to know who your umpire is going to be so you can plan accordingly. I like that some umpires have a tight zone and some a more generous one. Ideally, they wouldn't be inconsistent with it, and that's where guys like Bucknor and Hunter Wendelstedt become frustrating.

One more positive hope I have is that with the challenge system, TV broadcasts will stop overlaying the approximate strike zone onto the camera shot for live pitches. It's become normal over the past several years, and I don't like it. I do like it on replays, but live I want to see the pitch unencumbered by overlays and distractions. On the close pitches especially.

I'll be at the game tonight live and in person, so no video overlays to worry about there. Temps in the low 40s, so I'll be layered up. Go M's.

Now, No Kings signage from Saturday:

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Baseball, Umping, Posted on March 30, 2026 at 4:36PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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   |     |  

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   |     |  

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   |     |  

A mob execution

“It looks like nothing so much as a mob execution.” That's former Deputy Attorney General Harry Litman's description of today's violence—the most widely reported instance of it, anyway—in occupied Minneapolis, where once again ICE agents murdered an American who posed zero threat to them because fuck you, that's why.

The lies from DHS and the White House came fast and furious, just like last time. They described the victim, military veteran and VA nurse Alex Pretti, as a "domestic terrorist." They called him "an assassin." They described a sequence of events that did not happen. They made up a scenario that fit their preferred narrative despite the video evidence that shows the true sequence of events:

ICE agents violently attacked another victim, then Pretti comes to that person's assistance, then—while Pretti's back is to the agents—the agents pepper spray him at close range, then the agents wrestle Pretti to the ground, and while a blinded Pretti is flailing an ICE agent pistol-whops him in the head, then an ICE agent discovers Pretti had a holstered (legally registered and permitted) gun on his person and confiscates it, then one agent shoots Pretti, then other agents shoot Pretti, all while Pretti is struggling to even get to all-fours on the ground. Ten shots. To a disarmed, beaten and and blinded man sprawled face down in the street who at no time posed any threat to anyone involved.

Then some of the agents attempted to leave the scene. Then DHS denied local authorities access to the scene. Then the lies came spewing out.

Felon47 even tried to place blame on Minnesota officials, the same officials that ICE and DHS prevented from even approaching the scene, alleging that Mr. Pretti was menacing ICE agents and local law enforcement is at fault for failing to protect ICE agents. If I may quote Alan Tudyk's TV version of Harry Vanderspiegle, "this is some bullshit."

It now seems inevitable that, unless Congress acts swiftly, Minnesota governor Walz will, someday soon, have to deploy the state's National Guard to protect Minnesotans from the Federal government. And then the fireworks really start.

ICE is a terrorist organization and every elected official not in the thrall of Felon47 and his cult needs to be saying that loud and clear at every opportunity. DHS Secretary Noem needs to be impeached. DHS needs to be defunded. Investigations need to proceed unhindered, real ones, ones performed by state officials and not the corrupted Federal agencies, and the ICE and DHS agents (including Noem) who committed these and every other unjustifiable violent atrocity need to be prosecuted.

And Congress has to WAKE THE FUCK UP and demand every Republican who is currently collaborating with the fascist regime either (belatedly) honor their oaths of office and impeach Felon47 and his entire cadre of enablers or resign immediately. (I see that FINALLY, today Sen. Patty Murray is declaring she won't support the funding bill for DHS. FINALLY, Murray is calling on Republicans to join Dems in efforts to end the abuses. I know she was trying to be pragmatic before, but pragmatic's just not gonna cut it. Better late than never.)

If this is allowed to continue, we're gonna be smack dab in the throes of that second American Civil War Captain Pike told us about.

Some quotes from around the Interwebs:

Whatever one’s views of the circumstances that ICE agents confront, the gravity of these reflexive official lies to the American people can’t be overstated. The highest federal official immediately jumped in to defame and disparage the victim of an ICE killing. That is exactly how totalitarian governments react. It’s the sort of official dishonesty that can and should bring down governments. ... Taken together—the shooting itself and the federal response afterward—the episode screams out profound contempt for both the Constitution and the public it exists to serve.

...

Whatever one’s views of the costs to the country of illegal immigration—and all indications are that the people caught in the dragnet of the Trump surge have overwhelmingly committed no offense other than possible immigration violations—they pale in comparison to the shredding of the Constitution and the vicious tactics of federal law enforcement, cheered on by the highest government officials.

Members of Congress, every one of them, need to assess with the highest sobriety where they want to be now and what they want the United States to represent and portray to the world.

—Harry Litman

 

The murder of Alex Jeffrey Pretti was not a mistake, or a tragedy, or a misunderstanding. It was a choice. The president of the United States and his regime saw what its masked agents had done to Renee Good and decided to do more of it, at a larger scale. Killing Alex Jeffrey Pretti was the Trump administration’s policy.

—Jonathan Last

 

Given DHS making up stories about what we can plainly see in the murder videos, we have to just presume every other death under their purview is also murder.

—Bob Schooley

 

I don’t agree with people saying ICE and CBP need “more training.” They’re doing exactly what this administration has trained them to—impose a reign of fear in blue cities. They don’t need more training. They need to be ripped up root and branch.

—Bill Kristol(!)

 

Thank you Alex Pretti for honoring and caring for veterans like me. You deserved better from this country and I am truly sorry that they failed to protect and honor your life the same way you have protected and honored so many of our lives. This veteran salutes and thanks you.

—@pissedoffarmyvet.bsky.social

 

I want all the right-wing fuckers of this country to see this. They claim to care about veterans, well this guy actually cared for veterans, and their votes murdered him in the street.

—E. Perkins (@hauntedpumpkin.bsky.social)

 

Donald Trump sees blue states as something like conquered territory. In his mind, he won them fair and square in the 2024 presidential election. The country is his. He owns it. And all its might falls on his political foes and those who resist him.

—Josh Marshall

 

Tin soldiers and Trump is coming

We're finally on our own

This winter I hear the drumming

Two dead in Minnesota

Gotta get down to it,

Icemen are cutting us down

Should have been gone long ago

What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know?

—DS9 writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe paraphrasing Neil Young

 

Cynics and defeatists share the same story as authoritarians do: that nothing is worth trying, the conclusion is foregone, hope is naïve, and attempts to resist are too small or futile. Don't listen to them. Do not give up. Try. A better world is possible. We will win. We must.

—Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Republicans, Posted on January 24, 2026 at 11:25PM   |   Permalink   |     |