Tag Archives: trump

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, December 1, 2025. An optimistic online article for AlterNet by Lesley Abravanel entitled “‘Signs everywhere’ that America’s MAGA ‘nightmare’ is almost over” appears today in which the author forecasts the inevitable demise of this American nightmare called “MAGA.” To me, the acronym really means that “Morons Are Governing America” from an early protest sign carried aloft in one of the “No Kings” rallies in Midtown. But, no, this slapdash political movement that has resulted in so much despair and ruin upon the American landscape will be celebrated when the movement is destroyed forever. So there is some room for hope delivered in this article that predicts the movement’s destruction when its stupid Supreme Leader is no longer on the scene.

Former pastor John Pavlovitz writes that “all brutal empires fall,” and the MAGA movement is no different, as signs of its inevitable demise are “everywhere.”

Pavlovitz writes, “Every time the pendulum has swung wildly toward barbarism in a society, it has invariably come back with even greater opposite force to bend the arc of the moral universe back toward justice again.”

The former pastor states that “our brutal national nightmare is likely in its final hours.”

He presciently writes, “Few cults survive the passing of their leaders, and MAGA will not outlive the departure of Donald Trump from the White House or from this earth, whichever comes first.”

Pavlovitz notes that Grump’s “physical attrition and mental degradation can no longer be hidden or distracted from. His body is rapidly breaking down, laboring with simple tasks, hemorrhaging energy, and riddled with the unmistakable tells of a man whose systems are failing.” No matter what bullshit the White House releases about his “exceptional health.”

Pavlovitz delivers a harsh assessment of Drumpf’s weakening hold on his party in this statement, “His already hate-addled mind is becoming more and more clouded in an ever-thickening haze of deterioration, drugs, and almost certain dementia. His outbursts have grown more impulsive, his decisions have become more desperate, and the once indestructible facade of strength is steadily crumbling. The strongman is withering.” Amen!

The former pastor calls Grump a lame-duck president already and states, “His once fierce death grip on political power is giving way to neutered impotence and growing irrelevance.” What has built him up is starting to collapse, he notes.

There are voices of dissent now emerging, Pavlovitz mentions. “The rapacious brutality of his regime is being exposed and condemned. The groundswell of public opposition is growing louder and more organized.”

“The defections from his party are accelerating, their unwavering allegiance weakening. His cockroach accomplices are scattering in the raking light of coming accountability,” Pavlovitz writes.

Pavlovitz surmises that Chump is on the verge of political expiration, writing, “He has peaked as a galvanizing presence, and there’s no GOP spin doctoring that can change that.”

Thus when Grump is gone, so will MAGA bite the dust, but, he says, they won’t “suddenly awaken from their cultic stupor and join the rest of us in benevolent and interdependent humanity.”

Even if MAGAts will not immediately rally to “wokeism,” Pavlovitz notes, they will “never again have someone who embodies the zeitgeist of grotesque impulses the way Trump has.” I say if for some reason, that pig JD Vance becomes president before Grump serves out his second term, he will never have the backs of the MAGA movement. He’s too despised by them.

These MAGA supporters may become “more violent, more desperate, and more committed to destruction,” Pavlovitz writes. But they know their time is short.

What will bring a smile to our faces is Pavlovitz’s assertion that “the end of MAGA is near.” He concludes, “And the dawn of the promise of America will break once again.”

I hope all of what Pavlovitz writes here does come to fruition. To me, MAGA is a stain on America created by the worst president ever to occupy the Oval Office, Donald J. Grump. It has been our national nightmare for so long – at least nine years. I would love to see a new dawn coming, wouldn’t you?

Tomorrow is my gay men’s reading club meeting at 6:30, so I probably won’t be here tomorrow night if I decide to have a nonalcoholic drink at Julius’s after the meeting.

See you on Wednesday then.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Sunday, November 30, 2025. Finally, lawmakers are finding their spine in the wake of this regime’s firing on alleged drug traffickers at sea in which 80 people have been killed in military strikes against the vessels carrying them. In an Associated Press online article by Kevin Freking entitled “Lawmakers voice support for congressional reviews of Trump’s military strikes on boats,” the situation is reported on where lawmakers have initially voiced concern about these unlawful strikes.

Thus lawmakers from both parties said today that they support congressional review of U.S. military strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, citing a published report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order for all crew members to be killed as part of a September 2 attack.

The lawmakers said they did not know whether last week’s Washington Post report was true. Though there are still some repugnicans who are skeptical of this report, but they did say that attacking survivors of an initial missile strike poses serious legal concerns.

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said, “This rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true.”

One skeptical repugnican, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), when asked about a follow-up strike aimed at people no longer able to fight, said that Congress does not have information that happened. However, if Hegseth is found to have issued orders to kill defenseless individuals, Turner said, “Obviously, if that occurred, that would be very serious and I agree that that would be an illegal act.” At lest this putz did agree that this action could constitute an illegal act.

In the meantime, this murderous regime says the strikes in the Caribbean were warranted since they were aimed at cartels, some of which it claims are controlled by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Now this so-called “peace” president is weighing whether to carry out strikes on the Venezuelan mainland, thus possibly dragging us into another armed conflict that is totally unnecessary.

Rep. Turner said there are concerns in Congress about the attacks on vessels that the Grump administration says are transporting drugs, but the allegation regarding the September 2 assault “is completely outside anything that has been discussed with Congress and there is an ongoing investigation.”

Now that Grump has made comments saying that the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered as “closed in its entirety,” an assertion that raised more questions about the U.S. pressure on Maduro, Venezuelan’s government is accusing this country of making a “colonial threat” and seeking to undermine the South American country’s sovereignty.

As would be expected, the unfit Hegseth defends his organization’s actions during this conflict. He averred, “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict – and approved by the best military and civilian lawmakers, up and down the chain of command.” Let’s hope this beast would comply then with a subpoena to testify before the Armed Services Committee if it ever came to that.

So far, repugnican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and its top Democrat, Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, said in a joint statement late Friday that the committee “will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”

Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama and the ranking Democratic member, Washington Rep. Adam Smith, issued a joint statement saying the panel was committed to “providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense’s military operations in the Caribbean.”

Another repugnican, Don Bacon (R-NE), asked about the September 2 attack, said Hegseth deserves a chance to present his side. So subpoena the bum, Rep. Bacon, and get him to offer his objective perspective on what happened on September 2. Bacon did say, “We should get to the truth. I don’t think he would be foolish enough to make this decision to say, kill everybody, kill the survivors because that’s a clear violation of the law of war.” No one said this jerk even knows what the law is in that regard. He should never have been confirmed by Congress. Everyone knows that by now!

Let’s hope then that this article signifies now that there is some tentative opposition to what this horrible administration is doing at the present moment.

Now it’s getting late since Elliot and I watched a great true-crime documentary called Girl in the Picture from 2022. It’s an hour, forty-eight-minute depiction of sexual assault, violence, and murder of innocence in the guise of one convicted felon known by several aliases who kidnapped a young woman and brutalized her over a period of decades forcing her into working as an exotic dancer, eventually kidnapping her son, and was later convicted of murdering another woman years earlier. The tale was very long but fascinating. Only toward the very end does the viewer know who this woman really was. Her identity had not been known for about 35 years. She was known for many years as Sharon Marshall, but that was not her real name. I wholeheartedly recommend viewing this even though it’s quite difficult to watch at times.

I also spent some time with my son earlier when Elliot and I picked him up at his mother’s house in Hollis Hills and took him out to dinner at a Greek restaurant on Northern Boulevard called Mythos. We had a very delicious dinner consisting of Greek salad and avgolemono soup for me, and my sharing souvlaki skaras with Elliot, while “Joshua” ordered the same entree. We asked Joshua to drive our car which is a year old today back to his mother’s house since Elliot forgot to bring his driver’s license in his wallet. Of course, I drove home.

It’s another week and the first week of December. Wow! Have a good week then.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, November 29, 2025. In the wake of the National Guard shooting, the divider in chief’s hate-filled rant on the eve of Thanksgiving is getting a lot of negative backlash from all quarters. His inflammatory rhetoric is detailed in an online The Guardian article by Maya Yang entitled “Trump’s hate-filled rant ignores facts on immigrant crime and economic benefits.”

His rant slammed immigrants for crime, “social dysfunction,” and economic hardship that is easily refuted by a wide range of immigration statistics which clearly show that immigrants dramatically bolster the U.S. economy and commit crimes at far lower rates than people born in this country.

Who could forget this “president’s” lying rant in which he condemned immigrants in a broad and vicious invective, painting them as “illegal and disruptive populations” and attacking “those that hate, steal, murder and destroy everything that America stands for”? Wouldn’t you say this jerk is a little hyperbolic here and is lying through his fat ass? I didn’t even go into this on Friday since I didn’t want it exposed here even because it’s patently untrue. But this is what a president has put out, and is it even worth mentioning if it’s the rantings of a madman as Chump really is? But it’s one thing to ignore this jackass, it’s another to witness the campaign of terror that this sad shooting incident has spurred which is to possibly block all migration from “third world countries” as a result. This is what Grump has vowed to do as a consequence of one Afghan going “nuts,” in his third-grade parlance! Take vengeance on all Afghan immigrants! It’s totally absurd.

The Afghan national who carried out this heinous act actually assisted the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan, as records show, and was evacuated to this country after the American military withdrew.

The incident has sparked even more anti-immigration rhetoric from this cruel regime, which has indicated it will further intensify its crackdown on immigrant communities – already a focal point of fierce opposition from civil rights groups, Democratic lawmakers, and even the public.

Chump, ever the fascist, has promised to conduct a comprehensive review of asylum cases and green cards issued to people from certain countries.

Despite Grump’s total false claims in his post, in which he claimed incorrectly that 53 million people in the United States – “most of which are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs or drug cartels” – are contributing to “high crime,” economists have found that immigrants are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated compared to individuals born here. This trend has been consistent for the past 150 years, and yet, this fucking president continues to cling to unsubstantiated garbage.

Actually, it’s immigrants, Mr. President, that have contributed to the falling of crime rates in this country. Not increased them! “According to an analysis by the American Immigration Council (AIC), the immigrant share of the U.S. population has more than doubled since 1980, rising from 6.2 percent to 13.9 percent in 2022. During the same period, the overall crime rate dropped by 60.4 percent, from 59,000 crimes per 100,000 people to 2,335. This includes a 34.5 percent decrease in violent crime and a 63.3 percent reduction in property crime.”

Chump’s absurd statistics about immigrants being an economic albatross in this country are flatly contradicted by data showing immigrants are significant contributors to the country’s economy. “In 2023, undocumented immigrant households contributed $89.8bn in federal, state and local taxes, while holding $299bn in spending power, according to the AIC.”

Asserting with particular malice, Grump stated that “this refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America.” There is dysfunction in America right now, but it’s not coming from immigrant communities, it’s wholly coming from the Trump regime and its fucking horrible policies, no doubt about it!

Little Donnie also cruelly described Minnesota as being taken over by “hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia.” Not fucking true! He falsely asserted that “Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey.'” He then ridiculed Ilhan Omar, a Somali American and member of Congress from Minnesota, as someone “always wrapped in her swaddling hijab.” This couldn’t be more openly racist than if you just yelled fire in a crowded movie house. Grump then bizarrely suggested that Omar had married her brother. If I were her, I would sue the administration for defamation of character.

Minnesota does boast a large Somalian population, but Somalians have emigrated to the city fleeing famine and civil war, but this president couldn’t care less why they’ve settled in this midwestern city.

What’s even worse with this 1984 regime is the terrible reality of his wholesale immigration raids that are allegedly targeting only criminals across the country. They are not! A new study from the Cato Institute found that 73 percent of people detained by ICE have NO convictions. It also found that nearly half had no criminal conviction nor even any pending criminal charges and that only 5 percent had a violent criminal conviction. This is not what the majority of Americans wanted and this will result in terrible consequences for the people within Chump’s inner circle of misfits and incompetents.

Now I must get back to watching a British thriller from 2024 called Restless. It’s a story everyone can identify with: the plot details the terror a single middle-aged woman goes through by having a terrible neighbor who booms music into her attached house during all times of the night and how she responds to the young man’s continuous barrage of loud music over a period of seven days. The film stars no one I especially know, but it seems quite good. It is streaming on Amazon Prime.

Have a good Sunday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Tuesday, November 25, 2025. The uproar over that video that six Democrats recorded in which they urged military service members not to follow unlawful orders, but what the criminal in the White House has laughingly called “seditious,” is getting more steam as it was announced just the other day that the Pentagon is investigating “serious allegations of misconduct” against one of the lawmakers, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, who is married to former Rep. Gabby Giffords who was incapacitated during an assassination attempt in January 2011 just outside of Tucson. This disturbing story comes out of CBS Politics on my smartphone in an article written by Joe Walsh entitled “Accusations of ‘sedition’ spark uproar after video on refusing illegal orders. Here’s what the law says.”

All of the Democrats – unlike the Orange Turd – have served in the military or worked for U.S. intelligence agencies.

Last week the insane president posted an unhinged rant on “Truth” Social stating that these Democrats should be arrested and put on trial. Days later, the Pentagon announced that it was conducting a review of these allegations against the six Democrats. The one who is at the most peril is Kelly who may be recalled to active-duty status for “court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.” The drunkard who is U.S. Secretary of “War,” Pete Hegseth, later said that Kelly was the only lawmaker who falls under Pentagon jurisdiction since the others either worked for the CIA or didn’t retire from the military.

The other five lawmakers said today that the FBI had notified them of an inquiry.

Despite this threat to their liberty posed by this vengeance-ridden president, they have stood by their statement and condemned Grump for posting such garbage against them, and for now being exposed to more threats of violence against them. The six Democrats argue the video’s goal was to bring attention to some uses of the military floated by Drumpf over the years that they view as illegal, like his 2016 assertion to kill the families of terrorists or his threat – still legally contested – to send troops to Chicago.

In the meantime, Hegseth has argued that the video “sows doubt and confusion – which only puts our warriors in danger.”

Dump consistently referred to the lawmakers’ statement as “seditious behavior,” even though he himself engaged in truly seditious behavior on January 6, 2021. This will not be raised in light of the president’s declining cognitive faculties.

Many experts when interviewed all stated that this is nonsense and these lawmakers could not be prosecuted for expressing First Amendment rights when releasing the video. Naturally, this corrupt regime feels the criminal in chief has not issued illegal orders, which is laughable, considering how downright illegal they truly are.

One critic of the president’s allegation here is George Washington University law professor Laura Dickinson who said the Democrats appeared to be correct on the law. She said that members of the military must follow legal orders, but they aren’t required to follow unlawful ones, and in certain cases when orders are “manifestly unlawful,” they are required to disobey them. Other legal experts point to the fact that the six Democrats encouraged service members to refuse to follow “illegal” orders – not lawful ones.

With this latest outrage from this president, wouldn’t you say this is enough drama and outrageousness coming out of this administration? We have to actually endure this nonsense for the next three and a half years? Boy, how will we have the stamina to withstand this daily barrage of absurdity coming out of the worst administration ever in the White House?

I’m now hearing a great video from veterans who have come out attacking this stupid president and are vigorously defending Senator Mark Kelly who is a distinguished and decorated war hero. Kelly himself has said he’s not intimidated by this campaign of terror by this regime. I still say that Grump is doing this to continue to deflect from not releasing the Epstein files. Don’t be fooled by this distraction!

Today Elliot and I had a 1 o’clock appointment with our Subaru service department to get our car serviced after 6,000 miles (the mileage was much less than this when we brought it in) and to get a new state inspection sticker. We left around 12:10 and got to Woodside a little before 12:30. The manager said he could take us even though we were about a half hour early. We left the car in the front of the maintenance floor and I walked into the office to sign a release form. The manager – whose name was “Clifford” – said the car could be ready in an hour or 90 minutes and that he would text me when it was ready, so I decided to walk to Jax Inn Diner for some lunch, while Elliot was content to sit in the waiting room.

The service department was on 57th Street, and I had to walk to 73rd Street where the diner was located, so it was quite a walk. This represents a 16-block walk. I could see why Elliot preferred to stay behind. I was happy to finally see the awning that fronted the diner ahead of me.

As I was eating my tuna salad melt, I did get a text before 1:30 stating that the car was indeed ready, so I asked my server to pack the uneaten part of the meal so that I could rush back to the Subaru service station. I did return a little after 1:30 and all I had to do was wait for the car to be driven to us by Clifford. The only charge I had to pay was $10 for the inspection, which was quite nice.

We then drove home where Elliot left the vehicle to run some errands and I called my good friend “Harold” after parking the car in front of our building. We spoke so long together on the phone (over an hour) that I was able to catch Elliot walking down the block toward the building. He had finished whatever he was doing. I then finished my conversation with Harold and wished him a happy Thanksgiving.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Sunday, November 23, 2025. As Americans sour on the economy and the direction of the country during Grump’s second term, the sitting president still leans on unreality and “alternative facts” as he faces an enraged populace close to the 2026 midterms. An online MS Now (new name of MSNBC) article by Steve Benen entitled “As Americans sour on Trump and the economy, the White House moves the goalposts” details how delusional this president is when confronted with the awful truth.

When sitting down with Fox “News'” Laura Ingraham for an interview last week (which I’m sure most of us would rather watch reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies instead), Grump asserted that the current U.S. economy is “as strong as it’s ever been.” What numbers is he referring to here? But the host did ask a follow-up question: “Why are people saying they’re anxious about the economy?”

Instead of directing his response to that poll, he questioned the premise instead. “I don’t know that they’re saying that; I think polls are fake.” He then retorted, saying, “We’ve had the greatest economy we’ve ever had.”

However, the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. As the president’s second term crosses the 10-month mark, the unemployment rate is worse; inflation is worse; the national debt is worse; and even the trade deficit is worse.

As a political strategy for dealing with these trends, the president just turns a jaundiced eye to the terrible realities of his policies being implemented at the moment. He prefers to simply tell Americans everything is great – just like Tony the Tiger from Frosted Flakes cereal fame. This horrible strategy is failing for Grump in many predictable ways. Here the latest Fox News poll, for example, found that a whopping 76 percent of voters have negative views about the state of the U.S. economy and that a plurality believe the White House’s agenda has made things worse, not better.

Grump’s approval rating has suffered immensely since he became president. His approval rating on the economy has dropped to a woeful 36 percent.

“The data suggests playing make-believe and trying to sell the public on an alternative reality in which Americans ‘have the greatest economy we’ve ever had’ was a losing proposition.” Finally, voters now aren’t buying what Dump is selling – because their own life experiences are squarely at odds with the president’s hollow talking points.

As the clock ticks down on 2025, the repugnican regime is rolling out a new pitch that will not make any new fans since it’s also based on false truths: Things will be better next year.

To further deliver on this future message of future prosperity, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that he’s “very optimistic” about the “accelerating” economic growth that Americans will see in the third quarter of 2026 (covering July, August, and September).

This was stated last Thursday. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick took a similar message to Fox Business, predicting that the public will see job growth “in the second half of next year” that will “blow you away.”

Considering how terrible this administration has already been on the economy, it’s quite reasonable to have some healthy skepticism over these overconfident predictions of future success. Not only because the repugnican regime’s economic agenda is a mess, but also because some of us can remember the last time these officials offered similar assurances.

In August, for example, Bessent boasted to a national audience that the U.S. economy is “really going to pick up in the fourth quarter” of 2025. Now that we’re currently here in the fourth quarter, most Americans are thoroughly dissatisfied.

In early September, Lutnick said during a CNBC interview that Americans will see robust growth “six months from now.”

Almost three months later, the same Cabinet secretary has pushed out his forecast, apparently aware that the Grump economy will not meet Lutnick’s rosy forecast.

Even Mascara Vance suggested to the citizenry that success is still on the horizon. He asked the American people to have patience during his remarks. What he failed to indicate was that the public was told that it wouldn’t have to be patient since Grump as a candidate said he would deliver results on Day 1. Those results have yet to be fulfilled, as American still have not seen great results by the end of 2025, and now they have been cautioned to wait until 2026! What fucking nonsense!

If there is one thing we’ve learned from this administration is that everyone in it lies through their teeth and the American people are now recognizing it and are fed up with it as the truth is brutally exposed to show them up. Boy, do we need better leaders here after 10 months with this clown in the White House!

As the week looms over us, I must write that Elliot and I will be having dinner tomorrow with my Manhattan cousins “Rivka” and “Dillon” at another Italian restaurant on 83rd Street and 1st Avenue called Botte UES. I will most probably be absent from this page then since we’re first meeting at 7.

Have a good week and see you on Tuesday.

And so it went!

Here is the program and my slippered feet (sorry) of the Big Apple Comic Con from yesterday that I forgot to post.

And So It Goes

Today is Tuesday, November 18, 2025. Today was supposed to be a none-too-exciting day, with Elliot undergoing Mohs surgery on his scalp at 10 a.m., but who would have thought that both the House and Senate would deliver surgical strikes against this unfit president in their voting to release the Epstein files. This was done on the same day – right after the House almost unanimously approved legislation that would force those documents into the open. Hours after the House overwhelmingly passed a bill to force the exposure of the Justice Department’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the Senate moved to approve the legislation by unanimous consent – sending a clear message to the buffoon in chief that his party has abandoned him in his hour of need. This measure is covered in an online MSNBC article by Kevin Frey entitled “Senate suddenly passes the Epstein bill just hours after it cleared the House.”

“Speaking on the Senate floor shortly after 5 p.m., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pushed through the Epstein Files Transparency Act using unanimous consent, a maneuver that allows the chamber to bypass normal procedural hurdles.”

Schumer thundered, “Donald Trump has tried to cover up for Jeffrey Epstein long enough,” before asking to pass the bill. “It’s time that the Senate finished the job to finally compel the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files.”

The move was so swift that the Senate hadn’t even formally received the bill from the House. Schumer asked that once it arrives, it be automatically “deemed as passed” – an unusual step underscoring the urgency and political momentum behind the contentious issue.

This quick passage is sure to anger MAGA Johnson, the unqualified Speaker of the House, and many House repugnicans. But fuck them! We all know these repugnicans spent months denying Democrats a vote on the bill and Johnson, the pusillanimous Clark Kent of the House, was forced to give the legislation a vote only after four intrepid repugnicans joined all Democrats on a discharge petition.

Following the near-unanimous vote in the House, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) signaled that his chamber might move quickly, without changing the bill. And, boy, did it!

Thune countered, “I’m not sure there’s going to be a need for or desire for an amendment process over here,” which bristled the House Speaker to no end.

Schumer also stated for the record, “This isn’t about Democrats versus Republicans or about Congress versus the president. This is about giving the American people the transparency they’ve been crying for.” Schumer added, “This is about holding accountable all the people in Jeffrey Epstein’s circle who raped, groomed, targeted and enabled the abuse of hundreds of girls for years and years. The American people have waited long enough.” Amen, Minority Leader Schumer.

Now that the Senate has passed the bill, it will soon be on the president’s desk. It will be difficult for Donald Dump to not sign the bill, particularly after the House passed the measure 427-1, and the Senate passed it with unanimous consent.

That doesn’t mean that the Chump administration could not hold back information in the files, however. The bimbo Attorney General has broad authority to withhold information that could imperil future investigations – as the Justice Department has recently announced that it will open some phony investigations into some Democrats mentioned in the files – note how only Democrats are being investigated by this con artist.

So could the American people receive the full look into these documents that lawmakers have intended? If it’s obvious that the Dump regime is still obfuscating the truth, this will gloriously backfire on the clueless president and harm him for years to come!

In the meantime, the crude and vulgar president rebuked a female reporter who questioned him about the Epstein files, calling her “Piggy” as she pressed him on his past relationship with the late convicted sex offender.

What a fucking low life in the White House, folks! This boor told the reporter, “Quiet. Quiet. Piggy.” Talk about the pot calling the kettle black in this instance, where the fat pig was actually sitting on Air Force One! An even braver female reporter pressed the fat pig over his embrace of the Saudi prince who had journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered while at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. This president had the gall to say “Things happen” when confronted with his death at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. What a jerk! And he’s president of the United States?

Today, then, was a sweet victory for hundreds of Epstein survivors who pushed and pushed this country to this day. This country owes them a debt of gratitude.

By the way, Elliot did well today with his Mohs surgery which ended after a few minutes. We actually sat far longer in the waiting room with many other bandaged patients to wait for biopsy results of Elliot’s procedure which came back negative, thank God. Elliot still has a white bandage on his head, which he can take off tomorrow at some point. There was a woman, most probably in her seventies, who reminded me of the comedian Elaine May. She began talking to me as I tried to read one of the books I brought with me to the doctor’s office. She asked how long would the wait be; I answered that I couldn’t tell her. I was not a patient here. I then returned to reading Disorderly Men, my gay men’s reading selection for this month.

I think we were finished a little after 11, so we walked to York Avenue and 86th Street to have breakfast at a diner called The Mansion. We woke up today at 7:30 a.m. and left the apartment at 8:45. We got down to 86th Street close to 9:30, so we darted into Paris Baguette for a coffee. For me, of course.

After breakfast, we parted ways. Elliot went home, while I took the crosstown bus to Broadway where I searched for the Westsider Rare & Used Books store, located on 80th Street and Broadway. Since I sold a few books the other day at this bookstore in the Village called Codex, I justified buying one book called Hollywood’s Eve about Eve Babitz, who was a cultural icon of the scene in 1960s and 1970s Los Angeles. She has quite the biography, it seems. She is the goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky and a graduate of Hollywood High. She posed in 1963, at age 20, playing chess with the French artist Marcel Duchamp. She was nude; he was not. She designed album covers for Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds. She has seduced prominent men like Jim Morrison and Harrison Ford. At the age of 30, she was discovered as a writer – by no other than Joan Didion, the chronicler of her time. She would go on to publish seven books, usually billed as novels or short story collections. They were always more autobiographical in nature and definitely more confessional. I was then drawn to this personage’s colorful life, so that’s why I bought the book.

Tomorrow is the meeting of Forest Hills Indivisible at this nearby church, so I don’t know if I’ll be here. You’ll see me or you won’t. That’s all I can say.

Have a good Wednesday then.

And so it went!

This is my new addition to my ever-expanding library.

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, November 17, 2025. Epstein fever is in the air, as the House isthissclose to voting to release the sexual trafficker’s infamous files tomorrow. Today the pedophile in chief capitulated on his stand against releasing the files which definitely shows his weakness in the wake of this ever-engulfing scandal. It is comparable to Nixon’s Watergate imbroglio, I believe, and this is Drumpf’s own Waterloo, in my opinion. An analysis by Aaron Blake for CNN reveals how Dump has been rendered vulnerable by this sordid scandal in his piece entitled “Trump’s Epstein files capitulation betrays a rare weakness.” He discusses the implications of Dump suddenly changing his mind regarding the measure of releasing the files which he has vociferously been blocking up to now.

Blake states, “But regardless of how it [the Epstein files saga] shakes out, the drama around the files has punctured Trump’s aura of invincibility within the MAGA movement in a way few, if any, things have before. And it has proved a massive unforced political error by Trump.”

He also cites this sobering fact of how this man has dominated his awful base all these years – but not at this moment. “The man who has for a decade dominated his base and told it what to care about has backed down when that base decided its priorities didn’t align with his own,” Blake points out. He concludes, “That’s a remarkable political moment – and an inauspicious one for Trump, particularly right now.”

Trump’s reversal now, Blake contends, “suggests he is throwing in the towel on something he’s fought for months.”

Just last week, Drumpf and his bulldog fool Speaker of the House MAGA Johnson have fought relentlessly against the discharge petition that ultimately forced this vote. Drumpf threatened Republicans last week who signed on to it, calling them “stupid” and accusing them of playing into Democrats’ hands. The Epstein files were the central issue in Dump’s recent rift with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Who would have thought that this formerly Dump loyalist would split with him so forcefully on this one issue and that she is actually sounding normal for once in her pronouncements against Drumpf’s handling of this crisis?

The Epstein files saga has shown that the base’s willingness to abide Drumpf has its limits – or at least, it does when the base feels strongly enough and when the president’s political capital starts to wane.

This is what I love hearing: “The context of all of this is the apparent fracturing of the MAGA base,” according to Blake. Music to my ears!

Some within this seemingly unified base, but is now fracturing day by day, are expressing unease over Dump’s “America First” agenda, especially when they see him for no reason bailing out Argentina and threatening to go to war with Venezuela. Others within the base are concerned with his cozy ties with Big Tech.

Drumpf’s squabbling with Greene right now is proving to be a bigger headache for the wanna-be autocrat because she is boldly bucking him head on and not meekly fading away. She’s also doing so from a position of credibility within the base.

Over the weekend, there were a number of prominent MAGA and MAGA-adjacent influencers on social media who started to distance themselves from their Supreme Leader’s agenda. This represents a seismic crack in MAGA world without a doubt.

Republican losses on Election Day this month reinforced Drumpf’s looming lame-duck status and crystallized the party’s very real problems in a post-Dump political world.

This scandal has also been spurred by many ordinary Americans who are expressing their disproval of this administration’s handling of the crisis, where 77 percent want all of the files released. That’s some majority, folks.

I say it’s about time that a vigorous resistance movement starts to rise up against this peculiarly virulent anti-American president. And it appears it’s happening right now.

In light of this breaking situation, I’m considering attending an in-person meeting of Forest Hills Indivisible this Wednesday at 7. It’s being held at some church near our apartment building. I won’t state the location since agents of Drumpf might be reading this.

Tomorrow I’m accompanying Elliot downtown for him to have Mohs surgery on some squamous cell carcinoma on his scalp. He’s expected to have the procedure at 10 and it’s being done on an inpatient basis. I intend to bring my gay men’s reading club section with me to read tomorrow if I have to wait a long time for him. I just started reading it a day or so ago and I’m already 100 pages into it. The book’s name is Disorderly Men, and it’s by Edward Cahill. It’s his first book. I find it very fascinating, as it details the lives and sorrows of a group of gay men living in New York in the early 1960s when acting out one’s homosexual impulses could get you jailed, fined, and even fired from your job if details of your arrest ever appeared in newspapers.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Thursday, November 13, 2025. The damn Epstein scandal does seem to be gaining momentum and it appears it will not go away anytime soon! Aaron Blake provides an analysis of the affair for CNN in “The political danger of the Epstein files for Trump.” It provides commentary on the growing damage it could cause the Drumpf presidency if nothing is done about it in the near future.

Even though the Teflon Don II hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the convicted sex offender, Dump sure is “doing a great job of looking suspicious,” Blake avers. Blake contends that this stand on the part of the sexual offender in the White House “could be a political problem in and of itself – regardless of whatever ultimately comes from the Epstein files.”

A batch of newly released Epstein emails yesterday added details about Drumpf’s past relationship with the disgraced financier, “but no smoking guns.” However, those emails in of themselves cast a doubtful eye on the culpability of the White House occupant. In one of those emails from 2011, Epstein expressed surprise to accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell that Dump’s name hadn’t surfaced amid accusations involving Epstein. The convicted sex trafficker added that at one point Dump spent hours with Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre at Epstein’s house. Could they have been discussing modern art perhaps?

And in 2019, Epstein appeared to signal Grump was quite aware of Maxwell recruiting girls from his Mar-a-Lago resort in the 2000s, saying “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine [sic] to stop.”

If this does not provide certain proof of Grump’s complicity in what Epstein was darkly doing to underage girls, it’s quite notable what his White House was preoccupied with just the other day: orchestrating a pressure campaign to thwart a House discharge petition that would force a vote on releasing the full Epstein files.

Despite this campaign to change their votes on the petition, thank God no repugnican conceded to the president’s wishes. So, no repugnicans removed their names from the petition, and Speaker MAGAt Johnson quickly said he would schedule a vote for next week on compelling the Justice Department to release the full documents.

Even if the measure passes in the House, that’s not the end of the story. The GOP-led Senate would still need to take it up, and Grump would still have to sign it. So it would be doubtful that Grump would release information that could torpedo his own disastrous presidency.

The more he and his awful lackeys continue to dodge, delay, and deny what seems to be almost overwhelming evidence of some wrongdoing on his part, the more Americans grow disgusted with this administration’s apparent lack of transparency. Grump has contributed to people’s believing there’s a conspiracy behind everything, and wouldn’t it be wonderful of this piece of shit cannot persuade voters that there has been no conspiracy with regard to Epstein. He will be undone by his petard. And it’s certainly about time – that his own very loyal supporters finally turn on him.

Really, should this country continue supporting a possible pedophile in the White House? Boy, have we devolved into pure depravity if this situation were allowed to continue? Where is the move to impeach this president?

People should be outraged over how Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-secuirty camp that she didn’t appear eligible for without a waiver. And that this convicted sexual predator was interviewed extensively by Grump’s private attorney. Hmm, doesn’t this in itself smack of interference on the part of the president in something he shouldn’t be even involved in? To me, this is very suspicious; this monster has even been allowed more perks than other inmates, it’s being reported. She is getting special treatment then; tell this to the many victims of Maxwell and Epstein. This is quite troubling, to say the least.

All I can say is I hope this will finally bite the fat ass of the Orange Turd in the very end. (No pun intended!)

Have a good Friday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, November 12, 2025. The dam has broken on the continuing scandal of Jeffrey Epstein, infamous sexual predator who took his own life (?) in 2019. This is happening right now as the government shutdown has sadly ended, in my opinion, and that lone representative from Arizona has finally been sworn in by this disgusting MAGAt Speaker Johnson who withheld swearing her in for eight fucking weeks! We know why! It’s so obvious!

If you really think the sexual predator sitting in the White House isn’t guilty of crimes committed while being a guest at Epstein’s lavish digs, ponder this: Donald J. Trumpf sought to get Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) to remove her name from the Epstein discharge petition. This bombshell revelation is covered in an online MSNBC article by Mychael Schnell and Jake Traylor entitled “Trump sought to get Boebert to drop her name from Epstein discharge petition.” This is just emblematic of this furiously corrupt administration and it will not end well for the criminal in chief.

It is obvious that Dump administration officials met with Rep. Lauren Boebert at the White House today. They attempted to convince her to remove her name from the Jeffrey Epstein petition before it could be changed, according to a White House official and a source close to Boebert.

Boebert is only just one of four House Republicans who signed the Epstein discharge petition – a maneuver allowing legislation to reach the House floor without the blessing of its leadership. Now on Wednesday afternoon, the petition reached the magic number of 218 signatures after the swearing-in of Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), the bar for triggering House action.

Now the despicable Johnson will be forced to hold a floor vote on an issue that has roiled this regime ever since the felon got back in. Under House rules, no more names can be added or removed from the petition since it hit the 218 mark!

House Democrats actually released new emails today from Epstein suggesting that Dump “knew about the girls,” which Drumpf has repeatedly denied. He could deny until he’s blue in the face, but here, facts still matter.

Thus we have undue pressure put on Boebert to drop her name from the petition. However, she was not persuaded to remove her name despite the White House effort, said one of the sources who requested anonymity to discuss a confidential meeting. So there are even whistleblowers in this ferocious craven regime who still know right from wrong.

Even though the magic number of 218 has been reached by today, floor action will not be immediate for those who believe a vote would be taken immediately. According to House rules, seven legislative days must pass before a member can call the legislation to the floor for a vote. After that, the speaker has to set a vote within two legislative days.

Now with Thanksgiving recess just around the corner, any action on the discharge petition would likely not take place until December.

On his show tonight, Chris Hayes thinks the vote will come next week on releasing the Epstein files. Let’s see. I and many other people do think the truth will eventually come out – to the detriment of Little Donnie.

Three other repugnicans signed the petition in addition to Boebert: Nancy Mace (R-SC), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Thomas Massie (R-KY). But House repugnicans have been busy fending off multiple calls for legislative action from Democrats who are demanding transparency and also seeking to further drive a wedge among repugnicans who are divided on the issue.

If you recall, before Drumpf was elected, both he and several of his awful cronies now in this incompetent government called for the full release of the Epstein files and many supporters of that effort felt betrayed when Attorney General Pam “Bimbo” released a memo in July that essentially closed the case. Dump has loudly called for his followers to move on – since his name is on that list – but not all of them have.

The House Oversight Committee continues to investigate this sexual trafficker and his convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell, taking depositions and issuing subpoenas. Democrats on that committee released a tranche of documents today, including emails mentioning Drumpf.

Fucking press secretary Karoline Leavitt who is just a shill for her Supreme Leader criticized the Dems’ actions today, saying “The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.” Notice how the truth is smeared as “fake” here. It’s just disgusting! She has learned well from a master!

And just ruminate over this: this abnormal president is even considering giving Maxwell a pardon for her sick crimes! He’s already pardoned despicable characters like former disgraced Representative George Santos who was a true mentor of his since he relentlessly lied his way into Congress and committed real crimes while in it. He’s pardoned other cronies who helped with his 2020 bid to subvert the election, people like disgraced former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. This is so appalling that one cannot even grasp how venal this is. This is such an abuse of the presidential pardon that there hasn’t been anything like it since Dump and, hopefully, there won’t be after him!

And so it went!

Here are some more pics from Nashville.

This is Nashville’s own Parthenon. We never went in it; I just took this photo from the Nashville Trolley tour we took on Sunday, November 9.

This is one of the singers at the Opry: Charlie Worsham, who I didn’t know – until that night. Some of his songs are “Love Don’t Die Easy,” “I Hope I’m Stoned,” “Could It Be,” and “Hang On to That.”

This is another singer who we saw that night: Quinn XCII. He explained the reasoning behind his colorful moniker: “Quinn” is an acronym for “Quit Unless Instincts are Never Neglected,” and XCII are the Roman numerals for 92, representing the artist’s birth year, 1992.

More of Quinn XCII. Notice the ten-gallon hats in the audience?

The only photo of me and Elliot being shown here, Saturday, November 8.

These statues flanked the corner of the main drag in Nashville.

This custom-designed car, located in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, is Webb Pierce’s 1962 Pontiac Bonneville that features rifles, handguns, and silver dollars. Michael Webb Pierce was born in 1921 and was once one of the most popular hanky tonk vocalists and guitarists of the 1950s. His biggest hit was “In the Jailhouse Now.” With this 1962 car, Pierce had leather interior added fashioned after a cowboy saddle and ordained with guns and silver dollars. In fact, there are over 150 silver dollars on the interior of the car. He not only drove flamboyant cars, he dressed as flamboyantly.

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, November 3, 2025. It’s late here owing to Elliot and me hosting our neighbor/friend “Diane” tonight over the apple walnut cake I baked yesterday. She brought a bottle of prosecco with which to toast me in advance over my coming birthday this Saturday She just left close to 10. Atticus was quite present all during the time of Diane’s visit. He eventually got up on the kitchen table to sniff the remnants of the apple cake. He even came up to Diane’s knee for a little while.

Today the fucking entire repugnican party was excoriated in an address by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries who slammed the GOP and the president as “running a Pedophile Protection Program (PPP)” as the government shutdown enters its 34th day! I’ll just lighten the evening by repeating a Dump joke: “How many Trump supporters does it take to change a lightbulb? None. Trump just says he fixed it – and they all stand around cheering in the dark.” That’s the joke; I found it on Instagram.

Some good news: the sitting president or golfing president, whatever you want to call him, has received the worst approval ratings ever. An online CNN article covers this great news for the opposition party by Jennifer Agiesta entitled “Democrats are more enthusiastic about the midterms as Trump’s approval hits a second-term low, CNN poll finds.”

Thus one year out from the midterm elections, the Democratic Party holds a sizable enthusiasm advantage as views of President Poop dip further into negative territory, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

According to this poll, Dump’s approval rating stands at just 37 percent, the worst of his second term in CNN polling and roughly equivalent to his 36 percent approval rating at this point in his first disastrous term. His disapproval rating is 63 percent, just one point above the previous high of 62 percent as he was leaving office in January 2021.

According to the poll, even though Democratic-aligned voters remain far less fond of their own party (65 percent have a favorable view of the Democratic Party) than Republican-aligned voters (80 percent have a favorable view of the GOP), but even those Democratic-aligned voters with a negative view of the party are almost universally behind the Democratic candidate in their district (93 percent) and broadly motivated to vote (71 percent say they are extremely motivated).

All told, Democrats hold a 12-point advantage among those voters who say they are extremely or very motivated to turn out next year. This is probably not as true of those identifying as repugnican.

Americans as a whole are broadly dissatisfied with the state of the country (as they should be: 68 percent say things are going badly) and the economy (72 percent say it’s in bad shape, and 47 percent call the economy and cost of living the top issue facing the country). About 6 in 10 (61 percent) say Dump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the country.

Americans are increasingly likely to say Chump has gone too far in using the power of the presidency – 61 percent say so, up 9 points since February. On President Poop’s desecration of the East Wing, 54 percent of the public is screamingly dissatisfied or angry with this, with just 10 percent saying they’re satisfied with or happy about that decision. Another 36 percent (including nearly half of repugnicans) say it doesn’t matter to them. These are the people who don’t think much about this at all.

The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS online and by phone from October 27 to 30 among a random national sample of 1,245 adults, including 954 registered voters.

Tomorrow is Election Day here and in many other states. It will be interesting to see if voters will turn against President Poop’s endorsement of former governor Andrew Cuomo as mayor and elect Zohan Mamdani as the first Muslim mayor of the Big Apple.

Tomorrow also marks my gay men’s reading club meeting where we will discuss The Power of the Dog which I finished reading more than two weeks ago. So I’ll be absent from this venue until Wednesday.

Have a great Election Day, everyone. Vote for the candidate you believe will be best for New York. The last one was surely a bad fit. I’m very concerned if Proposition 50 on California’s ballot will be approved, which will be a bulwark against fucking repugnican redistricting in other states.

And so it went!