Author Archives: ronqueens

And So It Goes

Today is Sunday, October 12, 2025. A good piece of news finally, given the horrible news coming out of Washington these days, and that is the remaining 20 hostages still held by Hamas are expected to be released tomorrow, as this buffoon of a president is preparing to fly to Tel Aviv on Monday to address the Knesset, Israeli’s parliament, before traveling to Sharm El Sheikh for what is described as a “Middle East Peace Ceremony.” This breaking news is covered in USA Today in an article by Kathryn Palmer and Bart Jansen entitled “President Trump heads to Israel ahead of hostage, prisoner release: Live updates.”

I didn’t report this news yet because I was skeptical of a reported ceasefire being negotiated between the United States and Israel over the conflict in Hamas which has passed more than two years.

Fighting actually paused in Gaza for a third day on Sunday in advance of the expected release of the 20 Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, in the first phase of the president’s 20-point peace proposal intended to end the more than two-year-long Israel-Hamas war.

Dump called the trip a “special event” because Muslims and Arabs were joining in the celebration of the ceasefire, along with Israel. Speaking like an overjoyed child, Dump said, “Everybody is cheering at one time. That’s never happened before. This is the first time. Everybody is amazed and they’re thrilled.”

The United States, along with Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, mediated the agreement between Israel and Hamas, following Dump’s September 29 unveiling of a peace proposal alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is generally disliked by most Israelis.

Interrogated by reporters about how this agreement fit into his legacy, Drumpf went on about his being able to solve wars and at making peace. Again, a very blatant pitch for a Nobel Peace Prize, even though it was awarded to a true democracy fighter, Maria Corina Machado, an opposition leader in Venezuela.

Before we throw laurel wreaths at Dump’s head, we will have to see if this peace deal holds and that there are no more skirmishes between these two enemies. I can’t wait to see if his speech at the Knesset will bear the quintessential Dump touch: long, incoherent, and nonsensical.

Today, as forecasted, was a sopping wet day. I was going to see a film, Roofman starring Channing Tatum and Kirsten Durst, but became too entangled in discussing other times to see it with my friend “Seth” that the time came and went. I was going to see it at the Kew Gardens Cinema at 1:15. At that time, it hadn’t begun to rain.

Instead of going to the movies, I went to La Boulangerie after Elliot prepared scrambled eggs in the morning. There I met a nice couple who engaged me in rather a long conversation. They started talking to me after I suggested to the staff that there was a quintet of people sitting at the communal table who were not drinking or eating. The interior of the eatery was filled to the brim, and there was no reason to sit outside since the weather was so inclement. So I decided to complain about this group of people just sitting at the table who looked like they were finished with their repasts.

Therefore, the young man in back of me who introduced himself as “Joshua” complimented me on raising my voice in protest in the patisserie. Now that the five people finally walked out, it opened up several spaces for us, so I sat down next to this couple who claimed they drove to Forest Hills from Cypress Hills, Brooklyn.

Our conversation centered on quite a number of topics like the lack of reading among young people, the degree of surveillance in our lives, and the joy of traveling, as I mentioned that I enjoy doing this. Joshua mentioned having traveled to Italy and how he loved it.

My head was spinning when he offered me the highest compliment: he said I looked 45, which made me giggle and giggle. I did not say what birthday I was celebrating next month because it might have shocked them. It could just be their age that explains it; they couldn’t have been more than in their late 20s or early 30s. And we know that people in this age cohort have no conception of true age. I should have recommended that they see The Substance then. Then we can talk about age.

For most of the afternoon, I rediscovered my stereo system since I played the Petula Clark album on it yesterday. Sadly, the album could not be played. At first, I thought my machine or the stylus was defective, but I put on other albums, and they played with no issue. I eventually threw out this $2.99 used album. But I played many of my old records for the first time in a long time, and I enjoyed it quite nicely.

Tomorrow is forecasted to be a mirror image of today. Let’s see if I stay inside again because of the pelting rain.

Let’s cross our fingers that tomorrow’s hostage exchange proceeds without any problems. It’s about time that this terrible conflict finally ends.

Then we can move on to Ukraine and Russia.

Have a good week.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, October 11, 2025. It’s late here, owing to Elliot and I watching the ending of 2024’s body-horror extravaganza starring Demi Moore in a very courageous role, The Substance, on HBO Max. I believe it was just added to the streaming service and I had always intended to see it on the big screen, but somehow missed it. We started watching it yesterday and paused it after 40 minutes or so.

This film explores many subjects, primarily the exploitation of women in the entertainment industry and how women adapt – or don’t – to the vicissitudes of aging. Moore plays an aging star, Elisabeth Sparkle, who learns that she will be replaced by a far younger star on her workout show. She learns this horrible news from overhearing the TV producer of the show, smarmily portrayed by Dennis Quaid, as Harvey, talking to someone on the phone in the men’s room of the studio where her show is taped.

Sparkle leaves the studio in tears and immediately gets involved in a car accident. It is when she is being examined to see if she has sustained any injuries that she meets someone who leads her to the substance. The plot that proceeds from here takes apart what one may do to cling to stardom, beauty, access, and fame, no matter what the cost might be. The film exposes how dangerous it can be to tie self-worth to star status and/or youth. This is shown physically by having two bodies that must share an alternating schedule with dire consequences if the schedule is not followed religiously.

What one could extrapolate from this is the idea of harming your body for temporary physical gains (unsafe beauty treatments, surgery, drugs, etc.) with no consideration for how it may catch up with you in the future.

Sparkle’s younger version of herself is played by much gusto by Margaret Qualley as Sue. In order to get this newer and better version of herself, in a rather grotesque scene, she bursts out of Elisabeth’s back like a mutant butterfly from a cocoon.

In fact, the film abounds in many grotesque scenes, so I don’t recommend it to the faint hearted. There are many homages in this contemporary horror film, directed by Coralie Fargeat, to other auteurs of gore, people like Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg, and even Stanley Kubrick in long shots of carpets and corridors a la The Shining. Other horror mavens like myself should be able to pick up the references to other filmmakers while watching this tour de force performance by Moore who lets it literally hang out, if you know what I mean.

As outlined by instructions on how to use the substance, the old Demi-Moore-shaped carcass is abandoned in the bathroom when Sue is at large while the two must swap bodies every seven days “without exception.” As you would expect, the much younger version of Moore, Sue, becomes too enamored of her more beautiful self and begins to ignore the explicit instructions to reinvigorate her old self, thus paving the way for disastrous repercussions.

This is when the special effects department really goes to town, as an excessive amount of gore, blood, and other effluvia are discharged onto your screen. I hate to say since I’ve seen so many horror films, this didn’t disturb me like so many of my friends who were disturbed by these scenes. The last third of the film truly delivers in terms of body transformations and the splattering of blood – like tons of it.

There were questions I had about Quaid’s performance who really overdid his raging lusty male executive role too broadly here, and I couldn’t believe that Moore had no friends or relatives with which to interact with when she wasn’t working. She basically holes up in her luxury apartment talking to no one waiting for the seven days to elapse when she must swap her body for Qualley’s. I wondered how lonely she really was. At one point, she desperately calls an acquaintance from her past who accidentally collides with her in the street in order to quell her loneliness. I didn’t find this aspect of the film that convincing.

Overall, I would heartedly recommend this film to more seasoned horror veterans, but not to the occasional horror viewer. The scenes might be too much to take.

In the meantime, a coastal flood warning is in effect here, from what I hear. Today’s rain did not deter me from driving to Williamsburg where I had brunch at Juliette, on North 5th Street. I had the banana stuffed French toast.

I then walked into a longtime bookstore on Bedford Avenue called Spoonbill & Sugartown Books where I spied several books I have already read for my gay men’s reading club. In a few days, I will start reading The Power of the Dog, by Thomas Savage. I hope the book is more satisfying than the Netflix film adapted from the book in 2021. I did see the film when it was first released, and I recall I didn’t like it much. I’m sure the book is much better.

I then browsed the shelves of Mother of Junk, a very cluttered thrift store on Driggs Avenue. I did buy one album, a Petula Clark record. Who is she? you might be asking. She is a British singer, actress, and songwriter and is better known for her catchy tune, “Downtown,” and is called “the First Lady of the British Invasion.” Basically, she’s a pop singer from the 1960s.

From there, I walked to Black Spring Books, another bookstore on Driggs Avenue. Here I purchased a book on the Lower East Side for Elliot whose birthday is October 20.

I rounded up my tour of Williamsburg by having coffee at Blue Bottle on 4th Street. I actually had to use the men’s room so I figured I’d have a cup of their high-priced coffee before using the lavatory.

Well, tomorrow is another day. Let’s hope we don’t have a tsunami then.

Enjoy your Sunday anyway.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, October 10, 2025. One day after the monster-in-chief gave the go-ahead to indict a sitting attorney general in New York for absolutely nothing, that Attorney General, Letitia James, achieved the best single day of fundraising in a nearly 30-year political career. This stunning reality is covered in an online CNN article entitled “Letitia James sees a record fundraising surge and Democratic support after indictment.”

A source familiar with James’s political operation told CNN she brought in $567,000 from over 24,000 donors in the 24 hours after she was indicted yesterday afternoon on felony charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. A little reminder: this monster-in-chief was actually indicted some years back by this same attorney general for doing exactly the same thing. Sounds quite rich to me, don’t you think? Most of the same fundraising came in response to emails her political operation was sending out to capitalize on the news, though some donations came in on their own.

James’s prepared video response to the indictment drew 4.3 million views on X in that same 24 hours.

In the immediate aftermath of the announcement, national and New York Democrats rushed to support her, led by mayoralty candidate Zohran Mamdani, whom James has been helping both on the New York City mayoralty campaign and in gearing up for governing if he wins.

That same candidate for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, spoke in front of the same courthouse where Attorney General James was doing her job – indicting and thrusting the monster-in-chief in front of a jury that eventually ruled against him – and said, “This is a blatant miscarriage of justice; this is a shameless act of political retribution.”

If Mamdani wins the race, it is the avowed promise of the monster-in-chief to pull billions in funding from the nation’s largest city if the 33-year-old candidate is victorious, which seems to be the case. I forgot to mention that the current mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race sometime last week, and I say, “Good riddance!” He is inextricably connected with the monster-in-chief and many staffers in his administration have been arrested and charged for financial crimes. This does not look good in a candidate for mayor, and he probably knew his chances of winning a second term slid into the toilet when the Dump administration dropped charges against him last year. I disliked him for this very reason and his about-face on removing Medicare from over 250,000 city retirees, which he initially said he wouldn’t but when he took office, he did an about-face and changed his mind to deciding to throw all of us in a Managed Care program that met with opposition for many years. This alone turned me on him, and this happened very early in his first – and only – term.

The other candidate for mayor, Andrew Cuomo, was a little reticent when it came to defending the attorney general in her upcoming legal case. It’s very apparent why this was so since it was James who led the investigation and release of a report into sexual misconduct allegations that ultimately resulted in Cuomo’s resignation as New York governor. So it doesn’t seem too farfetched if he is reticent in condemning these charges since James would be considered his opponent who drove him out of office in the first place.

Hours after Mamdani’s rally in Manhattan, Cuomo did issue a new statement calling for universal condemnation of politicizing the justice system. The statement now included a mention of James’s name, but said Cuomo too had been the victim of politically motivated investigations.

In the statement, Cuomo said, “The weaponization and politicization of the justice system is wrong no matter which side you are on – period.” Then he plays the poor victim, saying, “I know firsthand as the White House weaponized the DOJ against me when I was governor of New York and three other democratic states during the height of COVID and it’s wrong that it appears to be happening with AG James and Former FBI Director Comey – it is part of why people have lost faith in the Justice system, the cornerstone of our democracy.”

Mamdani said he had spoken to James shortly after the indictment became public to reassure her of the support she had.

“She told me, ‘Don’t worry about me,'” Mamdani said. He added, “That’s indicative of an attorney general who has spent all of her time worrying about the people of the state.”

Maybe then this monster-in-chief should be worried that James will emerge victorious after these baseless charges against her are either dismissed or she is declared innocent of all of the drummed-up charges against her. She’ll be more powerful after this, not less, and the little, fearful man sitting in the White House will appear ever more weakened altogether.

Dump is the smallest of men who must be stewing in his own Adult Diapers after it was revealed today that he lost the Nobel Peace Prize. The award was given to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a Latina and a woman, which should enrage the small, petty man in the White House to no end. She was given the prize “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” according to a statement from the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Today Elliot and I performed a mitzvah by driving to Long Island to pay a visit to our friend “Joseph,” who is recovering at a rehabilitation center after having surgery for a broken hip sustained in a fall there. We spent less than a hour visiting him since we were parked by a one-hour parking stand. We spoke about our last trip with Joseph and he mentioned how he got into his current predicament. He was sitting in a wheelchair and seemed quite shvach, which is to be expected. He couldn’t tell us precisely when he might be discharged, but he did posit that it could be another four weeks or longer. So there will definitely be further visits with him in the near future.

Have a good weekend, everyone. Unfortunately, it might be quite a wet one this time.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Thursday, October 9, 2025. Today is another sad day of mourning in America, as the Orange Turd ratcheted up his campaign of terrorism against his political adversaries by now indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James on – forgive the pun – trumped-up charges, which should outrage every American again, as this is now the second person indicted under Dictator Don’s vengeance campaign. The first was former FBI Director James B. Comey the other day. This sad story is offered in a CNN online article by Kristen Holmes, Hannah Rabinowitz, and Kara Scannell entitled “Letitia James, the New York attorney general who defeated Trump in court, indicted by Justice Department.” The sorry details follow below.

Ms. James was indicted today in Alexandria, Virginia, allegedly on charges of mortgage fraud. She has been under investigation since May over a 2023 mortgage she took out to buy a home in Norfolk, Virginia.

The grand jury returned two felony charges: bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. Her first court appearance is scheduled for October 24 in Norfolk.

Comey has already pleaded not guilty yesterday to allegedly making a false statement in a congressional proceeding. Naturally, this Orange Turd has others on his political “hit list,” and they include former Chump national security adviser John Bolton and California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, plus others.

James herself had choice words for this pointless indictment: “These charges are baseless, and the president’s own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost.” She added, “The president’s actions are a grave violation of our Constitutional order and have drawn sharp criticism from members of both parties.”

As you must know, James’ relationship with the Orange Menace has been adversarial for years as she campaigned on promises to investigate Dictator Don and ultimately won a civil fraud case against the Manhattan real estate “mogul,” his adult sons, and his real estate business. A judge found them liable for fraud for inflating the value of their properties and ordered Dump to pay $355 million in penalties.

Unfortunately, a New York appeals court tossed the penalties (which I had forgotten) and Dump has appealed the verdict. So what the fuck is he still angry about? That a Black woman bested him in court? That’s the true reason.

During the 11-week trial, Dump’s anger toward James was very palpable. He railed against her in the courthouse hallways and from the witness stand. Drumpf testified as James sat across from him in the courtroom galley.

However, last month CNN reported that Justice Department prosecutors in Virginia, led at the time by Erik Seibert, interviewed dozens of witnesses and did not believe they gathered enough evidence to support criminal charges against James.

Get this? That prosecutor Erik Seibert resigned after he was pressured by the Orange Turd to bring charges against his political foe, Letitia James. He was then replaced by the most unqualified, incompetent former personal attorney of Dump, Lindsey Halligan, who was raked over the coals last night by Lawrence O’Donnell on his show for her glaring lack of knowledge regarding the law.

This idiot said in a statement, “No one is above the law [rich thing for her to say when she should really be looking in the direction of the person sitting in the White House]. The charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public’s trust.” She added, “The facts and the law in this case are clear, and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served.” Pure bullshit, in my opinion.

As for those allegations, her lawyers provided a document to the Justice Department in April to push back on what they called “threadbare” charges.

They said that one document in the mortgage application “mistakenly” said the property would be James’s primary residence. But they submitted other documents to argue there was no fraud. James actually checked a box on her mortgage application that indicated the property would not be her primary residence. So these “allegations” seem just as false as the ones attributed to James Comey.

I’ve seen pictures of this Lindsey Halligan who is the prosecutor in this case and she looks like the beauty queen contestant that she actually was before getting her law degree at the University of Phoenix. Actually, she didn’t go there. I was just teasing you. She has never prosecuted a case before getting this high-profile case, and James’s attorneys will shred her to pieces if it ever goes to trial. It will be a resounding humiliation for the man in the White House, that’s for sure!

These new developments in the politicization of the Justice Department will sadly continue until there is pushback against this bastard in the White House from members in Congress, and I still don’t see anything remotely approaching that kind of resistance. That is why we the people must resist this perverted regime – on the streets and in the courts.

If this is not an authoritarian regime operating in America at the moment, then I don’t know what else to call it!

In the meantime, Attorney General Pam Bondi and many others are protecting this pedophile in the White House, refusing to release the Epstein files. What is this House afraid of then?

Today I got my latest COVID booster at CVS around 2:45 p.m. So far, I have no side effects from the inoculation.

Also, our television guy “Ernest” returned for one last time to restore my streaming services to the Sony which took as long as 2 hours since I had to reregister for many of the services, and I had quite a few problems with inputting my data, including email and passwords for several of the apps. Ernest actually had to calm me down when the process didn’t work. Don’t you hate it when there is such an extra layer of security involved with getting anything these days? Like when you are told a code will be sent to your phone or email and you have to rush to get that code before it expires and before you have to do it again. I was losing the screen with the code and the screen where you had to register, so Ernest had to intervene and show me the proper way to do it. But now I believe I have all of the apps that existed on the set before. Ernest also helped Elliot erase over thousands of emails which he never deleted over an extended length of time. That took time also.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, October 8, 2025. Yesterday I was attending my gay men’s reading club meeting along with my friend “Harvey.” I did go to Julius’s afterward for some libation and conversation. Even though I’m more of a coffeetotaler, I relented and had a glass of beer.

I took the F train to West 4th Street around 3 and got down before 4. So I walked to the Jefferson Market Library where our meeting is always held and went to the second floor to comb the books on the shelf to purchase. Of course, I definitely didn’t need any more books; I am close to finally finishing Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys an entertaining read and this book is surely that!

Don’t worry, folks, I didn’t buy any more books yesterday. I then started walking back to the IFC Center where I got a text from Harvey saying he would be on time. He had called me earlier to say that the train he would have taken was cancelled and that another train was scheduled for a later time; he expected to be late then, but he wasn’t.

When we met, Harvey indicated he was hungry, so we discussed where we might dine. I heard about a Chinese restaurant called Steam located near the library, but we never got there. Harvey spied an Italian restaurant called Osteria 57 and examined its menu outside and suggested we eat there. I did say that we just dined on take-home Chinese food the other day and said I would be amiable to eating Italian food.

The place was quite empty since it wasn’t even 4:15 yet. But we chose a nice table near the window in the front to sit. We were given two menus: one for lunch which actually ended at 5 and one for dinner. We preferred to choose from the dinner menu, so we selected some nice dishes from that listing. I eschewed an appetizer this time to select spaghetti cacio e pepe, which is basically spaghetti with Pecorino Romano cheese and pepper. Harvey chose some fish entree, fritto misto that included Montauk shrimp, local calamari, and zucchini tempura.

Harvey’s hunger was not slaked until he had dessert which turned out to be gelato. I decided against having my own dessert and helped myself to two spoonfuls of Harvey’s gelato.

Then it was time to stroll toward the Jefferson Market Library, but not until we spent a little time in a bookstore opposite the legendary gay bar called Three Lives & Company. I made the conscious decision before we entered that I would not purchase a book from this lovely little bookstore. But Harvey did! He bought a new hardcover book called 38 Londres Street (which I never heard about) by Philippe Sands that chronicles Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and his involvement with a fugitive SS officer. Harvey thought the book would be a nice present for his Chilean wife, “Sofia.”

Now it was time to walk toward the library after Harvey paid for his book. When we got to the room in which we hold our meetings, we already saw an almost full room of sitting avid book readers. When it was time to begin the meeting – at 6:30 – the room must have close to 60 guys.

We started the meeting by discussing one cultural thing we did this month. When it came to my turn, I spoke about seeing The History of Sound. That was last Saturday.

Then it was time we dived into discussing Guapa by Saleem Haddad. All of us dissected the book with erudite analysis; however, Harvey and I had trouble hearing many of the men’s comments. We whispered this to each other during the 90 minutes the meeting ranged over.

Later, I took this up with our organizer, “Jerry,” at Julius’s. He listened to me as I made the suggestion that he announce that members speak up during the next meeting. I do hope he will do this – if not, I’ll remind him of this in November.

I then went home by myself since Harvey did not stay for a drink or to schmooze with the other members.

When I got home, I eagerly went to try out our restored television set which was delivered to us after 5. I took the two remotes and clicked the “On” button. And the set came on and I was able to watch regular TV.

However, when I pressed the button for my apps, the streaming services, I was unable to connect to the services – like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. The screen where the apps appeared looked very different from what I used to have. And when I clicked on an app, I got nothing. Thus I decided we’d have to call “Ernest” today and ask him to return to get these apps working again.

So I spent another night in the bedroom watching the Ed Gein series on Netflix. This time I don’t think our upstairs neighbor banged on the ceiling as she has since I went in there after the Sony died. Boy, what a victory!

In the meantime, in our fascist American moment, the news just gets worse and worse, with today’s arraignment of former FBI director James Comey for charges of lying to Congress – which is definitely a spurious charge since we all know that Comey was on the Orange Turd’s enemies list and he publicly sicced his lapdog of an attorney general, blonde bimbo Pam Bondi, on him. A trial date was set for January 5, 2026, which is an ironic one, since the next day, January 6, would mark the fifth anniversary of that second infamous date in U.S. history. Comey’s lawyers have rightfully claimed the charges are just the result of a sitting president’s vow of vengeance against the former FBI director. The arrest of a public official like Comey should outrage every American who is shocked by this fascistic regime and to what measures it would take to overthrow the rule of law. I should hope this case will be dismissed outright before any evidence is ever presented in such a kangaroo court in this country.

The news gets even worse as the Supreme Leader calls for the jailing of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Democratic Governor JB Pritzker because of their opposition to the Orange Turd calling in his private army, ICE, into Portland, Oregon, and Chicago. This is what the Orange Turd actually wrote: “Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice [he couldn’t even capitalize ICE here – the idiot!] Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” He wrote these incendiary remarks on his stupid “Truth” Social.

After these developments, all I can say is, “Are we living in America right now or in a banana republic?” I can’t wait until the protest scheduled for October 18 to express my disgust of what is happening under Dump and his evil regime.

Maybe tomorrow Ernest will fix the television set once and for all. He’s set to come after 5. In the meantime, I’ll sit one more time in the bedroom to watch another episode of Monster: The Ed Gein Story.

And so it went!

Here’s a great sign from one of the protests I participated in that says it all!

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, October 6, 2025, one day before the horrific anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas. Is there even a peace deal being negotiated by the stupid president and far smarter but just as Trumpian Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu? There’s a flurry of CNN updates on the ongoing talks between Israel and Palestinian negotiators as the two-year anniversary nears. Here’s a summary of just a few of them.

One of those updates is entitled “Israeli and Hamas delegations in Egypt for ceasefire and hostage talks,” and it’s by Laura Sharman, Deva Lee, Luke Jacobs, Sana Noor Haq. This piece comments on the indirect talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators that began Monday evening in Egypt over finalizing a deal based on president Donald Chump’s ceasefire plan. An official with knowledge of the negotiations told CNN that the talks are expected to last “a few days,” so don’t expect a resolution to be announced tomorrow, it seems.

Dump said he expects the negotiations to take place”a couple of days” and urged those negotiators to “MOVE FAST [sic].” He earlier told CNN Hamas faces “obliteration” if it refuse to cede power to Gaza. Oh, there he goes again – acting like the strongman he ain’t.

On Friday, Dump told Israel to stop bombing the enclave, but more than 100 people have been killed since he warned Israel to stop. Palestinians spoke to CNN about devastation on the ground and their tempered optimism for a truce.

Talks between Hamas and mediators will continue in Sharm El-Sheikh tomorrow “amid a positive atmosphere,” Egypt’s state-affiliated Al Qahera News reported.

Also, on the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for the release of the hostages, more aid for Gaza, and progress towards a lasting peace.

Talking about the October 7 massacre, which Elliot and I saw firsthand when we visited Elliot’s relatives in Tel Aviv this past September, Starmer said, “Time does not diminish the evil we saw that day.” He added, “The brutal, cold blooded torture and murder of Jews in their own homes. And the taking of hostages, including British citizens, some of whom remain in Gaza today.”

In a related story, families of Israeli hostages gathered outside the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, holding a prayer service on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. This year, Sukkot coincides with the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre. Hostage families said the day marked “another Jewish holiday without their loved ones.”

One of those taking part in the prayer vigil is Einav Zangauker, the mother of 25-year-old hostage Matan Zangauker, who said a prayer for the hostages, asking God to “break their chains, deliver them from their distress, and return them swiftly to the embrace of their families.” If only her prayer were promptly answered. It’s been too long already. Bring the hostages home!

In the meantime, the shitwipe president’s efforts to send National Guard troops to an American city, this time, Portland, Oregon, have been thwarted by a Dump-appointed judge in Oregon who has temporarily blocked the deployment of National Guard members from anywhere in the United States to the city. This won’t sit well with this fascistic regime, I’m sure of that.

This late-breaking news is contained in another CNN article entitled “A federal judge blocked Trump from sending the National Guard to Oregon – again. Here’s what we know,” and it’s by Kelly McCleary, Josh Campbell, Danya Gainor, and Hanna Park.

The delusional president has falsely claimed that the Guard was necessary to quell protests at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – Dump’s version of the Gestapo – facility – a claim strongly disputed by local and state officials.

The hastily scheduled hearing on Sunday came after officials in both Oregon and California objected in court to Chump reassigning federalized guard troops in Los Angeles to Portland in an apparent effort to get around the judge’s Saturday order.

Both states said in a motion asking for the expanded order, “There is no rebellion in Portland.”

The name of the judge who stood against Dump and his fascistic regime is Judge Karin Immergut who pressed and occasionally interrupted the Justice Department’s lawyer, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton, during Sunday’s hearing, which lasted less than 30 minutes, and who expressed frustration over what she characterized as an apparent effort to sidestep her Saturday order.


In granting the second temporary restraining order Sunday, Immergut correctly blocked the Dump administration “from deploying federalized members of the National Guard in Oregon.”

The temporary restraining order is in effect until October 19, and a hearing will be scheduled for October 17 to decide whether it should be extended for another two weeks.

However, there have been protests outside of the South Portland ICE facility that have continued through Sunday night. Two people were arrested by the Portland Police Bureau overnight, the department said, bringing its total arrest count outside the building to 36 since nightly protests began in June. Again, this figure is not as enormous as Dictator Don’s administration would have you believe. To them, the entire city is burning.

Showing true grit and defiance, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek said in a statement Sunday night, “The President can expect Oregon to stand up to him at every turn.”

Longtime foe to Dictator Don, California Governor Gavin Newsom, said, “We just won in court – again.” He posted this on X referencing the Sunday ruling. “Trump’s abuse of power won’t stand.”

Before Sunday’s ruling, Newsom vowed to sue over the deployment of California troops in Portland. “This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power. The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens,” Newsom thundered.

I won’t repeat what White House Deputy Chief of Staff “Nazi” Stephen Miller said about the ruling. It’s totally disgusting and warps the truth altogether.

With this ruling, I wonder what blue state is next on this asswipe’s agenda: New York, possibly. Boy, will that not go down well here if Dump even tries to do the same thing as he’s done in California and Portland.

Also, the cowardly Clark Kent of the House, MAGA Johnson, still refuses to swear in newly elected Representative Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) because she has pledged to sign a petition the first day she’s sworn in to fucking release the Epstein files with Dump’s name emblazoned all throughout it. He is another asswipe who needs to go!

What a fucking clown show of a government, wouldn’t you say?

Tomorrow I will be taking a break from writing my blog since I’ll be attending my gay men’s reading discussion to expound on Saleem Haddad’s Guapa. I’ll be attending the meeting with my friend “Harvey” and I don’t know when I’ll be home.

Our television set was NOT brought back from the TV hospital as promised. Our technician texted me saying he forgot to bring the power adapter with him today. Thus he will come tomorrow when I’m not here, at 5:15. I surely hope so! This is so freaking long to wait for a set; we could have bought another one in less time.

Have a great Tuesday. The warm weather lingers for at least one more day.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Sunday, October 5, 2025. Yesterday was quite a busy day for Elliot and me, as we sallied forth early in the morning to meet “Seth” at Jax Inn Diner, in Jackson Heights. Originally, I was going to meet Seth alone, but I decided we could both go because I intended to go to Lincoln Center to purchase tickets for the Psycho concert on October 30. We could then drive to the nearest subway station together and park the car there and pick it up later, which is what we did. We then were going to see a new film at the Angelika Theater called The History of Sound, a gay romantic movie punctuated by the inevitable heartache and loss, much in the vein of Brokeback Mountain, made 20 years ago.

After having a very filling breakfast at the diner (I had a bowl of oatmeal and a short stack of pancakes, which is the diner’s specialty) which was so busy when we got there that we had to find parking on the street, Seth made the proclamation that he was going to Lincoln Center also in order to purchase tickets for Ragtime at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. We arranged a time where we would meet each other after everyone bought their tickets.

So we said our goodbyes outside the diner, while we got into our car and drove to 46th Street and Broadway to take the R train downtown. We got off at 57th Street and 7th Avenue and then walked to Lincoln Center. When we neared the David Geffen Hall where I had to buy the tickets, I left Elliot on a bench across the street from the performing hall.

I asked someone inside the cavernous lobby where the ticket booth was, and she pointed across the hall where the ticket station was. The line was nonexistent, so I waited briefly and stepped up to the ticket agent. I asked for two tickets, since I asked my newfound friend “Harvey” if he wanted to go with me, and he said yes. I interacted with a pleasant-looking agent who indulged my blathering on the new Netflix series on the inspiration for Anthony Perkins’ character in Psycho, Ed Gein. He didn’t hear of it and said he would investigate it.

A few moments later, I spotted Seth by the Lincoln Center fountain and I accompanied him into the next theater where he bought tickets for Ragtime. He also had no trouble buying tickets for a performance in November, I believe.

Before going to the Angelika together, Seth and I made one last-ditch attempt to get tickets for Oh, Mary at the Lincoln Center TKTS booth. By the time we got to the ticket booth, only one ticket was available for the 5 p.m. performance, but there weren’t two tickets available for the 7:30 performance. We exited the line and made plans then to see the film at the Angelika.

We took the subway down to Broadway-Lafayette Street on the F train and then purchased our tickets inside since there isn’t an agent outside anymore. We were a little shocked over the price ($17.50 for senior tickets. I was afraid to ask what the general adult price was).

The film, from director Oliver Hermanus and writer Ben Shattuck, concerns itself with the brief but impactful relationship between two musical students at the Boston Conservatory in 1917. They are Lionel Worthing (Paul Mescal) and David White (Josh O’Connor) who not only share an attraction to the same sex but also share a passion for folk music in particular. Lionel is the more withdrawn and shy of the two; he is from poor folk in rural Kentucky and has been endowed with a vivid aural style and natural vocal ability. At a bar in Boston, he is surprised to hear another student playing and singing a familiar tune from his childhood on the piano. The young man, David, is a charming composition major with a passion for “collecting songs.” This means he travels across remote regions to gather and learn people’s local songs. The two instantly bond over this shared interest, and that night they have sex in David’s sparsely decorated apartment. Their emotional bond grows progressively intimate as they continue to meet weekly, only for their affair to end abruptly when David leaves for Europe to fight in World War I. At that time, the U.S.’s entry in the war leads to the indefinite cancellation of classes, so Lionel reluctantly returns to the family farm.

After the war ends, Lionel hears from David who proposes that he accompany him on a song-collecting trip throughout Maine where they will record the songs of Maine’s villages and farms with a wax cylinder phonograph, and where they will spend their nights camping in the woods. The viewer realizes that this time between the two lovers/friends is truly a high mark in their association with one another, but towards the end of their song-collecting venture, it is David who is grows distant towards the end of the trip. It appears that the horrors of war has traumatized David to the point where he’s unable to give voice to what he has experienced. Lionel eventually leaves Kentucky to pursue a career in music which takes him to Rome eventually and to Oxford where he enters into a relationship with a woman.

The film progresses at a very slow pace and it is here where viewers might have a problem with identifying with the events described within. It is very apparent, however, that Lionel and David’s relationship is tender and endearing from the start, but as time progresses and a reunion becomes less plausible, the seismic impact of David on Lionel’s life becomes increasingly clear, and the weight of the loss grows heavier, until Lionel realizes that this brief episode of his youth has bestowed happiness on him that he will never feel again.

The two principals, Mescal and O’Connor, are quite convincing as very different people. Mescal is more reserved and withdrawn than O’Connor who had more of a worldly upbringing. He mentions that he was raised by an uncle in England after his parents both die. As already mentioned, Mescal is the only son of Kentucky farmers. In the film, he uses his pleasant voice to great effect. O’Connor, however, is more outgoing and charismatic, and emanates a low-level nervous energy through employing gestures like constantly fiddling with cigarettes and putting on amiable, yet somehow uncomfortable-seeming, smiles. His natural charm, however, serves to conceal a well of pain over his homosexuality and his experiences in the Great War.

In an epilogue, Lionel is portrayed as a much older man by Chris Cooper, who has achieved much success as a musicologist, lecturer, and writer living in Boston. It is his reaction to finally receiving those long-lost tapes of songs recorded by him and David in Maine’s hinterlands that should bring a tear to the most hardened among us watching in the audience.

After seeing the film, the three of us walked to Veselka Restaurant on 2nd Avenue and 9th Street where we met Seth’s husband, “Jerry.” He came into the city just to meet us for dinner. When we got to the Ukrainian eatery, he was waiting for us on the corner.

We waited on line for a short while before we were escorted to a table inside. The restaurant was quite busy. Everyone was bustling over us, but a waiter did approach our table within minutes and took our orders. The preferred dish at our table appeared to be pirogies, so we all delighted in having them. I also had mushroom and barley soup first.

This was the end of the ride. After dinner, we said our final goodbyes to Seth and Jerry who took an Uber back to Astoria, while we dealt with the subway. We had to remember to get off at 46th Street and Broadway to pick up our car, not to take the E or F back to Forest Hills. And we did!

I have good news concerning our television set: it’s going to be finally returned tomorrow by “Ernest” who has restored it to its former glory. We’ve only been without it for more than two weeks. There’s certainly more worse things than not having a TV for two weeks, that’s for sure.

As a corollary to seeing Hitchcock’s much-sanitized version of the nefarious doings of Ed Gein in Psycho, here renamed Norman Bates, on October 30, I’ve started watching the series on Netflix. It stars Charlie Hunnam as the “monster,” Ed Gein, living in the nondescript town of Plainfield, Wisconsin. Hunnam plays the serial killer as a shy, withdrawn, mother-obsessed, simple man. He speaks in a very low whisper. As his religious fanatic of a mother, Augusta Gein, is Laura Metcalf who harangues poor Ed continuously with the wages of sin and having carnal relations with women. She is possibly the true monster in the whole grisly sequence of events that unfolded in that sleepy town more than 60 years ago.

The episodes veer from the past chronicling Ed’s descent into madness and to the present day (late 1950s through 1960s) when Hitchcock receives word of such a character from meeting with writer Robert Bloch, the creator of Psycho, to depictions of Anthony Perkins who would be cast as the Gein stand-in, Norman Bates. Here Perkins is wrestling with his own debilitating secret, the secret of homosexuality. He is shown in one scene in the bedroom with 1950s heartthrob, Tab Hunter. Alfred Hitchcock is here played by an anorexic Tom Hollander, who I don’t think looks or sounds like the real Hitch.

Anyway, I do intend to watch the series, which is eight episodes long.

Have a good week.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, October 3, 2025. As the world wrestles with the scumbag known as Donald J. Dump’s declining health and mental acuity, one online article truly paints a very vulnerable despot on AlterNet by Lesley Abravanel entitled “‘Never seen the president this scared’: correspondent unmasks ‘maniacal’ Trump.”

That White House correspondent is seasoned journalist Brian Karem, who has covered president Donald Chump full-time since 2016, says in a piece for Salon that he’s “never seen the president this scared.”

Karem, who has covered every presidential administration since Ronald Reagan, “sued Donald Trump three times successfully to keep his press pass,” he says in his bio.

Though he had a front-row seat to “the carnage” of Dump’s first term, this time around, it’s different, Karem writes, noting Dump is playing the “victim.”

The president’s actions, Karem says, are “those of a despot trying to seize power.” The White House correspondent pointed to Dump’s demand for the military to use American cities as training grounds for the U.S. military and his proliferation of ICE agents who beat and detain American citizens.

Karem adds here, “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trump’s dog of war, has instituted some of the most racist regulations seen in the military since it was integrated nearly 80 years ago.”

The seasoned pro sees a deeper reason for why Dump is acting more maniacal lately.

“He is the proverbial New York sewer rat, cornered and lashing out in a desperate attempt to survive. He also knows he is becoming more vulnerable. But it’s not just his own mortality, shrinking mental acuity and the Jeffrey Epstein case that is scaring him,” Karem states.

Karem feels what is setting Dictator Don off like “a wild animal with its leg caught in a trap” is his 2023 indictment on 37 felony counts stemming from a nonpartisan FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago that turned up classified documents. Remember that case, folks? I sure haven’t forgotten and neither has he!

Karem writes about the case, “He’s apparently still so worried about the case that he’s trying to put up costly roadblocks against someone who has only a chance of getting the information revealed.” Look, someone even revealed that horrible impending “Extreme” Court ruling knocking down Roe v. Wade in June 2022. So there’s someone out there with a vendetta against this subhuman who can do the same thing regarding his 2023 indictment.

Karem writes, “Trump’s fear is palpable, and like a New York sewer rat, that’s when he’s at his most dangerous.”

The White House correspondent further notes Dump has a “desire for total control before he loses all command of his mental and physical health.” Which couldn’t come any sooner in my opinion.

Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, Vice President JD Vance, nicknamed the “Maybelline Mascara Man” by a staffer from Forest Hills Indivisible, is waiting eagerly in the wings, having proven he “is capable of pinch hitting for the sultan of political swat.”

According to a source close to Dictator Don, “there is a growing fear that someone in his own inner-circle may whisper the words ’25th Amendment,’ end the Dump presidency, and usher in the ‘The Age of Ultron’ – I mean Vance. That, more than anything else, has Puff Donny scared,” Karem posits. This is not so infeasible since a good swath of the American public is now disliking Republicans more than Democrats for the government shutdown and if things get worse, which they certainly will, someone could come out of the shadows and more than whisper the 25th Amendment, they could shout it. And we are then stuck with the Maybelline Mascara Man until 2028. Which could be worse than having buffoonish Demented Don until that time, but I don’t think so. Vance will not have the almost slavish support of MAGA like this clown did.

You must love MSNBC news host Lawrence O’Donnell who is the lone man of outrage when it comes to criticizing Demented Don’s lack of mental acuity. He consistently goes on the warpath against the legacy press for its lack of outrage over what he calls Dictator Don’s “publicly flaring madness” this week.

In another online article this time for MediaITE, Tommy Christopher writes “MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Rages At Press ‘Sleeping’ Through Trump’s ‘Publicly Flaring Madness.'”

If you ever watch O’Donnell, you know he calls Demented Don the stupidest president every chance he gets. He has consistently called out Trump’s growing incapacity, growing to a crescendo this week amid a series of escalating stumbles, a speech to military leaders that was cringeworthy, and social media antics around the government shutdown.

On Wednesday’s edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word, the host trained his journalistic eye on The New York Times over an editorial that insufficiently assessed Dump’s “insanity” and a Washington press corps that is “sleeping” through Little Donnie’s “madness.”

O’Donnell made light of The Times’ characterization of Dump’s “bombastic tweets” immediately following the government shutdown which this pathological liar blamed on the Democrats and which he threatened to fire thousands of federal workers if Democrats did not provide the votes to keep the government open. He felt these tweets were not just “bombastic,” they were really insane.

Then O’Donnell provided a video clip of Rep. Madeline Dean (D-PA) confronting the lapdog of Dump, House Speaker MAGA Johnson, about how unhinged and unwell the damn president is. Then the following fucking admission was made by this false Christian in the House Speakership when he said, “A lot on your side, too.” Here is the Speaker actually admitting that the Supreme Leader is indeed unwell, and all he can muster as a response to Dean’s accurate characterization of Donnie being unwell is that people on the Democratic side are unwell too. Fuck, who was he referring to here? .She should have pressed him on that weak and childish response. But she didn’t; however, we did get an admission of truth from the creepy House Speaker right here.

With this admission, O’Donnell called MAGA Johnson a “coward” and that “he has taken an oath of cowardice to Donald Trump.” Pretty strong words, you would say. O’Donnell added, “He’s not the Speaker of the House. He’s the Speaker of Trump in the House.” So true! It’s the entire repugnican party right now.

Then the veteran MSNBC host ridiculed the liberal newspaper for not stating the obvious about the president – that he’s losing it.

O’Donnell then mocked Vance and the White House for making the government shutdown funny, which will definitely not work in middle America. He talks about a video regarding a sombrero which I haven’t seen, but if the fucking White House released it with Vance’s imprimatur, then it is childish and stupid. This you would never see from any serious administration if the government ever shut down, but this is a very different White House. This is an insane White House and an abnormal one in every fucking way!

O’Donnell ends by scorching the Washington press corps for regarding the crisis at the White House as “business as usual.” He adds, “They have internalized Trump madness in their coverage. They have lost their ability to react to it, but their outrage will be fully revived if a Democratic candidate for president, or if a Democratic president ever says a single negative thing about any kind of American voters, ever, anywhere.” Ain’t that the truth! And Mr. O’Donnell shined a bright light on it on his show Wednesday night.

Today I resumed my usual eating schedule by going out for breakfast and drinking several cups of coffee. I’m amazed over how easily I can give up caffeine these days without experiencing any ill side effects. When I was younger, I had to wean myself off caffeine by drinking decaffeinated coffee a day or two before fasting. Now I can have one last cup of coffee on Wednesday evening and then just give up drinking the elixir for over 25 hours. And I thought it would be harder as I aged, but it isn’t. That’s good for me, I guess.

Tomorrow I might not be writing my blog since I could be traveling into the city with Elliot to first buy tickets for a New York Philharmonic concert on October 30 that showcases Alfred Hitchcock’s groundbreaking Psycho with the terrifying Bernard Hermann score being played by the world-famous orchestra on stage. I thought this seemed like a cool thing to do before Halloween. And for those who know about the genesis of this 1960 shocker, Netflix is now playing a series on the original inspiration for the film, Ed Gein. He served as the inspiration for Robert Bloch’s treatment of the gothic story in his book by the same name which was optioned by Sir Alfred Hitchcock who was looking for another property to put on the big screen. If I can, I would like to see the Netflix series if I can stomach it. What Gein did to his victims in rural La Crosse County, Wisconsin, never got on the screen in Psycho. I can’t repeat what he did then – it’s too horrible to imagine. Just watch the series and see for yourself and see why Gein was declared insane and remanded to a mental institution for the rest of his life. He died at the age of 77 at that mental institution in 1984.

And we might do something else afterward like see a film. I don’t know which yet.

Have a good weekend then.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Thursday, October 2, 2025. I’ve survived another 25-hour fast with the ending of Yom Kippur tonight at 7:21 p.m. I’m happy to report that I had no twinges of hunger that entire time, even though I did look longingly in pizza parlors and the like as I walked through the neighborhood in the afternoon.

Yesterday Elliot and I attended Kol Nidre services at Temple Beth-El in Jersey City for the first time. This synagogue was the shul where Elliot’s deceased Aunt Esther attended for many years and one in which Elliot and his coexecutor of Esther’s estate have donated thousands of dollars to the building over the years. Thus Elliot preferred to attend services there last night instead of having me go to 34th Street to attend services at the Jacob Javits Center at the gay synagogue by myself, which is what I usually do. This time I had little interest in traveling once again on the subway since our recently deceased friend “Larry” attended services there with his spouse, “Jeff.” I can wait a year – or whatever.

So we left at around 3:30 to take the F train to 34th Street where we hopped on a PATH train to Grove Street, where we had dinner at Luna. We made very good time without driving there this time. I think we were in New Jersey in little over an hour.

The restaurant was quite empty when we walked in since it wasn’t even 5 yet. Services began at 6:30 and we had over an hour to eat. Since this amounted to my last meal before fasting, I pulled no stops. I had meatballs as an appetizer and pesto gnocchi as my entree. We then had creme brûlée and coffee for dessert. I thus began my fast around 6 p.m.

I then called for an Uber to take us to the synagogue on John F. Kennedy Boulevard. We got caught in rush hour traffic and just got to the synagogue around 6:30. We couldn’t help but notice the police cruiser standing outside as a form of law enforcement deterrence.

The synagogue looked old to me and not so well lit. There certainly weren’t thousands of worshippers here as you would see at the Javits Center, that’s for sure. However, the setting and atmosphere was certainly more intimate and you didn’t have good-looking young men with yarmulkes as a distraction during the service here. There were people of all ages sitting in the pews here.

Since this is a reform synagogue, there was more reading in English, which is not what I was accustomed to growing up. It was very easy for me to follow the prayers since the prayer book did not have so much Hebrew on the page.

The rabbi’s sermon was delivered with real folksy charm. She relayed her experiences over the summer on an Alaskan cruise and how she decided to take a Bible class being offered instead of the usual chazerai (game shows, bingo, art auctions, etc.) She recounted how many of the people doing this were Catholics and she was reluctant at first to say that not only was she Jewish, she was also a female spiritual leader. She went on for a considerable time tying this willingness to do something different into a treatise on being tolerant of others with different opinions than yourself. In this age of division, this is what we need more – a willingness to come out of our entrenched bubbles and get to see how the other side lives. Her message was certainly very apt for this time in history.

By 9:30, the service was finally over. Elliot decided to go up to the bimah and say hi to the rabbi. At first, she didn’t recognize him since they have only communicated generally by email. When she realized who he was, her expression brightened immediately and she kissed and hugged him. I sheepishly went up to greet her and she did the same with me.

Now it was time to call on Uber again to take us to the Journal Square PATH station. The wait didn’t take long; a driver pulled up on Montgomery Street where we were standing within minutes.

We had to wait awhile for a PATH train, but we didn’t have to wait for an F when we got to the 34th Street station. We got home in about an hour. Now it was fasting time for me until the next day.

So today, I took an extensive walk in the neighborhood. I also sat in MacDonald Park to read my new book, Lake Success, by Gary Shteyngart. I picked up this book only about a day or two ago and I’m about 200 pages in it already. It was written years ago during the reign of Dump I – about 2016. It tells the uproarious story of one Barry Cohen, rich, Jewish, living near the Flatiron Building, in a million-dollar pad who flees New York City and his Indian wife, Seema, and his seriously autistic three-year-old child, Shiva, by taking a Greyhound Bus across the country meeting all sorts of people on the road. The book is very funny and well grounded in the American zeitgeist, I believe.

Anyway, I cannot delve into MAGA World today since I took a 24-hour breather from it. Tomorrow is a different story.

Hope everyone’s fast was as trouble free and easy as mine.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, September 29, 2025. Back to a repeated yet necessary topic of discussion here, which is the delusional commander in chief who is collapsing in inchoate dementia right in front of America these days. An online opinion by former Secretary of Labor under former President Bill Clinton, Robert Reich, appears in Raw Story today entitled “This tipping point will bring Trump’s reign crashing down -and it’s close” outlines the insane things this pretender to the throne has done in just the last week.

Reich revels over the gigantic audience that watched Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue last week after he was reinstated to ABC by Disney. Apparently, over 6 million people watched Kimmel’s return to late-night television, whereas another 26 million watched it on social media, including YouTube. Kimmel’s ratings that night were a direct affront to the president’s false proclamation that his ratings were much lower than that.

Also, Dump’s dictatorial narcissism revealed itself nearly as dramatically in the criminal indictment of former FBI director James Comey, which comes directly after Chump fired the U.S. attorney who refused to indict him.

That dictatorial narcissism was evident in his directive to the drunkard Pete Hegseth, the new “Secretary of War,” to use “full force, if necessary” to “protect War [sic] ravaged Portland, Oregon” and any “ICE Facilities under siege from attack from Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” All of this is pure bullshit, folks. This is pure fantasy arising from the warped mind of Dictator Don. There is no concerted effort from Antifa to sow violence in Portland, Oregon. It’s another distraction from not releasing the Epstein files.

There was also his crazy speech to the United Nations telling delegates that their nations are “going to hell.” What a surefire way to win allies, you must say. Then there is his much-ballyhooed press conference with quack Dr. Oz and brain-worm HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in which it was announced that Tylenol is the cause of childhood autism, even though there is no damn scientific proof of this. As a result, the makers of Tylenol should sue the hell out of Dump’s government as a result of this massive smear.

Because of these measures, Dump’s approval ratings continue to drop precipitously.

Reich writes, “Voters are turning against him and his Republican Party.”

Amidst all of this chaos brought on by Dump and his stupid minions, a government shutdown is looming. This time I support Democrats not playing hardball with their fascist colleagues since these ugly repugnicans refuse to agree to extending Affordable Care Act subsidies which are now set to expire at the end of the year and to cause 24 million people to lose coverage or pay skyrocketing premiums. Therefore, there can be no compromise with these cruel members in Congress, folks. We will have to sustain some hardship now in order to show Dump and his useless cabinet that we are not capitulating – like we always sadly do at the final hour.

The former labor secretary doesn’t know exactly when there will come a tipping point when elected repugnicans will actually rebel against him or when his dementia will become so apparent that he’s forced to resign or when much of the country rises up against his dictatorship that he’s impeached and convicted of high crimes – which I find more unreasonable as time wears on, but you never know the fury of the American electorate when they realize they’ve been conned all these many years by a consummate charlatan. Reich believes that that point is coming ever closer, though.

In conclusion, Reich believes that the nation’s activism is working and believes “the slumbering giant of America” will be reawakening soon. He feels it’s about to stand and is angry. “Soon he will roar.”

Tomorrow Elliot and I are having dinner with my Manhattan cousins, “Rivka” and “Dillon.” We’re meeting them at 7 at a restaurant on 79th Street, so I doubt I’ll be writing this blog since we usually spend a good three hours or more chatting up a storm. I haven’t seen them in several months, not since they went to Mexico in late August. We haven’t seen them since July, I believe.

I just remembered: Wednesday marks Yom Kippur Eve, so I won’t be here either. I’m traveling to Jersey City to participate in evening services at Elliot’s late aunt’s synagogue on John F. Kennedy Boulevard. We won’t drive; it’s easier to take mass transit. This is the first time I won’t be attending Kol Nidre services at the Jacob Javits Center. Oh well, life is change! Something we should all embrace.

So have a good Tuesday and a good holiday for those who observe. Also, have an easy fast for those who fast during this holiday.

And so it went!