WHILE MOST AMERICANS are
worrying about issues of affordability, I believe we can all band together, as
patriots who love this nation, and celebrate the marriage of the president’s
oldest son, Don Jr.’s to Bettina Anderson. That marriage is now entering a fifth
blissful month.
The ceremony, we have since
learned, was a lavish, three-day affair, celebrated on two private islands in
the Caribbean. But not any island previously owned by Jeffrey Epstein, which
would be a relief.
We also know that no expense was
spared, with a helicopter, for example, airlifting a five-tiered cake from
Florida. Or, as the new Mrs. Donald Trump Jr. put it on Instagram later: “It
was everything we dreamed of and more.”
Indeed, it was.
We have now learned, thanks to ProPublica,
that a Russian oligarch named Umar Kremlev, chipped in with hundreds of
thousands of dollars to make the newlyweds’ dreams – and more – come true.
Kremlev paid to rent one of the islands. He paid for a massive fireworks show,
and his team did much of the planning and paid the costs. After all, using
helicopters to fly wedding cakes around isn’t cheap.
On his own Instagram account,
Don Jr. talked about how the guest list was “tight,” with only fifty persons in
attendance.
Yet Umar and a handful of Russians
still made the cut.
This blogger is not surprised –
since he is not a clueless dolt, like most Trump apologists. He well remembers that
Don Jr. had played footsie with Russians before. Junior, his
brother-in-law Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager
during his first run for office, all met with Russians in Trump Tower New York in June
2016. And a good time was had by everyone involved.
This is not speculation or
nonsense pretending to be news on X, where nonsense is rampant and pays. That
meeting did occur, and even Don Jr. eventually admitted it had. Yet, none of
the three American principles ever admitted that the meeting occurred – until the
free press blew the lid off the story in July 2017, by which time Don Sr.
was seated comfortably in the White House.
If you cared to follow the story
carefully, you would have learned that on November 9, 2016, the day after
Trump shocked the world and won the presidency, his campaign organization received
a congratulatory email from Vladimir Putin. Hope Hicks, soon to be chosen White
House Communications Director, forwarded that very email to Kushner, asking,
‘Can you look into this? Don’t want to get duped but don’t want to blow off
Putin!'”
We now know, although Hicks
didn’t, that Kushner had already had that meeting with Russians, and that Don
Jr. was there, and Paul Manafort, too.
Yet, the very next day, Hick was
allowed to go out in front of reporters’ cameras –
again, the free press doing crucial work – and Hicks said this: “We are
not aware of any campaign representatives that were in touch with any foreign
entities before yesterday, when Mr. Trump spoke with many world leaders.”
When pressed about possible
links between the campaign and Russia, Hicks added: “It never happened. There
was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the
campaign.”
Hicks was lying - but probably didn't know it.
*
A
blatant falsehood – the first of many.
AT A BARE MINIMUM, these three top
people in the campaign knew that Hicks was lying to the press, without
knowing, although she may not have known it:
Donald J. Trump Jr.
Jared Kushner
Paul Manafort
For more than a year, the story
of the secret meeting in Trump Tower remained untold until, again, the free
press dug up the truth; and The New York Times had emails to prove it had
occurred.
Don Jr. had no choice now, but
to tell the truth, but of course he didn’t. He lied to reporters again, and claimed that the
meeting was all about American parents adopting Russian kids, who needed
good homes.
Then reporters for the Times
pointed out that they had emails in their possession, indicating that the
Russians had come to New York City offering to help Don Sr. defeat Hillary
Clinton. In fact, they had promised to supply “dirt.”
And Don Jr. had replied to the
Russian offer, “I love it.”
So, if you are not an ill-informed numbskull, you
understand, absolutely, that the Russians did interfere, or at least attempt to
interfere, in the 2016 election.
Today, we find that Don Jr. has not learned his lesson. Does he know that Kremlev is
close to Vladimir Putin, the murderous autocrat who has killed hundreds of
thousands of Ukrainians since invading that country in 2022? Does Jr. realize that
the Russians are currently helping arm Iran? Would Mr. or Mrs. Trump Jr.
like to explain what they have had to do to win Umar’s friendship? And
should any members of a president’s family be accepting lavish gifts from
foreign players?
As writers for ProPublica,
explain, the dangers should be obvious.
“If I’m
paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something,” said
Frank Montoya Jr., a retired career FBI official who held senior
counterintelligence roles. Oligarchs like Kremlev often act in coordination
with the Russian government. While it’s unclear if that happened here, Trump
Jr. put himself in a precarious position, Montoya said. “This should be
unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”
Holden
Triplett, who served as Trump’s counterintelligence director on the National
Security Council during his first term, said Russian intelligence frequently
seeks to build ties with U.S. government officials and their family members.
“Money is a tried-and-true method to gain access,” said Triplett, who also
worked for the FBI in Moscow.
In the
days leading up to Trump Jr.’s wedding, Kremlev was in China as part of the
delegation accompanying Putin [emphasis added], according to Chinese state
media. …
It’s not
clear why Kremlev helped pay for Trump Jr.’s wedding. The men appear to have
met only recently. Public reporting suggests Trump Jr. could have afforded it
himself, with Forbes recently estimating his net worth at roughly $300
million.
So now we can add in the Chinese,
who are also doing their best to arm Iran and keep damaging our
military.
In fact, ProPublica notes
in its reporting, Donald Trump Jr. did not dispute the fact that payments were
made.
He and Umar are just “close
friends.”
Junior’s dad, the President of
the United States suggested yesterday that his “Honest Abe” son, Don, had paid back the Russian billionaire. But we
know that Don Jr. and Don Sr. have lied about Russians before.
In fact, President Dad wasn’t
worried at all, telling reporters gathered in the Oval Office, “It’s totally
allowed. And a lot of people have parties and all. But, as I understand it, he
paid them back.”
The he added, “I hear he paid them back,” without
elaborating.
FUN FACT: If we
step back in time, we know the story of the Trump Tower meeting became a focus
of the Mueller Report; and we know that President Trump eventually admitted that it had occurred.
Notice how similar this “tweet”
sounds, compared to today’s tall tales about wedding bliss and good friends
with Russians:
FUN FACT #2: At
least one Republican senator, John Curtis of Utah, understands what Junior
didn’t, or did, but hoped not to get caught doing. In a video address on Friday, Curtis was
blunt. “Believe this – a Russian oligarch paid for a lavish wedding afterparty
for Donald Trump Jr., which to me, it just stinks. It's corruption. I don't
like it.”
He promised that he would have
more to say on the matter, but for now asserted, “This is a big deal.”
FUN WITH SINGING GOATS: Attorney
General Todd Blanche was asked by a pesky reporter yesterday what he thought of
this Don Jr. wedding present news. Would he feel a need to launch an
investigation? The reporter might as well have asked a goat to sing Dolly
Parton’s “Jolene.”
Blanche seemed not to know how
to launch an investigation at all – in line with his comments that he couldn’t find anyone in the
Epstein Files to investigate, either. Blanche, of course, is still holding
back millions of Epstein documents – despite the fact Congress voted
overwhelmingly to order that all documents be revealed. That
vote was 427 to 1 in the House of Representatives; and the motion to release
everything passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.
In any case, what did Blanche
wish to say about this strange new wedding deal?
Naturally, Blanche being Blanche,
he started singing like a goat: “The president doesn’t know
who this person is,” he began.
Irrelevant, of course. Shouldn’t,
the President want to study the matter? Or Does Don Sr. mot care if possible Russian
secret agents, pal around with his boy?
Blanche was just warming up his
goat voice and bleated a second verse: “I think other members of the
family don’t know who this person is ... When you say am I
investigating – Am I investigating what?”
Irrelevant, again. It’s not a
question of what other family members knew. Don Jr. knew – but didn’t
let the public know, and so the free press had to dig up the truth. And now the
goat not only sounded like a goat trying to do what no goat could, the goat sounded
clueless and stupid – even for a goat.
“Am I investigating what?” Todd
wondered.
You stupid barnyard animal: You’re
going to investigate the Russian billionaire, and find out what he was doing,
paying wedding expenses for the son of the President of the United States.
Jesus.
Listen: We don’t care if Tiffany
Trump didn’t know who this deep-pocketed, foreign benefactor was? It doesn’t
matter if President Trump’s grandchildren didn’t know. Indeed, the First Lady was
quick to make it clear that she did not know who Kremlev was. I believe her myself;
but what might she know or suspect that made her feel like she should distance
herself?
In fact, Umar Kremlev has been
accused of working with Russian organizations that abduct Ukrainian children
under cover of war.
So, there’s a lead, you could
follow, Todd, if only you weren’t a dumb goat. Instead of wasting time trying
to catch “vandals” who damaged President Trump’s beautiful new Reflecting Pool,
and getting your cases thrown out by grand juries and judges, dig down into Kremlev’s
background. Be sure he’s not doing Putin’s bidding at America’s expense. You
might even ask how a Russian oligarch, with close ties to the Kremlin got close
enough to the Caribbean Sea in the first place, to attend the nuptials.
But no. You’re a goat.
So, you just keep singing like a
goat. “The president’s son has said that he’s a very
close friend and that he accepted a gift the weekend of his wedding. And
when you say this person is a friend of Putin, I don’t even know
if that’s true or not.”
Fuck. Can you just check?
“I don’t have any
information. I don’t know this person either,” the goat finished up
with a final bleat. “So, I don’t have any information about it.”
With that, the Attorney General
of the United States was done for the day, and we were soon assured by White
House sources, as well as the President of the United States. Not to
worry. Don Jr. paid the Russian back.
(After he got caught.)
A goat would make a better attorney general.
FUN FACT WITH PEOPLE WHO HATE
THE FIRST AMENDMENT: We have all heard this president call reporters
“scum,” “liars,” “losers” and “Enemies of the People.” But even a MAGA person
can probably understand why we don’t want people in our government taking
lavish gifts from foreigners.
Sometimes known as “bribes.”
President Trump, however, is
pioneering a new way to muzzle the free press so that if anyone in his
administration does wrong (see, for example, Kristi Noem), you are less and
less likely to find out. He has now banned reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico
from entering the White House at all.
September 1, 2026: It may
be time to admit my shortcomings as a blogger. Unless you spend a full work
week, every week, you will never be able to keep track of all the crimes
the president and his minions perpetrate, all the brazen lies they tell their
ill-informed supporters, all the incompetence, the grifting, and all the petty
idiocies. In other words, new month, same never-ending story.
Iran and the U.S. start a
seventh month at war by trading fire and Iran strikes two supertankers trying
to use the Strait of Hormuz in the dark. One vessel is struck three times. The price of oil rises to $92
per barrel.
Don’t worry when you pull up to
the pumps this week. Work on the White House ballroom is full speed ahead.
What about the general look of
the Presidential Mansion and surrounding grounds? Ty Cobb, an attorney who helped
defend the president during his first impeachment, has offered a description. “It’s
turning into … some combination of a whorehouse and Las Vegas [emphasis added]
at this stage of the game with all the gold and paving of it. So, it’s tragic
what’s going on.”
Unless you like whorehouses.
(Another critic says the White House is starting to look like a
Thai restaurant.)
*
WHAT THE HELL! We learned today
that U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper has blasted the Department of
Health and Human Services, led by that ineffable ass, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In
an effort “to support sweeping changes to federal teen pregnancy prevention
programs,” the judge found, some dope working for Jr. sent in a supporting report “citing nonexistent scientific
evidence,” potentially AI-generated.
*
MEANWHILE, the Republicans
continue to shout about communists taking over our government and hope you
won’t notice that they keep running candidates like Rep. Mike Miller, seeking reelection
to Congress from Ohio. Miller got a boost from Speaker Mike Johnson recently.
Johnson is urging voters to get out there and support Miller,
because the other Mike is “a great member of Congress.”
Miller’s ex-wife Emily Moreno would
not agree. She has said in court filings that during arguments, “her ex used
drugs, pointed a gun at her, threw hot water on her and threw her against a
wall.”
(She also claims Miller broke their young daughter’s clavicle.)
This reminds me of another great
member of the GOP delegations in D.C. We mean, of course, Rep. George Santos, once
known for ripping off everyone with whom he ever had dealings.
That included stealing clothes from
roommates when he was young.
George has become the first
person to be banned for life from the Kalshi betting
platform, where you make bets on the future. Santos was also penalized $71,356,
after he manipulated bets, regarding his own appearances at State of the
Union addresses.
*
REPUBLICAN Lt. Gov. Randy
McNally, of Tennessee has announced that he will soon be ending his political
career. His decision, as a member of a party that makes hating on gays kind of
popular, was hastened when it was revealed he was commenting on pictures of
young gay men on Instagram.
As NBC reports, McNally
responded to,
social
media photos posted by Franklin McClure, a 20-year-old performer from
Knoxville, who goes by Franklyn Superstar on social media. The Tennessee Holler, a local publication, first
reported the news Wednesday night after receiving an anonymous tip.
In
response to a photo of McClure dancing outside in
his underwear, McNally, 79, wrote, “Love it,” with heart
emojis. In another close-up photo of McClure’s backside, where he’s only wearing what appear to be briefs,
McNally wrote two comments: “Finn, you can turn a rainy day into rainbows and
sunshine!” and another with hearts and fire emojis, to which McClure responded,
“You are literally always so nice King,” with a heart emoji. In another image,
where McClure’s shorts are pulled down a little,
McNally commented, “Super look Finn.” Finn is McClure’s nickname, according to
his Facebook page.
I am hoping to live long enough
to see Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz or maybe Steven Cheung come out as transgender.
*
THE U.S. MINT is now in on the
name-everything-after-Trump game. The new gold Donald Trump Dollar went on sale
today and you could get 25 of these beautiful coins by spending $61. Even
better, you could spend $154.40 on a bag of Trump Dollars and get one hundred of
these beauties with his mug slapped on the front.
What a deal! And they appear to
have sold out within hours. Because his fans will buy anything he sells.
On Donald’s increasingly bizarre
social media feed, we also have Trump asking, “Did you remain loyal?”
To him, we assume.
No sign of the Constitution.
*
IF YOU MISSED IT, you can still watch the president speak to a gathering of NASA
employees and astronauts, honoring the crew of the recent Artemis mission,
which included Reid Wiseman. Mr. Trump suggests that he would really like a crater on the moon named after … Melania?
No.
Natalie Harp?
Good guess, but no.
“The crew named a lunar crater
in loving memory of Reid’s wife, who we lost to cancer. I wish they’d name
something like that after me. I like that,” the president suggested.
Meanwhile, we have maps!!
Let us never forget that The
Dumpling Man has devoted his efforts as a wartime leader to slapping new names
on bodies of water. “Oh, thank God,” one family of a servicemember stationed in
Jordan was heard to say this week. “Our greatest president ever has renamed a
lake!”
Okay, that’s a joke. But what
kind of juvenile nonsense is this:
Then we had the President of the
United States posting a video of armed geese, Canadian geese, one is
left to assume, defending the newly renamed lake. Naturally, they all have the
Trump hairdo.
And we had this, Eric Trump
going with his dad’s stupid jokes: Eric, like all Trumps in U.S. history has
never felt the need to serve in uniform.
Then, dad decided to float this
idea:
Before you could say, “We’re
being ruled by toddlers,” the U.S. Department of Renaming Everything after Donald
J. Trump posted this, on the official White House account. That means
we’re paying public servants to peddle stupidities.
And, of course, every Dolly
Parton fan loved this:
Ms. Parton had barely taken her
last breath before Donald was off and running, telling us that she “really
liked me,” and that her death felt like losing “a member of the family.” He showed
up on Glenn Beck’s podcast, because he knew Beck wouldn’t roll his eyes if he started
lying, which, of course, he did.
“I knew her a little bit, she
wasn’t a very political person,” he told Beck. “She really liked me, I will
tell you.” But she didn’t want to say so publicly because she didn’t want to
lose some of her fanbase.
“She was of the opinion, the
50%, who needs to lose?” he said. “I don’t think it’s 50, I think it’s probably
20% of the fans, OK, not 50. But she was a great person, just a nice person. I
liked her a lot.”
Dolly ’s Donald.
*
YOU CAN’T SPELL “JUVENILE”
without a “J.” And our greatest president has promised to campaign nonstop for
GOP candidates like Ken Paxton, who wants to keep being Texas attorney general.
This despite his impeachment by
his own party, his adulterous affair with a “Christian influencer” with seven
children, and a judgement against him for several million dollars. That judgement
came after he sought retribution against four members of his own staff.
Their sin? They came forward to report that Paxton was also a garden variety
crook.
That meant, Mr. Trump would have
to coin a childish nickname for Paxton’s Democratic challenger, James Talarico.
Then he would need to make up a ludicrous tale, mocking the Democrat.
Well, we all know Donald is just
the man, if you love bullshit. In this case, we had the nickname,
“Tala-creep-o.”
Then the clinching fake story: “Now
[Talarico] says he loves meat. You know what he does? He eats meat and he goes
outside and he throws up all over the place. Because in Texas, if you don't eat
meat, you're in deep trouble.”
Thank you, Mr. President for
that enjoyable diversion from reality, where we must all live, and beef prices
are still way higher since you sat your lard ass down in the Oval
Office.
How’s the overall health of the economy,
by the way? Well, if you are Mr. Trump, you believe everything is great and
think everyone loves you. He insisted recently that his policies were working like
fiscal magic. Stick with him, he said, “We could have a GDP of 14, 15, 16 and 20” growth.
We could. Who knows! While
digging up the White House grounds, to build the Trump Golden Ballroom, workers
could hit the widest vein of gold ever found in all of human history. A hundred
times bigger and better than all the strikes that led to the “California Gold
Rush” in 1849. It could happen.
It’s not technically impossible.
Currently, we are a little
short of that growth mark. In the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2026, Gross
Domestic Product rose at an annualized rate of 1.5%.
That rate sucks.
What else sucks? Team Trump decided to play nice with the Russians and invite
them to the G20 summit, held this year in Asheville, North Carolina. It was
the first time Vladimir Putin has been asked out on a date, since he invaded
Ukraine in 2022, and started killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.
Our friends in Europe were appalled – if we have any friends left.
“We like getting along with
everybody,” President Trump suggested to reporters, who asked about the Russian
invite.
No doubt the Canadian
representatives at G20 nearly gagged at his comments about “getting along” with
everybody.
Meanwhile, Putin turned around
and promised to help Iran in their battle with the United
States. “During this difficult period, we are striving to provide you with the
necessary assistance – as we have discussed – and are supplying you with
essential goods,” Putin promised Iranian leaders.
(Donald didn’t seem to notice. He was focused on renaming lakes.
And Natalie Harp.)
___
9/2/26: The Dumpling
President appears to be losing interest in ending the Iran War and now
he’s hoping the Iranian people will finish the job for him.
On Tuesday, he posted this:
_______
___
The
First Amendment should be sacred.
9/3/26: I
don’t mean to be rude, but I am beginning to think Trump supporters have no
clue as to why the First Amendment is important. If you are old enough to
remember the false reports regarding “attacks” on U.S. warships in the Gulf of
Tonkin in 1964, or even the “weapons of mass destruction” from 2003, you
should be aware. Governments are just as prone to cover up blunders as cigarette
companies and the people who brought you Oxycontin once were.
If you love Fox News, for
example, you should understand how dangerous a Democratic president attacking
that news organization would really be.
So, today, from Trump, we got
this:
In our current situation, with
Donald Trump (who has lied to all three wives) and Pete Hegseth (who has a
similar history of lying to women he has chosen to marry), our leaders are
telling us that we have already won the war.
Today, the president told us
that “prices are falling fast,” indicating we should vote for nothing but
Republicans – and perhaps a smattering of neo-Nazis, in November.
I don’t know what it’s like where
you live, but the gas station closest to my house was selling regular unleaded
for $3.54.9 on Wednesday, when I needed more gas for my rented stump grinder.
Then, yesterday, when I ran out of gas for my lawn tractor, it was back up to $3.99.9.
The day Joe Biden gave up his
seat in the Oval Office, that same station was selling regular for $3.19.9.
I also noticed this meme, posted
on X by a true-blue Trump fan who clearly missed the irony. Coffee prices are up 39% since The Dumpling plunked down in the Oval
Office again.
*
AS A BLOGGER, and a decent human
being, I worry about politicians of all varieties using dehumanizing language
to attack their enemies.
“Scum,” as above, with Trump.
My preference, in case of
political disagreement, almost always bends toward mockery. So let us pull up
another recent example and focus on what might be happening deep inside the
bowels of the White House.
Once again, we have a “Lucious
Natalie” story to report. It’s a minor note in a
swelling symphony, but Michael Wolff, who has made a career publishing
unflattering books about Mr. Trump, recently had this to say.
It’s not even a major story, but
the reactions to it worry me. According to Mr. Wolff, Ms. Harp, Donald’s
favorite White House aide, has long been granted access to an exclusive,
all-you-can-eat Sunday buffet (including lobster), at the president’s golf club
in West Palm Beach.
Natalie’s mother has also been allowed
to indulge, when other, lesser staffers can go eat cold baked beans for all
Donald Dumpling cares.
Wolff, of course, has routinely
covered the doings of the 45th and 47th president of the United States in a gossipy
fashion. And I am giving in to my weaker urges to make fun of Donald + Natalie,
myself. I’m not at all sure Wolff can be trusted; though he does get credit for
helping break the story of the groveling letters Luscious Natalie has been
penning to her favorite president.
As always, Team Trump has handled a recent rash of Harp-related revelationswith the
grace we have come to expect. White House spokesperson Dan Ingle has defended Ms.
Lucious, calling her one of the “most loyal” aides the president could ever
have. Yeah. That tracks. Also, one of the “hardest working.”
“Michael Wolff,” Ingles says, “is
a professional scumbag and serial liar whose brain has been completely warped
by his severe and incurable disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Again, “scum” is dehumanizing.
And can these people just give it up with the TDS bullshit? It’s not TDS to be bummed
about gas prices. It’s not TDS to fear those who dehumanize others, nor is it
TDS to fear a government that wants to strangle the operations of the free
press.
Also, can I just say: I don’t
trust anyone who might be working overtime to keep the Epstein Files under
wraps.
(I’m not a fan of proud pussy grabbers, either.)
*
YOU CAN TELL Republican
lawmakers and candidates are getting spooked by Donald Trump’s poll numbers. Consider
Ralph Alvardo, running for a seat in Congress in a Kentucky district Trump won
two years ago by 18 points. Until recently, on his website and in his campaign
literature, Alvarado made it clear that he had the president’s enthusiastic endorsement.
These days, he has scrubbed all mention of Donald and even ditched a
picture of the two men together.
FUN FACT: The
same sort of silly fools who spread tall tales of Joe Biden being a robot, or
Joe Biden was a body double who answered only to Obama, which many of the MAGA
faithful believed, are now, from our side, spreading a rumor that the decrepit
president is wearing an exoskeleton to help him walk.
The Irish Star calls it a
“wild theory,” which means plenty of people will automatically believe it.
___
9/4/26: The
billionaire Leon Black has refused to testify before Congress about his ties
to Jeffery Epstein. In fact, since he has plenty of money to throw around,
basically to clog the machinery of justice, he has filed suit against the House
committee that sent him the “invalid” subpoena.
Lawmakers are seeking copies of
relevant documents, including NDAs, or non-disclosure agreements, the type
of legal vehicle the super-rich love, when they can simply buy silence, as
necessary.
*
IT’S BEEN A WHILE, but the White
House finally got a good jobs report, which I am going to assume they will
credit to this guy:
Afterall, we known that as
recently as this week, the Trump folks were blaming Joe for high gas and
grocery prices. Also, for problems with winning the war. Good job with the
jobs, then, “Sleepy Joe.”
What was reported to be a loss
of 23,000 jobs in July has been revised upward (a gain of 21,000), and the June
report has been finalized, showing a gain of 31,000. I’m not going to deny that
I love making fun of Donald Dumpling, whose wild promises of boom times never
boom.
In the nineteen full months
since regained his place in the White House, there have been twelve months with
fewer than a hundred thousand jobs added, four months with jobs subtracted, and
a grand total of:
849,000 jobs
added.
That works out to 44,684 jobs added per month, with Donald sitting in
the White House a second time. His real focus appears to be on his new
Reflecting Pool, Natalie Harp’s lips, Trump coinage, Natalie Harp’s legs, his
Ballroom, and Natalie Harp’s breasts. As we “libtards” like to say, those are
some measly job numbers.
(Harp does look sweet.)
The labor participation rate
(persons with jobs + persons actively looking for same) did rise to 61.6
percent, but still a full point down compared to January 2025, when
this guy bid goodbye to office:
If we look at the
last year, and round off a little, the U.S. workforce has declined in
size:
August
2025 August 2026
171,000,000
169,800,000
(smaller
by 1,200,000)
The total number employed is
also lower:
163,300,000 162,700,000
(600,000
fewer people working)
The total number of individuals
no longer in the workforce:
103,000,000 105,600,000
The increase in the size of the
population who are no longer “in the workforce” is related to retirements. But
here’s an interesting detail: In an average year, as school ends, between 1.5
and 1.6 million eighteen-year-olds enter the workforce. More than twice as many
are headed off to college.
In total
[in this country], about 1.7 million workers retire each year. That means
businesses must hire roughly 142,000 people every month [emphasis added]
just to keep employment levels flat.
In other
words, a significant portion of reported job growth simply offsets the steady
exit of experienced workers from the labor force.
*
SADLY, for truck drivers
everywhere, diesel fuel has hit a record high, just as Labor Day Weekend
hits, at $5.85 per gallon.
We also learn that Iranian
leaders can talk the same kind of talk our Dumpling President likes to talk. On
X (who knew he had an account) Iran’s vice president (who knew they had a VP), Mohammad
Reza Aref, warned, “The Americans should start thinking about stockpiling
gasoline and fuel; dark months await the American economy.”
Meanwhile, sadness is in vogue,
as the White House is forced to admit that the First Lady will not be traveling
to Dallas next week to attend the GOP midterm rally/convention. Could
be a scheduling conflict.
Could be a Natalie Harp-related
conflict.
(Anyway, Melania’s not going.)
Sadness. Yes, the president is
sad again and that means he has more people he’d like to tell us he hates. He
also hopes his shrinking band of MAGA faithful will hate them, too. This time it’s
the justices of the Missouri Supreme Court, who have overturned a new and
improved gerrymandered map that had one purpose. That map was drawn up by the
state legislature to ensure that Fat Donald got one more safe seat in the U.S.
House of Representatives after the 2026 election.
The president exploded:
The
Missouri Supreme Court just ridiculously ruled in favor of changing the maps
back to what they were a long time ago. It’s called, Ancient History! The
problem is, according to Legal Scholars, that not only was the ruling horrible,
ridiculous, and unConstitutional, but there won’t be enough time to change the
map back with the Election coming up in a very short period of time.
(I suppose the judges should be happy he didn’t call them
“treasonous.”)
*
THE U.S. has passed another
milestone, with 3,134 cases of measles reported for the year.
Meanwhile, health authorities in Pennsylvania, which leads all states with 540 cases, have
reported two children’s deaths.
At Health and Human Services,
Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has reacted to the crisis by insisting, “Nope.
Never happened. Those two children were killed by wolves or run over by runaway
Amish buggies.
According to RealClearPolitics,
which aggregates all polling numbers, if the election were held today, the
Democrats would take back five seats in the U.S. Senate. Those seats would
include: Alaska, Ohio, Maine and North Carolina.
But also: Texas, where an honest
Republican, Sen. John Cornyn, incurred the wrath of Donald, and now the GOP is
stuck running Ken Paxton, a smarmy fellow. Most Republican pollsters already believe
their House majority is toast. If Democrats seize control of the Senate we
shall see the president melting down, like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of
Oz, but without the pointy hat.
Democrats also have a chance to
take the seat in U.S. Senate seat from Iowa, mostly because Trump’s policies
have been disastrous for farmers.
(It probably doesn’t help when Trump keeps saying windmills
cause cancer.)
(Iowa has more wind turbines than any other state, except
Texas.)
___
9/6/26: Is it
just me? Because I am beginning to think that a Mrs. Trump #4 may be in the
pipeline, and we could (for the first time in U.S. history) have a new First
Lady in the White House and an old First Lady moving out.
Once again, Donald Trump is away
for the weekend, playing golf at his Bedminster course. And who is following
him around the course on a cart?
If you said “Melania,” you
deserve to be shocked with those new electric-shock ICE gloves.
Of course, it’s Lucious Natalie.
(That’s all I’m ever going to call Ms. Harp.)
And I’m not the only person who
is suspicious. Dumpling Don, at age 80, has gone with a new hair color, perhaps
so he can look in the mirror and still not think, God, I look like hell. I’m
a pathetic old man.
No telling what most Americans
will think of the new color and/or wig; but we do know that another poll, this
one from the Financial Times, shows Donald Douchebag with a 33% approval rating.
Well-deserved!
___
Wealth
flowing into fewer hands.
9/7/26: The hard-working,
yet cheerful blogger hopes all Americans are enjoying the Labor Day Weekend.
Sadly, this seems like a good
time to mention that the share of wealth going to America’s workers is the
lowest it has been, as a percentage, since it peaked at 65% shortly after World
War II.
Today, that share stands at
53%.
You can probably guess who has
gobbled up that extra 12% of all the money in this country. These are golden
years for billionaires, multimillionaires, and giant corporations. In fact,
they have so much money, they can plow a chunk back into elections and fill
voters’ heads with pudding nonsense.
You think mail-in votes are the
problem? Try Elon Musk and his Epstein Pals trying to buy up politicians.
How is Donald Dumpling doing
today? Donald headed for his golf resort at Bedminster, New
Jersey on Friday. He’s been there since – along with one of these women:
A, Melania Trump, First Lady
B. Robot Melania Trump
C. Body Double Melania.
D. “Luscious Natalie” Harp
As all good MAGAs would assume, the correct answer would be
“A,” because Melania is the best, most stylish, hottest First Lady ever.
(Only … the correct answer is “D.”)
It is said that Natalie goes everywhere Donald goes and feeds
him ideas for social media posts, and we do know Donald publishes regularly in
the middle of the night. From his bedroom …
As for what the President of the United States is posting
these days, you might wonder whether he is losing his tenuous grip on reality.
A few examples from recent days:
You can also
watch a video of a Dancing
Dumpling doing that weird little dance he loves, before slapping a new name on
the State of New Mexico.
Or stick with
the unanimated version:
Then there’s
the president as Green Lantern, lighting up magical developments to make America great again.
Sometimes, we
get the unfocused Trump – who thinks those of us just getting by, financially,
really care about Roger Clemens.
Not sure who “them” is, above. Canadians?
Iranians? Democrats? Reporters who don’t kiss Donald’s ass?
The only people safe from Donald
these days would be the Epstein Files predators, who will never be prosecuted
with Trump in the White House.
Then we get a “greatest” combo
post:
Next, we are treated to a meme
of Hockey Donald thrashing Hockey Mark Carney, PM of Canada.
Naturally, we have an attack on pretty
much everyone the president is currently hating, with a little Karl Marx vibe.
Please note Trump’s attacks on
pillars of capitalism:
Another great moment in AI
generation involved posting about the new uniforms for the members of Space
Force. Most people notice the Nazi vibe.
Below, we have included a
picture of German uniforms, specifically for the SS, during World War II:
Finally, we have Donald posting
a map of how he sees the world with the U.S. having made Canada (we assume) the
51st state, then Greenland, a U.S. territory (not enough population yet to be
a state), Mexico, Iceland (the small island, top right), Cuba (states #52, #53,
and #54) and also Haiti (#55).
We won’t even have to deport the
Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, because now Haiti will be part of America.
And we’re not even counting all
the little countries in Central America, or The Dominican Republic, or Puerto
Rico (which is surely going to want to be a state if everyone else is in the Union).
We’ll probably be up around 70
states by the time Donald Dumpling is done.
Of course, the racist element of
the Trump base isn’t going to like the idea of adding 133 million Mexicans to
our national ranks.
*
AN ARMED MAN recently approached
the Democratic Party tent at the Canfield Fair near Youngstown, Ohio.
Amy Acton, candidate for
governor, was greeting voters, when 38-year-old Patrick Havas pushed his way
through the crowd. Several bystanders were knocked to the ground, including two
elderly persons on mobility scooters.
Mr. Havas turns out to be a registered Republican and licensed nurse. Havas
was carrying two handguns and a set of brass knuckles – pretty much what any
good American would bring to a meet-the-candidate show. Security intervened and
Havas now faces charges of disorderly conduct and two counts of assault.
(At this point, every politician in America should be tempering
the rhetoric.)
9/8/26: You might
say that the polls are looking terrible for Donald Trump; but if
you do Lard Butt is going to sue your ass.
In the latest poll, only 17%
of Americans approve of the job Dumpling Man is doing on “inflation and the
cost of living.” His numbers on “jobs and the economy” aren’t appreciably
better, with 26% of Americans signaling approval. If you take out billionaires
and their family members, and all the grifters in the Trump administration –
which is almost all of them – the polling results are even worse.
At that point, Donald would drop
below the percentage of Americans who hope to get skunks for Christmas.
We can safely assume that the
president’s recent comments regarding the Iran War will not
jack his approval ratings, either. Donald is now telling us we’re not in a
war at all. “I call it a conflict,” he says, “because really, it’s small
potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing. We did Venezuela and we did this and
Venezuela we lost nobody, and in this we lost eighteen people, and in Vietnam
you lost 100,000 people and in other conflicts you lost tens of thousands of
people.”
(As usual, he gets basic
American history wrong: We lost 58,000 in Vietnam. But nary a Trump.)
The president noted that we were
doing “intermittent strikes,” and so spuds to his critics, and Tater Tots, too.
Today, the Houthis, allies of
Iran in Yemen, launched strikes deep inside Saudi Arabia, doing
additional damage to oil drilling and shipping facilities and hitting targets
in four cities. The price of oil on the world market shot up and the Dow Jones
shot down. Brent crude was soon selling for $99.35 per barrel.
IN OTHER NEWS two clueless U.S.
envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, finally visited Kyiv to talk to
Ukrainian leaders about an end to the bloody four-year-long war. That war began,
of course, when Vladimir Putin sent his army of thugs crashing across the
Ukrainian border.
You may also remember that
Donald Trump lashed out at Volodymyr Zelensky in
February 2025, during an Oval Office meeting. “I’ve been watching for years,
and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards,” Trump said of Zelensky,
directing his remarks at reporters gathered to record the meeting.
“He has no cards. And you get
sick of it,” an aggrieved President of the United States complained.
“So, I don’t think he’s very
important to be at meetings [to discuss ending the war], to be honest with
you,” Trump added. “He makes it very hard to make deals.”
Trump wasn’t concerned with the
fact that Ukraine had been invaded. He had promised that he would end the war
as soon as he was elected – even before taking office – in one f***ing
day. And his fans believed it.
Now he was mad because Zelensky
wouldn’t quit the fight, sell out his country, and make Donald look good.
Today, 669 days have
passed since Trump made that lame promise.
Still, no peace deal in sight
and the Ukrainians continue their valiant fight to hold off Putin and his
hordes.
*
ALSO REMEMBER THIS: The Russian
dictator, who has remained in control of his country for twenty-six years,
is a former KGB officer, who long served the communist government that
collapsed at the end of the Cold War. Trump is busy, all day, every day, as the
November midterms approach, trying to convince his ill-informed fans that “Dumocrats”
are all commies. Donald wants you to believe he hates communists, so we should
vote for his hand-picked candidates for Congress. He just can’t bring himself
to criticize the most important communist leaders.
In fact, Donald Deal Maker has
been stymied on all major diplomatic fronts, making zero deals with adversaries
round the world. An astute observer might have noticed, for instance, that Iran
never built a nuclear weapon while Barack Obama was president. That number
climbed to zero under Joe Biden.
Neither “Dumocrat” felt a need
to bomb the shit out of Iran – and then brag about winning a war on the day it
started.
That same astute observer (me)
might mention that in the summer of 2017, The Dumpling Man threatened North Korea with “fire and fury” if the
country failed to give up all its nuclear weapons.
Then, in 2018, Donald and Kim
Jong-un “fell in love,” as our smitten president once explained. And Donald
told everyone who cared to listen that Kim – a flaming commie – had agreed to
give up all his nukes. Then Donald insisted that the Nobel Peace Prize should be his. The
real one. Not some crappy FIFA World Cup Peace Prize, which he was handed at
the start of his second glorious term.
Then North Korea didn’t give
up a single nuke.
Not one.
Indeed, a particularly astute
observer (yes, me again) might have noted that Benjamin Netanyahu has been warning that Iran was “weeks” or “months” or “three
years” away from having a nuclear weapon, going back all the way to 1995.
Naturally, President Donald J. Trump never paid attention to such matters. He
was, in fact, too busy hanging with Jeffrey Epstein.
(I knew about Netanyahu’s claims before The Daily Show
did this compilation.)
According to the president the war
that isn’t a war is going great, and the United States has already won.
“What we’re doing is a great
service for the world, not only for ourselves ... and we’re really doing a
great job,” Trump insists, adding he will never apologize for attacking Iran. “After
we finish defeating Iran ... pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a
territory of the United States,” Trump added recently.
___
Trump
promises post-midterm magic.
9/10/26: At his
GOP Midterm Convention last night, the president promised that the Iran War
would be over soon after the midterm elections, that gas would be less
than $2 per gallon, and if Republicans retained control of Congress, every adult
would get a check for $5,000. If we assume there are
250 million adults in this country – and we are not ignoramuses – we can do a
little multiplication. Basically, take 5 x 250 = 1,250. Then tack on the nine missing
zeroes.
This one new Trump idea would
add $1,250,000,000,000 to an already ballooning federal deficit.
In other exciting news,
Republicans continue to stick Trump’s name on anything that can’t move, and
rename everything else, lakes being their latest fetish. State Representative
David Maloney of Pennsylvania has now sent notice to Mr. Trump, beseeching him to
rename Lake Erie.
He wants it to be “Lake
Pennsylvania.”
At this point, Donald probably
thinks he can sign an executive order and rename California “Libtard Hell,” and
name the six New England states Trumpland (Maine), Trumpistan (Massachusetts),
Natalieland (New Hampshire), Donald J. Land (Vermont), and Little Marco (Rhode
Island).
Connecticut will be labeled “Melania
Won’t Sleep with Me.”
I am hoping, personally, that
the next Democratic president will name all streets running in front of Trump
Towers, in multiple states, “Pedophile Boulevard.” I, myself, have succumbed to
the mood and have personally renamed the toilet in our main upstairs hallway,
“Lake Donald J. Trump.”
Lake Donald J. Trump.
*
IN NEWS THAT MATTERS, Houthi
rebels in Yemen, allied with Iran, continue not to realize the
war is over and that they and the Iranians have lost. Today, they attacked the
port city of Mocha, on the Red Sea, hoping to gain control over the Bab
al-Mandab Strait – a second key route for the shipment of Saudi oil.
Mocha has long been held by Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces.
As one expert explains, a
successful takeover of Mocha, “means that an Iranian ally could take control of
a crucial maritime choke point at a moment that Iran is looking for any
leverage it can get over the U.S.”
The Iranians also continue to
show an obstreperous side and fired a barrage of missiles and sent drones to
attack U.S. bases in Jordan. Eight F-15 fighter jets were damaged on the
ground, but Pete Hegseth wants us all to know that they were repaired in a
jiffy and back in service before Pete could fire another general or two.
Or ten.
Sadly, an A-10 Thunderbolt, one
of a kind of craft nicknamed the “Warthog,” for its less-than glamorous
silhouette, but a workhorse for the U.S., going back to Vietnam War days, was
seen missing a wing. As you can probably guess, Gas will not be falling below
$2 per gallon anytime soon.
Today, Brent crude hit $108 per barrel before dropping slightly by the
time trading ended for the day.
FUN FACT: The
PPI (Producer Price Index) released today showed a 0.4% increase for August, increasing the damage during the last twelve months
to 5.4%. This is, in fact, another terrible report.
Still, we’ll always have “Lake
America,” until the next normal president comes along and changes it back as it
was since before there was even a country called “The United States of America.”
FUN FACT #2:
Several Americans are having a good September, including “Lucious Natalie,”
just handed a $45,000 cash bonus by President Trump. I don’t think he’s
dumb enough to use taxpayer cash.
But this is Donald J. Trump.
Also getting $45,000 bonus
checks were Margo Martin, 31, and Chamberlain Harris, 26. Harris is helping
Donald with his ballroom project, Margo is helping Donald’s mood by hanging
around.
Ms. Martin and her boss.
___
9/11/26: On
this twenty-fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, most Americans pause for
reflection. All these years later, memories of that awful day still evoke tears.
The president now says that the
Iran War is part of the continuing “War on Terror,” which may make some sense.
Weird, though, that he is so chummy with the Saudis, when they contributed 15
of the 19 hijackers that morning – that the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabism, is
by far the most militant – and that Mr. Trump has absolved Prince Mohammed bin
Salman of the murder of journalist Jamaal Khoshoggi. A Saudi hit squad grabbed
the writer and cut him up with a bone saw.
(At least two of his four children are U.S. citizens.)
In news closer to home,
inflation jumped again in August, up four-tenths of a percent, leaving prices,
year over year, up by 3.4%.
The president is not bringing
prices down. Neither is Joe Biden. The difference? Biden’s not in charge.
*
THE REPUBLICAN Midterm
Convention is in the books, and two developments stand out. The first came
during a speech by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Cruz wanted to mention New York
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim American, and see if he couldn’t stir up a
little hate.
Someone in the audience shouted,
“He should be shot.”
Mamdani was nine years old on
the day terrorists attacked the United States, a quarter century ago.
The senator continued,
mentioning a second Muslim American, Abdul El-Sayed, running for a U.S. Senate
seat from Michigan. He’s an epidemiologist, a Rhodes Scholar, a graduate of
Columbia, and supports Medicare for all.
“He should be shot,” the
audience member shouted again.
Ted continued, perhaps pleased
with the hate he had called up. He mentioned James Talarico, also running for a
seat in the U.S. Senate, from Ted’s home state. Talarico has never been accused
of committing adultery, like his opponent in the race, nor has he ever had to
pay $6.6 million for retaliating against four whistleblowers – who just
happened to be members of his staff – like Ken Paxton.
“He should be shot,” came a third
shout.
Considering all the emphasis
Republicans put on the murder of Charlie Kirk, you would have thought
talking about shooting political opponents would bring some rebuke. If not from
Cruz – at least from decent attendees at the gathering.
This is not a difficult concept.
Kirk should not have been assassinated. President Trump should not have been
targeted and nearly killed in the summer of 2024. Amy Acton, running as a
Democrat for governor of Ohio should not have been approached by an armed man
at a rally earlier this month. A recent hammer attack on J.D. Vance’s home, a
sign of the darkening times, should not have happened and should lead to prison
time for the attacker. The hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s
husband, which put him in the hospital, was no cause for sick jokes. (See, for
example: Donald Trump Jr.) The murders of Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota
Democratic lawmaker, and her husband, should be universally condemned. All
political violence undermines democracy. All such attacks should be denounced
in a broad bipartisan fashion.
If I were the president, I would
speak up today and say what I just said. I would never try to fuel hatred.
He is, to my knowledge, the
only president in American history to refer to other Americans as “scum.”
the
greatest president in the history of the United States, that loves us so much
he can hardly breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends, I’ll do
it anyway, I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m going to try and cheat
like hell like they do. There’s never been bigger cheaters. I don’t care. I am
going to go out and get my friend, my family, and we are going to vote on
November 3, or we are going to vote before that.”
He paused briefly, and then
added, “So help me God.”
(The
End.)
___
Are Billionaires
a bigger threat than communists?
9/12/26: The
Republicans understand that they are up against serious headwinds in the coming
midterms. So, the drumbeat story they continue to try to spread is that the
Democratic Party is now made up of nothing but Satan-worshipping communists and
people who hate America.
I’m not sure most MAGA loyalists
could explain what communists believe; but I’m here to help. In a communist
system, everyone is supposed to be treated equally, there are no poor people,
and there are no rich. Communism has worked at times on a small scale – for
example, with religious groups, like the Shakers.
The Shaker flaw was not in
living communally – their flaw was banning marriage and sexual relations, as
they waited for Jesus to return.
Jesus didn’t.
And the Shakers died out.
We also know that Karl Marx, who
supplied the founding ideas for a broader movement, considered religion
an opiate for the masses. Promise the downtrodden a place in heaven and keep
trampling them in the dirt. So, to be clear, you can’t be a communist and, for
instance, a practicing Catholic, Presbyterian, Latter-day Saint or Muslim. You
can’t even worship the Aztec gods.
The biggest problems (and I
would say there are quite a few) include the need for a communist government to
take charge of the existing economies – and break down opposition from those
who have (shall we say) acquired perhaps more than their fair share, and often
by unfair means.
For example, the Robber Barons
of the early 1900s, or, I would say, the folks like Elon Musk, today.
In any case, communist
governments have, so far, managed to take power over the economies of various
nations – the old Soviet Union, East Germany, Cuba, China and North Korea, for
example. To run entire economies means putting immense power in the leaders’
hands. This has never gone well, stretching back to the dawn of human history.
Warlords. Oligarchs. Kings and Queens. Communists. The Super Rich.
So, it seems odd to me, that
Trump supporters are not a little upset when he tries to stick his nose into
all kinds of corners of the U.S. economy and order people around. As an example, Mr. Trump has
been ordering coal-fired power plants to remain open, even though the owners
want to close them down.
Solar power, wind power, and a
huge increase in natural gas usage have made coal a poor choice economically.
Trump doesn’t care. He’s got the
power. So, he sent out Energy secretary Chris Wright at the start of this
second term, and had Wright tell everyone that the coal-fired, 64-year-old JH
Campbell Generating Plant in Michigan had to remain open. According to
Sec. Wright, the plant was needed to ensure reliable electricity in the region,
and the federal government used its emergency powers to keep it operating. As The
Guardian noted earlier this week, “Environmental groups and three states
– Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota – went to court to
try to overturn orders keeping the plant online.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia has ruled that the order was invalid, since there was
no emergency, within the meaning of the law. This decision may also affect
other plants, in multiple states, that were ordered to keep burning coal.
This blogger is well-aware of
the long battle for decent wages, safety protections, and secure employment,
involving the coal miners of Kentucky and West Virginia, in particular. In
fact, one reason this blogger is a Democrat, is that he knows how unions had to
battle the Big Coal companies to get fair treatment years ago. Did you know,
for example, that before the federal government and the union organizers
stepped in and demanded new rules, more than 2,000
miners died every year? And if you don’t believe the Coal
Barons abused their powers, read up on “company towns,” and then read up on the
fight for miners to be compensated if they developed black lung.
You can argue that communists
are a threat because of the way they accumulate power.
You can argue that Big
Government is a threat for the same reason.
There is a reason, however, why
President Theodore Roosevelt once spoke of the Robber Barons as “malefactors of
great wealth.” You have to be almost purposely ill-informed not to understand
that the billionaires of today have acquired too much power, by a factor of at
least ten. A communist takeover of the U.S. is not coming if Democrats win
the midterm elections. It’s not coming in 2029, no matter who sits in the
Oval Office. It’s probably not coming for the next half century, if ever.
Meanwhile, the super-rich are
having their way.
(See, for example: The Epstein Files.)
(Or the Big Data center folks.)
(Or the Sackler family, who pushed oxycontin – and said the
product was safe.)
FUN FACT: The
First Lady has made it clear that she has “no plans” to
travel with her husband to Ireland today. Mr. Trump is going to attend the
Irish Open and maybe think happy thoughts about the Iran War while he’s there.
Will Lucious Natalie be
traveling with the President of the United States, the man who just gave her a $45,000
bonus for her fine work.
TBD.
These next facts are “fun” only
if we like to know how the Iran War is really going, without the government
totally filtering out bad news. As a huge fan of the advancement of human
rights, in every corner of the globe, this blogger would love to see the
theocratic crazies in Iran lose their iron grip.
(I doubt President Trump has any interest in really advancing
their cause.)
Anyway:
FUN FACT #2: The
Houthis, Yemeni fighters allied with Iran, have captured an important island that
may allow them to choke off or at least slow the flow of Saudi oil through the Bab
al-Mandab Strait.
(The blogger – human rights again – is no fan of the Saudi royal
family, either.)
FUN FACT #3: The
Acting Secretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, has admitted that Iranian attacks “blew
the hell out of” a key U.S. base in Bahrain. Our troops and their dependents had to be evacuated on short notice, once
the shooting began – and they were unable to take many of their possessions
before leaving.
FUN FACT #4: A
large percentage of Americans probably cannot find the Red Sea on a blank map.
Ditto: Iran. Or Yemen. Or Bahrain. (That last one includes me – although I’m
pretty sure it juts out into the Persian Gulf.)
I had to look it up myself.
FUN FACT #5:
Iranian drones blew a hole in a main Saudi oil pipeline earlier this week. And
in this country diesel fuel now sells for a record-high $6.06 per gallon.
Really, this is no fun at all.
FUN FACT #6: On
further review, we learn that the drones or missiles that forced a shutdown of
the Saudi pipeline originated from Iraq, fired by pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim
allies. Trump fans: You need to look up the differences between Sunni and
Shiites. (I doubt Donald even knows.)
The Bab al-Mandab Strait runs between Djibouti and Yemen.
The Middle East. And I was right about Bahrain!
Well, what do you know! Natalie Harp, in green, did accompany her boss to Ireland.
___
John
Husted aide liked to play pretend Nazi.
9/13/26: Boys
will be boys, and in this case the boy – an aide to a U.S. senator running for
reelection in Ohio – likes to play Nazis.
As in, he’s a Nazi.
As The Daily Beastexplains, by way of the Washington Post:
A
Republican in a critical Senate race has been exposed as hiring a top aide who
once made a photo of SS soldiers his Facebook profile picture.
Stephen
Woytek, 25, was hired as Ohio Sen. Jon Husted’s political director in August,
but a bombshell report by The Washington Post suggests that the campaign
overlooked glaring details in Woytek’s background.
Woytek’s
public Facebook profile shows that he follows a military reenactment group
whose members dress as the Waffen-SS, the Post revealed Friday. Another photo
from the group shared on Flickr appeared to show Woytek as a teenager in an SS
uniform, the paper reported.
The Post
also found that Woytek “recently” added songs celebrating Rhodesia—a defunct
White-minority-ruled nation often venerated by white supremacists—to a public
playlist.
Husted’s
campaign says that Woytek has since been fired.
___
Plan
your Trump-funded vacation now!
9/14/26: The
self-proclaimed “Greatest President in American History,” who has already added
more national debt to the pile than any other man to sit in the Oval Office,
insisted yesterday that his promised $5,000 checks to every American adult are
“100 percent” going to happen.
I think this means that my wife
and I, our four adult children, two sons-in-law, and one boyfriend, will
combine our $45,000 and go to Europe on vacation next spring. I can hardly wait
to get my hand on that Trump Check.
(You know he’s going to name
those checks after himself – and slap his picture on them, if he can.)
Okay, sure.
It’s going to balloon the federal
deficit by another $1.2 trillion; but that’s only a problem for un-adult
Americans and generations unborn.
*
“Cum
trophies” and racism.
IN OTHER Republican-themed news,
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson says he still supports Brandon Herrara.
Brandon is running as a candidate from Texas, hoping to join Johnson in Congress.
Herrara is famous for having
said this, in an online video he posted in 2023, about Texas mothers – and
their children.
The fact
that you kept your cum trophy [child] doesn’t make you any less wrong about the
dumb shit that you say. Being a mother doesn’t make your opinion any more or
less valid. Just because you let somebody creampie you doesn’t mean I have to
give a shit about your political opinions.”
Yes, indeed, ladies, “Vote
Herrara” on November 3. He will then ignore your concerns regarding affordable childcare
for your “cum trophies” and grocery prices, since you are required to feed your
“trophies.”
Known as the “AKGuy” online, you
can be sure Brandon won’t give a shit about school shootings, either.
In related news, even Texas
Republicans are condemning a candidate for the State Railroad Commission, Bo
French.
French initially shared a screenshot of a post on the social platform X
that showed darker-skinned South Asian students at the University of Texas, and
a caption that said, “Bollywood University.”
Then good ol’ Bo went with a
similar image with the caption: “I heard UT graduation this
year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far
worse than anyone imagined.”
So, Bo proved he was a racist
and a hater. Then he doubled down on racism and hatred and tried to raise
campaign funds by talking about how “radical Leftists” had attacked him for his
racist and hateful posts.
___
The case
of the missing vandals.
9/15/26: Our
first topic today is imaginary vandals, like imaginary friends, only prone
to destruction.
Donald Dumpling continues to
insist that the lining he ordered installed in his Big Beautiful Reflecting
Pool in Washington D.C. was cut to shreds by American-hating traitors with box
cutters or switchblades.
Maybe weedwhackers.
So, The Dumpling Man ordered his
top people at the Department of Justice to turn up all the evidence of
vandalism they could find – and, so far, no one has been successfully
prosecuted, because even the people at DOJ have had to admit that the
“evidence” they’ve found is rather thin. This made Donald mad, so he attacked the free press again this weekend, insisting
that reporters for The New York Times, continued “to avoid doing any
real reporting on all the vandalism.”
What the Times did do was
look at actual government documents, including reports submitted by Atlantic
Industrial Coatings, which painted the granite bottom of the Pool. Here’s how reporters
summed up what they found:
Because
of “human oversight,” workers in some areas did not spray enough of the primer
that made the layers of the liner stick together, Atlantic said in the
documents. But the bigger problem, the company said, was that the repair plan
laid out in the contract called for the layers of liner to include two
chemicals that turned out to be incompatible.
The
chemical on top reached a temperature hotter than what the compound underneath
could withstand, and the heat caused the bottom layer to blister and come
loose, the documents show. The contractor said it had not expected that outcome
because it was very uncommon to mix the two products in that way.
The
failure illustrates the consequences of the Trump administration’s rushed effort to renovate the pool this spring. In a
hurry to finish the work before the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4, the
government bypassed competition and gave Atlantic a no-bid contract to carry
out an untested approach designed in part by the general manager of one
of Mr. Trump’s golf clubs.
If you haven’t already figured
this out, here are the three critical issues related to this story:
First, Trump demanded that his flunkies at DOJ indict David
Hearn, the worst of the imaginary vandals, for multiple felonies, which could
have sent Hearn to prison for a decade.
Then Donald’s flunkies looked at
their own case – a steaming pile of presidential feces – and dropped it before
it even began.
(Trump fumed and said his prosecutors “choked.”)
Second, Trump’s continued
attacks on the free press every time reporters do the kind of work that we need
the free press to do, should scare all Americans. We do not want the next
president, very likely a Democrat, to be able to silence the free press. We do
not want any president to do so.
Third: We, as taxpayers, paid
$14.7 million for that Reflecting Pool paintjob and we might expect the people
who were hired to do the job right.
*
TAXPAYERS also paid a princely
sum to fly Trump to Ireland this past weekend so that – basically – he could attend the Irish
Open,
held Saturday and Sunday at Donald’s own golf resort in Doonbeg.
We can also report that Lara
Trump and her family got to fly on the government plane (I think we can assume
for free). Her son Luke, seen below with Grandpa Dumpling, got to celebrate his
ninth birthday overseas.
And, as already mentioned
previously, Natalie Harp went along with her Dumpling Dreamboat.
FUN FACT: Did
you realize our government is run by zombies? Well, it is. Specifically: Zombie
Joe Biden. Today Donald Trump whined again about how he’s just the president
and what can he do!
Prices are high. Zombie Joe did
it!
FUN FACT #2: By
comparison, if anything good happens anywhere in the world, Team Trump will
take the credit. For example:
___
MAGA midterm
outlook looks grim.
9/18/26: Donald
J. Trump has suffered through another terrible week, adding to the gloom
settling over the White House.
With voter opinion polls
shifting dramatically in favor of Democratic candidates in even some of the
reddest areas of this country, U.S. senators up for a new term starting in
2027, have been complaining loudly to the White House. Sen. Susan Collins, whose
seat is ripe for picking, has suggested that Congress pass laws that “actually
help regular Americans [emphasis added].”
(One would hope.)
An anonymous Republican senator
warned that the White House was “putting a noose around all of our necks” by
going to war with Canada over tariffs. It was just another element of
unnecessary economic chaos.
Here in Glendale, Ohio, when I
stopped for gas yesterday, a gallon was going to cost me $4.59, and if I were a
truck driver, diesel was going for $6.59. That last price is the highest on
record, and the increased costs of transporting goods will soon ripple through
the entire economy.
Chances are that the next report
on inflation, which will cover September, will be terrible. And that’s the last
report before the election, and unlikely to offer any good news for the
Republican brand.
*
WE MUST ALSO REPORT the sad
news, for all MAGA faithful, that the U.S. Supreme Court has put the kibosh on the
Dumpling President’s plan to make mail-in voting as difficult as possible. Only
two of nine justices supported his dream; and at this point, you don’t have to
guess who those bozos would be.
First, Samuel Alito.
Second, Uncle Thomas.
Neither justice seems to
understand that the U.S. Supreme Court is meant to act as a brake on the
executive and legislative branches, if they violate the Constitution. This is even
more important when we have a president who is, frankly, increasingly nutty.
I’m not sure Uncle Thomas would reject a Trump plan even if the president signed
an executive order to have Natalie Harp as queen.
Naturally, Donald exploded again, blasting both the High Court
and the people he appointed to it. On Truth Social, he fumed, “The Court’s
inability and unwillingness to do the right thing for our Country will go down,
in a very negative way, in the annals of History.”
If you haven’t noticed, no one
who disagrees with Trump ever has good reasons. Donald continued to rant: “This
Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions
that have set America back at least a hundred years.”
As for Alito and Clarence “Uncle”
Thomas, the president called them both “legends.” Not so much, the three
jurists he appointed during his first term – Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett
and Brett Kavanaugh. “These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the
United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,”
Dumpling Donald howled. In addition, he insisted, the Supreme Court was “costing
the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad [tariff] rulings
that are of such magnitude that it won’t be easily possible for our Country to
recover or heal.”
*
IN LESSER NEWS, but still indicative,
the president has announced plans to close the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts and fix it up beautifully. Yay!! But he will only fix the
building if he is allowed to slap his name upon it. Otherwise, he has
threatened to bulldoze the place.
Boo!
And yes, he’s that pathetic.
Maria Shriver, niece of the late
President Kennedy, for whom the building was named, offered blunt assessment:
And so
here we are. This statement from Trump blows my mind. That a sitting president
would not let any renovations to a public building go on unless he gets to
first put his name in the said building… What a sad state of affairs. What a
tragedy. Actually, how small minded, how narcissistic [emphasis added,
unless otherwise noted].”
She went on to add, “Imagine
spending your days focused on this, while a war rages under your leadership.”
*
IN FACT, IT WOULD BE NICE if
Donald was thinking about the war at all and giving the American people an
accurate assessment of how it’s going. ABC has released footage, provided by American
servicemembers, showing extensive damage to U.S. bases across the Middle
East. And all of this comes in a war that we have already won! After all, who
can forget this grandiose claim made by President Trump, while celebrating
his 80th birthday in June:
As for Defense Secretary Macho
Pete, he has admitted that sometimes our air defenses fail to
intercept every enemy missile or drone. “Every once in a while you might have
one, unfortunately we call it a ‘squirter,’ that makes its way through,” Hegseth
told reporters recently.
For a full view of the damage,
go to ABC for the story. It appears there have been several “squirters” we
haven’t heard about.
*
SADLY, THE CRAZY MEMBER of the
Kennedy clan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s man heading the Department of
Health and Human Services, is making headlines again. Yesterday, Secretary
Kennedy announced that his agency would be looking into the dangers of “chemtrails.”
That is, he would be deploying valuable
federal assets in an effort to placate the nincompoops who believe in the conspiracy
theory that airplanes at high altitudes, creating white trails of crystalized water, are destroying the manliness of
all American males.
Amy McGrath, a former U.S. Air
Force pilot, responded to this news with the kind of sarcasm it merited:
So
apparently it’s time for some middle-school science:
Jets fly
high. It’s REALLY cold up there. Hot, moist exhaust hits cold air. The water
condenses and freezes into tiny ice crystals. That white trail behind the
airplane? It’s called a contrail.
We’ve
known how this works for a very long time.
In other HHS news, the Trump
folks in charge at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention are taking a
page out of the RFK Jr. playbook. With measles exploding across the country, state
officials in Pennsylvania, where a massive measles outbreak has been spreading
among the Amish and Mennonites, have warned that four unvaccinated individuals have died. Trump’s
new choice to head up the CDC has decided to sit this threat out. That allows
RFK Jr. to continue to argue that Pennsylvania health authorities are making the story up – and we can expect Bobby to claim
that the four dead were killed by chemtrails.
(Sorry, that’s my little joke.)
So far, this year, 3,471 cases of measles have been reported, giving
Donald the distinction of having presided over the three worst years since
2000, when the disease was declared “eradicated” in this country.
Third worst year1,274 cases (2019)
Second worst2,289 cases (2025)
First worstTotal rising steadily (2026).
Joe Biden414 cases total (2021-2024)
*
He’s not
kidding.
IF YOU ARE A FAN of “checks and
balances,” essentially the main concept that animated our Founding Fathers, you
might be alarmed if you listened to President Nutjob, campaigning in North Carolina this week. Trump was in
the state to bolster the campaign of Michael Whatley, running for a seat in the
U.S. Senate. Having lost any filter he ever had, now that he’s a crotchety old
man, Donald bragged that he had gotten the state $2 billion in FEMA funding. That
would be fine if he stopped there, but this was Trump, and of course he couldn’t
help himself. If Whatley were to lose in November, the president announced, he wasn’t
going to send all that money to people in the state.
Even in a crowd of his most
loyal supporters, that idea didn’t elicit any enthusiasm – since he’d also be
screwing them. Trump seemed to sense he had gone too far, and added quickly, “No,
I’m only kidding.”
Only we know that he’s not. The
Dumpling Man has been routinely turning down ordinary requests for federal
disaster aid, in cases where such requests come from blue states.
If you are a loyal MAGA, you
have probably forgotten (or never knew) that the Founding Fathers wisely put
the “power of the purse” in the hands of Congress, and specifically in
the hands of the House of Representatives. If the House wasted tax dollars, we
could vote the dopes out every two years. As I used to explain to my seventh-grade
students, the President of the United States does not control a dime, if
Congress refuses to approve his funding requests.
A president isn’t supposed to
hold back money, already approved by the legislative branch, just because the
people who need it didn’t support him.
*
Yay, pay
the credit card companies even more money!
SPEAKING OF MONEY, for the first
time in three years, the Federal Reserve has raised the interest rate banks must pay to borrow, by a
quarter percent. This, in turn, will raise the interest rates we pay if we carry
credit card balances, hope to finance a new truck, or buy a first home.
The president is furious and
says the Fed should charge 1% interest, not 4%, as it will now, because we are
doing fabulously under his steady leadership.
The Dumpling fired the last Fed
chief, Jerome Powell, because “Dumps” demanded rate cuts, and Powell
refused. Now his own choice to lead the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, has not
only NOT cut rates, but raised them. The problem is the stubborn inflation
rippling through our economy.
Which Donald continues to insist
is the fault of evil Joe Biden.
It’s only a matter of time
before the president labels Warsh a “traitor,” or a banker who “hates America.”
