Good thing there's always an altar call...

 It's like being dragged up that first incline on the world's biggest roller coaster. Clickety clack clickety clack... the building excitement... the anticipation... Oh wait... that was the first time. Now it's the second time and he's had time to get his circus trained. He is truly now the ringmaster. Last time he was barking out his ineptness high and low to a mixed bag of idiots and sycophants. Now it's just the sycophants and billionaires whose ears he's filled with favoritism. The idiots still love him too.

The TrumPOTUS is playing Santa to the super yacht biz jet class while promising the rest of us a lump of coal. Y'know to heat our homes with. Promise delivered! For the nouveau ruling class it's, "Let's see what we have in the bag... an ambassadorship to Italy for you... deputy Secretary of Defense for you... ambassadorship to Switzerland for you... Attorney General for you... and the grift-n-graft will continue. Donald Trump likes to talk about the swamp all the while openning all channels to his personal wealth. This cocksucker loves the swamp!

Okay America, you may think you were protecting the realm from the evils of liberality in favor of being ruled by an "imperfect vessel." BAAAAAAA!!! Wrong, but thanks for playing. You like the guy because (fill in the blank) and because he's not a blackish woman with something the people of the still greatest nation used to respect--character. 

But no, we'd rather rally around a perfect asshole and call him imperfect (as in felon) like he could absolve us of all our sin and set us on a path to prosperity and righteousness. He will single-handedly smite our enemies (immigrants and everyone that didn't vote for him) crown himself emperor pro-tem and all the while creating a bitcoin superpower. Such a deal. All we had to do was check our good sense and morals at the voting pole door. 

Who needs Jesus when you have Trump? Who indeed.

Extinction event...

It seems Neanderthals were a hairy bunch. They died out a long time ago. So they said. Now there's DNA evidence that the once thought extinct bunch of hirsute bipeds are still with us. Seems some things never die while others like the Dodo and moderate Republicans just can't catch a break.

In science classes we find out that there have been several extinction events that have steered our existence. It's impossible to understand or even consider the ways we have evolved as a civilization without them. Nature isn't cruel. It just doesn't give a damn. 

We're no better. History is rife with examples of unintended consequences of something that up until it exploded or melted down or took out a town or something good at first--turned sour. We forget that it took an entire factory full of women to burn to death before basic safety protocols were invented. It took a school full of kids getting blown to smithereens before they added the funky odor to natural gas so you can smell a leak. Shall I go on?

Suffice to say that we are a thick-headed species. We'd rather be led down the path with promises of rainbows, clean coal and a life without liberals or murderous immigrants rather than take responsibility and triangulate the truth. Ernest Hemingway said for a writer and especially a reporter that they needed to keep their bullshit meter turned up in order to find the truth. Trump blows the fuse on those every time.

Trump has taken over by the not-wrong-headed notion that people don't really give a damn till their grocery cart eats half their paycheck. Then they'll blame immigrants, transsexuals and their dead mamas for the spike in the price of eggs. Even when it's verifiable bullshit, they still believe. Confirmation bias is real. This is exactly why I left "the church" and now the GOP. Bullshit by any other name is still a path to Hades.

The Grand Old Party is finished. There is only the Donald. Why? My guess is that it's every American's dream to be the bull in the Temu warehouse. To break shit, leave the mess for someone else to clean up and nab a few bargains on the way out the door. The scary part is that it's our democracy and not a Hong Kong knockoff shop gone viral. 

Now Americans have another choice to make. Stand and fight or bend the knee. If the Democrats want to be the candle in the dark then they'd damn well better get on with it. Spark it up for chrissake! We need to build a new liberal-conservative Democratic party. An enlightened Left of center movement with education, civil exchange and shared responsibility as their cornerstones. One that seeks substantive compromise rather than innuendo, subterfuge and fearmongering. One that wants to win for people instead of a twisted ideal. One that truly is of, by and for the people. All the people. The ones that were here first as well as all of those that came after. What a wonderful country it could be. 

Meanwhile Elvis has left the building.

The Undead and Other Nuisances...

So now the orange haired wonder is starting to babble openly and not just at his rallies. Hmm, better have him tested. I'm thinking when it's all said and punned, he'll be dead by his own hand. He will have dangled himself off his golden crapper. He will be watching Kamala's first State of the Union address buoyed by the roiling success of her first one hundred days. 

His brand now diminished the only outlets open for his blather are the tabloids. After the election, he retired as promised to his villa in Venezuela where he suffers rolling blackouts. He had his golden throne moved from Trump Tower just before the NY taxing authority seized the building along with a good portion of his remaining assets. They were not as large as he claimed. The new owners scooped up the property at the ensuing tax sale. It is now the world headquarters for a chain of dollar stores.

The Venezuelan police said he was on his golden toilet and the silk rope he had around his neck from the night before got picked up by his state-of-the-art autonomous vac system. The bot was passing by the bathroom and snagged the rope yanking him off his thrown in mid grunt. When the security team arrived they reported hearing a rhythmic thumping and squealing sounding like the Supreme Bloviator defiling another hamster. The local pet stores are sold out.

The vac was thumping against the door to the bathroom tethered to the lifeless form on the other side of the door. The Donald will be found blue lipped and bug-eyed lying face down in his own pee. His come-over lolling back in forth still attached behind one ear with a piece of tape. Before the darkness reclaims him, he scrawls upon the Italian marble floor, I wo...

Ivanka will identify the corpse by the Lil' Devil tattoo on his ass. Jared's cock cage will become infected having lost the key in 2019. Uday and Qusay will lock themselves in the powder room of dollar store tower's penthouse and attempt to snort their way through a pound of coke in one sitting. The coke will be laced with fentanyl yet they still do not die! They will however shit their pants and fall back in it.

We're running out of rope, sir...

I told someone, hell I told everyone that all we had to do was give Trump all the rope he wants because as sure as the sun is a ball of fusion he will eventually figure a way to hang himself. Little did I know that we would have to prevail upon rope making companies worldwide to meet the demand. Which illustrates my point, the rope is but a metaphor for just how far people will double down on the delusions of a madman.

Niccolo Machiavelli said that liars will always exist as long as people are willing to be lied to. Nuff said. If we all had bullshit meters turned up to eleven and had license to deliver one precise blow to the side of the head of any and all who deserve one, the world would be a sore place indeed. Open hand of course. We don't want damage. Rather a good jostle of the cogs, cams and gears of the mind. The brain is but a muscle and prone to atrophy as well.

Proof of this is at every Trump rally and I'm not picking on the boss but rather his minions. Hitler would have been nothing without Himmler, Goebbels and Goering. They were his co-conspirators along with many more unsavory characters. There were no small actors in his troupe of banal evil. No one survived Nazism unscathed. It was the rank and file German, the downtrodden suddenly transformed with purpose and a clear enemy toward which to hurl themselves. Jews were easy targets. The rest of the world didn't stand a chance.

All empires exist to invade, impose and extract by any means necessary for the glory of a king, queen or nation and sometimes all three. They invade and sublimate the inhabitants in order to extract any and all wealth to fill their coffers. Empires are expensive to run even with absconded goods and slave labor.

Ideas both good and bad take time to settle and take hold. The ground has to be fertile and the root stock ready. And we have to know that the bad ones are working just as hard to thrive. So it's up to each of us to caucus with the angels of our better nature and seek the right choice. Our way of life is at stake.

It's Kamala, bitch!

I'm pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir when I say, "Asshats! Every one of them!" Now apply that liberally on any itchy spot you have. Chances are it will offer no relief nor do I claim it will. But it is something to do till the January after the election when we can finally say good riddance to _ _ _ _ _ (insert favorite bowel obstruction here) and say hello to tomorrow. 

Now either you fall one way or t'other but all can freely apply the aforementioned tincture to their aperitif. If you're a Trump minion then you have my condolences. Naaaaaah, fuck you people! You idiots would sell us out to Putin and every tyrant on the planet just because your boy works for gawd and, he is stroooooong. He took a bullet in the ear then told Jesus he had to go 'cause Prezeedint Trump done stole my heart. 

Joe Biden is no perfect man nor president. None of them were. I don't believe we'll ever see one and I pray we do not. The real deal will gain a following that will make a Trump rally look like a sideshow at a county fair in a shit-hole country. Along with cotton candy and the smell of ripe livestock, the real deal politician will know how to drop a deuce, polish it and make you think it's gold. Trump only got half of us with his bullshit. The rest of us called him on it and continue to do so. His minions still thinks he's "the shit." I couldn't agree more. He is THE shit. All other shit just doesn't compare.

The real deal he/she will not stop until the world burns. Here's the rub, I can't blame the leader. I think leaders can be like children from uber rich families. No one has ever told them no and survived. So they surround themselves with sycophants because that's their people. Bow down and all will be fine. Rise up and you're fired! He admits as much by his fawning over Musk's talent for dealing with trade unions.

Make no mistake Trump followers are in a cult. It's hard to get through to folks that have fallen into a cult. Because the rest of us are just wrong, right? Just ask a member of Jehovah's Witness. We can try prayer or interventions but no one gets out of a cult unscathed. It will take a long long time for America to get over Trump. But we have to. He's poison on a stick. He's a taffy monster. You pop him into your mouth and he tastes great. You start to chew and then the taffy monster eats you!

Nowadays we are all giving the short shaft to each other. We'd rather demonize and insult each other than try to understand. Understanding takes time and effort. I find both ends of the political spectrum devoid of will in this regard. Adherents to either side would rather warn each other about the guns they keep loaded and at the ready. In every room in the house! You know, just in case some murdering drug muddled gender fluid illegal from Guadalupe wants to read something funny to our kids!

Immigrants schmimmigrants

The borderlands are fraught. Should we adopt the xenophobic route and continue putting up walls or just let 'em all in? Tell me, what's your answer for people trying to survive? Is it, go back to where you came from and fix your own damn country? Or is it, you poor souls let me get you some soup and citizenship papers?

In my time so far on this earth, I've born witness to the silly bullshit for brains attitude we aim at immigrants. I know the refrain, I don't have a problem with those that come here LEGALLY. Okay lets start with legal. Columbus was an illegal immigrant. Ask a native American how they celebrate Columbus Day. You'll get an ear full. At least a puzzled eye roll. In hindsight the natives should have slaughtered us on the beaches and scuttled the ships. Might have delayed the invention of the iPhone.

In the digital age I think it's safe to assume that none of us has any patience with any current solution offered up as a fix. As far as murder, rape and general mayhem committed by illegal aliens, get a grip people! Most folks are killed by people they know so you really should be a whole lot more anxious around your friends than any schmo that enters the U.S. without paperwork. 

 My question is this, where's the kindness? How do we as a country, the greatest the world has seen (so far) with the full set of tools at its disposal--end the crisis along our southern border? How about opening up an Ellis Island in the sand? How about knocking down those fucking walls (which all migratory animals will applaud) and create a chain of Ellis Islands along the border. Create funnels instead of walls to freedom. Make tax payers out of 'em in the process. Sure, they can't vote but who cares? They work for cheap till they make citizen. Then it's like joining a union. You get to pay dues (taxes) the rest of your life and you could get a piece of the good life.

But seriously isn't that the promise of America? Work hard, press every opportunity, be bold and damn the torpedoes? Tell me what's more American; some homegrown Jethro bitching about the plummeting price of peanuts on the world market or some hungry person from God-knows-where believing in that promise and willing to risk everything just to get here? It sure as hell ain't for free stuff and soft targets.

Let's open up a real conversation and hear from all parties involved and I'm not limiting it to the two we're stuck with. There's a real and substantive way to handle the question of immigration if we but have the will to find it and the courage to execute it. First, we need to appoint only native Americans to the task. Some will see the irony while others will tremble. That's America. Long may she flounder so beautifully.

I know there's something I'm forgetting. Probably something about infants and bath water.