Saturday, April 12, 2025

Election Deniers Battered in Court

  

WELL, MY DEAR, DEVOTED TRUMP FANS, what did we learn this week (ending April 12, 2025), and has what we learned made any patriots want to jump off a very high bridge?  

If you binge only on right-wing news, which I assume most MAGA’s do, one story you almost certainly did not see would be #1, below.



*

1. A judge in Delaware has ruled that Newsmax defamed Dominion Voting Systems in days and weeks after the 2020 election – when reporters and hosts insisted Dominion helped rig the vote. 

The Newsmax case now goes to a jury, with Dominion asking for $1.6 billion in damages. That makes this another possible loss to add to a lengthy string of definite losses, for right-wing “news” organizations, when the “news” they peddled was propaganda, offered up to unwitting viewers as righteousness indignation, and spewed at intense and angry decibel levels.

 

PREVIOUSLY, WE HAD LEARNED: 

2. Newsmax lost a defamation case filed by Smartmatic, a computer software company, after the same reporters and hosts who allegedly lied about Dominion, definitely lied about Smartmatic and said the company was central to the 2020 election fix. In that case, Newsmax was ordered to hand over $40 million.

 

3. If you have not been paying strict attention, we should remind you that Fox News, the Big Kahuna of right-wing bullshit, was thoroughly destroyed – also by Dominion – also for massive, sustained lying about how the 2020 vote was rigged. 

Those lies cost Fox $787.5 million, if you’d enjoy keeping track.

 

4. Fox is also being sued for defamation by Smartmatic, which I had forgotten myself. No decision yet. 


At this point, a rational human being would start to notice a pronounced trend, but that would assume the rational human was not gobbling up a massive dose of daily, right-wing nonsense. 

Consider the case of Rudy Giuliani. 

5. Rudy insisted, repeatedly, that two Georgia poll workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, stole at least 54,000 votes during the 2020 election.

 

6. Two statewide recounts in Georgia, including one recount of all five million paper ballots, showed that 54,000 votes were not stolen – including zero by Freeman and Moss. The Republican secretary of state, and the Republican governor (both of whom had worked to help Donald Trump win in 2020), assured everyone the voting in Georgia had not been rigged. 

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation cleared Freeman and Moss. 

7. So did the F.B.I. 

8. Not to mention the Georgia State Election Board. 

The final tally in Georgia showed a gain for President Trump of 1,779 votes, with more than 800 of that gain coming in Floyd County, where Republican officials were in total control of counting.

 

9. Still not seeing the pattern, my dear MAGA friends? Remember, Mr. Giuliani couldn’t stop lying and insisting that the poll workers were crooks. On at least one occasion, he upped the tally and said Ruby and Shaye stole 192,000 votes. 

(See #8, above, if you need help with the math.)

 

The poor poll workers were inundated with death threats, and Freeman’s home was invaded, and both mother and daughter had to go into hiding. They, too, eventually sued for defamation. Rudy couldn’t stop himself – possibly because he was so busy drinking – and refused to turn over documents demanded by the court. A jury found for the plaintiffs, and ordered Giuliani to pay $148.2 million  in damages, which I think we can all agree is a high price for lying indeed.

 

10. Who else lied repeatedly about those two women and nearly got them killed? We hate to break the news, loyal MAGA fans, even if it is more than four years old, but it was Donald himself. In a bonkers call to Georgia election officials (all Republicans, we might add) he claimed that those votes had been stolen, and insisted that the Georgia folks “find” 11,790 votes, just enough for him to “win” Georgia’s electoral votes. 

(You can still listen to that call yourself.)

 

11. Trump 45 caught a break when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that asking state officials to “find” magical votes might be seen as part of his duties as president, and so he might be covered by presidential immunity, in the matter of this call. Trump 47 still lies constantly about being cheated out of the win in 2020, but he is careful never to say exactly who did the cheating. 

(See, by way of warning: His $5 million loss for defaming E. Jean Carroll.) 

(See, next, his second loss, for $83.3 million, for defaming Ms. Carroll again.)

 

12. Even Rudy caught a break of sorts, when a judge reduced his damage settlement to $145,969,000, reflecting the fact that Freeman and Moss had already collected more than $2.2 million in damages from One American News Network. Because OANN also peddled malicious lies.

 

13. You would think by now that the point would be impossible to miss, even for people who own multiple MAGA-style baseball caps to wear to weddings and funerals and while engaging in sex. The two women also won a defamation suit filed against Gateway Pundit, although lawyers for the right-wing website managed to craft a deal which kept details of the settlement secret. 

You could tell who won, however, when Gateway removed twenty articles in its feed related to the alleged misdeeds of Freeman and Moss.

 

14. And we’re still not done. Smartmatic has also sued MyPillow guru Mike Lindell for spreading “Stolen Election” lies. Recently, a federal judge ruled that Mr. Pillow was in contempt of court after refusing to provide documents plaintiffs demanded, which they said would prove their case. 

If you love Donald Dumpling, we should politely mention, that you are not “winning” in court, if a judge holds you in contempt.


Did you know Lindell urged Trump to declare martial law and overturn the 2020 vote?
Now you do.
Not funny.

 

15. Mike is also famous for losing his cool during a different court hearing, this one regarding his alleged defamation of Eric Coomer, the Dominion official in charge of company cybersecurity. 

Mike called him a “scumbag” for daring to sue.

 

16. Here, I should note that all this right-wing lying about the “Stolen Election” of 2020, might be almost funny, save for the fact that the poor dopes who fell for all the lies marched on Congress on January 6, 2021, and attacked. So: let’s remember that Mike Lindell said he had mathematical proof to show that millions of votes were stolen – and promised to pay anyone who could disprove his evidence $5 million. 

It didn’t take long – because a computer expert quickly showed that Mike’s evidence was computer gibberish – mostly random code – and demanded his reward. Lindell balked. So a judge ruled he owed the expert the dough.

 

17. Adding insult to injury, Lindell must also pay the expert, Robert Zeidman, $4,508 in attorney fees.

 

18. Then you might have noticed that the courts ordered poor Mike to pay $56,369 in legal fees to Smartmatic, after a judge ruled he had filed a “frivolous” counter suit.

 

19. Even Lindell’s lawyers are afraid they’re going to get stiffed, saying he owes them millions in unpaid defense costs.

 

20. And we should go ahead and mention that Smartmatic is suing Mr. Pillow for defamation, as well. 

(Just for fun, we should note that Trump paid $6 million for an Arizona recount in 2020.) 

(Biden gained 361 votes.) 

(Then Trump paid $3 million for a Wisconsin recount – and Biden gained votes.)

 

So, there you have it, MAGA fans. Defeat after defeat in court, for those claiming the 2020 election was rigged. 

 

FUN FACT: As of today, April 12, 2025, 1,621 days have passed since the 2020 election was held. 

(So far, NO COURT has found evidence of any significant voter fraud.)

 

That means, barring new revelations, Donald J. Trump has been lying ever since, and he’s likely to go to his grave, with a lie on his dying lips.


January 6: Trump fan, Edward Jacob Lang, acting on the basis if lies.


 

FUN FACT #2: As of this week, Trump has been ordered to face a defamation suit filed by the Central Park Five. In 1989, five young black men were accused of raping and beating a white jogger in the New York park. Donald took out a full-page ad, calling for them to receive the death penalty. 

The five “animals,” as he called them, spent years in prison. 

Then DNA evidence proved all five were innocent. Donald has refused to admit he was wrong, even claiming during a debate with Kamala Harris, that the five men had admitted their crimes (they had not) and insisting their victim had been killed (fortunately, she survived).

Friday, April 11, 2025

The Second Coming of Donald Dumpling - April 2025

 

April 1, 2025: Team Trump has announced that it will increase the number of available H-2B visas by 64,716 this year. These visas allow temporary workers to enter the United States, to fill jobs that native-born workers don’t care to do. Not at the wages cheap-ass employers are willing to offer, anyway. See, for example, Donald and his son Eric, who hired six men from Mexico in 2017, to prune vines at the Trump Winery, two miles south of Charlottesville, Virginia. 



Then we had the undocumented workers, hired at the same vineyard, who said they worked long hours, with no overtime pay, so no one really checked to see if the fake documents they submitted were forgeries. 

We should also mention the undocumented housekeeper who dusted Donald’s crystal golf trophies and got a certificate of appreciation from the White House Communications Agency, with her name on it. 

And the 100-plus undocumented workers who toiled at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey resort. 

And the undocumented workers at the Trump Golf Club in New York, including one who was employed for eight years. 

Nor should we skip over the 209 foreign individuals hired (legally, for a change) on H-2B visas, across all Trump properties in 2024. 

(Who knew! Not all foreign workers come here to slit our throats!)

 

These visas are for non-agricultural workers who might want to fill line jobs at fish processing plants, or clean rooms at high-end resorts, or do dishes at Mar-a-Lago, in return for mediocre pay, and no Social Security benefits. H-2B workers can also travel with carnivals or clean up manure at racetracks.

 

* 

In other news, Forbes magazine notes that in 2024, the world could boast of having more billionaires (3,028) than ever before. The combined wealth of these three thousand plus men and women – and maybe a transgender person or two – was up $2 trillion in just one year, to $16.1 trillion. 

The U.S. leads with 902 billionaires, followed, incongruously, by communist China and Hong Kong, with 502. 

NPR listed the top ten and how they came by their wealth: 

1.    Elon Musk ($342 billion), co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX

2.    Mark Zuckerberg ($216 billion), co-founder of Facebook and CEO of Meta

3.    Jeff Bezos ($215 billion), founder of Amazon

4.    Larry Ellison ($192 billion), co-founder of tech giant Oracle

5.    Bernard Arnault and family ($178 billion), founder and CEO of LVMH, luxury goods conglomerate, holding brands such as Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co.

6.    Warren Buffet ($154 billion), investor known as the "Oracle of Omaha," CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

7.    Larry Page ($144 billion), co-founder of Google and former CEO of its parent company, Alphabet

8.    Sergey Brin ($138 billion), co-founder of Google and former president of Alphabet

9.    Amancio Ortega ($124 billion), founder of clothing retailer Inditex, which sells Zara and various other brands

10. Steve Ballmer ($118 billion), former CEO of Microsoft

 

Ortega, a Spanish businessman, is the only non-American to make the top ten. We should also mention that Vladimir Putin is rumored to be worth $200 billion, which would place him third. But if a Russian journalist ever exposed the truth, Vladimir would have them tossed off a fifth-floor balcony for kicks. 

So, let’s not make fun of Vlad. We’ll use Ortega to illustrate a point. He’s 89 years old and has three children. If he spent a million dollars per hour, he’d need 5,162 days to wipe out his fortune, meaning he’d have to live to 103. If he keeled over tomorrow his loot would pass to his children. 

Each of them would have $41,333,333,333.33 to spend. It would be hard work using up a million per hour, staying up all night figuring out what to buy. Let’s go easy on those poor kids, who just hypothetically lost their father, and figure they only have to spend a million per day. 

Now they will only need to “work” for 41,333 days to be done. That means they could finish their sprees in only 113 years. 



(I think this math proves that Elon, Vladimir, and Donald Dumpling need tax breaks.)


 

* 

History shows us that, across the centuries, great power always trends toward abusive power, allowing corrupt leaders to amass great wealth, with great wealth allowing those same leaders to accumulate even more wealth. Kim Jong-un, the homicidal maniac who rules North Korea, is said to be worth $5 billion. 

(Trump has called him a “friend.”)


Bromance: Trump and Kim.

 

Xi Jinping is another world leader who has piled up a mountain of loot. According to the Washington Times, as far back as 2012, when he first rose to the pinnacle of power in the Chinese Communist Party, Xi and his family had already amassed at least a billion dollars in assets. 

The man he replaced, Wen Jiabao, and his family had also done well. On the day Wen laid down the mantel of leadership, he and his DNA crew had piled up an estimated $2.7 billion in assets. 

No one can be sure how much Xi might be worth today, because, like Donald Dumpling, the Chinese president-for-life is a staunch foe of a free press. 

(During a dinner with Xi, Trump once joked that he’d like that “president-for-life” shit.)


Xi Jinping: Trump likes his "president-for-life" vibe.


___  

“You’ve got to accept the results.” 

4/2/25: The sun rises over the White House, or Mar-a-Lago, as it were, depending on where Donald Dumpling’s mood has taken him. 

Sadly, the golden rays of morn do not lessen The Dumpling’s gloom. Yesterday, we mentioned how hard it is for billionaires to spend all their cash, but this morning we know Donald and Elon Musk poured millions into the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, having endorsed Brad Schimel. When all the votes were tallied, Trump and Musk got their asses thoroughly kicked. Susan Crawford, the candidate favored by Democrats, won with ease. 

Susan Crawford         1,301,128 (55%) 

Brad Schimel              1,063,244 (45%)

 

It’s more than fair to say that this vote was a measure of the disdain most Wisconsinites felt for Mr. Musk, and all the bags of money he spent to swing the race. It may also be a sign of a growing disdain for The Dumpling himself. 

At any rate, Republicans took their defeat like real men, and real women, and… Oh, no, wait, they didn’t! 

Alex Jones and Roger Stone, two bold liars if ever there were two practiced prevaricators, immediately began claiming that there was massive evidence that the vote had been rigged. Then Elon started pushing the same claim. 

This was odd, since just six months earlier, Trump won a narrow victory in the same state, under the exact same voting system. 

November 5, 2024, Presidential Election Results – Wisconsin: 

Donald Dumpling     1,697,626 (49.7%) 

Kamala Harris            1,668,229 (48.9%)

 

Unlike Donald in 2020, however, when Schimel lost, he conceded graciously. When supporters gathered to hear his concession speech started chanting, “cheater! cheater!” as if Democrats had stolen the victory, he shut them down. 

“No,” he said, stilling the crowd. “You’ve got to accept the results.”


Elon gave away money to people he hoped would vote for Schimel.

 

* 

Let’s remind readers exactly who Alex and Roger really are. Jones spread ghoulish lies about the Sandy Hook school massacre, which he claimed was a hoax – and lost a massive $1.5 billion defamation suit, filed by parents whose children had been slaughtered. 

For real. 

Stone is famous for meeting with a Russian in 2016, who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton to help the Trump campaign but wanted $2 million. 

During the “Russia, Russia, Russia” investigation, as Donald Trump calls it, Stone was forced to testify under oath. He swore he had never met with any Russians or even people who liked Russian dressing in their Reubens. 

Then investigators soon proved he had – and Roger could only try to claim, “I’m sorry. I completely forgot about the Russian who wanted $2 million. I mean, it’s like when you can’t remember the name of an actor you saw in a movie five years ago.” He got nailed for multiple felonies, including one for witness-tampering, before he was done. And, if you’ve forgotten, as Trump’s first term as president wound down, Roger got a Golden Pardon, almost as if lying deserved reward.

 

* 

Thankfully, for President Trump, his mood improves by afternoon, when he can proudly proclaim that April 2, 2025, is “Liberation Day.” He is going to spank just about every other country on the face of the globe with punishing tariffs – and Make America Rich Again. 

The naysayers are quick to warn that what Trump has done is to have implemented “the most sweeping tariff hike since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.” 

That would be “the 1930 law best remembered for triggering a global trade war and deepening the Great Depression.” 

The stock markets are closed for the day, by the time Trump reveals his tariff plan. But watch the market soar tomorrow!


Seattle's "Hooverville" during the Great Depression.
Hoover took the blame for crashing the U.S. economy.

___ 

 

That was the plan? 

4/3/25: No telling how many times we’re going to have to start a post with, “DOGE blunders continue to pile up,” but here we are again. After the “efficiency” freaks who work for Elon cut 10,000 jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services, they had to backtrack today. 

No big deal, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised. “We’re streamlining the agencies. We’re going to make it work for public health, make it work for the American people.” 

He continued: “In the course of that, there were a number of instances where studies that should have not have been cut were cut, and we’ve reinstated them. Personnel that should not have been cut were cut – we’re reinstating them, and that was always the plan.” 

That was always the plan? 

You fired people because you planned to fire them and then planned to hire them back? 

Well, not to worry. 

With RFK Jr., we’ll always have measles.


 

* 

The Jack the Ripper types at DOGE have also been busy slashing grants to states to pay for popular programs like Meals on Wheels, and aimed at helping the elderly and disabled. Now, if Granny can’t get out of her wheelchair to go buy groceries, or Grandpa is bedridden and can’t cook meals, let them starve. 

We’ve got to keep cutting all the “waste, fraud, and abuse” and also Aunt Sarah’s next hot lunch.

 

* 

Oh, hey, how did the stock markets react to Donald’s great new tariff plan to Make America Rich Again? 

On Liberation Day +1, the Dow-Jones average plunged 1,679 points.

___ 

 

4/4/25: Liberation Day +2: If you’ve been too busy to watch the news, you may be wondering how we’re doing, after President Trump declared Wednesday was “Liberation Day,” and slapped tariffs on almost every country on the face of the Earth. He and his top economic aides were so pumped up by the idea of putting up trade barriers that they tariffed the hell out of a country that did not, technically, exist, namely, Howard Island and McDonald Islands. 

The only inhabitants of those barren, windswept islands are penguins – and you figure they’re not much on exporting, or importing, or anything else, besides eating fish, pooping, and procreating. 



As we now know, Wall Street was so excited by the news of massive tariffs that the Dow fell 1,679 points yesterday, which even penguins could tell you was not good. 

Today, we can report that the stock market gave the tariff situation a little more thought and dived 2,231 points. 

Members of the president’s economic team promised that any financial pain would be worth it in the end, even if it felt like a fiscal appendectomy, and promised that the plan was still the plan, and the MAGA faithful told each other not to read up on the Great Crash of 1929 and start jumping out of tall buildings. 

This blogger would be the first to admit that it is hard to predict what will happen when the global economy is disrupted, and Donald Dumpling may be correct in the end. For now, it has the feeling of a situation where the patient needed an appendectomy, so Doctor Donald shot him in the face. 

Trump, however, assured reporters that the U.S. economy was about to boom and then, as is his wont, headed for Florida, to attend a Saudi-sponsored golf tournament, being held at Trump National Doral Miami. So, Donald, at least, was still piling up money by hosting golfers and their friends at establishments he happens to own. 

The president, himself, is expected to shoot a few holes at his Jupiter club this weekend, meaning flight restrictions will be enforced. 

We don’t want any drone attacks on golf carts. 

Right? 

A person playing golf on a golf course

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Donald Dumpling focused on the world economy.

  

* 

Meanwhile, Trump unveiled a golden card which can be yours for only $5 million, if you are a person desiring to emigrate to the United States. As anyone might have predicted, the card carries the president’s signature and features his glowering mug. 

A person holding a gold card

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

___

 

4/5/25: Great news from Florida, America! 

While you were staring bleakly at the computer screen as your 401k plan exploded, and dripping tears on your keyboard, President Trump was off golfing again – and winning again! Oh, America, we are so tired of winning! “On Saturday,” the Daily Beast reported, “Trump won the second-round matchup in a Senior Club Championship held at his very own Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, which means he advances to the Championship Round held on Sunday.” 

A person in a purple shirt

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

 

(This blogger, for one, will wager that Donald wins on Sunday, as well.)

___ 

 

4/6/25: Well, that was a bet I could have won. Sure enough, on his flight back to Washington D.C. late Sunday, Donald told reporters he had won another championship at a golf club he owns. 

This victory was confirmed by Laura Loomer, the white supremacist lady, and some fear Donald’s sometimes squeeze. 

Asked about the stock market dive last week, Trump insisted it was like “medicine” and the patient would be fine in the end. 

Sort of like ivermectin for your 401k plan.

 

* 

In other “Big News” the Trump folks have been busy saving our eyeballs from unpleasant realities, vis a vis U.S. history. Obviously, no one wants to know about Harriet Tubman and her fight to help African Americans escape from slavery! Under Sleepy Joe, the National Park Service webpage used to describe the Underground Railroad with this opening sentence: “The Underground Railroad – the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War – refers to the efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom by escaping bondage.” 

Featured prominently was a photo of Tubman, the most famous “conductor” on the entire system, and a description highlighting her exploits. 

As the Washington Post reports, a new opening line now eliminates all mention of slavery! The Underground Railroad is instead described as “one of the most significant expressions of the American civil rights movement.” The effort “bridged the divides of race,” which sounds much nicer than bothering people with the fact that 4,000,000 men, women and children were treated like cattle in 1860, and that only a few thousand were ever able to escape. The “divides of race” being bridged, is much cheerier than reporting that nearly 400,000 Americans owned those millions – and worked overtime to recapture any who dared escape. Bridging the gap? No need to mention whips and shackles, and bloodhounds, and bloody backs.


Whipped Peter - don't think about that.
 

 

UPDATE (April 8, 2025): The original content at the Underground Railroad website has already been rectified. So, no harm done, correct? 

The problem being: Someone working for Donald Trump thought those kinds of changes were justified. 

And the changes were made in February.

___ 

 

Saving macho men – with tariffs! 

4/7/25: Monday wasn’t as bad as it might have been. As economists and stockbrokers, business owners and ordinary workers all scratched their heads, the world pondered a future of tariffs run amok. 

Would Donald Dumpling’s plans to bring America’s economy roaring back work, or would he go down in history like Herbert Hoover, taking the world economy (and all of us) with him? Yesterday, the Dow Jones dived, then soared briefly on a false claim that Trump had delayed tariffs for 90 days. At the close, the Dow was down only 349 points, having skidded 1,500 points earlier in the day. 

This blogger is not a trained economist – and in a perfect world, Donald’s tariff antics may work. On Fox News, however, the talking heads have been busy all week, spouting pro-tariff drivel. As always, one of the emptiest talking heads has belonged to Jesse Waters and, on a separate program, the guest columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon could be heard trying to match him for vacuous commentary. 

First, Jesse, who for all the good it does to listen to him, a viewer might as well listen to a recording of a dozen assorted dogs barking in unison at the moon. 

“When you sit behind a screen all day, it makes you a woman. Studies have shown this. Studies have shown this!” Jesse howled. He insisted that studies (none of which he cited) proved that men fared better if they did manly factory jobs and worked with their hands. Trump and the tariffs would bring those kinds of jobs roaring back! “And if you’re out working, building robots … you are around other guys,” he added. “You’re not around HR ladies and lawyers – and that gives you estrogen.” 

(F**k! Was I drenched in estrogen all those years I taught?) 

(I did work with a lot of ladies.)

 

Okay. No. I’m not stupid enough to believe that shit. In fact, if anyone was soaking in too much estrogen it was Jesse, not me. 

The day before, The Free Press columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon had appeared on Fox & Friends Weekend to sound alarm. There was, she warned, a “crisis in masculinity” that only tariffs could resolve. “It’s not just the destruction of the economic vitality of the working class,” she moaned. “We shipped jobs that gave men who work with their hands for a living, and rely on brawn and physicality, off to other countries to build up their middle class.” 

She continued: “We imported millions and millions of illegals to work in construction, manufacturing, landscaping, janitorial services – jobs that used to give men access to the American dream.” 

Former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos, joined the chorus on X, suggesting that a mass return to factory work would be just what America’s men needed most. 

 

The “we love tariffs” rhetoric turned into outright misogyny at times, 

with some arguing that a manufacturing-based economy would naturally offer fewer career opportunities for women. This, in turn, would force them into relationships out of necessity and boost the country’s flagging birth rates.

 

As one prominent right-wing influencer wrote: “you do not solve low birth rates by giving money to women, you solve low birth rates by taking money away from women.”

 

“Fertility is a solved problem and tracks differential status between men and women,” another wrote, seemingly endorsing the theory.


In an age when America was great, women were told
making beds was good exercise,
and they should stay home.
 

 

Neither Ungar-Sargon nor Watters mentioned that businesspersons – including Donald Dumpling himself – were only too happy to hire those “millions of illegals” because they worked long hours as janitors for no overtime pay, or stooped all day in fields of asparagus, doing the harvesting for less than minimum wage. 

I don’t know. If American men are suffering a “crisis in masculinity,” maybe they should get their lard asses off the couch, or get off their riding mowers, and walk behind a push mower, instead. 

Or take your lazy ass to the gym and lift a few weights. 

I know, here in Cincinnati, almost every time I hear workmen putting new roofs on old homes, I hear Spanish speakers plying hammers and see them climbing ladders with heavy bundles of shingles on their shoulders. 

Men! Listen up! If you’re suffering from a crisis in masculinity, get a hammer and nails, buy a truckload of shingles, and get up there and roof! 

 

FUN FACT: This liberal blogger still cuts his grass with a walking mower. Each time he does, he hoofs it four miles. 

He has cut the grass, or mulched the leaves roughly 35 times per year, and he has done it for 33 years at his current address. That’s 4 x 33 x 35, or 4,620 miles. Jesse, all you fat Fox News fans, you don’t need tariffs. 

You need to sweat. 


For even more fun - build a scaffold and repoint your own chimney.
Work with your hands!


You, too, can now feel like a man.

 

* 

In other news, now that DOGE has made serious cuts to the workforce at Social Security, and messed with the data, the website keeps crashing. If you’re a retiree, with questions about eligibility or checks, and you’d like to talk to someone, good luck! That someone has already been terminated. 

So, log on to… 

Oh, wait. DOGE has already cut 7,000 jobs, and now wants to cut half the remaining staff at the agency’s technology division – which has responsibility for the website and electronic access.

 

* 

Indeed, with DOGE, the “efficiency” never ends. Or really begins. Soon after Elon and his Boys set to work, a freeze on all federal grants was announced, including grants to states to fund Head Start. 

Now, officials who administer the grant programs are being fired or put on administrative leave. Head Start helps children living in poverty, and even homeless children. But sure, helping homeless kids is “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

___ 

 

4/8/25: Supporters of Donald Trump rejoiced on Tuesday, as his plan to “Make America Rich Again” finally began to bear fruit. The tariffs were beginning to take hold, and the Dow rallied, and went up more than a thousand points. 

On “X,” the MAGA faithful were out in force, talking smack about how brilliant Donald is, and how delicious liberal tears are to drink. 

Alas, by day’s close, the rally had fizzled, and the Dow was down 320 points. Again, this blogger will admit that the Donald Dumpling Tariff Plan may work. Unfortunately, if it doesn’t, we could all end up screwed. 

___ 

 

4/9/25: President Trump announces that he is going to pause implementation of all the tariffs he said would mark “Liberation Day” as the day American got stinkin’ rich again for ninety days. Also, it means the U.S. isn’t going to pile up all the billions he promised every day, putting taxes on foreign goods and services. 

In any case, the Dow closes up 2,943 points. Trump whisperers claim this was all part of a brilliant plan, to knock the bottom out of the markets, and then save them again. Anyway, the stock markets have responded favorably, and temporarily, the world is spared the pain of a massive trade war.

___ 

 

4/10/25: No one really has a clue what President Trump is going to do next, including, apparently, Donald Dumpling himself, regarding tariffs. Investors remain nervous, and on Thursday the Dow sinks 1,015 points.

___