“A
backstabbing tv show.”
March 1-2, 2025: If you missed President Trump’s meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Friday, you missed one of the most astounding performances in U.S. history.
Trump fans who did watch loved it. At this point, if Donald dropped trou, and took a dump on the Oval Office carpet, and then hurled feces at the Ukrainian president, they’d insist he was the best negotiator ever to grace the White House. And, yes, the most patriotic, the most studly, and the classiest.
 |
Zelensky's look tells you how the meeting went. |
Don’t worry. The Dumpling didn’t hurl feces, but Vladimir Putin had to be ecstatic with what he witnessed.
In search of clarity today, let’s turn to the rest of the world for reaction. The First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, called on the government of the United Kingdom to rescind an invitation for Trump to visit. Zelensky, said Swinney, was “the courageous leader of the courageous Ukrainian people” and a “completely unacceptable sequence of events” had taken place at the White House.
“Until such time as we know the United States are going to be full scale partners with us and allied with us in protecting Ukrainian independence – which is fundamental to the protection of European liberal democracy – then I don’t think we should be talking about a second state visit for President Trump.”
As a measure of disgust in Norway, we can report that Haltbakk Bunkers, one of the largest Norwegian fuel suppliers, will no longer provide fuel to the U.S. Navy.
As the company explained,
We have
today been witness to the biggest shitshow ever presented ‘live on tv’ by the
current American president and vice president. Huge credit the president of
Ukraine restraining himself and for keeping calm even though USA put on a
backstabbing tv show. It made us sick. …
SLAVA
UKRAINA.
Even Fox News was forced to admit that multiple European leaders came to the defense of President Zelensky – but then Fox mustered up a bizarre explanation. The president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, European Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis, and European Council President António Costa “all posted the same exact social media message” on X, on Friday: “Your dignity honours the bravery of the Ukrainian people. Be strong, be brave, be fearless. You are never alone, dear President @ZelenskyyUa. We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace.”
Fox then quoted social media users (not exactly the source for critical analysis of world events) who found the identical messages “kind of creepy,” and wondered if the EU had been just “bots this whole time.”
While Fox was busy confusing viewers by peddling bullshit, Europeans seemed clear where they stood. “We stand with Ukraine for as long as it may take,” to win a lasting and just peace, Prime Minster Keirs Starmer of the United Kingdom said on Saturday while offering the UK’s “unwavering” support.
Following an emergency meeting of leaders from across Europe, on Sunday, Starmer explained:
We discussed
a plan today to reach a peace that is tough and fair, that Ukraine will help
shape, that’s backed by strength, to stop Putin coming back for more. I’m
working closely with other European leaders on this, and I’m clear
that the U.K. is ready to put boots on the ground and planes in the air to
support a deal, working together with our allies, because that is the only way
that peace will last.
In related news, Elon Musk, unelected douchebag, has agreed with right-wing influencer Gunther Eagleman, on X, who has called for the United States to withdraw from both NATO and the United Nations.
As already
mentioned, Vladimir couldn’t possibly be happier today. Well, unless he could
order his goon squads to push another journalist off a fifth-floor balcony.
Putin really gets off on murdering critics.
___
The DOGE Wall of Blunders.
3/3/25: Elon and the boys at DOGE continue to trample on their own wieners, as the free press continues to double check their claims of massive savings made by cutting government waste, fraud and abuse.
Today, The New York Times can report that on the DOGE “wall of receipts,” where their handiwork is displayed, 40% of the claims listed as “waste, fraud, or abuse” have been altered or removed. In fact, five of the seven examples of greatest “savings” were removed entirely from the “wall of… blunders?”
How good is the list?
“Overall,
there’s a certain randomness to it,” said Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “It seems like DOGE had certain
agencies pull together some random lists of contracts [emphasis added] that
may or may not currently exist anyway, and then, without checking the data very
well, uploaded it onto a website and summed up the amounts. It doesn’t seem to
be centrally coordinated.”
For example, DOGE listed big savings, $1.9 billion, on an IRS contract they uncovered and canceled.
Yay, Elon!
Only that contract was really, really cancelled in November 2024, when Joe Biden was still president.
Another entry claimed that DOGE saved taxpayers $149 million by blocking hiring of three executive assistants at the Department of Health and Human Services. Even this blogger would applaud if DOGE stopped a profligate government agency from paying three people just under $50 million apiece.
Only that entry on the “Wall of Blunders” was so garbled, that after the Times inquired about it, it disappeared entirely, along with the fictitious savings, and the fictitious multi-millionaire federal employees.
The DOGE dopes also touted another $106 million saved, by canceling contracts involving the Coast Guard. Only those contracts had been terminated when George W. Bush was still in office.
 |
Mr. Musk. |
FUN WITH BLUNDERS: In related news, the indiscriminate firing of federal workers has resulted in all kinds of unintended consequences. At the U.S. Department of Agriculture, John Ternest was preparing a study of honeybee health and pollination. He was among those let go without warning.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service lost 400 employees, including entomologists and even tree climbers who look for pests. Employees tasked with limiting the spread of the Asian long-horned beetle were terminated. Port inspectors guarding against foreign fruit flies in shipments were canned. Other inspectors, tasked with limiting the entry of dogs to the U.S., if they might have been exposed to rabies overseas, were let go. Federal employees who worked to ensure that pet foods were uncontaminated and safe saw the axe fall on their heads. The agency’s veterinary services program was also gutted – just as serious worries about bird flu exploded.
That last result was so absurd that the U.S.D.A. had to hustle and try to rehire many of the people Team Elon had just fired.
In honor of the DOGE fight against “waste, fraud, and abuse,” let’s remember that whenever pet foods from China kill a hundred dogs and cats and cause kidney failure in others, it’s the federal government that has to track down the offending products, and government scientists who have to determine the problem. For example, you had the Chinese jerky that killed 1,140 dogs and sickened three people. Then you had the chew toys contaminated with lead, mercury and arsenic.
In fact, when medical device manufacturers design hip replacements that later begin shedding metal fragments into a patient’s joint, one does not call the manufacturer for help. One relies on the federal government to step in on his or her behalf, and on behalf of tens of thousands of similarly affected sufferers.
(That’s how it works: Sometimes big government curbs the abuses of Big Business.)
MORE FUN WITH BLUNDERS: Mount Spurr, a giant volcano near Anchorage, Alaska, has been rumbling lately. This has caused Alaska’s volcano monitoring service to raise the alert level to ensure that nearby communities and passing aircraft have ample warning in case of a big explosion.
Unfortunately,
the credit cards for the United States Geological Survey’s volcano observatory have
been frozen by DOGE. Since it costs money to transmit data from its
monitoring systems on the mountain to interested Alaskan agencies and
individuals, any warnings about a possible eruption may soon end.
 |
Mount Spurr venting ash and gas; date unclear. Picture in the public domain. |
F**k the First Amendment!
3/4/25: No day, in the golden era of Donald Dumpling I, our new dumpling king, would be complete without some kind of attack on the Bill of Rights. In this case, Donald decides to target the First Amendment right of citizens to assemble peacefully and protest.
Fired up by campus disturbances, many related to events in the Gaza Strip, the mad monarch decrees:
Yea,
f**k the First Amendment! Right, MAGA heads!
*
Same day: Team Trump is handed a fresh courtroom defeat when a federal judge halts the president’s effort to have it declared that there are only two genders – male and female – and block all healthcare for transgender youths in all fifty states, Washington D.C., and all the territories.
(Including Greenland!)
Anyone who has dealt with transgender individuals knows the subject is incredibly complex, and decisions regarding what to do are fraught. The simplistic male/female dichotomy disintegrates under scrutiny. Unfortunately, under this new policy, if it stands, all efforts to aid in transition would be illegal. Trump’s order claims that all such care amounts to “chemical and surgical mutilation.”
Yet, we know – if we are not incurious dolts – that the Mayo Clinic has made clear. Children can be born with all kinds of disorders related to gender. This should surprise no one, not even the dolts, since children can be born with extra arms and legs, no arms and legs, two heads on one body, with incomplete brains, and external sex organs that do not match internal sex organs.
The Cleveland Clinic notes that babies born with two X chromosomes are meant to be female, and babies born with one X and one Y chromosome are meant to be male, but chromosomes can be misaligned. Down Syndrome results when a second copy of chromosome 21 is present. Babies can be born not with XX or XY chromosomes, but with XXX, XXY or XYY mismatches. This condition, known as “trisomy,” often leads to miscarriage or premature birth, but it is an uniformed person – cough, cough, Donald Trump – who does not understand how complex the question of gender for some individuals can be.
The Cleveland Clinic estimates that of every 700 babies born in the United States has this condition.
Stated plainly, the chemistry of the human body is complicated. The delicate balance can be off in a myriad of ways. You have the “fragile X” syndrome, yet another chromosome disorder, that can lead to intellectual disabilities, joint hypermobility, unusually long faces and large ears, and autism.
 |
All kinds of birth mix-ups can occur. Abby and Brittany Hensel could explain it, too. |
*
Same day: Donald wades through a windy speech before Congress, the longest, at 99 minutes, since at least 1989. When we look at presidential speeches delivered to Congress, Donald has the four longest since Bill Clinton left office.
My favorite claim in this, his most recent blather fest: At least one recipient of monthly Social Security checks was born 360 years ago.
This
would mean the lucky recipient first started squalling in 1665. It was a time when
a few of the luckiest, original Jamestown settlers still walked the earth. It
was a quarter century before the Salem Witch Trials stained the name of Massachusetts,
and 124 years before the Founding Fathers gave birth the United States. This was
another in an endless string of idiotic claims put forward over the last
decade by the Idiot-in-Chief and then swallowed by the unblinking red hat MAGA
masses.
___
3/5/25: We
learned today that in mid-February, global sea ice fell to the lowest levels ever recorded for the
month and remained at record lows into March. Meanwhile, the clueless Mr. Trump
is working to undo efforts made by the previous administration to address the
threats of a warming planet.
*
Same day: Republican senators met with Honorary Co-President of the United States Elon Musk and warned that if he was going to keep slashing government programs and firing tens of thousands of federal workers without due cause, he would have to get permission from Congress.
Why?
Because the U.S. Constitution puts the “power of the purse” firmly in the hands of the legislative branch.
It was a rare but feeble sign of life on the part of Republican lawmakers. Even Sen. Rand Paul, who supports the DOGE initiative, warned Musk that unless Congress provides clear authorization, the courts will never validate his efforts – which often involve holding back funds lawmakers have already agreed should be spent.
Sen. Lindsey Graham stopped kissing presidential ass long enough to tell reporters that, yes, Congress would be the final decider.
Musk, who was not born in this country, and was not educated on the virtues of a government based on “separation of powers,” assumed that he could impound monies Congress had authorized because he was super rich and thought it would be fun.
“Every day’s another surprise,” a miffed Sen. Susan Collins admitted, when it comes to dealing with Elon.
In related news, the chair of the Merit Systems Protective Board, a federal board created to protect the civil service, has ruled that 5,600 workers at the Department of Agriculture who were summarily fired by Musk and his minions, were terminated in violation of federal law and procedures required during layoffs. Those firings are blocked for 45 days, while the full board considers options.
In the
meantime, the workers must be returned to jobs they previously held, and they may
be awarded back pay.
*
Attempts at intimidation “cannot be sanctioned or normalized.”
If you missed the uproar, as one judge after another chastised Mr. Musk, you may not know that he used his platform on X to angrily call for Congress to impeach judges who curbed what he dreamed were his unlimited powers.
As NBC explained, Elon showed his complete ignorance of the role of the federal judiciary in the process.
The blogger has added helpful insights:
“We are witnessing an attempted coup of American democracy by radical left activists posing as judges!” Musk wrote on Feb. 11.
(Federal judges don’t “pose” as judges; they are appointed by
the president.)
“When judges egregiously undermine the democratic will of the people, they must be fired or democracy dies!” Musk wrote on Feb. 25.
(The Founding Fathers feared the whims of the people – and
decreed that federal judges need not stand for election)
When a judge blocked a Trump order that paused refugee admissions, Musk posted that the judge was “violating the will of the people.”
(The Founding Fathers repeatedly made clear that they did not trust the fickle judgement of the people. This explains, dear Mr. Musk, why federal judges are granted lifetime appointments.)
(It’s also why we have an Electoral College.)
 |
| They might have made a musical about Hamilton, but he didn't trust the people's judgment. |
*
“Government actions that seek to tip the scales of justice.”
The American Bar Association sniffed out the same dangers as this humble blogger, which, frankly, gives the humble blogger a really big head.
The humble blogger, is, after all, a really big fan of the U.S. Constitution, and all the rights that pertain.
The
ABA said in a statement that
it would “not stay silent in the face of efforts to remake the legal profession
into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes
those who do not,” calling for an end to efforts meant to “cow our country’s
judges, our country’s courts and our legal profession” and saying that such
attempts at intimidation “cannot be sanctioned or normalized.”
The ABA letter continued, “We cannot have a judicial system where the government seeks to remove judges simply because they do not rule as the government desires. Considering the increasing physical threats to judges, these are clearly efforts to intimidate judges and our courts.”
The ABA also took note of efforts to cow Justice Department attorneys and U.S. district attorneys who had been “the subject of personal attacks, intimidation, firings and demotions for simply fulfilling their professional responsibilities.”
The Trump administration had insisted it would not weaponize or politicize the Justice Department. “The actions against Department of Justice employees belie these assertions,” the ABA statement explained.
We
support the rights of people to advance their interests in courts of law when
they have been wronged. We reject the notion that the government can punish
lawyers who represent certain clients or punish judges who rule certain
ways. We cannot accept government actions that seek to tip the scales of
justice in this manner.
There are clear choices facing our profession. We
can choose to remain silent and allow these acts to continue or we can stand
for the rule of law and the values we hold dear. We call upon the entire
profession, including lawyers who serve in elected positions, to speak out
against intimidation. We acknowledge that there are risks to standing up and
addressing these important issues.
*
Same day: Last, but not least, President Trump decided to conduct delicate diplomacy via social media, this time threatening Hamas.
Donald blustered:
“Shalom
Hamas” means Hello and Goodbye — You can choose. Release all of the Hostages
now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you
murdered, or it is OVER for you.
I have
just met with your former Hostages whose lives you have destroyed. This is your
last warning! For the leadership, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you
still have a chance. Also, to the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits,
but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision.
RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!
Since
nearly 50,000 people in Gaza are already DEAD, you figure that threats of HELL
TO PAY LATER might not do much to frighten anyone further.
___
3/7/25: Even President Trump is feeling the backlash related to massive government job cuts, which have fallen equally on workers excellent, good, fair, and bad. The only criteria for being let go?
The whim of Elon Musk.
Mr. Trump now promises that future cuts will be made with “a scalpel rather than a hatchet.”
He adds,
“The Golden Age of America has just begun.”
___
3/10/25: White House aide Stephen Miller decided today that it was time to blast Saturday Night Live for going “woke” and making fun of Dear Leader – known at this blog as Donald Dumpling.
“We
would all love to go back to the ‘Saturday Night Live’ that we grew up with,” poor
Miller grumbled, “but unfortunately because it’s gone woke, because it’s gone
left, because it’s gone politically correct, ‘Saturday Night Live’ is now the
antithesis of comedy.”
(The
Dumpling himself had another restful weekend at his private estate in Florida
and went golfing again.)
*
Same day: In Texas, a bill has been proposed to make it a felony for a transgender person to identify (as, for example, during a job interview) as of a biological sex opposite the sex assigned to them at birth.
Two
years in the slammer ought to be about right, the Republican sponsor of House
Bill 3817 insisted.
*
Same day: You may recall that once Trump won reelection last November, he claimed that a rise in the stock market in the last few weeks of the Biden presidency was due to the love the markets had for Donald J. Trump. The Dow closed at 41,794.60 on November 4, 2024, and then rose to 43,487.83 on January 17, 2025, the last full trading day with Mr. Biden in office.
Trump claimed that all that gain was due to his brilliance, which the titans of finance clearly recognized. Then, the market continued to climb during Donald’s first month in office, reaching 44,176.65 on February 20.
And Donald reveled in his success and declared himself the best president ever, better than pastrami on rye.
Then the market began to tank – at one point today dropping more than a thousand points, before bouncing up slightly and finishing down 890.
The close today: 41,911.71.
Whose fault was this plunge?
According to Trump and his ass-kissing economics experts, suddenly, it was all Joe Biden’s fault for leaving them such a terrible economy.
(Only the true MAGA can miss the irony here, and the blogger’s point.)
 |
If the markets drop, Biden did it! |
3/10/25: Today, the fastest way to get fired from a job with the federal government may be to make the mistake of upholding the law.
The actor Mel Gibson lost his gun rights in 2011, after his conviction in a domestic violence case.
The former U.S. pardon attorney, Elizabeth G. Oyer says she believes she was fired after she refused to carry out a request to restore Gibson’s rights.
In a statement to NBC, Oyer warned:
“Unfortunately,
experienced professionals throughout the Department are afraid to voice
their opinions because dissent is being punished. Decisions are being made
based on relationships and loyalty, not based on facts or expertise or sound
analysis, which is very alarming given that what is at stake is our public
safety.”
___
“The unpredictability of our American partner.”
3/11/25: President Trump’s campaign to alienate U.S. allies round the world continues to bear rotten fruit. At a meeting in Paris today, the chiefs of staffs of 30 militaries gathered to discuss formation of a multi-national peacekeeping force to guard the sovereignty of Ukraine, should its war with Russia be brought to an end. The French and Brits were in attendance, as were numerous NATO countries. The Turks, Kiwis, Aussies, Japanese and Canadians also showed up.
The
French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, was forced to admit that
the new challenge facing Europe was “not so much the Russian threat as above
all the unpredictability of our American partner.”
___
3/13/25: The DOGE Boys are on the rampage, slashing “waste, fraud, and abuse,” saving American taxpayers gazillions! Today, we learn that the Boys have terminated “wasteful” contracts with farmers in Missouri and elsewhere.
Those fraudster farmers had, for example, the audacity to send fresh produce to America’s schools, operating on the abusive idea that fresh produce was better for children than canned spinach.
Also, they provided fresh food for elderly Americans!
Some 8,000 local farmers have learned they can no longer
expect the U.S. government to fund their “schemes.”
___
3/14/25: In a wild and wacky speech at the Department of Justice, President Trump made it clear that he was no fan of the First Amendment right of freedom of the press. No doubt members of his audience – at least those with a grade school understanding or higher of the U.S. Constitution – gulped hard at his pronouncements. “I believe that CNN and MSNDC,” the president complained, “who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they are really corrupt and they are illegal. What they do is illegal.”
The Dumpling is nuts.
*
Same day: In a passive/aggressive move, the Canadians rolled out a tiny red carpet in honor of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s arrival in Alberta, Canada, where he was scheduled to attend the G-7 Summit.
It looked more like a large doormat and led right to a puddle.
*
Same day: There was doubt in some minds, back in January, when Elon Musk first flashed what looked to many exactly like a Nazi salute at a gathering of fans. Was Elon a neo-Nazi or not?
Today, on “X,” he added fuel to the argument that he is when he reposted a link, boldly announcing, “Stalin, Mao, and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector employees did.”
It is a rare trick to absolve the three most prolific murderers in modern history and blame those carrying out orders. Hitler talked constantly about Jews and others “poisoning” the German blood. And it wasn’t so much “public sector workers” who were responsible for millions of deaths. The German military created mobile units to go out and gas “undesirables” in vans. Elite SS troops staffed the death and slave labor camps and perpetrated mass murder in Adolf’s name.
Elon, in his own bizarre fashion, is trying to spread hatred of federal workers in this country, the same way Hitler spread hatred of Jews.
“America’s public service workers – our nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians – chose making our communities safe, healthy and strong over getting rich. They are not, as the world’s richest man implies, genocidal murderers,” Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in a statement.
 |
Elon needs a history lesson. |
FUN FACT: Elon
had previously shrugged off his salute, joking, “Bet you did nazi that
coming.” A little gas chamber humor!
*
In other news, Republicans continue with their laser focus on issues that matter to average Americans. Vivek Ramaswamy, gearing up to run for the governorship of Ohio, has a new plan to make America Great Again. Tipping his hat to the genius of Donald J. Trump, who has fought for us all and renamed the Gulf of Mexico, Ramaswamy has floated the idea of renaming Lake Erie, and calling it Lake Ohio.
Clearly, renaming shit is way better than having a real healthcare plan.
So, Vivek, why not full speed ahead? I suggest: Trump City (for Columbus), Trumpville (for Cleveland), and Trumpburg (for Cincinnati). We could also rename counties after all the Trump children and grandchildren, and Melania, of course, and finally, a county named GrabembythePussy.
I think
that would suffice.
___
3/16/25: Donald Trump is golfing again, while a wide swath of the South is recovering from a battering by extreme weather.
How do we know that the Sloth of Mar-a-Lago is keeping his eye on the ball and not his suffering citizens? Because the Sloth is bragging (again) on Truth Social. This afternoon, just before three, he announced:
I just
won the Golf Club Championship, probably my last, at Trump International Golf
Club, in Palm Beach County, Florida. Such a great honor! The Awards dinner is
tonight, at the Club. I want to thank the wonderful Golf Staff, and all of the
many fantastic golfers, that participated in the even [sic]. Such fun!
At last count, at least 42 Americans were dead, while the president was off busy puttering away his day.
UPDATE: In an interview with Sharyl Attkisson, broadcast later that night, President Trump claimed he never really meant he could end the war in Ukraine in “24 hours,” even before he took office. We just thought he did!
“Well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that” Trump told Attkisson, who didn’t dare question. “What I really mean is I’d like to get it settled, and I think I’ll be successful,” he assured her.
As opposed to when he said, “sarcastically,” during a March 2023 interview with Sean Hannity, that he could easily bring peace to Russia and Ukraine. “I would fix that within 24 hours, and if I win, before I get into the office, I will have that war settled. One hundred percent sure.”
Yes.
Subtle sarcasm.
___
The D.E.I purge.
The Trump purge of all vestiges of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion from federal records continues.
The goal: To Make American History Great Again.
Also: White, straight, and male.
 |
The offending bomber photo. |
In one of many numbskull moves, the story of the Navaho “code talkers” is wiped from U.S. Army and Department of Defense websites. The Navaho service members used their own language, completely unknown to the Japanese, to communicate quickly, during fighting in the Pacific, in World War II.
Also gone from government sites: Pictures of the bomber Enola Gay – presumably because some MAGA-loving nitwit saw the word “gay,” and flipped. Also purged were veterans whose last names were “Gay.” Also out…no, wait, “out” could relate to gays and closets! Mentions of “Women’s History Month” were eliminated. Stories of the first black military pilots also flew away. Among other stories to disappear from government webpages was the tale of Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor, which he won, as a young African American officer in 1970, while fighting in Vietnam – and despite being wounded three times.
Gone also: The story of Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian, one of the six Marines who helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima.
And the story of Jackie Robinson’s service during World War II.
Gone, baby, gone: The story of the first woman to pass Marine infantry training. Pictures of the famous Tuskegee Airmen. Even a photo of Army Corps of Engineers biologists was deleted, apparently because the caption mentioned the biologists were studying the weight, size, hatchery from which the fish originated, and – holy shit – gender.
Damn!
Fish gender!
For added fun, Elon Musk and his DOGE Boys decided to cut more “waste, fraud and abuse” from the federal books by selling the Montgomery, Alabama “Freedom Rides” museum – and also pretend Jim Crow never happened.
(That
decision, like so many other DOGE moves, has now been rescinded.)
Speaking of “waste,” etc., the Department of Defense has tasked all military service branches with the job of pouring over stories and photos, in an “heroic” effort to keep American eyeballs from seeing pictures of minorities and women making advances, while proudly serving their country.
Bad day for pedophiles – great day for American children.
3/17/25: I think we can all agree, it must be an exciting day for Republicans who have dedicated their lives to protecting America’s children from George Soros-employed pedophiles, and Hillary Clinton sex-trafficking rings. Such as the “Pizzagate” operation, which turned out never to have trafficked a single child.
Anyway! Fabulous news today, as Robert Morris, pastor of a Texas megachurch, has surrendered on child sex abuse charges. And let’s be honest, even those of us who would never vote for Donald Trump or most of his MAGA allies, are thrilled when predators get their comeuppance.
Pastor Morris faces five counts of lewd, or indecent acts, with a child, and has been ordered to post $50,000 bond (likely less than he raises in one solid Sunday morning collection) and surrender his passport.
(Morris’s accuser was 12 at the time the abuse began.)
Oh, and don’t
you know, Pastor Morris was one of President Donald Trump’s spiritual advisors.
*
In happier times – such as earlier this morning – Minnesota State Senator Justin Eichorn was set on doing his mite to Make America Great Again. He and four like-minded GOP dolts had a plan to address the issues that Americans worry about every day. They planned to introduce legislation to declare “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a designation they made up, to cover any Minnesotan who thought Donald Trump was an idiot or a threat to the Constitution, as an official “mental illness.”
One imagines Sen. Eichorn and his pals high fiving each other and laughing about how they put one over on Democrats, but the joy faded quickly, before the quintet could even step out for breakfast.
As part of a sting operation, Eichorn was arrested and charged with soliciting a minor – a girl he allegedly believed was sixteen, but was in fact an undercover detective. The state Senate Republican Caucus responded immediately, calling for Sen. Eichorn to resign and focus on his family.
(No doubt his wife Brittany will be happy to have him about the house more often.)
(And so much for that TDS “mental illness.”)
*
Honestly, this was a truly terrible day for Trump fans who love to jump and shout about how their favorite fat ass president is saving the country from being overrun by child-molesting fiends – all of whom somehow belong to the Democratic Party. Again, not quite the case: Former GOP state senator Ray Holmberg, of the great, but sparsely populated state of North Dakota, is today’s third example to make a point. Holmberg has admitted traveling overseas regularly to hire young boys for sex.
Misbehavior
good for ten years in prison, in fact.
*
At the White House, meanwhile, in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was happy to share the podium with Conor McGregor.
Conor, known mostly for his prowess as a mixed martial arts fighter, helped tap into the spirit of the day by railing against illegal immigration which he said was leaving “Ireland…on the cusp of losing its Irishness.”
It was all part of an “illegal immigration racket” that he believed was “running ravage on the country” of his birth.
So, you can see why President Trump has called McGregor one of his favorite Irishmen. Conor doesn’t like Ireland being invaded – just as Donald is doing his ultimate to protect the United States. We can also report that the two men, one a fighter, the other a bone spurs-afflicted chicken shit, have this in common. Both have been found liable in civil trials related to sexual assault.
Last November, McGregor was ordered to pay a victim who claimed he had brutally raped and battered her €250,000 (equal to $272,500).
A NOTE ON IMMIGRATION:
If you’re a history buff, the irony of McGregor ranting about Ireland being ruined by immigrants should not be lost. In the 1840s, when the potato famine devastated the island, and millions fled starvation, sailing for America, many in this country reacted with horror and disgust. Why should our great nation be forced to admit all those Catholics with their strange religious rituals? Most couldn’t speak English. Almost all were paupers – sure to end in poorhouses, at taxpayer expense.
Obviously, they could never be loyal to the Constitution but would forever take orders from the Pope.
In the 1854
midterm elections, the Know Nothing Party, which had been established
to turn back the Irish immigrant tide, won 51 seats in the U.S.
House of Representatives. Today, you could argue that the Know Nothing movement
is alive and well and decked out in regulation MAGA gear.
 |
Irish immigrants depicted as violent gang members. |
*
As part of a modern Know Nothing effort to keep Americans safe from dangerous immigrants, Ma Yang, a mother of five, has been deported to Laos. Ms. Yang has never seen Laos before – having been born in a refugee camp in Thailand – after the Hmong people, including her family, were forced to flee Laos in the wake of the Vietnam War. The mistake the Hmong had made was to back U.S. forces in the fight against communism.
At eight months of age, Ma settled in Milwaukee with her parents, became a legal U.S. resident, started her own family, but later pleaded guilty in a drug trafficking operation. So, it made perfect sense to Team Trump to screw over her children (who might never see their mother again) and ship her off to Laos, where she knows not a soul, and cannot speak the language.
FUN FACT: At the same time, Team Trump moved dramatically to protect Americans from gun violence by removing a page about health risks related to gun violence from the Health and Human Services website. No longer will you have to worry about the rising numbers of gun suicides, or the toll taken on children and adolescents by accidents, school shootings, and gang violence.
Now your brain will be protected from upsetting information.
Expect the fresh faces at HHS to come out with a reassuring policy position, such as, “You can never have too many guns! Not even if you and all your family members, including toddlers, run out of hands to grasp them.
“That’s why
God gave us feet.”
 |
The happy family of GOP Congressman Thomas Massie. |
___
“Lap dog for his golfing buddies.”
3/18/25: Donald Dumpling decides to fire two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, leaving three Republicans in place. We can expect Donald to move next to fill their places with Donald Trump Jr. and a watermelon, both equally qualified.
The only problem with The Dumpling’s latest gambit? The FTC was created in 1914, to curb the burgeoning powers of big business and the Robber Barons. In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled that commissioners could only be fired for “good cause,” such as failure to perform their duties.
Alvaro Bedoya,
one of the fired officials explained. “The FTC is an independent agency founded
111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists, our staff is unafraid of the
Martin Shkrelis and Jeff Bezos of the world. They take them to court and they
win. Now, the President wants the FTC to be a lap dog for his golfing buddies.
___
A pussy grabber and a predator.
3/19/25: Tape of a recent meeting at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. has leaked, with Donald Trump, now elected chairman of the board of directors, outlining his vision for the cultural center.
Such as: More gorgeous bodies!
At one point, the pussy grabber reminisced about his days in New York, attending shows on Broadway – including (he said) the premiere of Cats. “I walked in, I saw all these bodies, and then I noticed those bodies were gorgeous,” he explained. “They had silk tights on, and they were all ballerinas, and women from Broadway. And men,” he continued, adding, “I didn’t find those particular bodies as attractive to be honest.”
He also announced that a host would be needed for this year’s Kennedy Centers Honors, an annual affair which he routinely boycotted last time he was president. So? Who best to serve as host???
Ah. He could do it himself.
The president also suggested that the Center could expand its reach and honor sports figures, politicians, businesspeople, even his pal Steve Wynn, the casino magnate, whose wife sits on the revamped Kennedy Center board.
Steve is famous, not for focus on arts or culture, or decent treatment of female employees. He’s famous for being a donor to Trump campaigns – and for sexually abusing women who worked for him. In days of yore, Wynn served as finance chairman for the Republican National Committee, but exited after multiple women came forward to accuse him of forcing them to have sex.
This included one victim who turned up pregnant but was paid $7.5 million to take a long hike.
Donald has allied himself with so many sexual abusers and predators that we’re going to have to start labeling the phenomenon the:
WYNN-RFK JR.-HEGSETH SINGULARITY.
*
Same day: Did we just mention “sexual abusers” of the straight male type? U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes has issued an injunction that blocks Donald’s plan to kick out all transgender troops currently serving in the U.S. military.
There are roughly 4,200.
Judge Reyes notes: “The ban at bottom invokes derogatory language to target a vulnerable group in violation of the Fifth Amendment.”
The
government had argued that courts must defer to military judgment, but in
a 79-page opinion, the
judge said the government had thrown together a ban based on next-to-no
evidence and that “the law does not demand that the Court rubber-stamp
illogical judgments based on conjecture.”
In January, President Dumpling signed an executive order saying that the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
(Says the guy who banged a porn star!)
(And got accused of sexual improprieties by at least two dozen
women!)
The evidence
presented was so thin, she said at one point, that the Defense Department might
have well cited the latest Beyoncé album.
“How can you even
say that – that a whole group of people lack humility?” the judge said to the
government’s lawyers about one claimed justification for the ban.
“It just makes no
sense.”
When one of the government
lawyers, suggested that the courts should “defer to military judgement” in this
matter, the judge responded, “You keep assuming that judgment is embedded in
this. The only judgment in this case, far as I can tell,” she said, is that the
administration believed that transgender people “lack integrity, humility,
judgment and a warrior ethos.”
The
administration’s policy appeared to be driven by animus, Judge Reyes added.
*
As The New York Times explains, Sgt. First Class Julia Becraft would certainly agree. After having served honorably for fourteen years, in an armored unit, she was “slated to be promoted to platoon leader this coming July, but since the ban was announced, the promotion has been put on hold.”
“Everyone
in my unit has been really supportive, but my world has been turned upside
down,” she said.
Sergeant
Becraft has deployed to Afghanistan three times and been awarded a Bronze Star
for valor. Now she faces being forced out of the army and losing her retirement
benefits.
So,
let’s compare. Years served in uniform by all direct members of Donald Trump’s
family, dating back to 1885: Zero.
Becraft:
14
Medals
won for valor by all members of the Trump clan: Zero.
Becraft:
1.
A
second transgender individual scheduled to be kicked out is a Navy pilot, as Kyle Cheney explains in his report:
Combat
missions flown by all Trump family members: 0
___
The unpaid coach and the underdog team.
3/20/25: Yet again, “waste, fraud, and abuse” highlighted by Team Musk and the DOGE Boys turns out to be neither waste, nor fraud, nor abuse, but money well spent by the federal government. In this case: DOGE decided to cut forty jobs at the Haskell Native Americans University in Lawrence, Kansas.
Because, as Elon Musk knows, Native Americans have been grifting off the U.S. government ever since the ink on the Articles of Confederation dried.
On Valentine’s Day, Adam Strom, the Haskell women’s basketball coach learned that his job had been eliminated. But he had a team to coach and felt he owed it to his players to finish the season, without pay. As he explained to USA Today, “We’re not just playing for the name across our chest or on our back. We’re playing for our ethnic background. … We’re playing for Indian Country.”
The Haskell University Fighting Indians continued grinding away. They had started badly, opening the season, 2-10. Then, over Christmas break, the players agreed to stay on campus for three weeks and work on individual drills and run extra practices. They went 11-4, after the break, and on March 2, beat North Mexico College for the Continental Athletic Conference championship.
They did it in signature fashion. “They fell behind and fought back for a 57-52 victory, which secured a berth in the NAIA tournament and allowed an unemployed coach and his players to cut down the nets.”
Then a group of tribal nations and affected students sued the Trump administration over the firings.
The story of the coach and his team is inspiring – and well worth a read. And it is true that Strom and fourteen others who had been fired recently got their jobs back, at least for now. Meanwhile, the coach refocused the young women and they prepared for a game against Dordt University, where the average student is able to pay $26,000 per year after all financial aid is tallied. The Dordt Defenders’ juggernaut squad entered the tournament with a 30-2 record, and a #1 seeding. The storybook season continued – but only for a time. Haskell, seeded #16, with a 13-14 record, led after one quarter, 23-21. Then the taller, more talented Dordt squad began to wear them down, prevailing in the end, 95-80.
Is there “fraud” in this tale? One might ask the Haskell coach, who said he viewed his girls as “winners” despite the season-ending defeat.
Was it “abuse” of some kind when Tierzah Penn led all scorers in the game with 23 points? Or when Myona Dauphinais blocked three Dordt shots?
What would Star Her Many Horses say, about her five minutes on court, in a losing cause – but also her experiences in a season of hard work and dedication by a group of players from many different tribes? Was this really “waste?”
Maybe
the DOGE Boys and their leader, a man worth hundreds of billions of dollars,
should have attended a game.
___
3/21/25: Conservatives enjoy nothing more than shouting about how they want to stop all the pedophile Democrats from trafficking poor, helpless children.
So, it was a surprise to learn that the U.S. State Department has ended funding for a project which tracked Ukrainian children abducted by the Russians since the start of the 2022 war. The Yale School of Medicine’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), which had been doing the work, reports that at least 19,000 children have been taken (probably more). Only 1,236 have been returned.
HRL also reports that, “Russia targeted vulnerable groups of children for deportation, including orphans, children with disabilities, children from low-income families, and children with parents in the military.”
That: There are documented cases of children being denied communication with their families, of being abused, and of being denied access to food and care after being dragged off to Russia.
That: The Russians have refused to provide Ukrainian authorities a list of children taken – in direct violation of international law.
UPDATE (March
28, 2025): This heartless policy, part of the overarching DOGE effort to root
out government “waste, fraud and abuse,” proves so unpopular that Team Trump is
forced to clarify. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announces that funding will
be restored for “a short period.” Then tracking will be handed over to
international agencies, in countries that give a shit about violations of international law and thousands
of abducted kids.
___
3/25/25: Ominous warnings from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as beekeepers report losing 60% of their colonies over the winter, the second year in a row for devastating losses.
According to Scott McArt, an associate professor of entomology at Cornell University, we could be looking at the “biggest loss of honeybee colonies in US history.” Or with DOGE slashing and burning federal agencies at every turn, we may just never know it’s happening until it’s too late.
Currently,
honeybees pollinate “half of all crops, including apples, berries, pumpkins,
melons and cherries. Beekeepers are increasingly struggling to maintain the bee
numbers necessary to undertake this work.”
___
Donald Trump wants taxpayers to foot his legal bills.
3/26/25: As a patriotic American who wants DOGE to root out “waste, fraud, and abuse” in government spending, I would like to report that sleazebag government officials are trying to use my tax dollars to defend a convicted felon.
And not just a felon with one conviction.
No. Thirty-f**king-four!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Justice Department today went to bat for Donald Dumpling, the only felon ever elected president, regarding his New York State hush money criminal conviction. DOJ lawyers are arguing that his case should be moved to federal court, so that they can waste more taxpayer cash trying to convince a judge to toss his guilty verdict on presidential immunity grounds.
If it goes to federal court, even if the judge tells Attorney General Pam Bondi and her hand-picked bozos to take a walk, Trump can argue he can pardon himself.
As it stands, The Dumpling cannot pardon himself because his 34-count felony conviction on falsifying business records was handed down in a state court, and presidents have pardon powers only related to federal crimes.
So, let’s remind the MAGA faithful, and all these toadies at DOJ, that a jury heard all the evidence in that case, and voted 34 times, without a single dissent, to convict Donald of every charge. He paid an elite legal team millions, and they failed to convince a single juror on a single charge, that Trump was innocent. They couldn’t muster up a “reasonable doubt” in any of twelve individuals’ heads.
(Now Trump wants us, the taxpayers to foot his legal bills.)
 |
The hard-working blogger does NOT want to pay Donald's legal bills. |
FUN FACT: One charge of fraud involved Mr. Trump’s claim that his Trump Tower penthouse in New York measured 30,000 square feet, and was therefore worth $227 million, making it an excellent asset to add to financial statements, when seeking low-cost business loans from banks.
Some
enterprising individual with a yardstick measured the palatial apartment later and
found that it had “shrunk” to 11,000 square feet.
___
Busting unions and the EPA.
3/27/25: Are you a big coal-burning power company busy spewing toxic substances into the atmosphere? Such as mercury, that can poison plants, animals and damage the brains of children living nearby?
Well, no problem!
The new Trump-staffed Environmental Protection Agency wants you to send an email and ask to be exempted from rules that would require you to cease and desist. In fact, the new style EPA wants to make it easy for you to continue to spew, by providing a ready-made template for use.
Simply email President Trump and he will gladly grant permission to pollute (assuming you donate money to his campaigns – or decide to pay the million-dollar membership fee to join him at Mar-a-Lago).
If he likes you, he will stamp your email, “Approved.” And just like that, babies’ brains be damned.
Just as God
intended.
*
As The New York Times reports:
The
latest move is part of an effort led by the E.P.A.’s administrator, Lee Zeldin,
to steer the agency away from its original role of environmental protection and
regulation. He has described its mission as lowering the cost of
purchasing cars, heating homes and running businesses, and encouraging what he has
referred to previously as American energy dominance.
Under Mr. Zeldin, the E.P.A. has said it plans to slash jobs, eliminate its scientific research arm, ensure enforcement actions don’t interfere with energy production, and reduce the agency’s overall budget by 65 percent.
Do you need permission to store toxic coal ash in big ponds near your plants? Until now you did. Well, send an email.
Want to pump more climate-changing gases into the atmosphere? Yes! Send an email!
Would you like to release more lead, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel, and antimony into the environment – all of which are known to be harmful to the environment and to human health? Send an email!
If you get lucky your community can enjoy a giant toxic spill, just like Kingston, Tennessee or Eden, North Carolina.
This is going to be great!!!!
 |
The coal ash slurry spill in Tennessee. |
*
In other news, “President Trump signed an executive order late Thursday limiting numerous [federal] agency employees from unionizing and instructing the government to stop engaging in any collective bargaining.”
In support of this move, the White House claimed that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which granted government workers the right to unionize “enables hostile Federal unions to obstruct agency management.”
It has long been a dream of conservatives to break public sector unions – because they don’t really care about public sector workers – just as they don’t care about private sector workers, either. Breaking private sector unions in the 1980s made it easier to shift jobs from “high-wage” states to “low-wage” states.
Then, around 2000, it allowed Big Business tycoons to shift jobs from “low-wage” states to places like China, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
Billionaires like Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, do all they can to fight unionization at companies they own.
Or Walmart fighting unions, too.
(Moral of the story: Oligarchs hate unions of all kinds.)
___
Fun with J.D. Vance.
3/28/25: If you have been busy watching the March Madness games, you may not know that Vice President Vance and his lovely wife, Usha, visited Greenland this week. To say that they were not warmly welcome would not just be a lame pun. It is true. The population of Greenland is sparse. Yet, when U.S. officials went door-to-door in Nuuk, the island capital, they could find not one Greenlander who wanted to visit with Usha, or her dopey spouse.
Like: Zero.
Meanwhile, the ever-vacuous vice president had already announced that the people of Greenland were so excited to have his wife visit, that he just had to tag along to enjoy all the thrills – and the sights. “I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself,” he told a gathering of U.S. journalists.
All that fun ended up including:
1. Not having any representative of the island’s government meet the American delegation on arrival.
2. Being accompanied by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, with plans for everyone to attend the Avannaata Qimusserua, one of the world's largest dog-sled races.
3. Finding out that the people who organized the race wanted J.D. and Usha, and all the other Americans to stay away, so that those plans were scotched.
The only way this could have been more
embarrassing for Vice President Vance is if he had gone to the race and a
sled-dog had bit him in the ass.
 |
Geography fun: Name the NATO members show above. |
We should also note that during a speech Vance
gave to U.S. troops stationed at a remote Greenland base (the troops had no
choice but to meet him and his wife) Vance suggested that Denmark, which has
claimed the island for centuries, has done a bad job of providing security.
Greenland is “extremely vulnerable right now,” he warned, adding that there is “very strong evidence” that Russia and China are interested in moving on Greenland if the United States doesn’t.
(This is interesting, since Denmark is a member of NATO, and an attack on one member means all members come to that member’s aid.)
Vance then went on: “When the president says, ‘We’ve got to have Greenland,’ he’s saying this island is not safe. A lot of people are interested in it. A lot of people are making a play.”
True. Greenland is not safe. Donald Dumpling is not ruling out taking control by way of military force.
Go figure, J.D., why Greenlanders shunned you.
Recent
polling shows that only 6% of the people who live there want to become a part
of the United States.
*
Same day: I’m not sure Donald Trump is even pretending to care what Americans think of his many questionable policies and decisions. Today, he issued a pardon for Trevor Milton, who was kind enough to donate, along with his lovely wife, $1.8 million to Donald’s 2024 presidential campaign.
For Milton, it was a giant bargain in the end. First, he was otherwise looking at four years in prison. Second, he was facing an order to provide $661 million in restitution to investors who believed his claims that his electric truck-building company, Nikola Corp, was already profitable – when it was really hemorrhaging cash.
Most famously, Milton had employees roll a truck down a hill, and film the scene, to make it look like a prototype was already working.
The Dumpling wasn’t done, either. He pulled another felon out of his MAGA hat and commuted the sentence of Carlos Watson on the day Watson was scheduled to report to prison. He had been hit with a 116-month sentence for defrauding investors.
Trump blamed a “conflicted and unethical judge” for Watson’s legal problems, calling his prosecution “malicious.”
Watson and Ozy, the digital media company he founded, were scheduled to pay $96 million in restitution.
Now they’re off the hook, too.
If you
invested in a company that built a truck that could roll down a hill, relying
on gravity, you’re out of luck.
___
A third term for Donald Trump?
3/30/25: In a phone interview with Kristen Welker of NBC, President Trump announces that he is NOT JOKING about running for a THIRD TERM in 2028. (And I think we can assume he’ll NOT BE JOKING about how he was cheated out of the win if he LOSES, as he most certainly did in 2020.)
(I am RANDOMLY capitalizing words, as Donald loves to do.)
“I’m not joking,” he told Welker in simple words, of few syllables, adding that he was working hard, and it was “far too early to think about it.”
Even if he was.
“There are methods which you could do it,” he insisted, even after Welker pointed out that the Twenty-Second Amendment clearly limits a president to two terms. What “methods” might Mr. Trump have in mind?
January 6, 2029, chaos, perhaps?
Only
with tanks?
*
Donald also told Welker that he was “very angry” and “pissed off” because Vladimir Putin was making him look like a chump, and balking at every turn, when it comes to ending the war with Ukraine, or even getting a truce in place.
So, let’s check the clock. Donald said he could end the war in one day, if reelected, without even bothering to return to the White House first. He won a second term – but maybe NOT his last! – on November 5, 2024.
That was:
145 DAYS
AGO.
*
Same day: The administration that brought you RFK Jr. and vaccine-denialism has also brought you the largest U.S. outbreak of measles in years. Texas, where measles first began to spread widely in February, hit 400 total cases on Friday. That includes 41 individuals, mostly children, hospitalized as a result. New Mexico currently has 44 cases, Oklahoma has seven, and Ohio has ten.
Kansas had already counted 23 cases, the first in the Sunflower State since 2018. Ironically, GOP lawmakers were at that very moment working on legislation to loosen vaccination requirements at daycare centers in the state.
From 2000 to 2013, total cases of the disease ran at less than 200 per year in the U.S., and often fewer than a hundred. In 2014, as anti-vaxxers multiplied like dandelions, and with President Obama in charge, cases surged to 667. Then they dropped below 200 for three additional years.
During
Mr. Trump’s first term, we saw increases to 381 in 2018, and then 1,274 in
2019. Then a good year under Trump in 2020, when everyone stayed home under
COVID isolations. The Biden administration saw a spike in 2023 to 285 cases. And
now, Team Trump 2.0 has us at just under 500.
___
3/31/25: Only 48 hours left until “Liberation Day,” as Donald Trump calls it. That’s the day he slaps tariffs on all kinds of foreign goods and services, and we all live happily ever after, as in the days of John Calhoun, when America was great, and Calhoun could whip a few slaves if he got bored.
Wait. Bad comparison!
It was a time when Calhoun and most Southerners were in an uproar because the “Tariff of Abominations,” as they labeled a set of tariffs passed in 1828, was driving up cost of goods and services they needed. (Such as cheap whips made in England.) This, of course, led to Southern states supporting the Nullification Act of 1832 – insisting they weren’t going to listen to what President Andrew Jackson had to say.
According to Time magazine, new polling shows that 69% of Americans do understand tariffs – and expect them to drive up the prices they pay on imported automobiles, aluminum, lumber and wine.
 |
John Calhoun hated tariffs. |
Even worse, for President Trump, in January, 42% of Americans believed his policies would help them financially. As of today, that number has been cut in half. Only 23% now believe this is true.
FUN WITH FOX NEWS: On Fox, Harris Faulkner told listeners that we should all buck up and pay the extra costs of tariffs, and not complain, because it was like World War II, and people had to pull together, and support Donald’s policies, no matter how idiotic, because otherwise how could we Make America Great Again!
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