Kimberly Guilfoyle: The LEGend Continues To Fall

 

A blog post I wrote back in July 2018, Kimberly Guilfoyle: Fall of a LEGend has had an inexplicably long life, frequently appearing among my Top 10 most viewed posts over the last EIGHT (?!?!) years.  

As of today, it's sitting at #1.

No doubt fueled by Kimberly Guilfoyle's notoriety surrounding the recently exposed alLEGed scandal and her subsequent resignation as the United States' Ambassador to Greece, no doubt tarnishing her LEGacy.

Well, never let it be said that I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You Inc. doesn't know which side of the digital toast is getting buttered so here we are with....

Kimberly Guilfoyle: The LEGend Continues To Fall

Here's a LEG up on what's going on with  Kimberly Guilfoyle.

In the run up to her being confirmed to be as Ambassador to Greece, Guilfoyle alLEGedly solicited bribes from a Trump donor named Eric Deters to pay off her $100,000 American Express bill.

Well, I says alLEGedly but the screen captures of her texts with Deters seem to be LEGitimate and pretty straight up about what she was trying to do.

In returns for such largesse, Guilfoyle promoted herself to Eric Deters as a LEGitimate point of access to all sorts of levers of power within Trump world.   

Now Donald Trump will put up with a lot but ilLEGally seeking personal profit from a position of government power and influence? Only Trump is allowed to do that.

So with a word from der Führer,   Kimberly Guilfoyle has resigned as Ambassador to Greece, a sad denouement to the LEGacy she began building during her LEGendary run on Fox News.  

Her LEGal team is trying to preserve her LEGacy by claiming Deters owed her money and she was trying to collect it but I'm not sure she has a LEG to stand on.

Eric Deters has his own thoughts about that which he expressed in an interview on CNN.  “Well, I’m going to be suing those lawyers, that law firm, and Kimberly Guilfoyle here in Kentucky. It’s gonna be fun.  I do not owe any money to Ambassador Guilfoyle, and that’s why I’m going to sue ’em for defamation.”

Is this the end of the LEGend of Kimberly Guilfoyle? Or is determined to prove herself too LEGit to quit and persevere and redeem her LEGacy?

If there are any developments in the ongoing tale of Kimberly Guilfoyle's LEGend, I will be sure to give you a LEG up on what will be I'm sure her LEGitimate efforts to save her LEGacy.

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For all you perverts that come her for the Kimberly Guilfoyle posts, thanks for propping up my blog numbers but c'mon, this blog has so much else to give.  

Tomorrow: comic books! 

The day after that, Your Friday Video Link merges SPORTS with MUSIC! 

On Saturday, the weekly Movie Time post looks at an old Italian horror film where scantily clad woman are tortured in an ancient castle. You Guilfoyle pervs might like that one, maybe? 

But I don't want my LEGacy as a blogger to be known for Kimberly Guilfoyle LEG posts.  

The Envy Of the World

 One of the hot button issues for this year's mid term elections is the status of health care, our access to it and our ability to afford it.

You may hear Democrats propose Medicare for all or some form of single payer health insurance.

This causes Republican to get their knickers in a knot, defiantly opposing any such plan like they have in Great Britain or Canada or dozens of other civilized countries around the world.

Republicans will protest "American health care is the envy of the world and going to a system like Canada will result in crowded waiting rooms and long waits for service."

Last week I had occasion to be caught up in the machinery of "the enny of the world" and spent nearly a whole day in a crowded waiting room with a very long wait for service.

First of all, it was not for me. My father in law John had a medical emergency and had to go to the hospital. Mandy, my brother in law's wife, had taken him there at 10:00 AM.  She stayed with him as long as she could but had to attend to her husband who was having his own medical problems to deal with.  

So I took up the baton at 2:30 PM.  

John had two interruptions in his wait, one for an X-Ray and another for a CT scan.

Otherwise we wiled away the hours in the waiting room of the envy of the world. 

It felt like we were in some kind of over crowded bus station is some third world country.  

Sitting on one side of us was a wizened old woman, small and frail, hunched over in a chair, frequently hacking up something into a bag and incessantly moaning for someone to help her. 

I'm sure she took some comfort in that she was receiving medical care from the envy of the world. Poor woman could be stuck in Canada where their health care system would leave her  hunched over in a chair, frequently hacking up something into a bag and incessantly moaning for---oh, wait a minute.

On the other side of John and I was a young man, his breath coming in gagged gasps and gulps, pleading for help that wasn't coming.  

A male would be patient staggered into the men's room near where we were sitting. A moment later, another man went in and came back out to ask if anyone worked there could help, there was man lying on the bathroom floor.

A security person opened the men's room door and I heard him say, "Dude, you can't lay on the bathroom floor like that."

I'm gonna hazard a guess it wasn't exactly this guy's idea of a good time. 

A nurse happened by and told the security guy, "We need to help this man."  

The hapless patient was helped from the floor into a wheel chair and was brought out of the rest room to receive immediate medical attention a spot to wait in the crowded waiting room.

Surrounded by these huddle masses yearning to be able to breathe and be relieved of their afflictions, my father in law missed few opportunities to remind me of his displeasure with these circumstances.

If I had a nickel for everytime he said "This is ridiculous", well, I wouldn't be rich but damn, that would be a lot of nickels.

John has been to me a mostly affable individual but in this situation, he was hardly that at all.  It was like dealing with an irritable toddler.

Except the irritable toddler was not wrong.

Periodically to appease my father in law, I would get up and chat with somebody.

The people I spoke with were very kind and patient... and absolutely useless. God bless 'em but they were overwhelmed with whatever was going on beyond those waiting room doors. 

Such is the burden of working for a health care system that is the envy of the world.

Eventually, John got to meet with a doctor at 6:30 PM.  Yes, 8 and a half hours after his arrival, he was finally getting a consult with a doctor about the dang problem that brought him there to the envy of the world.  

After getting a handle on what might be wrong with him and what he needed to do next, John was discharged at around 8:00 PM.  

I had to get firm with him about trying to discharge himself before the hospital staff came around with the paperwork.  That was not fun.  

Our exit took us through the waiting room that 8:00 PM still looked like some kind of over crowded bus station is some third world country.  

The wizened old woman was still out there, sitting under a blanket. She may have been dead for all I knew.

Finally at rest in the embrace of the envy of the world.  

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There's more to the story of my father in law's medical emergency but that is a tale for another time.   

Are You Not Entertained?

 

"Are you not entertained? 

Are you not entertained? 

Is this not why you are here?"

Maximus Decimus Meridius, Gladiator (2000)

Last week, I wrote a post about my feelings on the death penalty in the wake of the botched execution of Christa Pike.

By the way, Christa Pike has been discharged from the hospital and is back in prison awaiting whatever happens next.

Her lawyer is arguing to get her sentence changed from death to life without parole. The state took it's shot. It missed. Let's do something else.  

There are forces arguing that hey, Christa was prepared to die. The victim's mother was promised Christa would die. Why disappoint everyone? Let's try again.

Hey, alleged Christians arguing in favor of trying to put Christa Pike death a second time: I think God might be trying to tell you something.  

While we are out here trying to have a debate about the death penalty and whether or not it's a good idea, Pete Hegseth is positively giddy over the prospect of televising an execution.

Pernicious Pete introduced a new "Department of War" logo last week.

Any similarities to Hitler and his Nazi regime are:

1) an unfortunate coincidence

2) an unintended awkward comparison

3) entirely the whole goddam point! 

So Pervert Pete this week announced the Pentagon would live stream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan.

In November of 2009, Hasan, a former U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, entered Ft. Hood and began shooting up the place, killing 13 people and wounding 33 others, all in the name of some godforsaken Islamic radicalization. 

Hasan was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.

Whatever my ambivalence about the death penalty, if you gotta have one on the books, maybe this is a good one to use it for?

Last week, Donald Trump signed off on having that death sentence carried out by firing squad.

Parsimonious Pete thinks this sounds like too much fun to keep it on the down-low and said the execution will be livestreamed. 

Hegseth could barely contain his glee when announcing this was going to take place. 

By all means, check your calendars to confirm we are in the year 2026, the first part of the 21st century and this motherfucker wants to bring back executions to the public square. 

Let's find out what retired Army Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford has to say about this.

Lunsford was one of those 33 people who got shot and did not die.  He took seven bullets that day. If anyone has a right to an opinion about this, it's this guy.  

“To show the whole thing without it being censored for the general public, for me personally, I don’t agree with that."

J.D. Vance ran as hard as he could from this idea. “If it’s ultimately livestreamed, I’m not going to be watching it.”

Several Congressmen (including Republicans) have declared the idea of livestreaming the execution as barbaric and reflecting poorly on America.

Prickly Pete seems to think making the execution available to the public will serve as a deterrent, communicating that what happened at Ft. Hood in 2009 is unacceptable and must never happen again.

God, this guy is such a moron.

What will happen, you motherfucking piece of shit, is that clips from the livestream will spread across the globe as a recruitment tool, to radicalize even MORE deranged people to seek martyrdom and put even more people at risk.

Well, as long as Poopy Pete is entertained!

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Yeah, Donald Trump had a busy week of bullshit but I'm too tired to cover it all.

I'm gonna let Dave Columbo do the heavy lifting on all that.

The Revenge Business

The topic of today's post is the death penalty.

WARNING:  This post is not going to be fun at all.

This is going to get into some intense stuff.  

The purpose of this post is to try to put into words some semblance of order on my thoughts about the Christa Pike case in particular and the general overall idea of the death penalty.

I do not assert any special wisdom or insight.  I'm just one guy with some opinions I want to put down in writing.

_________________________________________

In "Take This Sabbath Day", the 14th episode of the 1st season of The West Wing, President Jed Bartlett is facing a decision, to commute the death sentence of Simon Cruz, a drug trafficker who murdered two drug kingpins.

President Bartlet asks a visiting Democratic operative named Joey Lucas why she opposes the death penalty.

Joey:  "The state shouldn't kill people."

Bartlett seeks religious advice from Father Cavanaugh who cites Romans 12:19.   

Cavanaugh: '''Vengeance is mine,' sayeth the Lord.' You know what that means? God is the only one who gets to kill people."

But I think it's the counsel Bartlett receives from his young aide, Charlie Young, that has resonated with me the most over the years since I saw this episode.  

Charlie's mother was a police officer who was shot dead in the line of duty.  The president asks Charlie if the person who killed his mother was caught and convicted, wouldn't Charlie want to see the state put that person to death?

Charlie says no.

Charlie: "I wouldn't want to see him executed, I'd wanna do it myself."

I'm not sure if it's made clear why the case of Simon Cruz merits the special dispensation of review by President Bartlett but nonetheless the case is before him and he grapples with it.

Jed Bartlett the man would rather not put this man, any man to death.  

Jed Bartlett the President has to consider the rule of law, the will of the people and I'm sure some other damn 3rd thing and...

The moment passes.

The execution of Simon Cruz is carried out. 

Like a lot of people these days, the subject of the death penalty has been put front and center in my thoughts of late, put there by the drama surrounding the execution of Christa Pike.

And the failure of that execution. 

On September 30th, Christa Pike was strapped to a gurney and given two injections of pentobarbital.  These lethal injections are designed to cause the recipient to become unconscious, stop breathing, and develop a heart arrhythmia, culminating in death.

Witnesses to the execution noted Pike was calm during the procedure but admitted to feeling pain and discomfort in her arm. Then she became unconscious.  

And began snoring.  

The two doses of the drug designed to kill her had failed to do so.

As I write this, Christa Pike is currently in a hospital on a ventilator as the medical staff work to purge the pentobarbital from her system.  

While watching videos and reading stories on this unfolding saga, I have been struck by the uniformity of the comments which can be summarized as this:  Christa Pike is an evil bitch who does not deserve our sympathy and we should not forget what she did to Colleen Slemmer.

Let's discuss what Christa Pike did to Colleen Slemmer.

Caution: this part is very grim and gruesome.  

In 1995,  18 year old Christa Pike and her boyfriend 17 year old Tadaryl Shipp lured 19 year old Colleen Slemmer into the woods. Over the course of 30 minutes, Colleen was tormented and tortured.  A pentagram was carved into her chest while she was still alive. This frenzy of torture ended when Christa smashed Colleen's skull with a large chunk of asphalt, the resulting brain injury leading slowly but inevitably to Colleen's death.

No one should suffer and die like Colleen Slemmer did. 

I'm pissed off thinking about this poor young woman suffering such brutality and dying, cold, in pain and abandoned in the woods.

For his role in the murder, Tadaryl Shipp was sentenced to life in prison.  Christa Pike was sentenced to death.  

For what she did to Colleen Slemmer, a merciful death by execution is too good for Christa Pike, that bitch. Forget the state putting her to death,  "I'd wanna do it myself."

Which is a valid emotional response. 

But is it a judicial one?

Do we need to consider what brought 18 year old Christa Pike to the moment in the woods in 1995 with a chunk of asphalt in her hands to bring it down on Colleen Slemmer's skull?

One response is to say "Who cares?" 

• Colleen was murdered.
• Christa killed her.
• Christa needs to pay. 

But should we consider that Christa Pike has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder and bipolar disorder? 

Do we need to think about the allegations of physical and sexual abuse Christa Pike endured as a child? 

None of this changes the horrible reality of Colleen's death and the sheer brutality of what she endured.

But weighing the need for justice and holding those accountable who act against the welfare of our citizens, we need to ask, is committing the murder of Christa Pike for her murder of Colleen Slemmer an act of justice or revenge?

"Should the government be in the revenge business?" 

For those who read their Bibles, it bears remembering "Vengeance is mine,' sayeth the Lord."

it does seem to me that a lot of those who read their Bibles are the ones calling the loudest for the ultimate retribution of death for Christa Pike.  

It's a hard business, isn't it?  The needs of a society for accountability of those that would defy the most basic moral tenets of that society need to be balanced with a dispassionate and objective application of the law.  

Did 50 year old Christa Pike deserve to be put to death for an insane act committed by an 18 year old Christa Pike?

But did Colleen Slemmer deserve to not see life beyond age 19, bleeding out on the cold ground in the dark woods?  

What is the dividing line between justice and vengeance?

I'm not going to lie and say that if someone hurt my wife or son, that I would not want the full weight of punishment brought down on that person.  

"Vengeance is mine,' sayeth me!" 

In exchange for someone hurting those I love, would I be satisfied the perpetrator of that harm was sentenced to a roof over their heads with health care and three square meals a day at taxpayer expense? Hell no! I would want that person to die.

Which is a valid emotional response. 

But we need the state to not be emotional.

Even when the situation is hard and personal, perhaps we need to reconsider our use of the death penalty and understand "The state shouldn't kill people."

I don't think the government should be in the revenge business. And ultimately that's what the death penalty amounts to in my humble opinion.    

Schmitt Up A Creek

 On Monday, I wrote a post about Tommy Tuberville (R-Al) being the dumbest person in the U.S. Senate.

Yesterday, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said "hold my beer" and made his own pass at the title.

Sen. Schmitt had some urgent business to take care of.

• The high price of groceries? 
• High gas prices?
• The cost of healthcare?
• The war with Iran? 

NO! Really! What is wrong with you people? Don't you know the most urgent business for the Senate is to get former special counsel Jack Smith to answer this pressing question?   
“Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on Feb. 3, 2024?”
Jack Smith said no and Schmitt was all giddy with a big ol' gotcha! "A-HA! You just committed perjury!"  
And he whipped out a poster board display as evidence of Jack Smith's perfidy.  
Including in the display are text messages from Smith about attending a Hawks game.  

Now you might wonder what the fuck is going on here?

So was Jack Smith and every other person in America with two working brains cells to rub together. 

It turns out that the day before Feb. 3, 2024, Fulton County prosecutor Fran Willis who was working on a case against against Donald Trump admitted to having an affair with Nathan Wade, another prosecutor.  

Jack Smith was persuing his own case against Donald Trump (for election interference, instigating the January 6th insurrection and illegally holding on to classified documents). 

Apparently (and do try to keep up), Smith's presence in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 2024 is PROOF of his collusion with Willis and Wade in their conspiracy to bring specious unfounded charges against poor widdle Donnie Trump.  

Now I am not sure how Schmitt thinks Smith's mere presence at an Atlanta Hawks game in Atlanta is proof of some deep seeded conspiracy against the der Führer.  But Schmitt thought it did and he was so damned proud of his legal gymnastics that could put Jack Smith behind bars for his treacherous temerity to dare sully the reputation of Schmitt's lord and savior. 

“You have weaponized the Department of Justice against political enemies to an extent that has never happened in the history of this country. You will go down as a total dirtbag.”

Except...

Jack Smith was NOT in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 2024.

He was in College Park, MD attending the Maryland women's basketball game, playing the visiting Iowa Hawkeyes.  

Now there is so much to unpack here.

Sen. Eric Schmitt was so determined to catch Jack Smith in something, anything that would support the delusions of Donald Trump that he was the target of a partisan and unjustified investigation, he pounced on the most tenuous "evidence".  

Assuming the texts had been about the Atlanta Hawks, all it would have done was place Jack Smith at an Atlanta Hawks game and proves nothing about any alleged conspiratorial collusion with Willis or Wade.  

And the texts were NOT about the Atlanta Hawks but the Iowa Hawkeyes.  

You would think such a fuck up would be a source of embarrassment for Sen. Schmitt.

He still insists Jack Smith is lying about something, that "dirtbag".

Well, this will play well with Li'l Donnie when he's watching this on Fox News.  

And it will play well with the MAGA faithful who are still devoted to der Führer despite all the 

• high price of groceries
• high gas prices
• high cost of healthcare
• war with Iran

All problems with direct lines to Donald Trump's policies fueled by hate and ignorance.  

The unmitigated gall of Sen. Schmitt to accuse Jack Smith of employing a "weaponized the Department of Justice against political enemies" is reprehensible and despicable.

Especially in light of what Trump's DOJ is so obviously doing at Trump's explicit direction against his political enemies.  

Jack Smith is by all accounts as straight arrow as they come in the pursuit of law and justice.   

Fuck you, Schmitt, for daring to attack a good and honorable man in supplication to a lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, sociopathic, dishonorable, treasonous, gutless, moronic, heartless, soulless, slimy, loathsome, vile, incompetent, psychotic, crooked, disgusting, reprehensible, revolting, horrible, malicious, obnoxious, hateful, narcissistic, small-minded, despicable god damn, motherfucking piece of shit!

And all that can be said of Sen. Eric Schmitt as well.

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Sorry for the surprise political post. We'll deal with real important work tomorrow:  comic books! 

Full Of Sound and Furry

Normally my Monday blog post about politics usually focuses on whatever dumb fuckery that goddam motherfucker Donald Trump did in the last few weeks/days/minutes/right now.
I'm gonna let Dave Columbo do the heavy lifting on that one.

But I couldn't let the moment pass without comment on another goddam motherfucker who stumbled into the spotlight last week with what may well be the MOST dumbass thing ever said on the U.S. Senate floor.
I miss the days when I could get through a political themed blog post without saying "goddam motherfucker" but there are so many of them and so intent on being goddam motherfuckers.
Let's deal with this piece of shit, Sen. Tommy Tuberville.
Sen. Tuberville took to the Senate floor to address the greatest problem facing our country.

• So he's gonna take on the high price of groceries? 
• High gas prices?
• The cost of healthcare?
• The war with Iran? 

Really, people! You think those things are real problems?!?
How can you not see the threat that Sen. Tuberville so clearly perceives?
That the pilot on your airline flight could be dressed as a squirrel?

Here we see Staci Lydic and The Daily Show having some fun with Sen. Tuberville bringing this threat to our attention.

Chris Hayes tries to make sense of this odd obsession Tommy has.

OK, I've listened to this a few times now: Is he pronouncing "fetish" as "fetis"?
Notice that Tuberville is delivering his remarks in front of a visual aid that reads  "Transgenderism Is A Mental Disease".
What does being trans-gender have to do with being a furry? Does he think the LGBTQ+ community considers "squirrel" a gender? Who knows with this goddam motherfucker!
And as for this "Transgenderism Is A Mental Disease" nonsense on this sign....
Really?  Let's see what the experts have to say about that.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) clarifies that the term "transgender" is not a psychiatric diagnosis. The diagnostic manual (DSM-5) separates identity from pathology, though it includes gender dysphoria—which defines the psychological distress an individual may experience due to an incongruence between their gender identity and their sex assigned at birth.  
Also weighing in on this topic?
 The World Health Organization (WHO) removed gender identity-related categories from its mental and behavioral disorders chapter in the ICD-11, reclassifying gender incongruence under conditions related to sexual health to reduce stigma and reflect that gender diversity is not a mental illness.
There is a link of mental health issues associated with the transgender community as noted on TransHub.Org.
Research shows that a disproportionate number of trans people experience worse mental health than the general population, including higher rates of suicidality (12 times more likely), diagnosis with a mental disorder (3 times more likely), and experiences of psychological distress.
We also have found that this is not because these problems are innate for trans people, but because of what we call social determinants of health, which use the conditions in which people live to understand their health experiences, among others.
But the condition of being transgender itself is NOT a mental health defect. 
I will caution that I am looking at this issue from the outside in as a hopefully supportive ally of the LGBTQ+ community and I trust I'm expressing myself correctly. 
But this I have NO doubt I am saying this correctly: This right here is a tale told by an IDIOT, full of sound and furry, signifying nothing. 

(See what I did there with the Shakespeare quote, changing "fury" to "furry"?  I don't mean to brag but damn, I think that's clever.)   
Tommy Tuberville is a profoundly stupid man.
He thinks the three branches of the United States government are “the House, the Senate and executive,” rather than the legislative, the judicial, and the executive.
He once said he doesn't like to read things, preferring to make up his own mind.  
While ranting about the transgender community, he decides to attack "furries" with the completely unsubstantiated claim they're flying airplanes?  
Since he does not read things, I wonder where the hell did he hear about this "problem"?   
If you wonder why the legislative branch is doing fuck all the rein in Donald Trump's worse impulses, it's because Congress is littered with stupid people like this goddam motherfucker, Tommy Tuberville.
Although soon Tommy Tuberville may not be the stupidest person in the U.S. Senate.  He may well become the stupidest person in a governor's office.  
Tuberville is running for Governor of Alabama as the Republican nominee. 
Doug Jones, the Democratic opponent, is by every measure a better qualified and certainly smarter candidate.  
Since Alabama is a deep red state that consistently votes against it's own self interests, Tuberville is leading in the polls by a margin of 49% to 41%.  Which leaves about 10% of the electorate unaccounted for and uh oh! What if they vote for Jones? 
So it doesn't hurt to gild the lilly with a little culture war woo-woo and hence Tuberville's Senate floor uninformed appeal against the evils of furries and transgenderism.
It's the kind of bullshit that pushed Donald Trump over the top here in North Carolina in 2024 and it'll probably do the trick for Tuberville in Alabama as well.      
To understand the voters of Alabama that keep the state firmly in the red, let me paraphrase Gene Wilder from Blazing Saddles:  
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the South. You know. Morons!"
And who better to lead them that the biggest moron of all, Tommy Tuberville.
Let him tell his tales told by an idiot and while he may well win his election as Governor of Alabama, in the larger tapestry of history, he will signify nothing. 
Which is a nicer way of saying: Fuck you, Tommy Tuberville, you (say it with me one more time!) goddam motherfucker!

Your Friday Video Link: Are You Ed Sheeran?

Since Ed Sheeran's been in the news lately,  this week, Your Friday Video Link asks the question: Are you Ed Sheeran?

Doctor Who would like to know.  

Also in the news lately is the promise... and threat... of A.I.

From Saturday Night Live - U.K., King Charles is forced to confront this dichotomy of A.I. in a very familiar form.

Also Ed Sheeran turns up. 

And that's all the Ed Sheeran we can take for today.

We're back this weekend with Movie Time and Star Trekking.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another. 

Even Ed Sheeran.   

Reality: What A Concept

Last week we had a special visitor come to North Carolina.

Who was this visitor?

Why it was none other than America's own lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, sociopathic, dishonorable, treasonous, gutless, moronic, heartless, soulless, slimy, loathsome, vile, incompetent, psychotic, crooked, disgusting, reprehensible, revolting, horrible, malicious, obnoxious, hateful, narcissistic, small-minded, despicable god damn, motherfucking piece of shit!

Or to save time: Donald Trump.

Standing in North Carolina, speaking to people from North Carolina, Li'l Donnie felt compelled to say that North Carolina sucks! 

Der Führer pronounced North Carolina as one of the absolute worst states in the nation.  

Apparently Trump thinks North Carolina is some kind of stinking cesspool of crime and violence and it's all Roy Cooper's fault.

So he's seen the Michael Whatley ads then, I guess?

We're in the middle of a campaign for an open U.S. Senate seat  with Democrat Roy Cooper going up against Republican Michael Whatley.   

Roy Cooper was born in North Carolina, has lived here all his life and has a solid tract record of service to the state as a legislator, district attorney and governor.

Michael Whatley is... none of those things.  

Whatley has been running ads that paint Cooper as soft on crime, releasing thousands of criminals and chances are because of Roy Cooper, if you're in North Carolina, you're being murdered right now.

Those ads have included grieving fathers who attribute the murder of their children to Roy Cooper.

Except...

One father said he was told his testimonial was for a project on fighting gun violence.  He intends to vote for Roy Cooper and says there is nothing about his son's murder that has any connection to Cooper. 

The other father is in SOUTH Carolina and his daughter was murdered in SOUTH Carolina and her murder has no connection to Cooper or any of his policies in NORTH Carolina. Unlike the other dad, this guy does not disavow his participation in the ad and is proud of whatever he can do to stop Roy Cooper and support Donald Tr--whoops, Michael Whatley.   

Cooper has a counter ad that calls out these Whatley spots as lies.  

All Whatley has going for him is his absolute and total fealty to der Führer.  His devotion is so complete, Whatley insisted in an interview that grocery prices are DOWN and gas prices are DOWN. Just because Li'l Donie thinks he can get away with saying this crap doesn't mean anybody else can say this shit. 

Cooper has another ad that runs this interview, followed by Roy looking at the camera with utter incredulousness. "Can you believe this guy? I KNOW prices are going up!"    

Roy Cooper's selling point: he understands reality.  

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"Reality: what a concept!"  

---Robin Williams

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Donald Trump has his own concept of reality.

• Prices are DOWN!
• The war with IRAN is going GREAT!
• People LOVE Donald Trump!

Woe and lamentations unto thee to say otherwise:

• Prices are UP!
• The war with IRAN is an intractable MESS!
• And no we fucking DON'T!

Li'l Donnie rejects these points as FAKE NEWS and declares he will ban news agencies that don't report his concept of reality.

Saturday morning, reporters for CNN, MS NOW and Politico showed up at the White House to find their press passes revoked and confiscated for the temerity of reporting anything that does not align with his vainglorious delusions that everything is awesome and we owe all that awesome to Trump! 

With Natalie Harp printing up a constant stream of pro-Trump, pro-MAGA propaganda, Li'l Donnie's propensity for ignoring the reality we live in in favor of his own is reinforced. The only voice he hears other than his own is a selected cadre of syncophants who are mere echoes of his self aggrandizement.

Nowhere is this more blatantly on display than with the fuckery going on with the Kennedy Center.

Immediately after being sworn in for his 2nd term, Trump quickly sacked the Kennedy Center's board of trustees and replaced them with people loyal to him. And der Führer made himself chairman of the board. 

And that's when the troubles began.

Various artists scheduled to perform at the Kennedy Center began cancelling their shows.  

Sales of tickets and memberships declined precipitously.

To honor their Lord and savior for this good work at saving the Kennedy Center from ruin, the board voted to put Trump's name on the building.  

And that's when the troubles got worse! 

Any artists holding their noses to still perform at the Kennedy Center dropped out.  Revenue bottomed out.

The courts ordered Trump's name be removed from the building.

Presumably this was done but a tarp hangs over the front of the building to spare widdle Donnie's feelings from being hurt.

Faced with a financial crisis, the Kennedy Center board says the only way to save it is to put Trump's name back on the building.

You know, the very act that precipated the center's financial crisis.

Trump's concept of reality is that the Kennedy Center was bleeding money and heading for financial ruin until he took charge.

After a downturn brought on by the COVID pandemic of 2020, the Kennedy Center was running a deficit. But in 2023 and 2024, the center was back in black, taking in more than it spent.

From the moment Trump installed his own stooges to run the joint and himself as chairman, the Kennedy Center has been in the red, losing money.  

BUT the board asserts that ONLY Donald Trump can lead the effort to improve fund raising to get the Kennedy Center back on track but he's NOT going to do that unless he gets credit for it.

An assertion that Trump himself repeats: why should he lift a finger to help the Kennedy Center if he's not going to get credit for it?

Meanwhile, facing bankruptcy, the board voted to shut down the Kennedy Center and there's a very real fear that if der Führer does not get his way, he may tear the damn thing down. 

Think it's a bit outrageous that he would do such a thing? If you think that, I have a lovely White House East Wing to show you and ---Whoops! No, I can't. There is only a hole in the ground where Trump is building a ballroom that only he wanted.

And that's where we are, navigating two realities.

There's the reality you and I are stuck in where every goddam thing is on fire and Donald Trump is holding the match and the gasoline.

And there's the reality where Li'l Donnie lives, where everything is golden and NOT on fire and he wants credit for all the wonders his dementia addled brain beholds.

And if CNN won't confirm his concept of reality, to hell with them.

Natalie Harp has a print out that will confirm that...

The Darkest Timeline

I wanna talk about the darkest timeline.

Twice! 

To set the stage, let's cover some ground about the darkest timeline that originated on the TV series Community.

In the 3rd season episode "Remedial Chaos Theory", Troy and Abed have invited the study group gang to their new apartment for a housewarming party.  

The group gathers to play Yahtzee when the pizza delivery arrives.  

Jeff suggests rolling a 6 sided die to determine who will go to the door to get the pizza.

Abed cautions that each roll of the die creates an alternate timeline.  

The episode unfolds as each roll of the die arrives at a different number and a different person goes to the door and each time, different stuff happens in the few moments that person is away. Various things go askew depending on who is still in the room.

Of these scenarios, "the darkest timeline" arrives when Jeff roles a "1" and Troy has to go to the door.

In the brief moment Troy is gone, the gun in Annie's purse has gone off and shot Pierce in the leg and Britta dropped the joint she was "secretly" smoking, setting the apartment on fire.

The episode ends with a tag scene set in what Abed calls "the darkest timeline"

• Pierce died from his gun shot wound.  
• Shirley is alcoholic.
• Annie is confined to a psychiatric hospital
• Jeff lost an arm in the fire
• Troy has no larynx after trying to eat the troll doll Pierce gave him.  
• Britta puts a blue streak in her hair

Abed made the group goatees out of felt as indicators of their evil nature (like Spock in the Star Trek episode "Mirror Mirror").  

So that's one "darkest timeline", the fictional one from a TV show.

Then there's the other "darkest timeline", the real one.  The one we're living in.   

Every time I see a story posted on Tik Tok, Twitter, Facebook, etc about some damn thing done by Donald Trump or one of his simpering snivelling syncophants that gives more power to the powerful, more wealth to the wealthy or take away something that actually helps people, I will inevitably see this comment:

"This is definitely the darkest timeline."

Every single day I hear something that seems to me the worst possible outcome.  

• A.I. is coming to take all our water and electricity and then kill us all.
• This weekend, my news feeds were blowing up with stories about A.I. run amuck, doing shit we didn't tell it to do.
• Reps from Google and Anthropic are all "My God! What have we done?" If the people who created A.I. are worried, I'm thinking there may be something to worry about. 
• Nah, there's nothing to worry about! Speaker of the House Mike Johnson doesn't think Congress needs to do anything about A.I. and that the tech companies know best about how to handle things.
• Communities are super stressed out by the demands for water and electricity caused by A.I. data centers.  The tech bros building these centers are carving out sweetheart deals to avoid paying taxes, contributing nothing to the local infrastructure. They only take and take and give nothing back.
• Donald Trump of course thinks A.I. data centers are the wave of the future and any community that doesn't want a data center wants to be poor and stupid.
• Women's rights are being curtailed. 
• In some states, draconian anti-abortion laws are so broadly written, women are being charged with murder if they have a miscarriage.
• There are states where if a woman gets pregant due to being raped and she decides to get an abortion, she can go to prison longer than the man who raped her.
• There's a petition on change.org to repeal the 19th amendment (that gave women the right to vote).
• The Department of Labor recently ruled that a female sailor being raped on a ship was not a "crime" but a "workplace injury".   
• Good news: the murder rate is down. Except for women being murdered in domestic violence events.   
• A war widow was denied benefits for her dead husband because whatever he died in, Congress never declared it a war.  
• I could go on but let's just sum up: it sucks to be a woman in Trump's America! 
• ICE is scooping up people for looking like they MIGHT be illegal.
• Remember the premise that ICE was focusing only on the worst of the worst, the illegal immigrants commiting crimes?  Yeah, I never believed that either.
• And the net has widened with actual citizens being scooped up for the temerity of looking like they might be illegal.  In other words, brown skin.
• That includes arresting a woman who was a Native American. OK, I'll bite: where the fuck are they going to deport a Native American?
• ICE wants electric shock gloves. (They looked cool in the Land's End catalog?) 
• ICE is buying robot dogs. (Because real dogs will not put up with these fuckers.) 
• There are threats to send ICE to the polls this November.
• The war Trump started with Iran continues to be a mess.
• People who know better tried to tell him that the idea that Iran was on the verge on having a nuclear weapon any minute now was bullshit. They had facts, figures, graphs!
• Trump said his gut told him different and here we are 6+ months later in a quagmire of chaos that shows no signs of ending.  
• It is no surprise that the war with no definable plan for ending had no definable reason for even fucking starting other than Trump felt like it.
• These fuckers cannot even agree if it's a war. When Li'l Donnie and Prickly Pete want to get all macho and tough, it's WAR! When they want to downplay that what's happening is not that big of a deal, it's a conflict or some other bullshit. (See above for how widows are being fucked over by this gamesmanship over wording.)  
• The price of food, gas and damn it, EVERYTHING keeps going up.
• Trump will tell anyone who will listen than prices are DOWN.
• He also insists his poll numbers are UP and any polls that say otherwise are fake.
• How can his poll numbers possibly be down when Natalie Harp keeps showing him print outs from the internet on what a fantastic job he's doing?

Last week, the Republican Party staged a Mid-Term Convention, what they described as a "Trumpapalooza" to celebrate their lord and savior and praise him for all the good things he's done for our country.

And if the party didn't praise him enough, Li'l Donnie spent two nights taking up the slack, extolling just how GREAT everything is, how prices are DOWN, not up, that America is strong and respected and blah blah blah.

Funny, my grocery bill is certainly not the fuck going down.

I look at the clown car antics of those in charge of our government and I do NOT feel strong or respected.

Do I need to go on? 

It feels like the darkest timeline to me.  

Let me use TV to offer some context.  

In last week's season finale of The Librarians: The Next Chapter (see yesterday's Tuesday TV Touchbase), Merlin seeks to go back in time and through the use of raw, unchecked power make Camelot great again and prevent it's fall. 

By the time Merlin is done, a lot of people are dead and Camelot is shattered into ruins.  He causes the very downfall he professed to want to stop.  

I feel like that's where Trump and those in the MAGA movement are heading, employing raw, unchecked power to force America back to whatever they perceive as greatness and to force the rest of the world to acquiesce to that vision.

Every step these miscreants take is one step closer to a deeper and lasting misery and closer to the American dream being shattered into ruins.  

Honest to God, every day in this reality brings me to the conclusion that yes, "This is definitely the darkest timeline."

But here is a scary thought: as dark as things feel now, what if they can become even darker still?

"This is definitely the darkest timeline?" 

Fuck me but I don't think Trump and the minions in his government and his compliant corporate stooges have actually reached the bottom yet.

OK, this is a bummer of a note to end on.

I need a puppy! 

Fine, that helps a little bit. 

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Tomorrow on the blog: comic books!