Closet Cases

Everybody in DC knows this: There is this closeted gay mafia, largely Republican, that exists in Washington, and everybody knows every single one of them, who's gay.
~ Hunter Biden

The Pentagon issued new “guidance” late last week. There’s going to be mandatory testosterone deficiency screenings for male active-duty and reserve service members over the age of 30. Man, Kegseth sure is extra special concerned that all his G.I. Joe action heroes have the correct chemical and biologic makeup

“The Defense Health Agency (DHA) said the provider will document the presence or absence of each of the symptoms, along with risk factors. 

Symptoms include erectile dysfunction, reduced sexual desire, unexplained loss of muscle mass or gain in fat, depressed mood, low motivation, disturbed sleep, impaired concentration or memory, diminished physical performance or endurance not correlated with injury and loss of spontaneous morning erections.” (source) 

Loss of morning wood is a top Pentagon concern, yes sir! NOW we're talkin' 'bout serious matters!

Secretary of War Crimes is freakishly concerned about service member’s willies isn’t he? Next thing you know he’ll be breaking out tape measures. If your hard-on's under 6” there's a dishonorable discharge waiting for you, soldier!

Then there’s his whole waist-to-height ratio mandate fetish.

The Pentagon is reportedly requiring troops to meet waist-to-height requirements and exhibit “impeccable” grooming standards to attend Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “State of the Force” address later this month.

The Wall Street Journal published a report Tuesday, quoting emails from the Pentagon to Army commanders…(source) 

Dude has some serious kinks that he either needs to work out, inpatient, with a team of qualified professionals (who were NOT appointed or selected by Trump) OR he needs to just give it all up, go wild and become the naughty rent boy he’s clearly always wanted to be.

Another thought – perhaps Petey had a truly empty, unloved, and/or traumatic childhood. He may be horrifically and misguidedly attempting to recreate a childhood he never had. He sees the military as a combination of a Build-A-Bear Workshop, G.I. Joe plastic toy soldiers, the board game Battleship. 

Drydrunk Petey doesn’t give a fuck about the health of women in the military. Considering his weird, sexualized attention to men, being ignored is a good thing, eh? To Kegger’s warped and closeted mind women shouldn’t exist except on barstools, hotel rooms or in brothels where he’s only vaguely aware of them through his bleary vodka martini haze.

Speaking of naughty … or maybe I mean sleazy.

Lauren Handsy Boebert (R-the stupid part of CO) engaged in sexual relationships with three of her Congressional staffers. She broke two workplace generally accepted smart practices THREE times (that we know of).

1. Don’t date your co-workers.
2. Do NOT EVER date someone who works for you!

Okay, we’ve probably all violated that first one. Hell, The Amazing Bob was a co-worker and then I poached him to work in my department. So yeah, I’m guilty as the dickens. I dated a couple other co-workers too. I suppose you could say I learn by making mistakes.

The thing about Handsy Lauren that’s new is that two of her three playmates were women. The three with bad taste in affair partners are former District Director Clarice Navarro Ratzlaff, District Chief of Staff Raven Finegan and former Chief of Staff Jeffrey Small. 

Word is, she paid Clarice, who was fired without being given reason why, $200Gs to keep quiet about their affair. Well now, that didn’t work so well, did it?

I wonder how Raven and Clarice feel about Boebert’s very public history of opposing LBGTQ+ rights and spreading ridiculous lies and Republican scare tactics like “drag events “sexualize” children.” I wonder what they think of Handsy’s hilarious (to me) and hysterical denials. The woman lies like a toddler – mouth smeared with chocolate, crumbs dropping of her chin. She's claiming "no mum, I haven't eaten any of the cake you made for the neighbors!"

"Well, I'm not a lesbian or bisexual, and I have never, ever been in any inappropriate relationship, nor have I ever been sexually involved with any staff," Boebert told Brufke, a former Daily Beast reporter. (source) 

We all know Handsy, like her hero Prez Pedo, has a Godzilla-esque struggles with the truth but that’s par for the course in the closeted GOP.

Spontaneous Combustion, Bad Muppets. etc.

I came across this post on Substack yesterday, The Woman Who Burned From the Inside: What Forensic Science Actually Says About Spontaneous Human Combustion by Isa Grant. Fascinating! It’s the stuff of Twilight Zone, X-Files, and Stranger Things type shows only these stories really happened. These people actually existed.

There’s Mary Reeser of St. Petersburg, Florida. All that was left of her were ashes, a shrunken skull, her backbone, and her left foot, still in its unburnt slipper.

 Soot surrounded the area, but only her chair, a side table, and a portion of the wall had been burned. Plastic objects near her had been softened. A clock sat intact, stopped at 4:20 a.m. (source) 

George Mott of Crown Point, New York. The heat (from his burning body) melted a television in the room and the contents of the closed fridge. Much of the bedding was fine though. There was a box of wooden matches a few feet from the bed – they didn’t ignite. Weird.

Mental Floss has five additional strange spontaneous human combustion tales. 

I have to ask, could these have have been caused by:

• freak encounters with wandering balls of lightning? I mean, they are known to go off leash occasionally.
• an ifrit from the jinn, who got lost on his way to Albuquerque, accidentally ignited these people’s internal organs? Hey, it happens!
• Marvin the Martian, who, in his effort to conquer and destroy the Earth (because it blocks his view of Venus), is eliminating humans in a truly inefficient manner. No one ever said Marv was a bright boy.

Regarding Krazy Kash ...
A brill link was dropped in a comment on my post Which Side Are You On. It’s to a song by Allison Moon called Who is The Animal Fucker, Kash? Here’s a snippet of the lyrics. Go to the site and give a listen! I wish I could hear it. (deaf here, remember?)

34 states still marry children
Stamp the licence call it law
No law degree required by Constitution
For the federal bench at all

But the clerk who briefs the judge
Better finish law school first
Tell me how the people under judgment
Got the standards in reverse

45 states elect prosecutors
46 elect the sheriff
In most states a coroner need not be a doctor
To investigate how you perished

Who set the bar?
Who drew the hiring line?
Who hands out Power?
Who calls a résumé ‘fin

Meanwhile, back in Bad Muppet Land ...

I only mention it but the Streisand Effect will soon become known as/be updated to the Ed Sheeran Effect.

In trying to remain so damn apolitical, neutral, generically pleasing and inoffensive to all he’s dropped a metric fuck-ton of cement blocks on the balance beam. The floodlights are on big and bright and they're showing up every pore, pimple, pit, and ingrown hair. It's not pretty.

Dunno if there’s anyone without an opinion on Israel’s genocide of Palestine at this point. We may not all be up on the history or all the nuances but we can see the body counts, the dead children, the cities reduced to rubble. We can all read the reports of the aid workers and doctors who’ve been targeted and killed by drones. We know Palestinians are being purposely starved.

And Ed the muppet bowed down to his buddy Bob Kraft and the head of his tour management company, Casey Wasserman, both of whom are in the Epstein files. Ed could have easily come out the hero by telling Kraft to stuff it. Sheeran could have taken his show, as is, to a different set of venues. OR he could have gone BIG and exposed Kraft’s arm twisting mobsterism to the media. THAT would have humiliated Kraft and forced the bully’s hand. Make Kraft say in front of the world that he’s in favor of more dead and starving children.

It seems that once people get some multiple millions in their bank accounts, the memory of belonging to a community, to the human race, fades. Peaceful, supportive coexistence is apparently only desired and encouraged if you’ve got proper amounts of dosh, everyone rocks the same shade of pale, and believes in the same sky daddy and fairy tales.

Also, I must reiterate, Sheeran’s mum fucked muppets. Maybe she could get a job with Krazy Kash’s FBI? 

Strays

I have a few stray thoughts and questions on this Friday. 

Okay, now that I’ve finished scribbling, maybe they’re not so scattered and random at all. Waddya know – I had a relatively focused(ish) train of thought. Yea me!
~~~
I’d have thought that someone who looks like he was born behind a medieval pub to hobbit parents and raised exclusively on riddles would be better prepared for twists of fate. I’d have also thought he would have been quicker at coming up with clever solutions and more interested in standing up for his fellow man. Just goes to show ya ... not all hobbits are quick, resilient or courageous. Huh.

Ed Sheeran if he were a muppet and had a tan 
and was better looking and had more of a spine.

Did you know that not all of the NFL team owners who are standing behind Robert Kraft’s mobster-esque strong-arm move (to keep Macklemore’s anti-genocide message away from fans), actually own the stadiums where their teams play. 

Yes, Kraft owns the Patriots and Gillette stadium. David Tepper owns the Carolina Panthers and Bank of America Stadium through Tepper Sports & Entertainment. Arthur Blank owns the Atlanta Falcons however he does NOT own Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It’s owned by the state of Georgia through the Georgia World Congress Center Authority – a state agency. Jeffrey Lurie owns the Philadelphia Eagles. He does NOT own Lincoln Financial Field. That stadium is publicly owned and funded by the City of Philadelphia – by the people of Philadelphia. 

So, Kraft and Tepper own their stadiums and can make whatever Neanderthal-ish edicts they want (not to insult Neanderthals, mind you) but, and please advise me if I’m off base on this, if a stadium is publicly funded, is it not subject to freedom of speech? 

What authority did Arthur Blank and Jeffrey Lurie have to decide that an artist could not perform inside these publicly owned buildings and WHO gave it to them? Did they make this determination after meeting with their city's respective mayors or other authorities?

Did any of the mysterious, unnamed government officials that they may or may not have met with know about or participate in Blank and Lurie’s decisions to threaten Sheeran’s tour because Macklemore made a brief human rights speech? 

 Dunno but it looks to me like Lurie and Blank were misusing publicly owned stadiums – acting as though it was their own damn personal property alone.

Can you say filthy oligarchs? Sure ya can! can you say EAT THE RICH! Sure ya can!

Don’t forget that Robert Kraft is in the Epstein files. I wonder if his wife, Dana, an ophthalmologist who’s 32 years younger, knew from the get go that her husband-to-be was a dissolute, kiddy-diddling, empathy devoid pile of loose warthog stools. I mean, as a doctor, she had a healthy, steady income so she can’t have married someone THAT much older just for his money … could she? Maybe she has a kink for old racist, pedophiles?

By the by, Dana serves on The Kennedy Center Board. Yup, she’s a Trump tool. Maybe that’s her excuse – she’s possibly brain damaged. She supports the obscene re-addition of Prez Pedophile's name to JFK's memorial’s facade. 

Anyway, their connections to Trump and Epstein make them complicit in sex trafficking children, genocide in Gaza, and fascism. Welcome to the corporate takeover of America. You can pick up your Patriots fan gear, Cokes, and sanitized-for-your-protection pop music on your way out the door.  

I only mention it AND maybe it’s just me but, I’m pretty sure Sheeran’s mom fucked a muppet.

The Land of Nod

Do not … lemme just repeat that for everyone, DO NOT schedule your COVID and flu shots for the same day! 

Ten and I felt fine immediately afterward. By Tuesday evening we were beginning to feel a bit fatigued. Wednesday? Forgetaboutit! We slept most of the day yesterday and I slept TWELVE straight hours last night. I feel mostly better this morning (though I haven’t attempted intense ablutions or exercise yet so who knows) but Ten still feels like refried crap. He, however, had a third shot so he’s probably a day behind me in terms of recovery.

This will all be worth it when we don’t catch COVID or the flu from some brainless, Republican, anti-vaxxer moron. YES, they exist here in Massachusetts too. Sadly.

I learned a few things in my brief episodes of wakefulness yesterday.

One – Krazy Kash is down with bestiality. He want sheep and cow fuckers as FBI agents and he’s gonna do everything he can to make that happen. He performed Olympic level linguistic acrobatics, saying “did not want to punish victims of bestiality” by denying them entry to the FBI. 

Ummmmmm, someone who’s raped a sheep, dog, cow or whatever is MOST DEF NOT the victim, you disingenuous little puke!

Even Republican Senator John Kennedy (AKA Foghorn Leghorn) astoundedly asked, “What planet did you parachute in from?”

Two – ALL Ed Sheeran’s opening acts dropped out in solidarity with the rapper Macklemore and the people of Palestine. On top of that, Sheeran’s backing band, Beoga, has also quit. 

OUCH! That’s gotta hurt.

Also you’d think young Ed would’ve seen this coming. Beoga are founding members of Irish Artists for Palestine. But no. He’s sided with Robert fucking Kraft and the rest of the NFL owning oligarchs.

Three – Kegseth seems to actually be on the ropes which is why vacation-happy Mike Johnson called another House recess until the midterm elections. This one will be seven weeks long, running from yesterday, September 16, until November 9. Must be ultra sweet to have a gig with a base pay (for regular Joe house reps) of $174,000 and only work 119 days (projected – so far it’s just 72 days) out of the year. Us normal U.S. type folk? We work somewhere around 230 days if we’re lucky. 

Why did Mini-dick Mikey call the recess? Because GOP Rep. Thomas Massie introduced a privileged resolution (“privileged” means it’s designed to bypass leadership and compel a floor vote) to impeach Secretary of War Crimes Hegseth over the utterly fucked up war in Iran and his other heinous actions.

So, what have I learned after, essentially, sleeping for 24 hours?

• Someone, at some point should honestly check Krazy Kash’s hard drive. That man must have some insane porn in a, probably, not well hidden folder.

• Rich people stick together at the expense of the poor (ESPECIALLY if the poor rock a darker skin tone) but I knew that already. Yes Eddy, I’m talkin about you and your buddy Bob Kraft.

• It’s amazing that Mike Johnson is able to walk given that he had his spine surgically removed. Maybe he never had one to begin with?

I think I’m gonna go back to Snooze Land for another 24. Ya know, just to be safe.

Which Side Are You On?

drawing Asa Michigan, design Josh MacPhee

Iman Shalouf was nearly eight months pregnant. She was sitting inside her family’s tent in the al-Mawasi area when Israeli gunfire struck her, according to paramedics and witnesses. Why are people living in tents in Gaza City? Because the joint’s been reduced to rubble by Bibi’s American backed military.

1,369 Palestinians have been killed and 4,627 wounded since the fragile ceasefire took effect on October 11 of 2025. 

Free Palestine

Have you heard of the singer Ed Sheeran? I haven’t but then I’m old and have been deaf for the last 20 years. My search engine tells me that the type of music he makes is “folk-pop, acoustic, hip hop, R&B, and soft rock.” Sounds like it falls neatly into the category of next year’s supermarket/dentist office hot playlist. Still he’s apparently a big deal who plays stadium shows. I've also read that he keeps an apolitical/neutral stance which ... well, in this timeline means you're helping the bad guys. If you say you're "neutral" you've definitely picked a side and it's not the one Spider-Man, Captain Picard or General Leia Organa would choose.

For an upcoming tour, Sheeran had rapper Macklemore scheduled to open for him. That is, he did until Robert Kraft, Patriots football team and Gillette stadium owner threatened to pull the plug on his New England show AND then have him blackballed from a bunch of other stadiums if Sheeran didn’t drop Macklemore.

Why? Because Macklemore used a portion of his opening set to say “Free Palestine” and slam Israel’s war in Gaza.

The statements accompanied his protest song “Hind’s Hall,” which he wrote about Israeli soldiers’ 2024 killing of Hind Rajab, a 5-year-old girl in the Gaza Strip.

He also played footage of Israeli soldiers contrasted against running Palestinian civilians and rubble, saying, “To my Jewish brothers and sisters: Criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide, in no way is a criticism of you.” 

In his statement on social media, Macklemore said that last week, Kraft called Sheeran with directions to either drop him or face venue cancelations. The call came after the Israeli American Council began a petition demanding that venues and tour organizers pressure Sheeran to oust Macklemore.

“We were scheduled to play Gillette Stadium later this month, which is owned by the Kraft Group. Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium,” Macklemore said. “Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues. (source) 

How absolutely mobster of Kraft but what else can you expect from a Friend of Trump? The man’s been busted for getting hand jobs at Florida massage parlors and soliciting other sex workers in the dangly state; he's in the Epstein files and had NO problem with Kanye West/Ye who’s praised Hitler but Macklemore’s Free Palestine is an issue?

What’s the deal? Why is Kraft and the Israeli American Council cool with Kanye West’s blatant, heinous antisemitism and Hitler fanboying but they’re totally against Macklemore’s pro-humanity, anti-genocide, don’t-murder-innocent-Palstinians statements?

I don’t get it but I expect money's involved in the mix here somewhere. 

Ed Sheeran ixnayed Macklemore. It seems young Ed lacks a spine and, quite possibly,  a functioning set of morals.

Not so randomly, did you know that Jeff Epstein was “trained as a spy” for Israel’s intelligence service. This came out in the latest document file dump.

Beavis (or is it Butt-head – I always get those two confused) Trump Jr.’s new wife’s father was Epstein’s banker. Bettina’s pop also wrote him praising character references so that Epstein could score tax breaks. Bettina's daddy's judgement seems to have been ... flawed, dubious, stupid, and all together fucked up. It appears she's a chip off the old blockhead.

Related, there’s the bit about Butt-head (I checked, it’s definitely Butt-head) and Bettina’s lavish wedding weekend festivities being paid for by Russian oligarch, Umar Kremlev, who’s tight with Prez Pedo’s boss, Putin.

Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association, a scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions. (source) 

Ultra fishy (and we’re talking dead-sardines-left-in-a-Honda-Fit-for-three-days-in-August fishy) that Kremlev helped pay for Trump Jr.’s wedding. The two are said to have only recently met and Kremlev doesn’t speak much English (Butt-head doesn't speak Russian). Is this a connection through Prez Pedo — a payment for info/services already given? OF COURSE IT IS!

Let’s see now, Epstein was potentially/probably working as a spy for Israeli military intelligence and Bettina’s dad was his banker. Butt-head’s father, Prez Pedo, was a Lolita Express frequent flyer. Netanyahu undoubtedly has ALL kinds of juicy blackmail material on Trump and that’s part of what’s keeping this completely insane war/crime against humanity and the planet itself going.

Full Diaper Don became a Russian asset perhaps as early as the 1980s. More likely, he’s just their useful idiot. Pedo’s bought and paid for a thousand times over.

Looks like the old abuser’s stuck solid inside an Israeli/Russian sandwich and we're trapped with him. Lovely. 

Christ almighty, I gotta get out of the house today. If not that, I should at least try to watch a cheery movie like Alien. Ya know, something with a happy ending. Hey, the cat and Ripley survive!

Lust for Life

It’s Monday and I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to face the week. I know, who is?

Got some, possibly, maybe/hopefully just annoying news about one of the endless medical tests I’m subjected to on the regular. Now I need to contact my new PCP and see what he has to say. I’m not yet convinced the young medic is up to the Level 10 jigsaw puzzle of diagnostics that I present – we'll see. It appears that, at the least, I’ll need to have a full colonoscopy done. WHAT FUN!

💩 groan 💩

Meantime, my foot’s improving. This means it’s easier for me to walk (gee duh, no kidding?) and exercise. That leads to an improvement in my crap mood. We can say so long to Miss Forever CrankyPants! YEA! I asked my podiatrist if it’s normal that it’s taking so damn long to heal. Dr. Hartigan, who is, perhaps, even older than me (HOW is that even possible?!) responded, “well, we’re not 22 anymore.” Gee rilly? //sigh//

 I asked if he had any tricks up his sleeve to fix that.

No, he does not. How about some Star Trek dermal regenerators, focused ultrasound devices, and tricorder action, hmmmm? Nope, sorry. Damn.

I firmly believe a banana nut muffin would make me feel ALLLLLL better right now. It would give me back my energy and lust for life. Yeah, me and Iggy Pop!

Cause I've a lust for life
I got a lust for life
Got a lust for life
Oh, a lust for life
Oh, a lust for life
A lust for life 
I got a lust for life
A lotta lust for life 

Distractions and Imaginings

It’s Sunday and this means that I get to watch teevee for a couple hours this afternoon. I am psyched!!!

Jen, Oni, and I have recently discovered the show Ride or Die. It’s an action/adventure/comedy about best friends Debbie (Octavia Spencer!!!) and Judith (Hannah Waddingham). Debbie’s the ultra competent, mega smart, and supportive wife to a dull British MP. Judith is a slick as anything international assassin (the assassin bit is unbeknownst to Debbie at the outset). They’re in a book club together. 

This show is absolute FIRE!

We’re now on the second season of Stranger Things and, after watching the first episode, it’s looking like Winona Ryder’s kid is going to be sucked back into the alternate scary, horror dimension. I REALLY hope that’s not where the show goes. They already did that (and the whole rescue bit) in the first season. Gimme something else. Please?

And we’re watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – the series with Captain Christopher Pike which is set a decade before James T. Kirk takes the helm of the Enterprise. I love seeing Pike vibrantly alive versus how I first saw him – horribly deformed and crippled – in the original series. So far, besides the original series and The Next Generation, this one might be my favorite Trek. Maybe. I suppose it depends on the day.

I enjoyed Discovery a great deal in the beginning but somewhere along the line (fourth season?) Michael Burnham, the main character’s way of expressing herself seemed to be reduced to cocking her head to the side, taking on quizzical expressions, and uttering dialogue more appropriate to a condescending grade school teacher. Weird. I went from abso-loving this previously complex player to finding her annoying and unwatchable.
~~~
Alan Elrod, president & CEO of the Pulaski Institution, writing at Liberal Currents felt that Pedo was giving off serious Jim Jones vibes last Thursday at his poorly attended Dallas rally (*oops*, Republican midterm convention).

… far from a display of power and forward-looking ideas, Trump’s speech came off more like a sermon from Jonestown. And observers noticed. My own overriding thought was:“This speech was like some sort of performance art piece of a live entombing of a mad king and his most loyal followers.” (source)

By building his ostentatious, tacky ballroom and absolutely obscene arch (on top of all his other garish, gold paint covered, suburban shopping mall style “improvements”) Pedo’s basically attempting to leave a mark on the U.S. – desperately trying to ensure that he’s remembered forever as The Great Man that he never was. It’s part and parcel of why he’s always putting his name on everything – from all the commercial buildings he doesn’t own but bear his name to his ongoing attempts to force himself on the Kennedy Center. 

Elrod brings up the concept of retainer sacrifice. No, I’m not talking about those custom-made plastic devices that teens wear over their teeth after their braces come off. No, no, I’m talking about the ancient Egyptian practice where pharaohs would have servants (AKA retainers) killed after the the pharaoh's deaths so they could continue serving them in the afterlife.

Who would Pedo have offed so they’d keep serving him in Hell?

Natalie Harp (obviously – girl would, no hesitation, no questions asked, gleefully jump at the chance), Walt Nauta, Gym Jordan, Ted Cruz, Stephen Nosferatu Miller, and his fellow Epstein Islander, MusKKK to name a few. They can all be buried inside that stupid arch (if it ever gets built and I hope to hell it isn’t) or under the stupid ballroom. 

You know, it’d be perfect if JDouche got buried with Pedo too but I imagine, even from the mausoleum, Trump would find a way to keep that perennially annoying, emotionally dysregulated, socially twisted pariah out. Hells bells, I would.

Don't Panic

Like everyone else, or a fuckton of us at any rate, I’m feeling overwhelmed. I feel like a sheet of pastel paper that’s been drawn on so heavily, taken so many layers of chalk and oil that any new impressions are repelled. It's hard to take in all the new horrors.

The Iran backed Houthis have captured Yemen’s Red Sea coast and asked Pedo not to get involved. Donnie woke up long enough to grunt, “sure, ok, no prob” before nodding off again. Only problem is, his buddies, the Saudis really want him to get involved – like drop a few bombs type involved. Will they need to remind their pants shitting puppet that they didn’t “invest” $2 billion in little Jared’s “private equity firm” for his father-in-law Prez to just sit there in his full diaper, napping.

I didn’t know who the Houthis were until this morning. Sure, I’d heard of them but that’s about it. Now they’re a major player on the board.

Here at home, at the Trump rally in Dallas, Vice Prez JDouche Vance objected to the GOP being described as racist while rolling out the usual, tired, gross immigrant clichés. 

“We were tired of being called ‘racist’ for noticing that our country was becoming dirtier, and poor, and less safe, and less prosperous.”

Christ almighty!

Then Texas’s ridiculously embarrassing senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz came out to push the hilarious old lie that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed want to establish Sharia Law in NYC and the US. Considering Cruz's state is well into launching the christian nationalist version of that, that’s pretty rich.

AND unsurprisingly Russia is still attacking Ukraine. It seems jerky boy Jared and Stevie Witkoff, the real estate investors that Trump sent to negotiate a peace deal (jesus fucking christ!), have failed.  (Show of hands as to who's surprised. C'mon now, don't be shy. What? Anyone? ... No one? Yup. Didn't think so.)

United States envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have been seen as embarrassing and amateurish after their latest attempt to secure a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine, suggesting that European patience with the US administration of Donald Trump is running out.

“Jared Kushner’s incompetence was on full display this weekend,” wrote Slate magazine. “The Witkoff-Kushner circus act is an embarrassment,” said the Daily Telegraph, while the Financial Times titled its story, “Kushner and Witkoff’s blind amateurism.” (source) 

GEE, I’m 💥 SHOCKED 💥 simply stunned, I tell you!

Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine

They’re nothing but fifth rate holiday timeshare salemen and should go back to scamming swampland to retirees.

So … yeah, I’m fucking full up and weary. I wish I was still a coffee drinker. I wish I still drank more than the odd thimbleful of whisky. A full strength Irish coffee would really hit the spot about now.

I believe it’s a good day to ignore the news. Maybe it’ll ignore me too?

Our civilization is doomed to a short life: its component parts are too heterogeneous. I personally am content to see everything in the process of decay. The bigger the bombs, the quicker it will be done. The world is visually too hideous for one to make the attempt to preserve it. Let it go.
~ Paul Bowles, Pages From Cold Point and Other Stories

Okay, that’s a little TOO bleak.

Don't Panic.
~ Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Always wise advice.

Panic causes tunnel vision. Calm acceptance of danger allows us to more easily assess the situation and see the options.
~ Simon Sinek

Hysteria is impossible without an audience. Panicking by yourself is the same as laughing alone in an empty room. You feel really silly. 
~ Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

For fast acting relief, try slowing down. 
~ Lily Tomlin

You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
~ Martin Luther King Jr.