Tag Archives: trump

And So It Goes

Today is Thursday, August 4, 2025. There couldn’t have been a more explosive Senate hearing than today when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. the secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS) agency was grilled by both Democrats and Republicans for being so incompetent in his role as the purveyor of this country’s health. An online MSNBC article by Brandy Zadrozny entitled “Senators tear into RFK Jr. over vaccine restrictions in explosive hearing” outlines some of the salient points that came out in today’s hearing.

Amid many calls to resign and accusations that he is a danger to Americans’ health, Kennedy struggled to defend himself against these most accurate allegations. The hearing spanned about three hours in front of the Senate Finance Committee in which both sides of the aisle accused the health and human services secretary of lying to senators during his confirmation hearings (Duh!) and harming public health by restricting access to vaccines. The only thing he could do just like Demented Don was to lash out, accusing senators of misleading the public and allegations of corruption.

This hearing marked itself as the harshest congressional oversight of any Cabinet official since the start of Demented Don’s second term in January. I say it’s about time that those lawmakers have found a spine here. One after the other, both Republicans and Democrats peppered the abnormally tan “black sheep” of the Kennedy clan with questions over his chaotic leadership of the Department of Health and Services, including his firing of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC), his anti-vaccine record and rhetoric, and his ongoing attacks on disease-fighting treatments.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren slammed into the conspiracy theorist of a secretary by noting that Kennedy’s new recommendations for COVID vaccines have limited their availability at pharmacies in many states. She outright accused Kennedy of lying to the committee during his nomination hearings, breaking his promises not to restrict access to vaccines.

She fumed, “Last November, you said, ‘If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away.'” But just last week, she noted, “You announced the Covid-19 vaccine is no longer available for healthy people under 65.” So you be the judge here: Didn’t Kennedy just lie here about having the COVID vaccine available to all people, despite their age? Hell yes, I’ll answer. The brain-devoured secretary has been caught in a momentous lie.

At one point during the heated exchange, Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, became quite exasperated during his questioning – at one point asking Kennedy to tell him how many Americans had died of COVID. The clueless secretary responded, “I don’t know.” He should have known that the pandemic has killed more than 1 million people in the United States – a figure that Kennedy has baselessly disputed.

Then Warner exhorted, “The secretary of health and human services doesn’t know how many Americans have died from Covid, doesn’t know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths, and you are sitting as secretary of health and human services. His voice rising, Warner postulated, “How can you be that ignorant?”

During the contentious hearing, Kennedy acknowledged he had rejected the expertise of veteran CDC officials. When asked who at the CDC he does rely on for vaccine expertise, here Kennedy should just have said voodoo experts. Instead of just acknowledging how cuckoo he really is, Kennedy named William Thompson – a longtime CDC scientist who once claimed the agency had withheld data linking vaccines to autism and who was the central figure in the 2016 anti-vaccine documentary Vaxxed. Oh, that “expert”!

At one time, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, told Kennedy, “Every single day, there’s been an action that endangers the health and wellness of American families. He accused Kennedy of elevating conspiracy theorists, crackpots, and grifters to make life-or-death decisions about the health care of the American people.

Even a key Senate repugnican, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor and chairman of the Senate health committee who had stupidly voted for Kennedy’s confirmation, joined with blistering questions of his own.

Cassidy accurately pointed out the inconsistencies inherent in Kennedy’s support for Dump’s Operation Warp Speed, the first-term program that delivered COVID vaccines to Americans, and Kennedy’s recent statements saying those vaccines have caused widespread injuries and deaths. Cassidy charged, “I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccines.” Of this, Kennedy stated incorrectly, “You’re wrong.”

Well, now that the hearings are over, where do you think this leaves us with Kennedy being the head of HHS? Let’s hope he has enough common sense to know that lawmakers and the American people hate him and want him gone. Do you think he got the hint today?

I’ve been a little coy with you in not mentioning my plans for travel tomorrow. I just didn’t want anyone to say, “Oh, there he goes again!” Anyway, Elliot and I are traveling to Copenhagen, Denmark, tomorrow for about four days and then we’re flying to Israel to see Elliot and my family in Tel Aviv. Here we stay about five days. Everyone has warned us about traveling to the Middle East in light of the ongoing conflict, but we have no intention of traveling anywhere in the country. We intend to stay with Elliot’s cousins in a suburb of Tel Aviv the whole time. Therefore, we return – hopefully – on September 17. See you when we get back.

Until we meet again! Farvel which is Danish for goodbye.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, September 3, 2025. Today the news was all Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, as a powerful group of former Epstein victims demanded accountability against the backdrop of the U.S. Capitol for other adults, probably including the sitting president, who enabled the deceased financier’s sexual abuse and stated they would release their own “client list,” considering this fucking administration has not done anything to that effect ever since the Orange Turd got into office once more.

This event serves as the focal point of a Miami Herald article in the Daily News by Emily Goodin and Julie K. Brown entitled “Epstein victims say they will compile their own ‘client list.'”

Lisa Phillips, an Epstein victim who hosts a podcast that chronicles stories of sex abuse survivors, said, “We know the names.” She added, “Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world.”

The rally preceded a press conference, held by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), with Epstein lawyers and victims as the two congressmen push for the U.S. Justice Department to release all of the information from its investigations into the disgraced financier.

These events occurred in the wake of Epstein’s unholy accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who appears to be pressing for a pardon from the convicted felon to commute her 20-year prison sentence.

Standing alongside Massie and Khanna was the surprising figure of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the progenitor of many crazy conspiracy theories, who said she would be very happy to work with Epstein’s survivors to make the list public. She said at the press conference, “It’s a scary thing to name names, but I will tell you, I’m not afraid to name names. So if they want to give me a list, I will walk in that Capitol on the House floor, and I’ll say every damn name.” Very ballsy from a ballsy woman!

The two lawmakers who organized the press conference, Massie and Khanna, could be using today’s event as a form of public pressure to press Congress to release the files already. It’s unclear, of course, how quickly Senate repugnicans will want to bring the matter to the floor and whether the convicted felon – whose name could possibly be contained in those files – would sign it!

Thus far, no new information from the case has emerged, further enraging those people personally connected to the case, especially Epstein’s adult victims who were abused as preteens. The Justice Department has only turned over its first tranche of files to the Oversight Committee, but Democrats said they contained mostly old information. No date for the next delivery has been announced.

Dump has suffered severe backlash in this matter for his abrupt about-face regarding the issue after his bimbo of an attorney general suddenly proclaimed there was no list and the files would remain sealed. I do hope this issue destroys him. Something has to!

Today marked a day of once-powerless women speaking out against power and privilege and Congress – and the country – must pay attention to them!

As you know, I was away from this venue yesterday since I attended my gay men’s reading club at 6:30 with my newest friend, “Harry.”

The number of guys present at last evening’s meeting was truly astounding: I estimated there were 60 of us literature lovers there, since a few of the latecomers had to sit on top of the platform in back of the cluster of chairs up front. This was new to me; no one had to sit up there ever before until yesterday.

The topic of discussion was Thomas Grattan’s 2024 novel, In Tongues. Not surprisingly, we took up the entire 90 minutes in assessing the book’s effectiveness. I even raised my voice several times in opposition to it. I was not much in favor of the book, if you need to know. Many of the other attendees were in agreement with me, even though there were some defenders of the book as well.

After the discussion, a small knot of us walked to Julius’s Bar. I actually ordered a cranberry juice, while Harry ordered a beer.

I got home around 10:30.

Since today is Wednesday, I drove to my comic bookstore on Metropolitan Avenue to pick up three comics, but I was unable to have breakfast in my usual Dominican coffee shop because every booth was occupied by someone there. This has never happened; I couldn’t ponder why this was so. Did a tourist bus just discharge all of these people at the door of Buen Sabor Latino Restaurant? I didn’t stay very long; I went to the Chinese bakery around the corner to have a Swiss cheese sandwich on a roll.

It’s late; so good night.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, August 25, 2025. In a hard-hitting online article for Daily Take, Thom Hartmann writes “The Great American Betrayal: Trump’s War on Ordinary People,” in which he outlines how Dump always never fulfills his promises to the American public and how he has egregiously betrayed the very base who has traditionally supported him.

Hartmann provides us a short history lesson in saying how the old Confederacy was launched. He writes that it was built on rightwing oligarchy and racism, while the Democratic Party abandoned the Klan and the Lost Cause in the 1960s, it was the Republican Party that picked up the mantle. And it was this madman who was ideally suited to lead the new GOP movement since he was a lifelong racist, notwithstanding his weak avowals of denying it.

“Trump exclusively serves whoever pays the biggest bribes, either in cash, 747s, or votes, who today are mostly big, monopolistic businesses, the morbidly rich, foreign dictators, so-called ‘Christian’ hustlers, and the Republican base of male white supremacist racists.”

One undeniable reason for Dump’s popularity is “Trump-loving white racists continue to vote for the Party because he’s working so hard to disempower women and Black people while pushing brown people out of the country or throwing them into concentration camps.”

In the meantime, in the service of their rich donors, Chump and his repugnican toadies have:

  • “Fired over 8,000 Social security workers, throwing the agency into chaos so that peoples’ experience working with them will be frustrating to the point where privatization will be accepted as the only option left.
  • Killed off research into mRNA vaccines that were showing great promise to prevent and even cure cancer, among other diseases.
  • Ruined America’s “soft power” around the world by shutting down USAID, leading to the death of millions, mostly in Africa, while China and Russia pick up our former allies.
  • Betrayed our democratic ally Ukraine by withholding new weapons for eight months now while sucking up to Putin and now openly taking the dictator’s side.
  • Embraced autocratic and dictatorial regimes around the world while dissing our democratic allies in Europe, Asia, India, Australia, South and Central America.
  • Politicized our military, something George Washington warned loudly against and every president since Jefferson has done his best to avoid.
  • Corrupted our courts and prosecutors by appointing unqualified Fox ‘News’ personalities and others, including people credibly accused of sexual assault, taking bribes, and engaging in a coup attempt.
  • Ignored due process requirements in U.S. law and the Constitution when it comes to brown-skinned immigrants.
  • Corrupted America’s reputation as a beacon of democracy for the rest of the world.
  • Intimidated media, law firms, and corporate leaders into going along with creep fascism while demanding from them bribes and tribute to the Trump Crime Family.
  • Pitted Americans against each other while whipping up hysteria around race and religion.
  • Put masked, armed thugs on the streets of America to terrorize people and turn the country into a police state.”

And this is not the whole list. Is this roster of transgressions committed on the part of this president long enough for you?

Hartmann then muses out loud as to what it will “take for average people to wake up to how badly they’ve been screwed by Trump and his bizarre crew of lickspittles.”

Hartmann then speculates that it will take a global recession created by this idiot that will eventually turn everyone against the Orange Ogre. He writes that Dump’s incoherent – and clearly unconstitutional – proclamation of a phony “economic emergency” to commandeer from Congress the power to impose tariffs is already slowing our economy, increasing unemployment, and jacking up inflation.

Let’s finally “wake up,” as California Governor Gavin Newsom warned just a while ago to the creeping fascism taking over in this country as Donald Dump tramples over everything heretofore held sacred in this country.

I now have to find Atticus who is hiding somewhere.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Sunday, August 24, 2025. The era of Dump vengeance has just begun with the toddler in chief openly going after his political enemies, and the first one on his retribution list is former White House national security adviser John Bolton. An online MSNBC article by Steve Benen explores the hypocrisy of Dump going after Bolton for precisely the same reason that the president himself was almost prosecuted for years ago and that was the taking of classified documents. The article is entitled “FBI searches home of former national security adviser John Bolton, a frequent Trump critic.”

Benen writes, “It’s extraordinary to see the FBI target a prominent presidential critic, suspecting him of the same wrongdoing that led to a Trump criminal indictment.”

It’s Dump who got the ball rolling with Bolton nine days ago when he published an online item in which he condemned Bolton as a “fired loser” and a “really dumb” person. Never mind that this little man is just projecting here as always. He knows he himself is a fired loser for losing the 2020 presidential election and is dumb as a rock. Earlier this week, the president added that Bolton is “stupid” and standing in the way of the peace process in Ukraine.

But this campaign is not just limited to juvenile name calling or online insults. In January, Dump canceled Bolton’s Secret Service protection detail, which Joe Biden had approved after the FBI discovered evidence of an Iranian assassination plot. Around the same time, the repugnican also revoked Bolton’s security clearance.

Now the escalation has reached new heights, with the FBI on Friday raiding Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home as part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records.”

To put it mildly, the two men have not been on good terms since Bolton “bolted” the White House. After serving at the president’s side for a year and a half, Bolton warned the public, among other things, that Dump is “unfit to be president.” Of course, the juvenile in chief has responded to his condemnations with an endless stream of insults and complaints about his former aide because he touched a nerve in the thin-skinned president.

Another contretemps involved the release of Bolton’s 2020 book which was very critical of Dump’s presidency. Team Dump lawyers went to court in the hopes of derailing its publication. That effort failed, and the book allegedly became a bestseller.

Three months later, Chump’s Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into whether Bolton disclosed classified information when he published his memoir.

As of now, there have been no public disclosures about the nature of the new allegations, and the author has no idea whether or not Bolton improperly stored classified records in his home.

However, Benen does say it’s “short of extraordinary to see the FBI, led by a hyperpartisan Trump loyalist [FBI head Kash Patel], search the home of a prominent presidential critic – suspecting him of the same wrongdoing that led to one of Trump’s criminal indictments.” Which, of course, were never prosecuted in a court of law!

I strongly believe that the American people will grow weary of this retribution campaign as Dump goes after such personal foes like Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, Miles Taylor et al., especially when the economy tanks as a result of his ridiculous meddling in it with the imposition of tariffs. As Democratic political consultant and author James Carville has said, “It’s the economy, stupid!” and that will hopefully be the nail in Dump’s coffin.

Wow! It’s another week ahead of us. This weekend was a perfect summer weekend. Today Elliot and I spent a few hours with our good friend “Deborah” in Brooklyn near Grand Army Plaza where we had brunch at a nice French bistro called Olivier’s and then sat in Prospect Park for a little while.

Have a good week.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, August 18, 2025. The Texas Democrats, equaling more than 50, who fled the state in the wake of their repugnican colleagues’ undemocratic redistricting of the state map, have now returned, restoring a quorum and allowing the shameful GOP’s efforts to proceed. This new development is covered in an online MSNBC article entitled “Texas Democrats who fled state in protest of gerrymandering return home, restoring quorum,” by Erum Salam.

A more outrageous corollary to this shameful episode in the further erosion of our fragile democracy is the news that I just heard on the Rachel Maddow show tonight about one lone Texas state representative named Nicole Collier, a six-term Democrat representing Fort Worth, who is now being detained in the Capitol only because she refuses to sign a “permission slip” that would place her under 24/7 police escort in order to guarantee that she and her fellow Democratic representatives show up for Wednesday’s special session that would allow repugnicans to ram through racist, pro-Dump gerrymandered maps that would give five extra seats to MAGA.

As of this writing, Rep. Collier is refusing to sign while invoking her First Amendment right to dissent, and the Republican response is to threaten her with arrest. According to an article on the MeidasTouch Network, this measure is “state-sanctioned intimidation designed to silence the minority party and crush any resistance to their fascistic power-grab.”

Today the true hero of the Ukrainian conflict, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and this performative president met in the Oval Office to try to try to remove the stain of Chump’s consummate fawning of his strongman chum, Vladimir Putin, last Friday. I don’t know, literally, how the meeting went, since I couldn’t bear watching the Orange Turd making any kind of pronouncements from the meeting. I did hear, though, that the pedophile in chief announced he wants to get rid of mail-in ballots for the next election, which is just par for the course of someone who is suffering from ADHD. I believe he went off the rails many times during the conference between Zelenskyy and other European leaders who were there to offer support for Zelenskyy.

Let’s just say that everyone should be disgusted with what’s going on in Texas and how this current president intends to steal the 2026 midterm elections. This would amount then to a tremendous abuse of power exercised by this president. But what else is new here with regard to this lawless turd?

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, August 2, 2025. Even though the Jeffrey Epstein imbroglio seems to have consumed Capitol Hill over the last month, an online article in CNN reports on what truly concerns Americans now since Congress has taken an unworthy month off for the rest of the summer, and it ain’t this matter. The article is entitled “Epstein files controversy consuming Capitol Hill has fueled less fire at first lawmaker town halls of summer recess,” and it’s by Eric Bradner.

As the subject of the Epstein files has resulted in driving a wedge between Republicans and Democrats who have finally taken the offensive in pressing Donald Chump’s Justice Department to release more investigative material on the issue, lawmakers are not hearing much about Epstein at public town hall meetings they’ve hosted so far.

The debate that’s dominated Washington in recent weeks didn’t come up at all in some town halls Republican and Democratic House members have held – including a raucous event Thursday hosted by Wisconsin GOP Rep. Bryan Steil and two more mild-mannered affairs held by Wyoming repugnican Rep. Harriet Hageman. During others, it’s been the topic of just one or two questions.

“In Wisconsin, on Thursday, Rep. Mark Pocan – a Democrat who hosted a town hall in Prairie du Chien, in neighboring Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s district – brought up Epstein himself, as part of a response to a question about whether Trump might declare martial law and cancel elections.” Which is what I fear the most since this bastard must know that his terrible policies will shrink the GOP’s stronghold on the House in 2026, so why should he allow fair and equitable elections to proceed if he knows he can get away with terminating them altogether, thus leaving the House in republican’s hands for another two years? Before anyone can do anything to stop him, the elections will be history by then.

For his part, Pocan kept his comments focused largely on the GOP tax and spending bill that Dump signed into law on July Fourth – repeatedly warning that cuts to Medicaid could gut Wisconsin’s public health insurance programs and force the state to spend tax dollars filling gaps left by the federal government.

The Democratic congressman said afterward that’s why he mostly avoided talking about Epstein.

“I keep it to economics. I’m an economic, progressive populist. I think that’s how most people make decisions when they go to elections. That’s how Donald Trump won the election. That’s why Donald Trump’s doing poor in the polls,” he said.

At the town hall, one of those people who did bring up the Epstein matter was 38-year-old stay-at-home mother, Krista Brown, who said she has bigger concerns than Epstein – such as whether steep cuts in staffing at the Department of Education will delay action on a Title IX complaint she’d submitted on behalf of her children or whether National Weather Service offices will be staffed, two significant issues worthy of concern.

As for what concerns her, Brown said, “When you live rural, you care about who’s going to plow your goddamn roads – when it’s going to get plowed, if the buses can get through, how cold it is, if the weather’s going to be reported. That’s what matters. And the rest is just going to float away, because pretty soon it’s going to get so hard in real life that there’s not even going to be time to talk about that.”

The relative lack of focus on Epstein at town halls reflects the broader priorities of Americans. A recent CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that the economy and immigration-related concerns are the issues Americans most important. The poll also found increased Democratic attention to government spending, concerns about separation of powers and the rule of law, and Chump himself.

Even if Epstein isn’t Americans’ top priority, half of respondents said they are dissatisfied with the amount of information released about the Epstein case after the Justice Department released a memo saying there is no evidence the convicted sex offender kept a so-called client list or was murdered. People are not that stupid when it is so clear that Dump is hiding something in this case. That includes 56 percent of Democrats., 52 percent of Independents, and 40 percent of Republicans.

Despite what most Americans think about the Epstein matter, Democrats have sought to force the issue most recently, using an arcane procedural tool to try to force the Justice Department to release all the files related to the odious Epstein, including video, video, and any other relevant documents.

As fucking expected, Trumpicans are now eager to stay away from the topic of Epstein since it’s now perceived as their Achilles’ heel. This issue provoked MAGA Johnson, the Speaker of the House, to even cut short legislative business, sending his cowed members home earlier than expected so as to avoid being forced to hold votes on releasing Epstein-related files. As if this issue will go away by the fall; Democrats should force the matter to rise from the dead when the House returns from its superfluous recess.

At a telephone town hall last week, Republican Rep. William Timmons of South Carolina fielded questions from callers, where one person shared his “outrage” over the Epstein files – asking why the House adjourned “when this hasn’t been dealt with.”

The caller continued, “If there’s a group of pedophiles out there who are just getting away with it, this is an outrage, and I don’t care who they are. I don’t care if they’re the president of the United States.”

Timmons responded that “there is evil in this world, and we have to protect the innocent, so we need to get to the bottom of it.” Then he devolved into the cult of Chump, saying, “The president and the attorney general are doing the work necessary to release all of the information,” which is fucking further than the truth than anyone could believe. Then he continued his groveling before the Supreme Leader, saying, “The Republican Congress should not be attacking the president.” And why fucking not if he’s withholding evidence from the American people?

Well, there you have it, this president is held in contempt by a wide margin of the American populace just seven months into his second term, and it can’t go well for him as he plows on in enacting his very unpopular agenda.

In the meantime, this 79-year-old baby just fired the person who leads the office of labor statistics just for the sole reason that she stated that the jobs outlook was quite dismal right now under Dump’s leadership. Dump stupidly believes that by firing the person who just told the truth will make the truth disappear. It won’t, crybaby! He also evinced his childish persona by telling Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to “go to hell” because he couldn’t get his fucking way with his horrible nominees to be confirmed in the Senate. How this man is president is beyond me!

On a nicer note, Elliot and I took in the lovely weather today by motoring to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and having brunch at Juliette, on Bedford Avenue, and then taking in a thought-provoking jewel of a horror film at the Williamsburg Cinemas called, simply, Together.

This is the debut feature from writer-director Michael Shanks who casts real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, a thirtyish couple who give up their Brooklyn home to move upstate so that Millie could pursue a position at an elementary school. It is Franco as Tim who is floundering as a 35-year-old struggling musician, while Millie is the more poised and confident partner. At the beginning of the film, Tim and Millie throw a farewell party in their city apartment, and it is here that Millie gets on one knee and proposes to Tim, which actually results in flustering him in front of their friends. Thus it’s Tim who is more nervous and unsure of himself, and Franco conveys this indecisiveness very well.

When the couple finally move to their new home nestled in a secluded area of upstate, with nature surrounding them, they take a walk one day and get drenched in a rainstorm. It’s when they fall into a hole in the ground and come across a chasm with a pool of water that things take on a menacing turn. The couple see what looks like monstrously destroyed pews and bells in the cave before they drink the water in the pool after depleting their water supply. That’s when the word togetherness takes on a horrific meaning in more ways than one.

The film becomes a metaphor eventually of the kind of codependency many couples prescribe to in long-term relationships. We learn that Tim and Millie know each other a decade and they’re still not married. In a incisive review of this movie by David Crow for Den of Geek, Crow writes, “Tim and Millie are beyond just the monotony of life’s daily indignities and rigmaroles; theirs is an unhealthy marriage, if in name only (he never proposed and flinches when she does at the start of the movie).”

I found this film quite satisfying as a horror film but also as an examination of how a couple truly interacts with one another, and the fact that this is a real-life couple just enhances the whole experience. Go see it and see if you won’t want to be bonded together to your loved one like the couple in Shanks’ film.

Have a good Sunday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Tuesday, July 22, 2025. This Jeffrey Epstein business is such a hot potato for the convicted felon of a president that his henchman MAGA Johnson, the creepy House Speaker, has decided to shut down the House before a pivotal vote could have been taken to release the Epstein files. This is so fucking immorally blatant that no one is fooled by Dump’s biggest booster doing his duty to appease his Supreme Leader, but as article after article has pointed out, this affair will NOT go away and it could cause permanent damage to Chump’s second term after just six months into his second term.

One online article for AlterNet reveals how ruinous this scandal could be for the adjudicated sexual predator in the White House and it’s titled ‘In danger of coming undone’: Analyst says Epstein crisis exposed 2 key problems for Trump,” and it’s by Carl Gibson.

According to a recent analysis, the so-called president is already struggling to defeat a problem of his own making. In a Tuesday op-ed for The Hill, Democratic strategist Brad Bannon wrote that the ongoing controversy over Jeffrey Epstein is taking all the wind out of Dump’s sails less than a year into his second disastrous term.

According to Bannon, the longer Dump refuses to be transparent about Epstein, the worse it will be for him politically. Oh, don’t you just love this! The bastard is so terrified of the backlash against him that he started bloviating over a former president, Barack Obama, for committing treason. How could anyone in his or her right mind accept this delusional insanity coming from the pouty lips of this psychopath? He is deflecting and distracting even more desperately than ever. And his made-up delusions will not convince anyone that he’s telling the truth!

According to Bannon, he added that the scandal “reveals two key problems with [Trump’s] second term” that pose a significant risk to his ability to be effective in the future. Bannon said, “First, the president has broken a series of promises he made to the American people during the 2024 campaign. Second, he has always relied heavily on his most loyal supporters in times of trouble, but the once solid MAGA base is in danger of coming undone.”

“Trump’s refusal to release the infamous Epstein list is just one of the many promises he made while he was soliciting votes for his return to the White House last year. He has become the typical politician who will say anything to get elected and fail to deliver when he wins.”

Bannon went on to argue that Dump has already burned most of the bridges that helped him get reelected outside of the Epstein matter, including his former friendship with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who was his Number 1 campaign donor in 2024 before condemning his horrible budget bill. He also angered influential far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson by continuing to fund Ukraine in its war with Russia and former White House strategist Steve Bannon (no relationship to the author here) who has used his podcast to tear into Chump’s signature domestic policy legislation for lavishing the wealthy with another multi-trillion-dollar tax cut, arguing instead for significant hikes in the corporate tax rate. This statement from Bannon is very hopeful in terms of Drumpf losing his power as a result of this scandal: this could be the final nail in his political coffin.

“The sorry state of the economy will eventually be Trump’s undoing as it was Joe Biden’s,” Bannon wrote. “But the Epstein scandal gives Trump great grief in the here and now. His failure to follow up on his promise to release the infamous Epstein List of sexual predators has painted a giant kick-me sign on his backside.”

Only time will tell. I’m angry that this asshole called Mike Johnson can just force the House into early recess so this scandal could presumably go away by the time they convene again in September. This will not do and the American public will demand something be done about this affair sooner than later. Let this horrid man not get away with committing rape on 14-year-old girls under the tutelage of the late Jeffrey Epstein. Let’s also hope that his fanatic base of supporters falls away, leaving him in the lurch.

Today is the penultimate day before Elliot and I leave for the sultry state of Florida on Thursday and we did a mitzvah today by driving to Woodmere to help Elliot’s former neighbors “Mary” and “Joseph” by helping Mary with Joseph who has severely hurt himself with his back around July 6. Mary called us earlier this morning to ask us to come out and help her with doing shopping for her. Originally, I thought we were going to stay with Joseph while she went out and did some grocery shopping. When we arrived around 3, that was not the case: Mary desired us to go out to a neighboring FoodTown to buy items on a shopping list. We saw Joseph sort of haunched over on the couch. He had a towel over his privates since he is unable to get dressed. We also discover that his pain was not attributed to his back, but that he pinched a sciatic nerve. This could definitely be very painful, and Joseph mentioned that he’s on painkillers. Mary also mentioned that if these measures did not work on alleviating the pain altogether, then surgery is a final option. We hoped that this would not be necessary and then we went out and drove to the supermarket.

After leaving Mary and Joseph, we had dinner at Lucky Boy Restaurant where we topped off our delicious meal (I ordered eggplant parmigiana with capellini, while Elliot had a Greek salad with tzatziki and pita bread) with a slice of their yummy coconut cream pie.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, July 14, 2025, Bastile Day. As you must know, Bastile Day commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789, a key event in the French Revolution. It’s France’s national holiday, symbolizing the end of absolute monarchy and the beginning of a new era of liberty and equality. I seriously wonder when will this country have its own Bastile Day after we cleanse ourselves of this wanna-be monarch, Donald J. Dump, out of our collective consciousness?

In the latest effluvia known as an “Extreme” Court decision today, this “Trump” Court, as it really should be called until this asshole leaves office – if he ever leaves office – the court has now allowed this ogre to proceed with his plan to carry out mass layoffs at the Department of Education. Another fucking win for the convicted felon you can say, delivered to him by the Trump Court. An online CNN article by Devan Cole and John Fritze entitled “Supreme Court allows Trump to proceed with mass firings at Education Department” lays out the repercussions of such a terrible ruling made by the Trump Court.

So, in another irrational victory for this fascistic regime, the Court lifted for now a lower court ruling that had indefinitely paused Diaper Don’s plan. The Trump Court’s decision puts that ruling on hold while the legal challenge plays out.

But in a scathing dissent – Go, Sonia, go! – Sonia Sotomayor said her colleagues had made an “indefensible” decision to let Chump proceed with taking apart an agency that ordinarily can be dismantled only by Congress, but in the second era of Dump, this Congress has ceded its entire power over to the Orange Cheeto, so waiting for Congress to do its job is a moot point these days.

“The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave,” Sotomayor wrote in the dissent, which was joined in full by the other two liberal justices.

The Orange Cheeto ordered mass layoffs at the department earlier this year – cutting its workforce in half – but lower courts have blocked that effort.

Of course, the incompetent and loyal Dump acolyte, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who is a former professional wrestling promoter – boy, does she have such sterling education credentials to run this agency – described the court’s decision as a “significant win for students and families.” What world is she in when this can be considered a “significant win” for students and families?

Created during the Carter administration, the Education Department is tasked with distributing federal aid to schools, managing federal aid for college students and ensuring compliance with civil rights laws – including schools accommodate students with disabilities. Most public school policies are a function of state government.

The court’s decision, Sotomayor wrote, “will unleash untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault, and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended.” This horrible decision by this extreme court just plays into this regime’s fucking record of destroying civil rights in this country ever since Dump took office in January 2025. In the meantime, people will suffer from being laid off when they clearly shouldn’t be. Also, I ask those justices who gave Dump another unworthy win, how do they sleep at night, knowing that their ruling will lead to so much suffering among the American public? They probably just don’t care.

One thing I got done today is have our new Subaru Forrester repaired after some idiot sideswiped it last Friday near Metropolitan Avenue where I had it parked for about two hours. I called my garage and had the attendant known as “Leandro” take the car to his brother-in-law’s repair shop. The job was done within one day. I was called close to 4 and told the car was ready. The cost: just $600. When I went to the garage before getting ready to be picked up by our friend “Patricia,” I was directed to see the car by the manager, “Jerry.” I walked down the ramp and saw Leandro who took me to the car. The rear of the car, which sustained the damage, looked totally brand new. I couldn’t see anything there (though it was dark in the garage) that looked remotely out of joint. I was told to let the car stay in the garage until Wednesday, and I said I would do that.

In a stunning coincidence with my little “accident” on Friday, today I witnessed the aftereffects of a fucking accident with two parked cars right outside my building! Can you believe that? One car was bizarrely up on the street and the other’s rear fender was badly dented. How then could this happen if those cars were parked? It sounds like my little mishap last Friday, doesn’t it? I asked a neighbor who was doing gardening outside, and she mentioned – without corroboration – that the cars might have been struck by an Amazon van. So there you go? Driving in this crazy city is truly a dangerous sport.

Now I feel a little apprehensive about parking in the same area since I will drive to my comic bookstore on Wednesday like I normally do. It’s the best area in which to leave a car. There are metered spots outside the store, but they are in a very narrow two-way street. And it’s still too warm to walk there. I’ll just have to give it some thought. I could use an Uber both ways, but that will be an expensive proposition. I’ll let you know what happens by Wednesday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, July 11, 2025. As I’ve already written, this so-called president is suffering from the effects of dementia and today another online article seems to confirm my early suspicions. The Irish Star leads off with an article entitled “Trump sparks dementia worries after confusing old clip of Pete Hegseth as live interview,” by Falyn Stempler, online that depicts how internet users are speculating about Diaper Don’s health after his latest gaffe.

Here the toddler in chief praised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for his appearance on Fox News this morning via his ridiculously named “Truth” Social. However, reports confirm that the drunk was not invited onto the show, though an old clip of him was shown on the morning news show. The forced error led many online to question the president’s health.

“Secretary of War [sic] (Hegseth is not Secretary of War, so this is another telling gaffe from the old man), Pete Hegseth was great on Fox News this morning. Talking about modern weapons and warfare. Thank you to Brett Velicovich, who really knows his ‘stuff.” We are really on our war. MAGA!.” What the fuck does “We are really on our war” here means, answer me that. This is another incoherent piece of gibberish from the man who said the immigrants are eating the dogs and cats in Ohio.

Diaper Don appears to be referring to a clip originally posted on Secretary Hegseth’s X account the day before it was shown on Fox and Friends this morning, where he spoke about his efforts to cut through red tape to speed up U.S. military drone production.

Internet users have speculated for months about the state of the 79-year-old president’s mental and physical health, including concerns he has dementia, a degenerative disease that reportedly runs in the family. His martinet of a father, Fred Dump, definitely suffered from it.

A group I never heard of, Verified Republicans Against Trump, replied, “Trump’s cognitive decline is getting hard to ignore.” One member wrote, “I’m not sure Trump knows the difference between live and prerecorded, if we’re being honest.”

Another similarly added, “This man has access to nuclear codes but can’t tell the difference between a broadcast and a repost.”

What is definitely appalling about this tin-plated dictator is a photoshopped image of Dump in a Superman costume that was released by his fucking White House that has left many Americans up in arms. As you should know, the true hero as depicted in the Superman comics for over 80 years is a symbol of hope and the slogan attributed to him is “truth, justice, and the American way.” Do you think for a nanosecond that this convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, and overall dumb cluck represents the true American way and the path toward truth, justice, and the American way? Fuck no! is my immediate answer. This idiot doesn’t deserve such a honor bestowed on him even though it’s all a facade! Damn his administration for even releasing such a ridiculous image of their Supreme Leader during the week that this film opens. It will be forgotten long before the Superman film is. And, yes, I still haven’t seen the film. When I do, I’ll let you know.

And this is just wonderful: the news that Dump’s base is furious over the growing Jeffrey Epstein scandal in which Attorney General – another blonde bimbo – Pam Bondi, contradicted her own assertions about releasing the Epstein files and now is pulling back from doing anything about it. Dump’s base was desperately hoping for a wide list of clients including prominent names like Bill Clinton and others on it; of course, it is Dump’s name that his Department of Justice and FBI are scrambling to have concealed in this dossier. So now the maggots are accusing Bondi of telling lies (boy, is that rich!) as well as FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino – both of whom are Chump appointees. Another far-right influencer, maniac Laura Loomer is even calling for Bondi to be fired for her handling of the Epstein matter, and has posted on social media today that Bongino is considering resigning in the wake of this matter. Don’t you just love a rift in MAGA World right now?

Today my anger was aroused when I came back from enjoying my usual Wednesday morning (this time I drove to Royal Collectibles at 12) reading my two comic books and having breakfast at Buen Sabor Latino Restaurant and then browsing the shelves of the North Forest Park Library to examine a new dent on my new car’s fender! I couldn’t believe my eyes! The car was parked on the street on a one-way street and there was still damage done to the car in the rear. Thank God I wasn’t in the car.

So now I’m faced with having to repair the car only after having it eight months. I think it’s better to not report it to my insurance company and just pay to have it fixed on my own. For that, I’m considering telling my garage attendant “Louis” – who took our old Nissan Altima back in August after it was sideswiped by a motorist at Green Acres Mall – about this new dent and taking it to his brother-in-law’s shop. As of now, there’s no problem driving it. And the damage doesn’t look as extensive as it was on the sedan. But I’m still angry. So this date, July 11, is a date that will live in infamy in my book.

Have a good weekend.

And so it went!

Here’s the car with the damage caused to it by an anonymous driver who hit it and ran!








And So It Goes

Today is Tuesday, July 8, 2025. Yes, I did say that I was going to be absent from my blog, but Elliot convinced me to cancel plans we had with my cousins “Rivka” and “Dillon” tonight because of an expected weather alert. And I’m glad I did because it did rain here quite furiously for a while after we had dinner locally at a restaurant in Forest Hills. We managed to return home right before the deluge. Also it was quite hot outside for most of the day, and having to wait on a subway platform in this heat was not something either of us looked forward to, which was another reason to delay getting together with Rivka and Dillon. Thus I called Rivka early thing morning to convey our reasons for not getting together and she was very understanding. We were able to reschedule for next Wednesday, July 16.

So since I’m here, I can report on new, breaking news regarding the Trumpfication of this country, and one significant story is the increasingly partisan “Extreme” Court issuing another decision supporting America’s newest dictator. In an online article for The Washington Post, Anne E. Marimow delivers an explanation of the Court’s new ruling regarding the firing of federal workers under the Chump regime. The article is entitled “Supreme Court allows Trump to launch mass layoff and restructuring plans.”

Today this partisan court cleared the way for the Dump administration to launch plans for mass firings and reorganizations at 19 federal agencies and departments while litigation continues.

The highly conservative justices lifted a lower-court order that temporarily blocked plans to lay off thousands of federal workers, including at the State Department and the Social Security Administration (SSA) because the administration did not first consult Congress. This ghastly autocratic regime seems not to consult Congress for anything these days! They do whatever they fucking want without any Congressional oversight and these lawmakers are just permitting the worst abuses being carried out by this dictatorial regime.

In response to other emergency requests from this administration, the Supreme Court consistently has sided with this president’s efforts to upend the federal bureaucracy and they don’t think this is fucking wrong. The court’s horrible conservative majority, featuring two justices who have been compromised by billionaires who have them in their pockets, has permitted the regime to fire independent regulators [who root out corruption] and thousands of probationary workers, while legal challenges play out in the lower courts.

As you would not expect, two liberal justices joined their despicable conservative justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, who think this dismantling of 19 agencies was okay. Sotomayor said she was doing this because the administration had directed agencies to operate “consistent with applicable law,” which I don’t know what the hell this means.

In their brief unsigned order, the majority said that “we express no view on the legality of any” agency plans for restructuring or shrinking of the workforce and left open the possibility that the issue could return to the Supreme Court. Oh, fuck me!

The only dissenting voice on this un-American court was Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who noted her sharp disagreement with her other colleagues, warning of serious harm that could come from allowing the administration to dramatically remake the federal government before determining whether its actions are legal. She is the only voice of reason here in a gaggle of insensible and irrational voices as expressed by the majority on the Court.

She appropriately stated, “For some reason, this Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation” which she wrote in her 15-page dissent. “In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless.”

This new development just indicates how this idiot is allowed to take a “wrecking ball” to all governmental agencies without anyone stopping him! It’s appalling and I wonder how we will be in just two years when – and if – the midterms occur.

I will not repeat what occurred during a marathon Cabinet meeting presided over this buffoon since it truly showed how demented this guy really is. Lawrence O’Donnell provided an overview of it just now on The Last Word and it would be hilarious if this man wasn’t president. Actually, it would be pathetic mostly.

To change direction a little here, who would expect that a film that hasn’t even officially opened has generated negative backlash against its director because he chose to emphasize the principal character as an immigrant. If you haven’t guessed what I’m referring to here, it’s the new Superman movie that opens on Friday, July 11. I intend to see this newest entry in the Superman franchise since I’ve seen every one of them since 1978. As you know, I’m a collector of Superman comics from the get-go.

But this criticism of the film for its immigrant stance is just plain stupid and it shows how a vocal minority has taken over social platforms and, actually, this country for its extreme views on immigration. For those of you who hold on to this view, let me remind you of this fact: Superman IS a fucking immigrant. He wasn’t born here, if you know his origin story. He was born on the planet Krypton and he rocketed to this world as a baby (his parents save him as their planet was facing total destruction) and was adopted by kindly Martha and Jonathan Kent of Smallville, Kansas. So if you want to paint Superman as an immigrant, be aware that he is. But he’s a super-powered one, no doubt about it. So those who criticize this film because of its apparent politics, fuck you and get a life.

Tomorrow I definitely won’t be here since I will be seeing my friend “Jake.”

Have a nice Wednesday.

And so it went!