You're Probably Gonna Hate This But.....

My five days in Palm Springs were fabulous. The weather was not as great as it could've been, but it didn't stop me from seeing friends, shopping in truly interesting shops, eating really good food, and seeing the David Hockney exhibit at the Palm Springs Art Museum. I even squeezed in some mah jongg; I even managed to win a few games  for a change. And knowing I dodged a blizzard back on the tundra, I sure laughed a lot on Friday morning when I woke up to snow on the mountains. 

I wrote a haiku to mark the occasion:

Snow on mountain tops

just in case I felt homesick

Not bloody likely.

I definitely coulda stayed longer. Maybe next year.

Lilies
iPhone printed
on paper - Oct. 2009

I had planned to write a bit about the David Hockney exhibit and his use of his iPad and Iphone to create his latest works. A new medium, I suppose, but I had a bit of difficulty equating something drawn on an iphone with something considered great art. But that's my problem, not the artist's. I supposed the same conversations were held about photography and whether or not a machine captured image could be classified as art. The short answer to those two questions is a resounding YES, even don't always grok the reasoning. 

Since the Senior Son is a graphic artist and knows about this stuff, I sent him some pictures and will have an in depth conversation about this. This is one of those moments I wish Ziggy was still around. He was a huge Hockney fan and he would have a lot to say about using iPhones and iPad for creating art. No idea what that would be, but it woulda been a fun debate.

Mahmoud Khalil

What isn't a fun debate is the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian protest leader at Columbia University. In the US legally, has his own valid green card, and is married to a US citizen. At this writing, he has not been charged with a crime, something that might suspend the green card. But that is not the case. New York Magazine did a pretty thorough profile of the situation and every American should be concerned.

If he was American born, would he have been arrested? Would he have been detained by ICE or shipped off to a prison in Louisiana? Of course not! His right to free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution, and to be accurate, he has those protections as a green card holder. Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union called the arrest an affront to his right of free speech. 

The Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil — a green card holder studying in this country legally — is targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his First Amendment rights. 

Although I'm not her biggest fan, kudos Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for posting this on social media: 

If the federal government can disappear a legal US permanent resident without reason or warrant, then they can disappear US citizens too. Anyone - left, right, or center - who has highlighted the importance of constitutional rights + free speech should be sounding the alarm now.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I remember when the Nazis wanted to have a parade in Skokie, Illinois, a very Jewish suburb, and after being denied a permit to assemble, took the case all the way to SCOTUS who then sent it back to the Illinois Supreme Court. There were two parallel cases involved, but the decision in both rested on the right of free speech as guaranteed in the first amendment. Go read about it and you'll see why I was reminded of that case. What's important was that ultimately the Nazis had the right to assemble. No one was arrested. No one was grabbed by the INS. And life went on. 

No way am I implying I agree with Mr. Khalil and anything/everything he stands for. I don't. I think his positions are abhorrent, but he has a right to talk about them. Should Columbia University have taken punitive action...like expelling him? If he broke their rules, sure. But that's their decision, not a police or political action. 

This is yet one more move toward an authoritarian government. Just one of many in recent weeks. But this one just flies in the face of the Constitution. We are a nation of laws guided by the Constitution. To be sure, there have been laws ultimately deemed unconstitutional, but until the Constitution is suspended, our rights as laid out in the Bill of Rights and in Amendment 14 cannot be infringed upon. And Habeas Corpus is not one of them. Except... 

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Do you know what a Writ of Habeas Corpus is? Probably in some amorphous way you do. But this is how the US Marshal Service defines it:

A writ of habeas corpus orders the custodian of an individual in custody to produce the individual before the court to make an inquiry concerning his or her detention, to appear for prosecution (ad prosequendum) or to appear to testify (ad testificandum). State courts may issue such writs to prisoner custodians to produce federal prisoners.

Habeas Corpus literally means, "you have a body," and in practice it challenges the holding of a person. The person must be brought into court by the "holders." and then prove why their detention is legal. The question in the case of Mr. Khalil is whether a crime or an opinion has been committed. If it's an opinion, they have no grounds to hold him. Can his opinion be a crime? That's another story. And therein lies the rub. 

I am sure President Felon's minions can come up with something; they're so creative. There is a slippery slope thickening beneath our feet. IF they keep him without cause, who will they snatch next? ICE threatened his pregnant wife even though she is a citizen. Sound more like Los Desaparecidos, The Disappeared Ones of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Uruguay and Venezuela, no? Use your imagination.

Again, I DO NOT agree with what Mr. Khalil says, or his politics, or his tactics, but I do have to stand up for his right to protest. NOT the right of protesters to harassas or attack or browbeat or beat up people who object to their protest. Chanting is not illegal, but physicality and violence are not; that is arrestable, detainable, and punishable by jail time. 

Once upon a time, I was one of those college protester types. I waved signs, chanted slogans, and vociferously protested a war...the Vietnam one. We were mostly peaceful...we were the peace movement, after all... but we had encampments, handed out flowers, dealt with cops (aka the pigs,) the national guard, were hosed, rounded up, got arrested on occasion, and four were killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State. Still, at no time did our belief in our right to free speech ever waver. It couldn't. We were fighting for that as much as we were fighting for the other stuff. We were, first and foremost,  Americans. We had rights.

I can despise with my entire being what these pro-Palestinians are advocating....the destruction of Israel and death to all Jews... but as sick as it makes me, they have the right to make their views known in the public square. And I have a responsibility to advocate for that right. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week...an oldie but a goodie

 Aaron Sorkin wrote it better than anyone

and Michael Douglas's delivery was masterful

America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say: You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

Change of Scenery; No Change of Reality

Sitting at MSP, looking out a window with a plane that’s gonna take me to California in a little while. This trip to Palm Springs has been long in the works, probably too many years. But I’m finally going and I’m glad to be getting out of here for a few days. 

I suppose I could talk about the Oscars last night, but I don’t really feel like it. I did like Adrian Brody’s speech. I have mixed feelings about the Israeli Palestinian documentary for many reasons. I don’t agree with what’s happening on the West Bank but I’m not Israeli so I don’t really get to have an opinion. Let’s just say that I do understand this is a tinder box and more likely than not to blow up. I think it’s pretty well established that I’m not a fan of the current Israeli government. 

I suppose I could also talk about Ukraine. I have a very close friend who is Ukrainian, and as much as I love her, she has been a longtime supporter of President Felon. I texted with her the other day;  that position has changed.

The disgusting show in the oval office last week makes me wonder about who or what is running our government. Clearly, Putin must be calling some of the shots, because I don’t think either the felon or the vice felon have the smarts to do it. You have to look at the gathering of European heads of state and support of Volodymyr Zelensky  and realize that we have entered a new isolationist phase, which probably doesn’t serve us very well.

And as long as I’m wandering down a path of odd thoughts, I can’t forget that Zelensky is a Jew. All things considered, JD Bedbug  hates Jews. I can only surmise that the fact that he is literally war hero plus he comes from a holocaust family does not sit well with the bedbug.

As President Felon continues to sell out other minorities and marginalized groups, it won’t be too long before he sells us out as well. I don’t believe for one New York minute that this guy has the good and welfare of the United States at heart; what he cares about and what his vice president cares about and what his henchman muskrat cares about is lining their own pockets.

So now, I’m sitting in Palm Springs where it’s a bit chilly, but I really don’t care; it’s not 25F and there’s a pool in front of me. I mean, there may not be and ocean around the corner, but there are palm trees and I can wear shorts. In the scheme of things, sitting around with my cousins is a total win. And trust me when I say I cannot wait to play tourist tomorrow! This all sounds rather decadent, but a four day break is nice. There is only so much Minnesota I can take in winter, especially when they use words like blizzard and accumulation.

But this blog ain’t gonna write itself, much as I’d like to kick back and watch television, there are things to be said.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…the same day President Felon was excoriating and attempting to humiliate the President of Ukraine, Secretary of Defense Hegseth ordered US Cyber Command to cease all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions. Suddenly, Russia is no longer a cyber threat? Really? Why is that and how did it happen? 

Not bloody likely.

Now, President Felon has ordered all military aid to Ukraine to stop.

So here’s the thing: President Felon cozies up to Russia. You can bet China ain’t far behind. Is North Korea next? What about Iran? What do all these places have in common? 

Authoritarian regimes. 

We stand at the edge of a precipice. Every one of We, the People must decide if we will be silent and complicit, or if we will join others to take a stand. I have no idea which way America’s gonna go, but this is our moment not to be 1930s Germans. History will, if we do nothing, judge us far more harshly than our 20th century role models. It may not begin with the Jews this time, but the LBGTQ+ and POC communities are already losing federal jobs because of their sexuality and/or color. Black 4-star general Charles Q. Brown was fired as head of the Joints Chiefs of Staff and replaced with a retired, white 3-star Lt. General Dan Caine. Maybe Latinos will all be swept up next, or south Asians, and then the Jews. Hard to say. Folks, the wheels are already in motion.

“Oh, no!” you say? Oh, yes; you just haven’t noticed it yet. 

The Wifely Person’s Tip o’the Week

Getting outta town is sometimes necessary to change one’s perspective.

Or not.

One can only hope.

The Smallest Coffins Are The Heaviest.

Yossi, Kfir, Margit, Shiri, and Ariel

Take a close look at the people in this photograph. Clearly this is a family. One can surmise that it's a mom, kids, and grandparents. One would be correct. The older folks are Yossi and Margit Silberman. They were murdered on October 7th, 2023 at their kibbutz, Nir Oz. The mom is Shiri Silberman Bibas. The children are Kfir and Ariel Bibas. Their father was fighting off the  terrorists trying to keep them away from his family, but he was captured. The terrorists broke into the family's safe-room and kidnapped Shiri and the children, taking them to Gaza as hostages. 

Everyone in this picture is dead.

Yarden Bibas, the father, was returned to Israel on February 1st, 2025, only to learn his family was still being held. The children came back in small coffins on February 20th, 2025. 

The coffin that was supposed to hold Shiri contained the body of a woman who was matched to a hostage. Hamas cares so little for its own people that they used a corpse as a prop.

Shiri Bibas was finally returned to Israel on February 22nd, 2025. 

Hamas claimed they died as the result of Israeli bombings. Forensic evidence, however, indicates that the children were murdered by bare hands

"We can confirm that baby Kfir Bibas, just 10 months old, and his older brother Ariel, aged four, were both brutally murdered by terrorists while being held hostage in Gaza no later than November 2023. These two innocent children were taken hostage alive, along with their mother, Shiri, from their home on October 7, 2023,”
                                                              IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari

From the New Statesmen:

As the coffins containing these tiny bodies were then paraded through the crowds, Palestinians who had gathered in Khan Younis in Gaza cheered. It bears repeating: they cheered at the sight of caskets with dead children in. The videos, which Israelis have been advised not to watch on television and Israeli state media did not broadcast, show hundreds of people celebrating the fact that two children have been killed alongside their mother. There is whistling. Some even try to break through to the front of the crowds to get a better photo of the coffins. Perhaps most grotesque is that in video clips of the macabre ceremony, children can be heard playing. Some men are clearly seen with babies strapped to their chests. Too young to walk, perhaps, but old enough apparently to attend this parade of the dead. 

Mislabeled coffins

The coffins were then given to the International Red Cross because it looked good to do that, not that ICRC even bothered with Jewish hostages ever, and certainly not this time. They transported the locked coffins, mislabeled, and paired with random keys that did not work, and littered with Hamas propaganda inside.

It wasn't enough to torture and murder this four; they had to desecrate the bodies as well. 

Yet the world remains largely silent about this. Had Israel done the same to Palestinian bodies, the outcry would've reached Jupiter, once again confirming that the only good Jew is a dead Jew. 

I've seen this observation in several formats and while I cannot associate it to a single source, it bears repeating....especially for those who choose to support the notion that they are revolutionaries for a peaceful resolution. They are not. 

People liken Hamas terrorists to animals, but that’s an insult to animals. Animals hunt and kill for survival, while Hamas terrorists just massacred for fun, to feed their hate.They do not protect their young, nor do they protect the den, nest, or burrow, instead, they hide behind their most vulnerable

 

See, the word for animals is חיה (chaya) whose root is the word חי (chai) which a lotta people recognize as meaning LIFE. In other words, animals are a form of life and it is an insult to animals to equate them with Hamas, a death cult. Its rituals and expectations are passed from one generation to the next. 

No, Hamas are not animals; they are monsters.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

ICYF - Zelensky is a Jew.

ICYMI - President Felon blamed Zelensky for the war in Ukraine.

ICYDR - This probably isn't a coincidence. 

SCREECH! SCREECH!

If I felt I could do it without feeling terribly guilty, I would take a few weeks off at this point. I am so tired of doom overload, I feel like my motherly alter-ego, Screech. 

Yeah, my dad bestowed that little moniker upon me when he used me as a character in one of the books he wrote for his grandsons. Dad was magically creative and, using coloring books, box covers, and his own ability to draw, he combined Fraggles, Star Wars, He-Man, Muppets, and newly designed characters into these bizarre adventures for Gobo Fraggle and his friends. Junior Gorg and Dr. Strangepork had prominent roles. Screeech [with 3 e's] is Skeletor's falcon. He was a fun-killer.  Apparently, that was my job: to prevent anyone from having any fun whatsoever. Or so Zayde told my sons. 

This is a page from the actual book. Junior Gorg and Dr. Strangepork are sitting on a deck that looks remarkably like the one at my folks' house, Screech (that's me) swooping in, and some Fraggles are peering out from under the deck. And if that was not enough, my folks read each of the books on tape so the kids could have bedtime stories when we went home to Minnesota. You haven't heard anything until you've heard my mother snorting while not laughing every time my dad yelled, "Screech! Screech!"

And that's what I feel like right now. Only there's no snorting and no laughing. 

ALL THE KING'S MEN happens to be on while I'm writing this. It's all so terribly familiar for all the wrong reasons. 

Jack Burden, the journalist/aide to Governor Stark and narrator of the film, says this as articles of impeachment are being gathered:

The chips were down and Willie knew it. He was fighting for his life. He roared across the state making speech after speech and all of them adding up to the same thing. It's not me they're after, it's you. Willie hollered FOUL. Willie knew if you hollered long enough, hard enough, and loud enough, people begin to believe you. Just in case they didn't, he organized spontaneous demonstrations....In case anyone hollered back, he organized spontaneous slugging. Willie pulled every trick he ever knew - and added a few more...And always the trail led to one place, to Burden's Landing and the Judge.

But here's the thing, that movie is absolutely prescient. Not to mention scary. Scary because this politics of narcissism is not new; in fact it's as old as politics.

Right now, lots of people are filing suits attempting to prevent President Screeech from allowing the shadow president, Elon Musk, to gut the government while bypassing laws, the rules of law, settled law, and, shits and giggles, congress to make it happen. Enough federal judges are putting the brakes on, but will it be enough to save thousands of jobs and projects? Yes, the government needs slimming, but not at the expense of medical research, the environment, and human dignity. 

There's an interesting concept. The Preamble to the Constitution actually recognizes the need for dignity. I'm not going to talk about slavery or indigenous people in this paragraph, just the idea that the writers recognized, in their own, rudimentary way, the need for human dignity. Here's what it says:

The Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The general welfare: if you ask me, that's the phrase that pays. No matter how you feel about bloat, research, education, or food inspections, this Constitution recognizes that a government is about people first. A government is there to insure the people living within its borders are safe. Abraham Lincoln takes it a step further when he delivers the Gettysburg Address, saying:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I don't think he had oligarchs and narcissists in mind when he wrote that. Quite the opposite, frankly; he was stating that the  health and well-being of this nation rests in the hands of its population as a whole. When Elon Muskrat met with India's Prime Minister, the reason for the meeting...populated by the entire Muskrat family including small children (we'll talk about that in a moment)...was unclear. A reporter asked if the president knew why they were meeting, and his response was very problematic. He says, "They met. I assume he wants to do business in India."

 

This was a problem in the first term, but clearly, no one has bothered to look at the Emoluments Clause which applies to all federal employees from the president down. Wanna know what it says, in case you forgot? From the Constitution of the United States of America, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

If you're unsure about that very old-fashioned word emolument, it refers to a payment or stipend given to an individual. Basically, the clause is meant to prevent foreign influence applied to a member of the government which, in turn, might cause favorable treatment of the presenter. In short, it's there to keep government employees from taking bribes in various forms...like government contracts to their own firms, or favorable trading deals with foreign nations that are not available to other manufacturers, thereby giving a government worker an unfair advantage. In short, according to the Constitution you are not supposed to be lining your own pockets from governmental sources. 

I did want to talk for a moment about that meeting with Modi, Mrs. Muskrat and the little Muskrats. Who brings their children to a meeting like this? 

In case you don't know, or haven't read much about eastern hemisphere traditions, this was your basic attempt at dick-waving. Remember the king in The King and I telling Anna he had 67 children?

See all these kids? See how fertile I am? I have 12 kids...twins and triplets, too! I am a great man because I have impregnated many women! 

Really? 

Okay. That's enough. I know some of this is really petty nonsense, but like a snowball rolling down a hill, it accumulates more snow, picks up speed, and runs roughshod over anything in its way. Right now, that's our government. For me, the really scary part is that the men and women we elected to protect and defend the Constitution are not doing that part of their job. Thousands of workers will be entering the jobless market if the White House can carry out their plans. The dominos of food, shelter, and available medical care will fall. Inevitably, people will go hungry. Medication will be unavailable. Families will be unable to afford fuel and people will freeze, especially the older citizens who are on a fixed income. The draconian actions will have repercussions and no one seems to be planning for that. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Whenever I hear either of those two charming 40+ year old children muttering, 

"Screech! Screech!" I ignore them. 

 But I do smile.

The Circus Train Has Left The Station

Let's take a quick look at some of this past week's insane statements made by President Felon. It started during the visit of Bibi Netanyahu, a similarly crazy world leader. The guy is finally making progress getting hostages released, yet he's jumping right up onto the lunatic bandwagon. One would think he would've told President Felon not to announce until the hostages are back. But, y'know, diarrhea of the mouth is a terrible thing to waste. From press conference on February 4th transcript:

Well, I think Jordan and Egypt will. I know they’ve spoken about it with you, and they say they’re not going to accept them. I say they will, but I think other countries will accept also. I think that Gaza maybe is a demolition site right now. If you look at Gaza, it’s all, I mean, it’s hardly a building standing, and the ones that are, are going to collapse. You can’t live in Gaza right now, and I think we need another location. I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy.

You look over the decades — it’s all death in Gaza. This has been happening for years. It’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes, and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed, not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza. And right now, you have in Gaza a very dangerous situation in terms of explosives all over the place, in terms of tunnels that nobody knows who’s in the tunnel. The whole thing is a mess.

And I think that if we can resettle — and I believe we can do it — in areas where the leaders currently say no. I mean, I’ve been saying that with Mexico, having to do with the border and all the things, and you saw what happened: 10,000 soldiers, and they’re going to do a good job. I really believe that. And I believe Canada is going to do a good job also. They said the same thing, and then they did something much different than what you were hearing.

This is a very, very difficult situation, but we’re going to get it solved. I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza. I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They’ve lived like hell. They live like, you’re living in hell. Gaza is not a place for people to be living, and the only reason they want to go back — and I believe this strongly — is because they have no alternative. What’s the alternative? Go where? There’s no other alternative. If they had an alternative, they’d much rather not go back to Gaza, and live in a beautiful alternative that’s safe.

The circus train continues down that track on February 10th as reported by CBS News:

"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings —  level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job. Do something different. 

"Just can't go back. If you go back, it's gonna end up the same way it has for a hundred years. I'm hopeful that this ceasefire could be the beginning of a larger and more enduring peace that will end the bloodshed and killing once and for all. With the same goal in mind, my administration has been moving quickly to restore trust in the alliance and rebuild American strength throughout the region and we've really done that.

As reported by the AP:

Trump also said he isn’t ruling out deploying U.S. troops to support reconstruction of Gaza. He envisions “long-term” U.S. ownership of a redevelopment of the territory.  

PBS reported the following:

Less than a week after he floated his plan for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and turn it in “the Riviera of the Middle East,” Trump, in an interview with FOX News’ Bret Baier that was set to air on Monday, said “No, they wouldn’t” when asked if Palestinians in Gaza would have a right to return to the territory. It comes as he has ramped up pressure on Arab states, especially U.S. allies Jordan and Egypt, to take in Palestinians from Gaza, who claim the territory as part of a future homeland. 

“We’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” Trump said. “In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.”

Needless to say, Hamas has called a halt to the ceases-fire and hostage release. They claim Israel broke the cease-fire, but anyone with half a functioning brain knows they are not going to deal with anyone planning ethnic cleansing in their own territory and a permanent ban on returning to their homeland. 

WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DID ANYONE THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?????? Did anyone NOT see this coming?

And if that was not enough unmitigated joy for one blog, President Felon had to add this invitation to a  bigger war:

Forgive me for being a total pessimist here, but Feckless Tangerine just threw down a gauntlet that put Israel smack dab in the crosshairs of Iran. Is he trying to start a nuclear war with Iran? Telling Hamas he's gonna release the kraken on them if they don't pony up the hostages? Oh, yeah, Hamas will respond real well to that.

As for the Mideast Riviera, anyone been to Atlantic City lately? He doesn't have a good track record with high end anything, much less resorts, casinos, or country clubs. And that line about "No big money spent?" Can you say Mexican border wall, boys and girls?

The really scary part is that no one in Congress seems to be noticing that our duly elected president is completely unhinged. And I hear Putin is waiting for details before passing judgment on this grand plan. I mean he is, after all, involved with a similar situation with Ukraine, right? Birds of a feather.....

For the record, none of this is funny.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Since  Jordan and Egypt's are unwilling...with good reason....

to entertain the idea of resettling Palestinians with them, 

how about we ship 'em all to Greenland and the new 51st state, Canadia? 

Plenty o'room out on the tundra to resettle an entire population. 

May as well make some money on rents and income taxes, eh?

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtains In The Oval Office

One would think it's a pretty safe bet to say President Felon doesn't actually want to be president. Oh, he does like dressing up, making speeches, gyrating spastically on stage while appearing to be jerking off a couple of goats, and playing at attending bigly meetings as president, but he has no interest whatsoever in doing the actual work of being the president. 

Sure, there have been some real dandies in the Oval Office, but to date,  the only "secret" president was Edith Wilson, wife of Woodrow who stroked out while in office. She controlled his calendar, his visitors, the documents he viewed, the news he heard, and most importantly, keeping his diminishing condition secret until after he finished his second term in 1921.But their circumstance is nothing akin to what we are facing now. 

President Felon loves the spotlight. He loves the sound of his own voice especially when it's making grandiose speeches lacking any resemblance to the truth. His speeches are ridiculous at best, and totally indefensible. Since he is lacking the ability to think cogently, in this second term, he has surrounded himself with a confederacy of dunces. 

Unlike Jonathan Swift's proposition, that when a genius appears, a confederacy of dunces will set out to conspire to destroy him, in the case, the dunce recognizes he is inept and incapable of fulfilling the role to which he was elected, so to bolster his madness, he has surrounded himself with uninformed, uneducated, and unkind pols who view this as a rich opportunity to enrich their own pockets. Drunks, sexual predators, and unbelievably unqualified cronies are occupying strategic positions in the administration without a clue as to what these positions do or how to manage a team of that size. Regardless, they are not given their marching orders by President Felon anyway, they're getting them from the real president, the secret one, Elon Muskrat. 

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily
Beast/Getty/Reddit/BestDelegate/X/Instagram

He is dismantling whole sections of government with nothing in its place. Today he announced he's ready to get rid of the education department. He's suing a bunch of corporations because they're not buying ad space on his media conglomerate. He demanded and has gotten access to the Department of the Treasury's payment system. This is basically the government's checkbook and the team he has assembled, The DOGE Disruptors, to work on this are college kids, some graduated, all under 26 years old, with no government experience or, for that matter, ANY experience. Take a look for yourself. 

WIRED Magazine identified the undergrads as Akash Bobba, 21, a student at the University of California, Berkeley; Edward Coristine, 19, a student at Northeastern University in Boston; and Ethan Shaotran, 22, a senior at Harvard. The graduates are: Luke Farritor, 23, who attended the University of Nebraska without graduating; Gautier Cole Killian, a 24-year-old who attended McGill University; and Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old who attended Berkeley

I wanna know if their parents have even given them control of their checkbooks, 

Let me make this perfectly clear: ELON MUSK IS NOT AN ELECTED OFFICIAL OF THE UNITED STATES.  I'll repeat that in case you missed it the first time:

ELON MUSK IS NOT AN ELECTED OFFICIAL OF THE UNITED STATES

We have not so much as voted for this guy for dog catcher. He is not elected to any office at any level of either the state or federal, yet he is running the presidency right now. 

Go google "Statements by Elon Musk" and read how they are usually framed.....Musk gives the order and President Felon writes the executive order. Face it, President Felon is not cogent enough, just based on his speeches and off-prompter remarks...to think this shit up. 

Musk, with the backing of the bro-tocracy, is pulling the strings. And none of these guys are thinking ahead with anything other than their own wallets. They are not considering the dominos that will fall as a result of the slash-n-burn governance.  Here are a few examples looking down the road:

1. All those people being furloughed or outright fired? Will they all get the packages promised, or will that blow up the national debt? Will they get unemployment as well, or when the package abruptly ends? These now unemployed government workers will certainly impact the jobless numbers. 
   
2. Where are all these newly unemployed people gonna get health care? President Felon never had a plan...only an idea that he was gonna tell us about next week....or the week after that....or maybe next month.
3. If there is no negotiation on drug prices, how are people gonna afford their most common meds...or is the bro-tocracy investing in funeral homes for long term financial security?
4. Fire all the inspectors and how are food safety alerts gonna be issued if there are no inspectors or offices to handle those issues?
5. They  initially told the air traffic controllers to take the buyouts, but it seems they figure out we can't afford to lose anyone more air traffic controls. That was a plus.
6. Elon convinced the executive branch to kill USAID, and with it, millions of people who depend on US foreign aid to survive, opening the door to Russia, Iran, China, and others to fill that void and gain access to places they never had. 
7. Clinical cancer trials and the NIH?  We don' need no stinkin' clinical trials. Besides, only rich people who can pay for trials should get them. The side benefit is if lots of people die, they don't get social security, right?
8. And let's not forget the announced dismantling of the Department of Education. We, the People will become our very own third world country.

Look, I'm not suggesting there is no room for slimming down some departments or morphing them into something more useful for the 21st century. But these guys offer no remedies, no plans, no substitutions. 

Did anyone else notice there are almost no women in Muskrat's minions?

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly: We the People elected these clowns and have gotten the government we deserve. Maybe this is a grand WAKEUP in call propitiously times. Maybe our fragile democracy has to rupture before it can repair itself. 

Right now, my focus is on the midterms...assuming we have them. If we don't, that's a whole 'nother bag o'hammers.

ADDENDDUM: 

I would urge all my readers to read today's Heather Cox Richardson's LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN . Her analysis of what is happening to the Constitution is spot on. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning. 

Draw yer own conclusion. 

Anyone Remember Marshall McLuhan? I do.

In 1972, when Peter C. Newman left his job as editor-in-chief at The Toronto Star for the same position at Maclean's, he had several lunch conversations with Marshall McLuhan, and had the foresight to record them. 

Rummaging through his files, Newman recently discovered the lost tape of one of their luncheon conversations. "McLuhan was then in his 60s and had written most of his seminal studies of communication and the media, including The Medium is the Massage and The Gutenberg Galaxy,” Newman recalls. “This really was a conversation over lunch rather than a formal interview."

During that conversation, McLuhan makes a statement that, when I read it, just about knocked me over. 

The successor to politics will be propaganda, not in the sense of a message or ideology, but the impact of the whole technology of the times. So politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favour of his image, because the image will be so much more powerful than he could ever be.

Remember, Marshall McLuhan is the guy who gave us the phrase the medium is the message, then twisted that phrase for the title of his book,The Medium is the Massage implying that we are soothed and relaxed by that which we see while at the same time it expands our horizons, possibly overwhelming us in the process. This, he warned, was  not without danger: the media is easily manipulated, what we call spun. Would McLuhan be surprised by the newest extremes? Probably not.

We have become less discerning in our ability to separate truth from fiction. The fact-checking craze is testament to that. We need just about everything that comes out a political mouth to be vetted. I think this is a direct outgrowth of the massage, not the message. 

But back to what McLuhan said: The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favour of his image, because the image will be so much more powerful than he could ever be.

We are seeing that play out in real time. Whether its President Felon's awkward dance moves or this insistence that the US will annex Greenland, or that he will take back the Panama Canal, the images we see flashing on the screen are attempts to get the audience to suspend their disbelief so that while what is said may be patently untrue, the audience accepts the premise presented. 

During the past week, We, the People, have witnessed rapid fire, massive changes to our government: mass firings of inspector generals, pledges of mass deportations, massive repeals to parts of the social safety net putting millions of low income and middle class citizens at risk, and so on. The Constitution has been challenged in ways never before seen, as in the matter of birthright citizenship. 

The Oval Office likes to talk about how other countries send us their violent criminals while releasing hundreds of violent seditionists back into the general population. He went even further requesting the  DoJ drop all investigations into the actions on January 6th, 2021. Former federal prosecutor Alexis Loeb offered the observation that 

These pardons suggest that if you commit acts of violence, as long as you do so on behalf of a politically powerful person you may be able to escape consequences, They undermine — and are a blow to — the sacrifice of all the officers who put themselves in the face of harm to protect democracy on Jan. 6.

That's a direct contradiction to the promises he made to be law enforcement's best friend, and that violent offenders would not be pardoned. 

Jake Angeli-Chansley, the Q-Anon Shaman, upon his release from jail, announced on X just how he was going to celebrate:

I JUST GOT THE NEWS FROM MY LAWYER... I GOT A PARDON BABY! THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!! NOW I AM GONNA BUY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!  J6ers are getting released & JUSTICE HAS COME... EVERYTHING done in the dark WILL come to light! 

[Well, if that doesn't warm the cockles of your heart, I don't know what will.]

It is becoming increasingly clear from the optics this guy presents that he is in no way interested in governing FOR the people.The only thing he wants is the spotlight. He is playing at being president, but not actually doing it. That job he's leaving to the surrounding sycophants. And those sharks are already eating each other as demonstrated by the rapid departure of Vivek Ramasmarmy. Despite claims he's gonna run for Governor of Ohio, the general consensus is that Elon Musty forced him out.

And no autopsy would be complete without mention of Elon. Some people wrote in accusing me of "fake news," but I'm not sure how that picture of Musty was fake news. Nor was I alone in my revulsion...one country even tried to ban him from entering ever again.  As I told one of my faithful correspondents: It's all about the optics.

In a message posted on a variety of platforms today, his longtime buddy, Philip S. Low,  wrote rather interestingly about his ex-friend. I have copied the post from LinkedIn and it's worth reading:

I have known Elon Musk at a deep level for 14 years, well before he was a household name. We used to text frequently. He would come to my birthday party and invite me to his parties. He would tell me everything about his women problems. As sons of highly accomplished men who married venuses, were violent and lost their fortunes, and who were bullied in high school, we had a number of things in common most people cannot relate to. We would hang out together late in Los Angeles. He would visit my San Diego lab. He invested in my company.

Elon is not a Nazi, per se.

He is something much better, or much worse, depending on how you look at it.

Nazis believed that an entire race was above everyone else.

Elon believes he is above everyone else. He used to think he worked on the most important problems. When I met him, he did not presume to be a technical person — he would be the first to say that he lacked the expertise to understand certain data. That happened later. Now, he believes he has all the solutions.

All his talk about getting to Mars to “maintain the light of consciousness” or about “free speech absolutism” is actually BS Elon knowingly feeds people to manipulate them. Everything Elon does is about acquiring and consolidating power. That is why he likes far right parties, because they are easier to control. That is also why he gave himself $56 Billion which could have gone to the people actually doing the work and innovations he is taking credit for at Tesla. His lust for power is also why he did xAI and Neuralink, to attempt to compete with OpenAI and NeuroVigil, respectively, despite being affiliated with them. Unlike Tesla and Twitter, he was unable to conquer those companies and tried to create rivals. I fired him with cause in December 2021 when he tried to undermine NV.

Elon did two Nazi salutes.

He did them for five main reasons:

1. He was concerned that the “Nazi wing” of the MAGA movement, under the influence of Steve Bannon, would drive him away from Trump, somewhere in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, rather than in the West Wing which is where he wants to be. He was already feeling raw over the fact that Trump did not follow his recommendation for Treasury Secretary and that the Senate also did not pick his first choice;

2. He was upset that he had had to go to Israel and Auschwitz to make up for agreeing with a Nazi sympathizer online and wanted to reclaim his “power” just like when he told advertisers to “go fuck yourself”. This has nothing to do with Asperger’s;

3. There are some Jews he actually hates: Sam Altman is amongst them;

4. He enjoys a good thrill and knew exactly what he was doing;

5. His narcissistic self was hoping the audience would reflect his abject gesture back to him, thereby showing complete control and dominion over it, and increasing his leverage over Trump. That did not happen.

Bottom line: Elon is not a Nazi but he did give two Nazi Salutes, which is completely unacceptable.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

Four more hostages have been released. The women, given military uniforms for the "event," were unbowed. From The TImes of Israel

The four hostages released Saturday have told their families and friends that they determinedly showed Hamas, during the staged event the terror group had arranged for their handover, that they would not be humiliated, according to reports of their initial conversations.

The four young women — abducted IDF surveillance soldiers Karina Ariev, 20, Daniella Gilboa, 20, Naama Levy, 20, and Liri Albag, 19 — walked to the stage set up in a square in Gaza City calmly and confidently, and smiled and waved to the crowds of Hamas gunmen and Gazans.

Despite promises they would be released, no Bibases were on the list. This has given rise to greater speculation that 1) Shiri, the mom,  Ariel, and Kfir are dead; 2) Hamas is not in possession of their bodies; 3) the fate of their dad, Yarden, at this writing, remains unknown.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Today is January 27th, 

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

It didn't begin with the camps,

it began by separating the population into

desirable and undesirable groups.

Sound familiar?

It should.

May the memories of all who perished 

forever be for blessings.