A Liberal in Trumpistan: The Second Coming of The Dumpling - October 2024

The Second Coming of The Dumpling

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“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

Hannah Arendt

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ONCE AGAIN, we pick up the cudgels of mockery and steel ourselves to cover the second presidential term of Donald J. Trump – henceforth to be known by the nickname: “Donald Dumpling.”

In some cataract view of the world, the MAGA faithful see a man whose most strenuous form of exercise is driving a golf cart at high speeds as a macho figure of muscle, animated by courage. The real “Dumpling” has man boobs and slathers his face with Cheez Whiz-colored skin toner.

As we travel the path on which Donald will take us once more, expect lies, and plenty of them, daily ineptitude, endless excuses, and ominous attempts to subvert the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.

Who slapped that man's mug with toner?
They missed a few spots.

***

“Irregularities like this are rare.”

October 22, 2024: Let’s step back in time and start with “voter fraud” news. It’s the same news we’ve been following for the last sixteen goddam years – this being the period wherein Donald set to work to convince ignorant people that U.S. elections were rigged by “commie” Democrats.

It started with lies – and plenty of them – about Barack Obama’s birth certificate. The Dumpling was so adept at deceit and took so much joy in lying, and so few of the ignorant caught on to his duplicity, that he kept lying. His lies multiplied, growing ever more elaborate and absurd.

Now we have been warned that when the illegals aren’t voting by the trillions, “they are eating the cats, eating the dogs, eating the pets!”

Meanwhile, Ohio Attorney General David Yost, a stalwart Republican, has announced an indictment of six illegal immigrant voters. A grand total of two voted in 2020. “Irregularities like this are rare, and this is a small number of cases,” Yost told reporters. “We should all be confident in the upcoming election, knowing that the laws are being enforced and will continue to be enforced.”

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WTF! Donald again?????

ELECTION NIGHT (November 5, 2024): Donald Trump wins a second term. This blogger is not surprised. Polling numbers, for Democrats, had been ominous. Cheaper gasoline, here we go!

Also, free bacon will be handed out in grocery stores, and Donald will really get a healthcare plan done this time.

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Unlike 2020.

11/6/24: Kamala Harris takes time to gather her wits before calling Mr. Trump to admit defeat. At 2 a.m. this morning, Dana Perino, on Fox News, has the temerity to complain. “You should concede and let your opponent have their election night … Let them have their moment,” she says.

Apparently, Ms. Perino has never heard of “irony.”

(Or journalistic integrity.)

As of November 6, 2024, 1,464 days had passed, and Donald Dumpling had not conceded victory to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Vice President Harris calls the former and future president Wednesday afternoon and congratulates him on his victory. She also promises that there will be a peaceful transfer of power.

Unlike 2020.

A January 6 rioter sprays police with mace.
Donald was still insisting he won.

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11/13/24: President Biden – acting maturely – invites President-Elect Trump to visit the White House. As The New York Times reports:

On Wednesday, at least, the nation’s 46th president was determined to uphold the traditions that have long surrounded a peaceful transfer of power – offering to do “everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, have what you need” – even if they were traditions that Mr. Trump refused to extend to him four years earlier.

Such as: Lying endlessly about a “Stolen Election,” inciting a riotous attack on Congress, and then refusing to show up for the Biden Inauguration.

Instead, Mr. Biden said in greeting: “Welcome. Welcome back.”

“Thank you very much,” Mr. Trump responded. “And politics is tough, and it’s in many cases, not a very nice world. But it is a nice world today and I appreciate very much a transition that’s so smooth, it’ll be as smooth as you can get. And I very much appreciate that, Joe.”

Mr. Biden responded: “You’re welcome.”

Palestinians don’t exist. Don’t tell the Palestinians.

Same day: Mr. Trump announces that he has selected Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, and current Christian talk show host, to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. For Middle East envoy, Trump taps Steve Witkoff on the shoulder with his putter, making clear that his second administration will be even more pro-Israel than the first. Huckabee may let his biblical views cloud his assessment of current events – since Joshua, God’s great warrior, was told of old to grab ever speck of The Promised Land for the Jews and kill the current inhabitants.

So, it came to pass, two thousand years later, that during his own run for president in 2008, Mike could utter nuggets of thought such as: “Basically, there really is no such thing as – I need to be careful about saying this, because people will really get upset – there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted].”

“You have Arabs and Persians,” Huckabee continued. “And there’s such complexity in that. But there’s really no such thing. That’s been a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”

(So, f**k the Palestinians for sure.)

As for Witkoff, he’s a fat cat real estate tycoon and presidential golfing buddy. He spent his time during the 2024 campaign, raising money for Mr. Trump, and ignoring the suffering in Gaza, where the Palestinians – who don’t exist – still think they have a right to live. When the Biden administration stopped shipping 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, where they used them to pulverize the Gaza Strip, Witkoff saw a chance to use the humanitarian delay as a fund-raising tool. Every one of his friends, he told reporters, started calling, asking, “What can I do for Donald Trump?”

He suggested they start writing “six-figure and seven-figure donations,” meaning that in this Trump administration the “Palestinians” are sure to be screwed.

Meanwhile, in Gaza:

Yazen Khaled was orphaned by an Israeli airstrike

that killed his parents and all his siblings.

His leg was amputated in Gaza without anesthesia.

Maram Qassim, 5, was pronounced dead and wrapped in burial cloth.

Her mother insisted on seeing her one last time and squeezed her hand.

Maram squeezed back, albeit faintly.

But sure: send those six-figure and seven-figure checks.

During his second run for president, Donald Dumpling bragged about his diplomatic success during his first term, claiming: “With the historic Abraham Accords, I even made peace in the Middle East [emphasis added],” he said. “We’re gonna have peace in the Middle East.”

The Abraham Accords, signed in late 2020, did normalize relations between Israel and some nations in the Middle East.

They assuredly did not bring peace.

“I know nothing about Project 2025.”

Same day: Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, is no doubt happier to see Trump returning to office than most normal Americans. It was Roberts, after all, and his Foundation, that brought conservative thinkers together to create the massive 922-page Project 2025, which laid out an extreme right-wing agenda, should Donald prevail in the 2024 election.

Democrats blasted Trump, warning that Project 2025 suggested all kinds of unpopular policies, putting The Dumpling on the defensive. In July, on Truth Social, he insisted, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.”

Yet, The New York Times could report that Donald had, in fact, “sat next to Roberts on a 45-minute private flight to a 2022 Heritage conference, where Trump had given a speech praising the organization’s work ‘to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.’”

Trump’s amnesia was even more surprising, considering J.D. Vance had written the forward to a book by Mr. Roberts, scheduled for release in September 2024. You’d have thought he might have taken time to tell the Dumpling-Elect who Roberts was and what his plans were should the Trump/Vance ticket prevail.

Provisions included in Project 2025:

ü Excluding abortion from health care

ü Disbanding federal agencies

ü Killing climate change programs

ü A plan to “burn down” the F.B.I.

ü Also: “every Ivy League college”

ü Also: The New York Times

Publication of Roberts’ book, Dawn’s Early Light, was delayed until after the election. But a reporter from The Guardian, who showed up at a gathering to celebrate its release, and who had the nerve to ask questions, was told to “go to hell” and escorted out.

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Recounts validate the voting system.

11/20/24: If you have been living with your head wedged in a Halloween pumpkin, you may not realize how often recounts validate the security of state and federal elections. In Maine, multiple GOP losers in the November 5 contest asked for recounts, which is fair in races as tight as theirs.

So, what happened? In the first recount – of more than 6,200 votes – the Democratic candidate’s margin of victory decreased by one. In a second recount, the Democrat’s margin was cut to seven out of 4,600, down three. A third race for a seat in the Maine legislature saw the Democrat prevail by 36 votes on Election Night. In that case, the recount showed a gain of three.

As the Portland Press Herald explained, in a fourth recount, Democrat Kilton Webb won House District 98 by 55 votes, 2,996 to 2,941, over Republican Guy Lebida. Webb lost a solitary vote in the recount.

Lebida’s total was unchanged.

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11/21/24: In most states, elections go to automatic recount, if victory margins fall below certain percentages of the total votes. The battle for a seat in Congress, from Iowa’s First Congressional District, falls into that category, with the GOP candidate ahead by 802 votes, out of 413,000.

This blogger is not aware of any race – other than the statewide recount in Georgia, in 2020, which involved five million votes – where an error larger than 802 has been discovered, let alone the result reversed.

Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the leader in the Iowa race, has faced a recount before. In 2020, she won Iowa’s Second Congressional District, by six votes. The original count of just under 400,000 votes had shown Miller-Meeks ahead by 47. So, she lost 41 votes, a high number, as recounts go.

Ironically, Rep. Miller-Meeks’ campaign accused Democrats of being “election deniers,” and Republicans complained, and said the recount was a waste of taxpayer dollars. “This is a delaying tactic,” her campaign added, “to thwart the will of the people.” Which Republicans would never support!

UPDATE (11/27/24): The recount is completed, and the Democrat picks up a measly four votes.

Senators bringeth the stones.

11/21/24 (Bible Interlude): For those of you “less Christian” than Pete Hegseth, Trump’s uber-religious choice to head up the Department of Defense, the Good Book is clear when it comes to adultery, which even Pete admits he has often committed.

First, you’ve got that whole Ten Commandments list. Number VII: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

The idea is hammered home in Number X: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” (See: Exodus 20:14 and 20:17, respectively.)

(To paraphrase: Don’t covet the neighbour’s wife’s ass.)

For fun, we can also turn to Exodus: 20:10: “And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adultress shall surely be put to death.”

In fact, in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy it is made clear that the death sentence shall be carried out by stoning.

You can read all about it yourself. In Exodus you also have death as remedy for those who “curseth” their father or mother. You have death for he who shall “lieth” with his father’s wife – this having been an era when a man could have multiple wives and sleep with slave girls – and death for the man who “lieth” with his daughter-in-law. If a man lies with a beast, you guessed it. Death for the man. And a club to the skull for the offending beast.

The religious zealots – like Pete – forget these admonitions. But one idea many still fixate upon today remains: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

So, if Pete is right, and “God Wills It,” as one of his tattoos reads, he won’t have to worry about Senate confirmation.

The senators will bringeth the stones.

FUN FACT: Should we decide to “Make America Biblical Again” we’re going to thin out conservative ranks rather quickly. Hegseth gets stoned. Donald Dumpling gets stones. Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and Jerry Falwell Jr. get the rocks, too. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democrat, but Donald’s bizarre choice to head Health and Human Services, is also doomed. He famously kept a list of 37 women he slept with while married to his first wife – who found it and committed suicide. And then he cheated on his current wife with at least three more women.

UPDATE (6/8/25): While looking for another story about adultery, I stumbled on the tale of Jesse Watters, Fox News master of bombast, who also had an adulterous affair with a much younger Fox employee.

So bringeth the stones!

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“Consistent with strangulation.”

11/22/24: Good news, family values folk! Republican State Rep. Lucas Lanigan has won a recount by a single vote and will keep his seat in the Maine legislature. Also, bad news, family values folk! Lanigan has been accused of choking his wife, after she confronted him with evidence about an affair.

(See “Stoning,” above.)

Rep. Lanigan finished with 2,478 votes. His Democratic challenger, Patty Kidder, finished with 2,477. The original count had the candidates tied.

Mrs. Lanigan is asking to drop charges, but prosecutors have refused. When she first complained, charges of aggravated domestic assault were filed. She was taken to a hospital, where she was found to have bruises on both sides of her neck, consistent with strangulation.

I am not going to make a cheap pun, and suggest Rep. Lanigan choked back tears when his one vote-victory was announced.

Same day – non choking news: President-Elect Dumpling has announced that his choice for senior director for counterterrorism, as part of the National Security Council, will be Sebastian Gorka. Donald praised Gorka, saying that “since 2015, Dr. Gorka has been a tireless advocate for the America First Agenda and the MAGA Movement.” If you’ve ever listened to The Dumpling, or Gorka, you know their idea of “terrorists” comes down to reporters, doing the job the free press is tasked with performing. We also know that Dr. Gorka is not a fan of the Black Lives Matter folks, or liberals in general.

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Ejaculating on her chest.

11/24/24: There’s fresh news regarding studly Fox News commentator Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice to helm the Defense Department during his second term. Pete does have combat experience, with the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, this blogger can respect that.

And he is studly; and Donald loves advisors who look studly, if male, or hot, if female. Not counting Dr. Gorka (see above).

Trump picked his lawyer, Alina Habba (second from left), one suspects,
based on cleavage, not legal acumen.

She helped him lose more than $88 million in two defamation lawsuits.

Pete is also a survivor of deadly combat with women – for example, women he has married, and women other men have married. Hegseth first cut the three-tiered cake in 2004, when he wed Meredith Schwarz. The couple divorced in 2009. Apparently, Pete’s five admitted affairs were one too many for Mrs. Hegseth. The candidate to lead Defense didn’t wait long to carve the cake a second time, marrying Samantha Deering in 2010. Pete and Samantha had three children together, but Pete was once again boinking elsewhere. In August 2017, while still married to Deering, he had a daughter with Fox executive producer Jennifer Rauchet.

A second divorce followed.

It was time for wedding cake once more, and Hegseth and Rauchet, who has three young children from her first marriage, “tied the knot” (loosely?), in August 2019. The ceremony was held at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, where cheating on wives is not considered a problem.

As mentioned on November 11 (above), Pete is super religious and when not banging women he’s not married to yet – or never will be – he enjoys attending services at Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship. That congregation is affiliated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.

Sometimes, Pete likes to show off his tattoos, including a Jerusalem cross on his chest, and one reading “Deus Vult,” a Latin phrase meaning “God Wills It,” on his right bicep. This last phrase harkens to the Crusades, when Catholic and Muslim soldiers devoted the best part of two centuries to killing each other.

Murderous religious warfare! What fun!

For good measure, Mr. Hegseth has been accused of assaulting a woman he met at a business conference. Here, we can rely on USA Today to tell the tale:

The 2017 allegation centers on a California Federation of Republican Women convention where Hegseth, a telegenic Republican culture warrior, was the keynote speaker on Saturday, October 7, and his alleged victim was a staffer for the organization.

On several occasions that night, the alleged victim expressed dislike for Hegseth

In texts to her husband, who was staying at the hotel with, according to reports, their two small children, she wrote that Hegseth was giving off “creeper” vibes, ridiculing him as he spoke from the podium.

“I’m going to be here all night,” she wrote. “It’s awful.” She also texted her husband that she had been drinking “much more than normal.”

Much of what occurred from that point forward is in dispute – one woman’s word against one studly man’s. What is not in dispute is that Pete soon had the woman naked and in bed and admits he did ejaculate on her chest. But he says he was careful to ask the married lady if she was okay with everything he was doing.

Such as committing adultery.

Again.

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A vibrant free press is ideal.

11/25/24: As a former history teacher, I would like to suggest that if you don’t know why we all gain from having a vibrant free press, you need to go back to middle school and pay more attention in social studies class. The concept is simple. If Fox News can help expose a Democratic politician skimming cash from foreign agents, or the Washington Post can expose a Trump adviser for shaking down potential candidates for spots in the Trump administration, we all benefit.

Fewer crooks in government = good news for taxpayers, and honest individuals, generally, both MAGA and UN-MAGA, alike.

And so, today’s news:

A top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump asked potential administration nominees to give him monthly consulting fees in exchange for advocating for them to Trump, a written review by Trump’s legal team concluded.

The scathing review of Boris Epshteyn, a top lawyer to Trump who has extensive sway in the transition, was prepared by Trump’s attorneys in recent days, according to two people familiar with the report. It found that among those whom Epshteyn had unsuccessfully solicited for payment was Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick for treasury secretary.

Trump commissioned the report after he heard allegations that Epshteyn had been asking potential Cabinet nominees and others for money, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal document.

The review recommended that Epshteyn’s employment with and proximity to Trump should be ended, warning of scandal for Trump and possibly eventual criminal charges for Epshteyn, according to one of the people with knowledge of the review.

The existence of the review itself was first reported by CNN. Some of the elements of Epshteyn’s conduct were first reported by Just the News, a conservative website, on Monday afternoon. That outlet said it had spoken to Trump, who had criticized anyone who seeks to make money off him. “I suppose every President has people around them who try to make money off them on the outside. It’s a shame but it happens,” Trump said, according to the outlet. “But no one working for me in any capacity should be looking to make money.”

We should also mention that Boris was setting his standards high. He wasn’t going to sell his soul cheap. He was expecting $100,000 a month from candidates willing to pay for his “services.”

(Only Donald Dumpling, himself, shall sell the golden tennis shoes.)

(Also: The Bibles.)

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11/28/24: President-Elect Trump issues another heartfelt Thanksgiving message to the American people.

“Happy Thanksgiving to all,” he posted on Truth Social, “including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country, but who have miserably failed, and will always fail, because their ideas and policies are so hopelessly bad that the great people of our Nation just gave a landslide victory to those who want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

“Don’t worry,” he added, “our Country will soon be respected, productive, fair, and strong, and you will be, more than ever before, proud to be an American!”

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11/29/24: As the right-wingers like to say, every time they see a veteran, “Thank you for your service.”

Not counting anyone who has ever crossed Donald Trump.

Today, Elon Musk accused Col. Alexander Vindman (now retired) of committing “treason” when he testified against Donald during the president’s first impeachment – and said Trump held up aid to Ukraine for selfish reasons, even at risk to U.S. security.

We would also like to remind readers that Vindman’s testimony was later supported by John Bolton, Trump’s National Security Advisor.

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“Get some help and take an honest look at yourself.”

11/30/24: President-Elect Trump chooses Jared Kushner’s father to be ambassador to France, because if you look high and low and even Google, “Rich people who are not crooks,” there is no better choice to fill the spot than Charles Kushner. Sure, you could look up and down your street, for example, and think, “My neighbor, Debbie, is not a pardoned criminal. I will select Debbie!”

Nope.

Instead, you pick Charles, who “was convicted of preparing false tax returns, retaliating against a cooperating witness, and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission in 2005.”

And who pardoned Mr. Kushner in 2020?

Donald did.

“The sad, sad truth.”

Same day: Pete Hegseth’s problems just got a little worse, when an old email, sent to him by his mother surfaced. Mom now insists she supports her boy and hopes he can be the next Secretary of Defense – and tell women they don’t belong in combat – but maybe belong in his bedroom.

Angry over what she had seen of her son’s behavior, back in 2018, she fired off an email. “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, while making clear she still loved her son.

“I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego,” she added. “You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”

Same day: Let’s not forget Kash Patel, Donald Dumpling’s choice to head up the F.B.I. If confirmed by the Senate, Patel will be the first director ever to have pleaded the Fifth in front of a federal grand jury.

In October 2022, a probe into Donald’s mishandling of top-secret documents was moving forward. Patel was called to testify, but decided he’d rather not incriminate himself, for any criminal efforts he might have made to help a possible plot advance. It is, of course, a virtue of the U.S. Constitution, that a defendant need not testify against himself. But I would not think the average voter would believe the best person to lead the F.B.I. for the next ten years is a guy with possible crimes to hide.

Patel was granted immunity for his testimony, which meant if he told the truth, he could not be prosecuted; but whatever he said when questioned again, was included in the Jack Smith report. This report is now being kept secret by order of GOP Congressional leaders – who are deathly afraid of Donald J. Trump.

(In his own cases, Donald has taken the Fifth hundreds of times.)

Other luminaries who have taken the Fifth include Mark Maguire, who refused to answer questions before a Congressional panel, regarding steroid use in baseball. Maguire, of course, set the single season homerun record with 70 moonshots in 1998. That record was broken three years later when Sammy Sosa blasted 73. Both men, as we now know, absolutely used steroids.

Also refusing to talk to Congressional investigators, we have “pharmaceutical bro” Martin Shkreli, who went to prison anyway, after it turned out he had come up with clever schemes to increase certain drug prices – in one case, from $13.50 per pill to $750.00, almost overnight.

(More recently, Shkreli lost another court battle, and was ordered to disgorge $64.6 million in illicit gains.)

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“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

Kash Patel, October 2023.

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PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald J. Trump (whom we will nickname “Donald Dumpling” during his second term) gets December 2024, off to a rousing start. It’s going to be a long, dickish four years.

“Oh, Canada!”

12/2/24: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau travels to Mar-a-Lago to discuss tariffs with The Dumpling. (Trump can’t travel to Canada because Canada doesn’t allow felons to cross its border.)

When Trudeau says Trump’s tariff plans will be devastating to Canada – which happens to be an allied nation – Donald suggests that perhaps Canada should become the 51st state. The Prime Minister later says the President-Elect was “joking.” But I am guessing, behind closed doors, Trudeau has a different opinion of what sounded to most ears like an insult.

Because:

1. Canada has 41 million people and would not want to become a state equal in the U.S. Senate (two senators each) with Wyoming, which has .6 million.

2. Our northern neighbor is divided into thirteen provinces and territories. At least eight should, if we are using the U.S. model, become states. Ontario, for example, would be fifth in population, beating out Pennsylvania. Quebec would match Virginia, and British Columbia would equal Alabama.

(Only with more hockey players.)

3. Saskatchewan would have to change its name to “Even Farther North Dakota,” and would also demand two senators, as would all these provinces.

4. Canada has universal healthcare.

5. An overwhelming majority of Canadians (81%) believe climate change is real, and think Donald Dumpling is a moron because he can’t tell the difference between climate and weather.

6. Only 21% of Canadians would have picked the Dumpling over Kamala Harris, vs. 60% for the Democrat.

UPDATE: Whether or not Trump was joking, he decided to troll the Canadians again. On Truth Social, the president-elect posted the picture below – one apparently generated by AI – with a two-word caption, “Oh Canada!”

An alert observer pointed out that the mountain in the distance is the Matterhorn – which is in Switzerland – which is not a Canadian province. No sane person would expect Trump to know that. During his first term he thought he could trade Puerto Rico for Greenland.

No president has ever had so many ways to prove he’s a shallow asshole. So, he trolled Trudeau again!

“It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,” Donald posted on Truth Social. “I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all! DJT.”

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12/3/24: Another “Stolen Election” myth is revealed, after Dinesh D’Souza admits that the core argument of his movie “2000 Mules,” is based on flawed data – also known as “data people made up.”

He is clearly worried about being sued for defamation.

Again.

Same day: Donald Dumpling threatens Hamas with “all hell to pay,” if American hostages captured in the attack on Israel in October 2023, are not released by the time he takes office. “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America,” Macho Don promises. Then he adds, in all caps, “RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

Naturally, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been raining death and destruction on Gaza, thanked his boy for his “strong statement.”

Short of dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza strip, there’s not much more you can do to make hell pay. As for more bombs, at this point, as someone once said, you’re just “making the rubble bounce.”

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“It’s typical Trump, all bluster, very little substance.”

12/4/24: File this under the category: “Numbskull Hypocrisy.” Sen. Mitch McConnell is irked because two Democratic-appointed federal judges have unretired, in the face of Donald Trump’s election.

Mitch says this proves “partisan politics” are involved – and the nerve of these judges, not to want to be replaced by Trump’s picks. Rudy Giuliani, maybe?

Or Matt Gaetz? He’s available, again.

If you have the attention span of a muskmelon, you should remember a happy time when McConnell, then Senate Majority Leader, blocked an Obama appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court (March 2016), saying it was too close to the November 2016 election. Mitch insisted the people should decide who they wanted on the court, by picking their president eight months later – that president then picking their favorite judges – a concept which is nowhere mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.

Then you may remember when McConnell looked at the calendar on October 27, 2020, and voted, along with his GOP pals, to put a fresh face, Amy Coney Barrett, on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mitch did not feel a need to wait and see who the people wanted for president, six days later.

Same day: Even more hypocrisy! Old clips of Pete Hegseth surface, with Pete saying what this blogger used to say – but what this blogger still does. (We even have a Megan Kelly sighting.) Pete is all bent out of shape after Candidate Trump, in 2016, says he supports torture. “It’s typical Trump, all bluster, very little substance,” he fumes. “He talks a tough game. But then when pressed on it, he’s an armchair tough guy. I hate to say it, but this is a guy who said that John McCain is not a war hero. Yet he sought his own five military deferments.”

Pete was right, and I’ve been right all along. Trumps are sunshine patriots, at best, cowards, at worst.

Same day: Trump picks Peter Navarro to be his trade advisor – that is: to hold the same job he had for Team Trump 1.0.

When last seen, Navarro was lodged in prison, after refusing to testify in front of Congress. He couldn’t even bother to show up and plead the Fifth. We should also point out that he is still fighting a court order to turn over documents that might relate to the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021.

UPDATE (6/2/25): Lo and behold! The Department of Justice drops legal action against Navarro. (Old Pete had refused to hand over documents, required under the Presidential Records Act – such as documents which might reveal egregious or illegal acts performed by members of Team Trump 1.0.)

Navarro fought the matter at all three levels of the federal judiciary and lost every time. But he stalled the justice system just long enough.

Now, Team Trump 2.0 has saved his ass.

“Find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media.”

Same day: Now that Matt Gaetz is out as Trump’s choice for attorney general, we will have to make do with Kash Patel, to head up the F.B.I. – a man who, at least, is less likely to pay prostitutes for services rendered.

Recently, an interview from October 2023 resurfaced. At the time, Kash showed up on Steve Bannon’s show where the two discussed their plan to implement fascism if Trump were reelected. To say that “the rule of law” was not prominently discussed is an understatement.

In fact, said Patel:

The fact that Team Trump had had more than four years to prove that Biden rigged the 2020 election, and found nothing but cobwebs in corners, does not trouble Mr. Patel. So, we’re stuck with another threat to the free press.

We should also point out that during Donald’s first go as president, Patel worked at the Department of Defense. He served as chief of staff for Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, Trump’s third and last choice to fill that slot during his first administration.

Choice #1, Gen. James Mattis, ended up labeling the president as a threat to the U.S. Constitution.

Choice #2, Mark Esper, also called Trump a threat to the U.S. Constitution.

As for Secretary Miller, in the wake of the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, he blamed the president’s rhetoric and lies for all the wild violence, describing what happened as “cause and effect.”

(Dear MAGA folks: You should probably notice a trend.)

___

No choice but to riot.

12/6/24: Donald Trump showed up for “Fox Nation’s Patriot of the Year” ceremony, and to the surprise of no one, walked away with the trophy – “Patriot of the Year.” It was handed over by none other than Sean Hannity, Donald’s ass-smooching friend.

Meanwhile, Mr. Dumpling has promised to pardon all 1,600 January 6 rioters on his first day in office. According to Donald, those fools had no choice but to riot and pummel cops with flagpoles, baseball bats, hockey sticks, and expandable batons, and douse them with wasp repellant, bear spray, and chemical irritants.

Because Donald – in his patriotic delusions – said he really won the 2020 election and unleashed the mob.

QUIZ TIME

1. Which of these four individuals has hired more undocumented immigrants during their lifetime?

A) “Sleepy Joe” Biden

B) John (the blogger)

C) Barack Obama

D) Donald J. Trump (former and future president)

Answer: D

The Dumpling has a long history of hiring immigrants, legal and illegal, to do jobs Americans don’t really want.

At least at the level of pay cheap-ass Donald is willing to offer.

___

More seashore, more morons!

12/9/24: Planet Earth is screwed. Team Trump 2.0 is stuffed with climate deniers, in the warped mold of Donald Dumpling himself. Donald is the only idiot ever to claim that climate change will increase the amount of seashore in the world.

Ha, ha, MAGA folks. You elected a moron.

Speaking of morons, Trump’s pick for energy secretary is fracking executive Chris Wright, not quite as clueless as The Dumpling, but not appreciably brighter. His take on climate change? He agrees that burning fossil fuels is contributing to rising temperatures.

But he also says climate change makes the planet greener [emphasis added] by increasing plant growth, boosts agricultural productivity and likely reduces the number of temperature-related deaths annually.

“It’s probably almost as many positive changes as there are negative changes,” he told conservative media nonprofit PragerU last year, referring to climate change. “Is it a crisis, is it the world’s greatest challenge, or a big threat to the next generation? No.”

Trump, of course, is still trying to stay as far away from windmills as possible – which he insists cause cancer.

UPDATE (1/20/25): You can argue all kinds of ways about what must be done to deal with the climate threat. If you think Trump and Wright are right, however, you must ask yourself: What do the rest of the nations of the world know that they don’t? At last count, 194 countries, and the European Union, have signed on to efforts to limit the damage done by climate change.

A full list of nations that have not:

Iran

Libya

Yemen

– and now –

United States

Trump took us out of the deal during his first term in office and Biden took us back in, and Donald has jerked us out again.

Yay! More seashore.

Same day: But wait, there’s more! I mean morons. Today, 75 non-morons, all Nobel laureates, cautioned against putting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of America’s healthcare system.

With RFK Jr., you get attacks on vaccines, and support for taking horse tranquilizers to stop the spread of COVID.

Richard Roberts, who won the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 1993, put it plainly. “These political attacks on science are very damaging.”

In a letter, the group warns: “Placing Mr. Kennedy in charge of DHHS would put the public’s health in jeopardy [emphasis added unless otherwise noted] and undermine America’s global leadership in the health sciences.”

We know, for example, that in 2019, nurses in Samoa mistakenly mixed a muscle relaxant with a measles vaccine and two children died. Kennedy saw this as proof that vaccines were unsafe and helped fuel an anti-vaccine fervor. A measles outbreak followed, and 83 Samoans died, most of them children.

Kennedy took his show to Europe in 2020, where he helped spread the conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 pandemic was part of “a sinister game” played by governments of the world to control people. “A lot of it feels very planned to me,” he explained during a visit to Germany.

Here, the hard-working blogger should naturally respond: “Look, if we’re doing ‘feelings,’ instead of science, I have a ‘feeling’ that Robert is kind of nutty on the vaccine topic, among others.”

___

12/13/24: The free press, doing what the free press does best – reports on RFK Jr. ally Aaron Siri. In 2022, Siri petitioned to have the Food and Drug Administration revoke approval for the polio vaccine. Apparently, Aaron and Robert believe the vaccine hasn’t been tested sufficiently for safety.

Bring back paralysis, leg braces, and iron lungs!

FUN FACT: Did you know that Rupert Murdoch got married for the fifth time this past June? Bride #5 is a Russian lady, Elena Zhukova, who was previously married to a Russian oligarch, and whose daughter was married to Roman Abramovich, another oligarch, also Russian.

I think all the MAGA faithful will agree. You can never have too many oligarchs helping run the government and shaping the news you receive, whether here or in Russia. For example: Elon Musk.

UPDATE (6/8/25): Okay. Forget Elon. Elon is now out, and Donald Dumpling is warning that there will be “very serious consequences” if Musk bankrolls Democratic candidates in coming elections.

(If that doesn’t sound like fascism to you, you need to read up more on fascism.)

___

“Digitally penetrated.”

12/16/24: There’s wild celebration at Mar-a-Lago, when Donald wins a defamation suit against ABC, after George Stephanopoulos, referred to him during a Sunday morning This Week show, as a “rapist.”

ABC will pay $15 million in damages, and another million to offset Donald’s legal costs. In fact, Trump was adjudged to have “digitally penetrated” a woman, against her will: Namely E. Jean Carroll.

Is that, technically “rape?” ABC didn’t want to fight. So, yay, Donald. You’re not a “rapist.” Just a scuzz bag.

As most of us who fear Donald and his fascists leanings remember, during his first, manic term in office he consistently displayed disrespect for the free press. As in, reporters, are “Enemies of the people.”

You would think even an ass-smooching fool like Sean Hannity would understand why presidents attacking the free press pose a threat to freedom. Angered by leaks to reporters during his first term, Trump made clear he believed government should curtail reporters’ abilities to shield sources. Or, as he put it, in his crude, classless fashion, there’s a good way to smoke out leakers.

“The reporter goes to jail,” he sneered. “When the reporter learns that he’s going to be married in two days to a certain prisoner that’s extremely strong, tough, and mean, he will say, he or she, ‘I think I’m going to give you the information. Here’s the leaker, get me the hell out of here.’”

Just how crazy is Donald – and how far is he planning to take his war on the free press during a second term? He has filed a damage suit against the Des Moines Register, and pollster J. Ann Selzer, after they produced and reported on a poll showing that Trump was losing Iowa by three points, heading into the November election. We know polls are wrong all the time. That makes this lawsuit stupid.

And dangerous.

___

“Ask why schools HAVE to.”

12/17/24: Today, we have another school shooting. This one is in Madison, Wisconsin, at a private Christian academy. Three dead, including the 15-year-old female shooter. Three lives wasted. Six injured.

But, hey, those Christian schools don’t let just anyone use the bathroom of his, her or they’s choice.

Also: This is American, and all we can ever do is buy more guns to make ourselves safer from the crazy people who are also buying more guns.

Do we have a lot of these school shooting incidents? Yes, there were 85 in the 2000s, in this country.

Then there were 266 the following decade.

And it’s only getting worse: 226 bloody incidents, in just the last five years.

A frustrated chief of police in Madison, finally said, “Stop asking why schools don’t have bullet proof glass & metal detectors at all the doors. Ask why schools HAVE to. That’s the question that needs to be asked.”

Same day: What America really needs is millions more guns to make our children safer. And more pipe bombs!

Brad Spafford of Virginia has been arrested and charged with possession of 150 pipe bombs of various kinds.

Spafford is said to be a connoisseur of explosive devices. Some he allegedly kept in a detached garage on his property and marked with the word “lethal.” Others he kept in an unsecured backpack in his bedroom. That backpack carried the phrase, “#nolivesmatter.” (According to the F.B.I., the No Lives Matter movement espouses an ideology of targeted mass killings, spiced up with self-harm and animal abuse.)

If you blame schools for the problems of society, federal agents found two small children living in the home.

In his freezer, Spafford allegedly kept a jar of chemicals he told authorities was so unstable, even a temperature change or friction could touch it off. It was marked, “Dangerous,” and “Do Not Touch,” and was found along with “what appeared to be Hot Pockets and other food items.” For fun, Dad Brad liked to use a picture of Joe Biden for target practice and had been working on gaining “sniper-rifle qualification” at a nearby shooting range. At some point, Spafford apparently “disfigured” his hand while blowing shit up. And of course, he was stockpiling arms and ammunition. Among other charges, he is accused of possession of an unregistered short-barrel rifle.

Plus, he was in possession of an assault-style rifle, which every American needs to protect his or her family.

___

The warmest year in 125,000 years.

12/18/24: Data gathered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service have caused growing alarm. Put plainly: temperature increases appear to be accelerating in unexpected fashion. It’s no surprise that 2024 is expected to be the hottest year in recorded history – beating out the old hottest year – 2023.

But studies of tree rings and ice cores indicate that we may now be “enjoying” the warmest year in the last 125,000.

In November, for example, record high temperatures on all seven continents outnumbered record lows, 50-1.

The alarming numbers were the subject of discussion at the American Geophysical Union conference in Washington last week. You figure Donald Trump has never heard of the Union, nor would he care to have the data explained. He has the same level of intellectual curiosity as a totem pole.

UPDATE (3/11/25): Once Donald takes office, with the help of Elon Musk, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is gutted, with thousands of workers terminated.

Now we won’t have to worry about 2024 being the hottest year in the last 1,250 centuries. Because NOAA won’t be reporting.

___

12/19/24: Let’s catch up on all news Donald Trump. Come for the facts, stay for the mockery.

First, The Dumpling has blown up a funding deal worked out by hard-pressed Republicans in Congress. In fact, his right-hand, right-wing immigrant pal, Elon Musk, is clamoring for government to shut down for 33 days.

We can also report that now that the election is over, GOP members in Congress have decided to admit that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are on the table. Because we have huge deficits, and you can’t raise taxes on billionaires.

When I checked this morning, Musk was worth $464 billion. To get a sense of how much that is, if he put all his money in certificates of deposit, earning 1.74% annually, he would have an extra $8,073,600,000 twelve months later. That would give him $22,119,452 to spend every single day.

(The Dumpling also needs a tax cut.)

Second: Donald has chosen Herschel Walker, former football player, and guy who put a gun to his wife’s head and threatened to blow her “f**king brains out,” and tried to punch a girlfriend, but she dodged, to be ambassador to The Bahamas. If you’ve never heard Mr. Walker speak, you are missing a comic pleasure. I doubt he could find The Bahamas on a map of the world.

Even after we send him there.

(I doubt the President-Elect could, either.)

Third: Equally amusing, since Don Jr. was doing his best to ditch girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, Don Sr. has decided to ship Kimberly off to Greece, to serve as ambassador. All that Botox she got still wasn’t enough.

Not enough Botox.

Fourth: It’s official. The U.S. economy grew at a healthy 3.1% rate in the third quarter of this year.

Not bad, Joe Biden!

That followed another good quarterly report, for April-June, of 3%; so, Donald should be inheriting a solid economy in January.

Meanwhile, “Dumps” has already backed off a promise to lower grocery prices as soon as he recites the oath of office – which we know he’s going to break. He now admits what every person over the age of five should have grasped. Once prices go up, they almost never come back down. For example, I’m old enough to remember when gas was 19 cents a gallon. In high school, I could still go to a movie for a dollar, and I bought my first house in 1976, for $31,000.

Well, then, can we expect the price of eggs to drop, and will bacon be handed out at Kroger free? When asked recently if he thought he could slash grocery prices, Donnie backpedaled, faster than he did when approached by the draft board when he was a lad. “I don’t think so. Look, they got them up,” he told ABC News, referring to Team Biden. “I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”

Fifth: Okay, so no free bacon. Well, then, what about his plan to end the war in Ukraine in one day?

April Fools.

___

No more debt ceiling.

12/20/24: Once again, Republicans can’t chew gum and keep the federal government funded at the same time. First, they passed a resolution to fund the system until Donald took office. Donald started barking, and Elon Musk, who has hundreds of billions of dollars all to himself, joined in, with Elon insisting government be shut down. With that, the bill just passed by the House of Representatives went straight to the morgue.

Then Donald said he wanted a bill which would get rid of the “debt ceiling” until 2029, at which point he could happily waddle away from the White House – assuming his lard ass lived that long. Then conservatives in Congress, who claim they believe in balancing the budget, refused. That meant Donald got mad and insulted Rep. Chip Roy, who proudly calls himself fiscally responsible.

On Truth Social, the president-elect went with a fresh screed: “The very unpopular ‘Congressman’ from Texas, Chip Roy, is getting in the way, as usual, of having yet another Great Republican Victory – All for the sake of some cheap publicity for himself. Republican obstructionists have to be done away with.”

We should point out, as The Dumpling’s second term approaches, that it’s always fun to read his postings – with his random use of quotation marks, as if Roy isn’t really a “Congressman.” A little checking (and here we are adopting Trump-style random quotation marks), reveals that Roy won his “race” for “reelection” in 2024, with “62%” of the “vote.” By the way, his Twenty-First Congressional District, in Texas, is weirdly gerrymandered to dilute the vote of blue-leaning Austin.

Trump, himself got 56% of the vote in Texas, but I can’t find any comparison of his vote in Roy’s district.

Anyway, Donald now says Roy should face a primary challenge, and if he does, he will have “no chance.”

(Those last quotation marks are in the original post.)

In other news, Republicans like Rep. Paula Luna immediately blamed Democrats for killing the budget deal.

Then “Congresswoman” Luna and other “Republicans” did a little scrambling and came up with a “bill” that “could pass” – eliminating the debt ceiling for two years – thereby kicking the “Deficit Can” down the road another few miles.

We can now add another billionaire or three to the crew helping Trump plan for the next four years. Meet Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle. He comes in nicely at $210 billion net worth.

This crew of ordinary Americans, helping Trump shape policy for the next four years, includes:

Marc Andreessen: Net worth, a paltry $1.9 billion, but no doubt hoping to see his bank account balloon by sucking up to Trump.

Mr. Andreessin.

Peter Thiel, the billionaire who flew J.D. Vance around on his private jet and pushed for him to be chosen for VP. Thiel is worth $14.3 billion.

Palmer Luckey, head of a military technology firm called Anduril; Forbes estimates his net worth at $2.4 billion.

Antonio Gracias, an Elon pal, $1.5 billion.

Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon sidekick, $1 billion.

John Hering, a venture capitalist, whose firm, Vy Capital, has invested $4 billion in Musk enterprises.

Then we have billionaires who will help run the government directly:

Linda McMahon, nominee for Secretary of Education, famous for running zero education operations, but a titan in pro wrestling, $3 billion.

Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary nominee, $2.2 billion.

Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary nominee. He’s a “reported billionaire,” and once helped George Soros (the billionaire right-wingers love to excoriate) score a billion-dollar profit on a single deal.

Jared Isaacman, to head NASA, $1.8 billion.

Frank Bisignano, to be the next Social Security Administrator; worth a cool billion (because who better to understand the needs of people who rely on Social Security).

Warren Stephens, an investment banker, to serve as ambassador to the United Kingdom, $3.4 billion.

Conair executive Leandro Rizzuto Jr., ambassador to the Organization of American States, $3.5 billion.

Charles Kushner, pardoned tax cheat and father of Jared, husband of Ivanka, slated for ambassador to France, $1.8 billion.

Tom Barrack Jr., close friend of Donald’s, once accused of cheating Italy out of $190 million in taxes, to be ambassador to Turkey; net worth: $1 billion.

Steven Witkoff, Special Envoy to the Middle East (okay, admittedly that job is going to suck), worth $1 billion.

And we should include Donald himself, coming in at an estimated 275 pounds of lard, and $6.2 billion.

And we can now include:

Jeff Bezos, who has decided to donate $1 million to Donald’s Inauguration, lest he rankle the easily rankled Dumpling. Bezos is just another billionaire who doesn’t want to see his taxes raised, forcing him to pinch the proverbial penny. He comes in second to Elon, at $234.5 billion.

Mark Zuckerberg is also donating a million to the Inauguration extravaganza. He’s worth $206.5 billion.

And, finally, Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, also good for a million; net worth $1.1 billion.

Having compiled this list, and keeping in mind that Donald Dumpling is far from done, I think we can all agree! These are exactly the type of people who you know will be in sympathy with the typical MAGA voter, who worries if the price of gasoline goes up 19¢ per gallon, or when a 15.6 oz. box of Wheaties costs $5.99 at the local supermarket, and, hey, who shrank the box!

I, for one, am feeling the vibe where Elon and Donald sit down at Mar-a-Lago with the guy who owns this house in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and they talk about why the government needs to cut Social Security and Medicare.

And food stamps.

___

12/31/24: Sen. Bernie Sanders is all on board with a proposal Donald Trump floated during his recent campaign.

Donald has said he wants to help all the MAGA’s of the world – and even those of us of the “lunatic left-wing fringe” – by capping interest rates on credit cards at 10%.

Bernie is now crafting legislation to achieve that cap.

UPDATE (5/22/25): A bill with bipartisan support has been introduced in Congress. Today, however, the American Bankers’ Association has come out with a letter to oppose the change.

___

“Obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

1/12/25: Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance shows up on “Fox News Sunday,” to discuss plans for dealing with the January 6 rioters.

Vance assures his host that the pardon question is “very simple.” Those who “protested peacefully” should be pardoned. On the other hand, “if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

This January 6 rioter attacked police with a baseball bat.

1/13/25: Mike Lindell is still fighting – and losing badly – to prove that the 2020 election was stolen, and Smartmatic software was used to do the stealing. Lindell has been ordered to pay the voting technology company $56,369, pending appeal, for filing a frivolous counterclaim against Smartmatic.

Mike’s likely to end up homeless at the rate he’s going.

Unless…divine intervention! Mike is now shilling sales of “MyCross,” a lovely necklace for only $249.98.

For some reason, the website where you can order these beautiful crosses makes clear: “All sales are final.”

___

1/15/25: Donald has called on supporters to donate to Rudy Giuliani and his defense. Rudy is bogged down in a fight related to damages he must pay in a defamation lawsuit which he lost.

Catastrophically.

He lied about two Georgia poll workers stealing tens of thousands of votes in the 2020 election, when they stole zero. Now he owes $148 million, or so.

According to a headline in Newsweek, since The Dumpling issued the “Bat Call,” donations have “flooded in.”

Yes, Newsweek notes, $10,000 have “flooded in.” Clearly, Rudy is still in a serious jam.

(How much is Donald, that cheap bastard going to donate?)

___

Donald Dumpling and his Dumpling Accomplices.

1/16/25: On this blog, I have made it policy not to quote Democrats to prove points regarding the comic ineptitude, malfeasance and criminality of Donald Dumpling and his Dumpling Accomplices. At least 90% of the time, political rhetoric is predictable and unedifying, a waste of breath by those speaking and of time spent listening. This exception, by way of Senator Patty Murray of Washington, is too perfect not to quote.

“It takes no imagination to see how dangerous it would be to confirm RFK Jr. as Health Secretary,” she said this week, “and it takes mountains of willful ignorance to ignore it.”

Same day: We should note that U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, ever sensitive to the cries of The Dumpling, has announced that the flags, which are flying at half-staff for 30 days, in honor of Jimmy Carter, will be raised on January 20, so that Mr. Trump will not tear up during his Inauguration.

Because, everything is about Donald, and how Donald is feeling, and f**k the dead guy, and, if needs be, the U.S. Constitution.

Same day: Trump’s choice for Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, a reported billionaire, says he is not in favor of raising the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009.

If you assume the average worker does 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, with paid vacation, that minimum wage worker would earn $15,600 annually. Bessent recently disclosed assets worth $521 million dollars, which one minimum-wage worker could pile up if they worked a mere 33,397 years.

If we use the “inflation calculator,” we can also see that it would take $10.84 to equal the purchasing power of $7.25 back in 2009.

___

1/19/25: Donald Trump goes to bed for the last time, as a civilian, and at noon on the morrow will again take the oath of office to uphold the U.S. Constitution. He sleeps and dreams of ignoring that oath.

Get ready again, America!

(Something tells me Melania slept in a separate bedroom again.)