If She Would Just Smile A Little More

Andrea and I were visiting her father yesterday who was watching CNN.  

Which wasn't too bad since he got a hearing aid, the TV is no longer cranked up to THIS FREAKING LOUD!!!

And it was just some pundits talking about whatever shit was going down on Capitol Hill.  

It seems the House voted to approve a war powers resolution calling on Donald Trump to seek Congressional approval if he wants to keeping playing with his war toys in Iran.  All the Democrats and 4 Republicans voted in favor of the resolution.

I saw a CNN reporter corner House Speaker Mike Johnson who made it clear he did NOT support the resolution even though according to the Constitution, Congress is the one with the power to declare war. Johnson claimed the resolution would make it harder for his lord and savior, der Führer, to negotiate an end to the Iran War.

You know, the war Trump started? Yeah, that war. 

Also the Senate said no to the billion for the ballroom. 

So just some political stuff 'n' junk. I felt informed. I'm a good citizen. 

Then...

CNN cut to the White House.  Li'l Donnie had signed some goddam executive order or something and took the opportunity to chat with the press.

Now Andrea and I are familiar with how Trump deals with the press.  But usually in smaller chunks we see on Seth Meyer's A Closer Look or similar venues. We've seen it all: 

• Rambling
• Incoherence
• Lies
• Anger
• Stupidity
• Disrespect.

But we've never seen this play out unedited in real time.  

It was hard to watch. 

Li'l Donnie carved out a large swathe of time to bitch about CNN and their reporter in the room, Kaitlin Collins. 

Trump called CNN corrupt.

He also said Collins was corrupt.

He also took exception to Collins' appearance. 

“A young beautiful woman, never smiles. I never see a smile off her face. I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes, like she has hatred, because we had borders, because we have a strong military, because we cut our taxes, because we do things that everybody wanted, and then we win our election in a massive landslide.”

Kaitlin Collins would be so much prettier is she smiled a little more? Maybe she might crack a grin if Li'l Donnie keels over from that heart attack the Grim Reaper keeps inexplicably putting off.

It brings a smile to my face when I think about it.   😀

Trump's rant was not over.   

“The fake news, like CNN, like The New York Times, and like others, have abused our people, have abused our people so badly. And you should be ashamed of yourself. You used to be a conservative. She was a conservative from Alabama, can you believe it? But CNN in particular does such false reporting, but now they have new ownership, so maybe it’ll straighten out, but I doubt it.”

The "new ownership" is David Ellison, Li'l Donnie's billionaire buddy who owns Paramount Skydance which made a winning bid for Warner Bros. Discovery which owns CNN. 

Geez! Li'l Donnie, between Fox News, Newsmax and now CBS News (more on that on Monday), do you not have enough news outlets sucking on your tiny dick?

Anyway, Andrea was having a nice birthday until Donald Trump popped up. 

We went home for our favorite activity: we went to bed and had a nap.😴

What can I say? We're old.  

The Andrea Birthday Aftermath

 Yesterday was Andrea's birthday. 

Here is my wonderful wife with a birthday gift, a plushie of Rise, the anti-gravity indicator from the Artemis II moon mission.

When the news of the world gets too dark, too grim or just to damn stupid, just take a look at Rise to remember when humanity at it's best sent 4 people to the moon and back. 

I took Andrea out for lunch to her favorite restaurant.

Yes, it's Olive Garden.

I do love my wife but there is no accounting for taste. 

She did choose to marry me after all.

Actually, I find that Olive Garden is not so bad if you go for lunch on a weekday.  All other times is like dining in a cattle car in a third world train.

Our waitperson Jasmine made sure Andrea got a free birthday dessert, her favorite, cheesecake with strawberries.

After lunch, we visited Andrea's father who had her birthday present which is always in the right color and the right size.

 It was a pleasant enough visit but Andrea's dad watches CNN all day long.   Which was OK.

Until.....

That's our next post.  

Happy Birthday!

 

Today is June 3rd and I want to extend Happy Birthday greetings to....

....NBA star Jalen Rashon Suggs of the Orlando Magic.  Born on this date in 2001 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Jalen played for the Gonzaga Bulldogs before advancing to his pro-basketball career.

....English actor Imogen Gay Poots who was born on this date in 1989 in London.  Since she is an English actor, I of course did check to see if she has done time on Doctor Who. Alas no but she was in the 2011 remake of Fright Night which starred David Tennant.  She was also in the film Christopher and His Kind (also in 2011) which starred Matt Smith. 

...another English actor type person James Purefoy who was born on this date in 1964 in Taunton, Somerset.  Yes, I checked for Doctor Who references but came up empty.  But he was in Sex Education which starred Ncuti Gatwa so there's that.  And James will be in the Masters of the Universe movie coming out this summer.  

...former First Lady Dr. Jill Biden who was born on this day in 1951. She has a memoir coming out this week which is stirring up some PTSD back to 2024 for a lot of Democrats. 

And that is just some of the many great people who were born on June 3rd. But I think that will do it for this blog post today.

'Bye, everbody! Thanks for dropping by.

...

...

...

Wait....what? 

Who now?

Oh, crap!

...

...

...

ANDREA! 

My lovely and supportive wife Andrea!!

The very... patient wife with the wonderful sense of humor...

It's HER birthday today!!! 

No, I did NOT forget her birthday! What would make you say such a thing!! 

If I forgot her birthday, I could not be writing about now, could I?

So happy birthday, Dr. Biden...ANDREA! I meant Andrea!!

Tuesday TV Touchbase Too: Taylor Tomlinson: Prodigal Daughter

Having said good-bye to the fictional stand up comedian Deborah Vance in the series finale of Hacks, I thought I would serve up this bonus Tuesday TV Touchbase Too about a stand up special by a real life stand up comedian, Taylor Tomlinson.

Yes, today is the 2nd day of June and this special came out in February. So I'm late to the party.

Being late to a party is fashionable.  

Anyway, let's get this Touchbase Too going.  

Taylor Tomlinson recorded her Prodigal Daughter special in a church.

A real honest to God church with pews and a pulpit, stained glass windows, crosses, the whole deal.

And it's a real ballsy move as Taylor does NOT curtail her signature style at all, talking about sex and saying "fuck" a lot.

She will explain how going down on a woman is different than giving oral to a man and Jesus is right there. 

The special opens up outside the cathedral style church as the camera enters up the stairs (oh look! LGBTQ+ pride flags... nice touch!), through the narthex and into the sanctuary.  

After collecting herself with some deep breaths, Taylor bursts from back stage into the spotlights and the cheering crowds filling the pews.

All to the strain of a choral arrangement of ABBA's "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (A Man After Midnight)." 

And we're off to the races! 

Taylor does her deep dive into her struggles with depression, her life in a conservative Christian culture and her own queer awakening. 

It's all heavy stuff but Taylor makes it funny.  

Since she's doing this set in a church, religion comes in for some scrutiny.

I do feel for pastors on Christmas and Easter. Those are big weeks at church, right?. Those are recruitment weeks. That’s when everybody comes out of the woodwork. That’s when the decaf Christians swing by. You only see those motherfuckers twice a year and you got to blow their minds so hard with the extras that they upgrade their subscription to weekly.

That’s a lot of pressure.

And as the pastor on Christmas and Easter, you can’t get creative. You can’t get weird with it. No acoustic set. You have to play the hits. You gotta tell the stories, right?

Easter’s a better story than Christmas, in my opinion. If you don’t know, Easter is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s where all our merch is from. You’ve seen it. You’ve seen a dead guy up there, but tasteful. Somehow very tasteful.

Makes you think about your own death, like, ‘Ooh, hope I die in a way that looks good on jewelry, right’?

Think about it. When grandma died, were you like, ‘Slap her on an anklet’?

No. He’s really doing it up there.

The special's title Prodigal Daughter comes from her  take on the parable of the Prodigal Son.

“If you ask a pastor about that story, they’ll tell you it’s about how you can go off and sin and lose your way spiritually, but you can always return to the Lord and he’ll forgive you. 

And if you ask me what that story is about, I will tell you that it is about how Jesus was an only child.”

But the special's title also represents her pushback on the passive-aggressive expression of “I’m praying for you.” 

Having grown up in that culture, I understand where Taylor is coming from, “I’m praying for you" is often a judgement.  

Not "I hope life gets better for you and you are truly happy" but more "I hope you realize what a mess of a sinner you are and you come around to right way of living."  

Taylor is not repudiating faith or religion, just what people do with it.

And to be clear, I’m not an atheist. I just don’t know what happens. Neither do you. Spoiler alert, nobody knows. 

I’ve never related to the certainty so many Christians feel where they’re like, ‘I just know’. You’re like, ‘But how do you know there’s a God’? 

‘I just know’. 

The only time I’ve ever just known something, it was that I had diarrhea. 

That’s the only—the only time I’ve ever been like, ‘Oh Mhm, mhm’. 

And I did start praying.

Towards the end of the special, Taylor takes a more serious turn regarding the abuse and weaponization of  the Christian faith.

“Religion can either be used as a weapon or a tool. And to be clear, if you are using religion as a weapon to control, manipulate, scare people, to make yourself feel superior to everyone else, fuck you. That’s not what it’s for. You are not using that correctly.

Because if God does exist, he does not exist to make you feel better than other people. He exists to make you better for other people… Whatever makes you a better person for other people, that’s what you should be doing.”

Taylor Tomlinson's  Prodigal Daughter delivers a lot of laughs from Taylor's not afraid to say anything persona. And damn it, she also makes you think thoughts and feel feelings. 

Prodigal Daughter is epic in it's scope and sheer audacity and worth a look and a listen.

_________________________________

Geez! How many weeks have I done TWO Tuesday TV Touchbase posts a week? 

And I'm still running behind! 

OK, enough is enough.  Next week, back to ONE Tuesday TV Touchbase a week.  But we've got a lot of TV to touch base on!

• Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage
• Ghosts
• Brilliant Minds
• Two Dan Levy series, Schitt's Creek and Big Mistakes
• Stranger Things (Yes, NEW Stranger Things!) 
• Spider Noir
• Invincible
• Jeopardy and Pop Culture Jeopardy
• Wheel of Fortune

And more to come! 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.   

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Hacks

It's another Tuesday TV Touchbase that's about another series finale.

That series is Hacks.

"Please don't leave me."

This is a line from the final episode of Hacks.

It's been said in this series before and realizing the context of how that heartbreaking line ties together with what has gone before, I felt exactly why I've really enjoyed this journey with this series.  

The HBO Max series stars Jean Smart as Deborah Vance, a long time stand up comedian who has parlayed her popularity into a lot of conspicuous wealth and Hannah Einbeinder as Ava Daniels, a young and very progressive queer comedy writer whose liberal sensibilities clash with those who accumulate conspicuous wealth. 

Over the course of 5 seasons, Deborah and Ava have had a... volatile relationship. 

Deborah has belittled Ava, threatened her, even sued her. 

Deborah was obsessed that Ava's hands were too big. 

Ava in turn blackmailed Deborah to get the head writer gig on Deborah's late night talk show.    

Suffice to say Deborah and Ava have not always been good to one another.

But in the long run, over the course of Hacks 5 seasons, they have been good for one another.

Initially put off by Deborah's ostentatious wealth and her caustic wit, Ava comes to realize what Deborah has sacrificed, what costs she has paid to achieve her success and to lay the foundations for women like Ava to have a chance to succeed in comedy.

And Deborah has come to accept and understand what Ava has to say about the world and the struggles that still persist for women to have a say and make a difference. 

What has come out burnished over 5 seasons is a strong and abiding friendship despite their initial animosity.  

Deborah sacrificed her lifelong dream to host a late night network TV talk show to protect Ava. 

Ava sacrificed her own ambitions to help Deborah fight to restore her legacy as one of America's premiere comedians.

Which brings us to the series penultimate episode: "The Garden".

Network and studio boss Bob Lipka brutally enforced Deborah's non-compete clause when she quit her show and she's been unable to perform in public for over a year. That clause finally expires and Deborah is ready for her triumphal return to the biggest stage in the world, a sold out show at Madison Square Garden.

Except....

That motherfucker Bob Lipka has struck again.

The real reason the MSG show sold out so quickly was Lipka bought  ALL the tickets. 

(Ja Rule pulled a similar stunt on 50 Cent by buying out 200  front row seats at 50 Cent concert.) 

Greeting Deborah Vance on her big night at the Madison Square Garden is a vast empty arena with only Bob Lipka in attendance.  

He is still trying to silence Deborah.

Well, here's a big ol' FUCK YOU to Bob Lipka.  

In true old fashioned "Hey kids! Let's put on a show!", Deborah and her gang set out to stage a free show in Central Park. 

There are obstacles (such as the New York City permit office) BUT...

The show goes on with 30,000 people in attendance. Which is more than the capacity of MSG so take that, Bob Lipka, you asshole! 

Which brings us to the grand finale of Hacks.

And the writers pull the rug out from under us. Hard! 

Deborah confides to Ava that she has cancer.

And she has no intention of going through with any treatment.

Deborah has regained her voice, restored her legacy and does not see life getting any better than this.  She wants to go out on top, alive and happy, not wasted away and miserable from chemo.

Deborah wants to take Ava to Paris for one glorious vacation and then it's off to Zurich to an assisted suicide clinic.

Since it's Deborah Vance, it's the best assisted suicide clinic on the planet.  

Ava is NOT okay with this. 

Ava agrees to go with Deborah and support her but she also doesn't try stopping to change Deborah's mind.

"Please don't leave me."

A few seasons ago, Deborah taught Ava to swim. Helping her to learn how to float in the pool, Deborah starts to back away but Ava says "Please don't leave me."

In another episode, Deborah and Ava are on a hike, get lost and Deborah hurts her ankle.  Ava suggests going off on her own to find help but Deborah pleads with Ava, "Please don't leave me."

In the finale, sitting across from each other as Paris twinkles against the night sky, as Deborah refutes on more entreaty to reconsider going through treatment, Ava with tears in her eyes begs, "Please don't leave me."

Oh my God! If I wasn't emotionally dead inside, I think I would've cried. 

While waiting in Paris for the train to Zurich, cracking jokes about her own demise, Deborah has an epiphany.  

"Maybe I have one more hour in me."

Deborah agrees to pursue treatment while Ava helps her write on more stand up comedy special.  

And that's a wrap.

OK, Hacks, hear me out:  "Please don't leave me."

Sorry, it's a done deal and the series is over.

But what a finish! Damn! 

I know all that I just covered was very emotional and dramatic but Hacks was a genuinely and consistently funny show. 

Deborah teaching Ava how to drive a stick shift while navigating a traffice circle in Paris in a teeny tiny European car? Ava's plaintive cry of "Why are we doing this in a rough draft of a car?" was so funny! 

And the scene at the cafe when Deborah asks Ava to hold up her hand and Deborah rests her palm against Ava's?  Ava's astonished "My God! Your hand is bigger than mine?!?!" and Deborah doubling over laughing and "I can't believe you never noticed!" 

After five seasons of ups and downs, the story of Ava and Deborah is a love story.  Not a romantic one but one of a enduring friendship born between two people who could not be more fundementally different but each having what the other needed to heal what was broken.

One more time: "Please don't leave me."

Well, Hacks has left but I will not forget the experience of watching this very funny and provocative series.

--------------------------------------------------

As we move from the fictional stand up comedy of Deborah Vance, there is a Tuesday TV Touchbase Too about a very funny and provocative (there are those two words again! I need a thesaurus.) stand up special from Taylor Tomlinson. 

That post will go live in about 4 hours.  

The Trump Fuckery Round Up

Again, I must profer apologies for this, the 2nd post of the day on Donald Trump.  The first one was about Li'l Donnie's war. This 2nd one is about everything else.

Or as much as I can stand in one post.

Oh there is SO MUCH fuckery!

Last week I wrote a post called The Winningnest Loser where I dealt with the perplexing dichotomy of Donald Trump's cratering approval ratings (WE fucking HATE him!) vs. his outsized influence (THEY fucking WORSHIP him!) 

Li'l Donnie struck again in Texas.  

Long serving incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn lost his primary to Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton who had received der Führer's coveted endorsement.

I spent more time that I wanted reviewing Cornyn's record and he has been extremely conservative and pro-Trump.

Cornyn has been consistently anti-LGBGT+.anti-abortion, ant-immigrant, basically a poster child for MAGA era politics. 

He aligned with Trump and his agenda. 

Hell, Cornyn voted to acquit Donald Trump in his 2021 impeachment relating to the January 6th Capitol riot.  

What exactly did Cornyn do to warrant Li'l Donnie's lack of support?

Pre-2024, Cornyn did voice concern about Trump being the Republican nominee for President again but like all the other GOP ass kissers, he fell in line once it became clear Li'l Donnie had the nomination in the bag.

As far as I can tell, John Cornyn's big sin against der Führer was not supporting elimination of the Senate's 60 vote filibuster which Trump wants gone to ram through whatever he wants on a simple majority vote. 

When asked about endorsing Paxton over the incumbent Senator, Trump said  Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”

The problem wasn't that John Cornyn was not loyal.

The problem was Cornyn was not loyal enough.  

Meanwhile Ken Paxton represents a race to the bottom of MAGA politics. 

I'm just going to cut 'n' paste this sentence I wrote about John Cornyn:

"Cornyn has been consistently anti-LGBGT+, anti-abortion, ant-immigrant."

And make this edit:

"Paxton has been even MORE anti-LGBGT+, anti-abortion, ant-immigrant."  

As Attorney General, Paxton has been an eager enforcer of virulent anti-abortion laws and anti-trans gender policy as well as such beloved Christian nationalist goals like forcing the 10 Commandments to be displayed in class rooms. 

And as Attorney General, Paxton has also been at the center of a shit ton of corruption and scandal.  Paxton has faced accusations of state securities fraud,  violations of Securities and Exchange Commission rules, state bar professional misconduct.  

And good Christian person Ken had to cop to an extramarital affair.

And he was impeached by Texas State House on about 20 seperate counts of abusing the power of his office as Attorney General.  Paxton avoided losing his gig as AG in a 16 to 14 vote after the Texas State Senate trial.   

Li'l Donnie Trump knows how to pick 'em! 

Democratic candidate for U.S. Senator James Talarico must be feeling pretty good about his chances.   

The conventional wisdom is Talarico had a fight on his hands to defeat John Cornyn in November. The odds of winning look better against the damaged package that is Ken Paxton. 

Click here for James Talarico's Wikepedia page. 

Oh my God! This post is going on longer than I planned. Again, I am SO sorry about this. 

BUT... I have more ground to cover.

Last week's post, The Grift That Keeps On Grifting, I wrote about how Donald Trump sued the IRS with a typically Trumpian unmerited lawsuit but before a judge could throw it out for the garbage it is, Acting Attorney General (and Li'l Donnie's personal lawyer) cut a deal for Trump to drop the lawsuit in exchange for an Anti-Weaponization Fund that would pay money to Trump cronies who had their feeling hurt by the DOJ.

As I wrote last week, "Is any of this legal? What do I know? My knowledge of the law begins and ends with Law & Order reruns. But it certainly doesn't sound legal!"   

Well, someone with legal expertise beyond L&O episodes has some questions.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema issued a restraining order to ensure that no funds are “irreversibly disbursed” before the legal fight over the newly announced fund has a chance to play out.

The judge's ruling is in response to a lawsuit that contends "the fund is an illegal and unconstitutional abuse of taxpayer funds."

My analysis of that? Well, DUH!

Click here for deets on the judge's ruling surrounding that particular bit of grift. 

That's not the only Trump fuckery running up against the rule of law.

When Trump took office again in 2025 after running on a platform of lowering prices on day one, Li'l Donnie looked around and realized the most important question he needed to address:

Who the fuck is running the Kennedy Center?

To all the MAGA idiots who voted for Trump because of the goddam price of eggs, fret not: der Führer is on the case.

• Trump replaced the Kennedy Center advisory board with Trump loyalists.
• And he appointed himself as chairman of that board. 
• The board voted to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy Center.
• Complete with adding his goddam name to the fucking front of the building.

Just look at this fucking attrocity! 

• Artists scheduled to perform at the center could not cancel their performances fast enough.
• Facing plummeting revenues, Trump declared the "Trump Kennedy Center" would be closed for 2 years for renovations.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper issued a ruling that said No, No and Oh HELL No to all that shit! 

Click here for more about that situation.  

Li'l Donnie wrote a long rambling rant on Truth Social that I will sum up: "Judge Cooper is a big ol' meanie who won't let me do what I want!" 

• Hey, did you hear what's going on with Trump's con job about the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool?
• Or the debacle over the Freedom 250 plans for the United States' anniversary celebrations?
• Or the mishandling of the Ebola virus outbreak?  
• Or Trump's---

NO!

NO! NO! NO! 

Enough is enough! 

I am bringing this blog post to an end! I can't take anymore!  

The Hype Machine At War

My apologies. This is the first of two (yep,count 'em ---2!) posts about Donald Trump fuckery.

And their both kind of long. Sorry about that.

The 2nd post is about a wide range of fuckery.

This 1st one is about how Trump fucked up his war.

Last week passed with an interminably shifting narrative about the United States' war with Iran.

• A ceasefire agreement was a comin'. 
• A ceasefire agreement was all but done.
• Iran is gonna make a deal.
• Iran is gonna give us everything we want.

I'm writing this on a Saturday to post on Monday.

Maybe by Monday, some of that may come true.

But I doubt it. 

Even as all those declarations were being made about war's end and we're on the cusp of peace, Iran and the United States were still taking pot shots are one another.

Donald Trump was still making grandiose threats against Iran and boasting of American might.

So far the United States' war with Iran remains intractable. 

Because the truth of the matter is that it isn't the United States' war with Iran.

It's Donald Trump's  war with Iran.

It was HIS idea to start this war.  

OK, after Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu convinved him it was a good idea. Netanyahu has been bitching and whining for YEARS that Iran was close to having a nuclear weapon any minute now. 

Most United States government officials said Netanyahu's warnings lacked credibility.  But in Li'l Donnie, Netanyahu found quite the useful idiot.  Because Netanyahu's desire for war with Iran fit in with in der Führer's own delusional narrative.

• Obama made a BAD deal.
• Iran was cheating.
• Iran is gonna have a nuclear weapon any minute now. 

Let's go down THAT list. 

• The deal was BAD only because Obama made it and Trump was determined to dismantle anything Obama did, whether it was working or not.  
• And it was working. Iran was not cheating and there were multiple resources on the ground confirming Iran's compliance with the deal to not make a nuclear weapon.  These reports were given to Trump who refuted their veracity because of der Führer's deeply held philosophy of "Obama BAD! Iran CHEAT! Hulk SMASH!" 
• Even without the deal, there as been NO verifiable intelligence that Iran was ever gonna have a nuclear weapon any minute now. Without the deal, Iran was certainly ramping up their uranium enrichment program with an eye on developing a weapon. But the immediacy of any such endeavor is in doubt. 

But here we are at war with Iran because der Führer felt like Iran was up to shit. 

Trump was recently asked if he had a plan for Iran. His response: "My plan is simple: Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon." 

So Mr. Big Shot Businessman doesn't understand what a PLAN is. "Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon" is a GOAL, not a PLAN. 

A plan is a process or steps taken to acheive a goal.  

Which brings us to our next point.  

It was HIS premise that all we had to do was show up.

Donald Trump is enamored with being Commander in Chief of a kick ass military force that he can unleash on his say so.

Li'l Donnie has an appointed lackey, the so called Secretary of WAR, who is likewise all hyped up about leading the biggest, most baddass leathal fighting force built for WAR fighting.

 Instead of a cold sober hand at the controls to provide calm, reasoned guidance, the Pentagon has in Pete Hegseth a goddam cheerleader for American to KICK ASS on der Führer's order.

Donald Trump: "I WANT WAR!!" 

Pete Hegseth: "OH HELL YEAH!!"

It's a drunken fraternity bro trying desperately to make his daddy proud.

Hegseth is more interested in running a HYPE machine instead of a WAR machine because it's the HYPE that his daddy wants to hear! 

WE ARE GREAT! 

THE ENEMY SUCKS! 

And it doesn't help that Hegseth's HYPE machine runs on the snakeoil of devine destiny. Peter offers up public prayers for God to guide us as we deliver death and destruction to our enemies.

WE ARE GREAT! 

THE ENEMY SUCKS! 

GOD SAYS SO! 

So Trump and his snivelling syncophant Hegseth are all jacked up on their own super charged war rhetoric that with our massive all powerful expensive military might, we would unleash hell on Iran and the Iranians would fall quivering to their knees begging us to accept their surrender.  

It was HIS belief that the Iranians would not pose a threat.

As a habitual bully, Donald Trump does seem to be genuinely surprised when other people fight back. Working from the baseline of we're bigger, stronger and have more stuff, why would anyone fight back? 

Point of order #1: In 1776, the British army was bigger, stronger and had more stuff. And we said, "Well, fuck it! We think we like the King after all."

Point of order #2:  We did not do that.  

So it's 2026 and the United States is bigger, stronger and has more stuff and Iran is bleeding, broken and on fire.

Iran looks for an option to fight back. What isn't bleeding, broken and on fire? 

Hey guys! Why don't we fuck with the Strait of Hormuz? Yeah the Americans have more stuff but now it will cost more! 

Trump seemed really gobsmacked this was a thing that could happen.  Even among his own syncophants, someone apparently did try to warn der Führer that Iran closing the Strait was an option but he was all "But we're bigger, badder and have more stuff so that won't happen." 

Essentially we're in this mess because Donald Trump bought his own hype.

And just like everything Trump buys, we're overpaying for it. 

__________________________

Sorry gang but we're up again in 4 hours with more Trumpian bullshit.

Or you can time travel to Tuesday for TWO Tuesday TV Touchbase posts with the series finale of Hacks and Taylor Tomlinson does stand up in a church.