Our world is a mess.

Simple statement of fact.

In this country we have a compromised Supreme Court not even hiding the fact they are in the pocket of billionaire gift givers and the MAGAverse. Nazis roam freely and proudly. A party has a felon-rapist-bankrupt at the top of their ticket. A couch diddling, shape shifting power whore as their second. The stock market — here and abroad — is continuing its slide as panic sellers dominate in the wake of the fed not cutting rates last week. Part of our country has too much fire, while another spot currently has too much water.

In Sudan a famine has officially been declared and much needed food and medication cannot make its way in. Children suffer, parents suffer, all suffer, the pain of a dire hunger so familiar to them, so abstract to most of us. Hamas and Israel continue to kill their way to no solution. And Iran stands ready to say ‘Hold my beer’ and escalate things in dramatic and bloody fashion.

Gang violence and criminal activity in Haiti continue to undermine every effort to stabilize the country. And in another example of how little we can relate, complaints of inconvenience are still to be found daily on cruise boards as ships cannot make dock at Labadee, Royal Caribbean’s slice of beach paradise on the Haitian coast.

Far right violence is roiling England as attacks on Muslims and an asylum seeker hotel was stormed and attempted to be set alight, with ten police officers being injured in the rioting.

Ukraine continues on against Russian aggression and bloodshed. Now they have F-16s to aid in their attacks/defense.

And on and on. Close your eyes and place a pin anywhere on a global map and you are sure to find strife, suffering, and struggle nearby.

Humans have a long track record of being pure shit to other humans. Whether through intentional aggression and power seeking or through simply shrugging and turning away. So when something simple, innocent, and smile inducing happens, we are often taken by surprise.

Today in Paris, as the Olympics continues on into a new week, gymnastic events were held to determine gold-silver-bronze in women’s floor and balance beam. It is not an overstatement to say we were all expecting certain results, especially on floor. Simone Biles is a phenom. Having already secured gold in the individual all around, team all around, and individual on vault, we all easily assumed she would take the rest of the top medals today as well.

Because she is rightly referred to as a GOAT — greatest of all time. Like Leo Messi has been to soccer, Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky to swimming, Michael Jordan to basketball, Simone Biles is a force. To watch her perform is akin to watching magic take place. She makes the incredible seem effortless, tells gravity to get bent, and sticks the landing when the rest of us would simply fall into a pile of sticks as all our bones break beneath us.

There is power and grace, although not simply in her movements. Three years ago she showed the world the true meaning of strength when she withdrew from the competition at the Tokyo Olympics from developing a case of the “twisties”. While that might sound like an easily shrugged off or even made up affliction, it most certainly is not. In the case of a gymnast, performing all those high speed, high altitude jumps, twists, somersaults, and flips relies on the athlete knowing exactly where their body is at all times. Throw that off even an inch and the results can be catastrophic.

Think about we mere mortals. For the majority of us simply spinning in circles a few times is enough to throw us off kilter. We are not trained to spot as we go round and round, and heaven forbid we close our eyes in the process. We lose complete touch with where our bodies are. We stop, flail, stumble to the side, fall — and in some cases (raising my hand) land head first on the edge of the fireplace and require Frankenstein stitches in our ten year old eyebrow line.

In removing herself from that competition, she shone a bright light on mental health and self care. She took a two year break from a sport described by former high level gymnasts as “corrosive”. “Whenever you get in a high-stress situation, you kind of freak out,” Biles told reporters at the time. “I have to focus on my mental health and not jeopardize my health and well-being.”

That is strength. That is admirable. That is a life lesson for everyone.

Well, not everyone. Conservative voices (shock) came out condemning her, calling her weak, selfish, and far, far worse. VP wannabe, Vance, whose personal gymnasties involve his living room furniture, was one of those voices with a big microphone. He went on FOX deriding her decision to drop out, and the media’s coverage of it.

“What I find so weird about this… is that we’ve tried to turn a very tragic moment, Simone Biles quitting the Olympic team, into this act of heroism,” Vance said at the time. “I think it reflects pretty poorly on our sort of therapeutic society that we try to praise people, not for moments of strength, not for moments of heroism, but for their weakest moments.”

Sigh. Someone take this guy to Rooms To Go, give him a rubber glove, and turn off the lights.

One of the best advances societally is that we have begun to understand, accept, and value the place therapy has in our lives.. Feeling a limit, a block, anxiety, depression, an eating disorder, post-partum, stress, panic attacks — whatever the individual’s personal crisis may be — asking for help, seeking it out, those are absolute signs of strength. And having to go through it publicly? That is an act of heroism. Having to stand against not only the inner turmoil she was experiencing, but the vile condemnations and judgements from people like Vance? Seriously, bury that guy under the throw pillows and walk away. The biggest thing he has ever had to dismount is his Grammy’s davenport.

Fast forward to the Paris Olympics and Biles was back in fine form. Million watt smile in place, kind words for all around her, and an exuberance that could easily be completely stifled by the pressure. Not only that of our expectations of her, but the pressure of competing against such high level competitors from around the globe. One of those, Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, has kept Biles on her toes this whole time. Game truly recognizes game and after winning the all around just ahead of Andrade last week, Simone told the press, “I don’t want to compete with Rebeca anymore! I’m tired. She’s very close to me — I’ve never had an athlete so close. This definitely kept me alert and brought out the best athlete in me. So I’m excited and proud to compete with her, but — no.”

She added: “I’ve never been so stressed before. Thank you, Rebeca.”

That is certainly high praise coming from the GOAT.

But as in every sport, no matter how much you train, prep, practice, or believe, it all comes down to the moment. The dive, the swing, the kick, the final yards, a stumble, a mental blip, a mistimed turn.

It happened twice during the balance beam event today. In a jawdropper, both Suni Lee and Simone Biles fell off the apparatus during their routines. Heartbreaking, for sure, but I also view it through another lens. I have long said that it helps younger athletes to see their heroes, those at the top of their respective games, struggle, and sometimes fail. For a 12 year old soccer player, seeing Leo Messi miss a penalty kick? It immediately humanizes the hero and reminds the up and comer that even the greats are not perfect. I think of all the small gymnasts who watched today as not one, but two of their aspirational heros hit the mat, and then kept going. It will make a difference in how they move forward the next time they stumble and fall.

In the beam event, neither medaled. Not the expected result.

Then came the floor event, a place where Biles defies wicked gravity — nearly 12 feet in the air. Even competing against Andrade, we all expected another gold medal to be placed around Simone’s neck. But in the end, a few steps out of bounds resulted in this: Gold — Rebeca, Silver — Simone, and Bronze — USA’s Jordan Chiles.

An upset? I imagine if you ask Simone, she would say no. No one knows better than a fellow athlete what they are seeing, who they are competing with, and how they are all performing. The scores? Rebeca: 14.166. Simone: 14.133. Jordan: 13.766.

Sour grapes? Pffft. Yes, photographers have caught side eye, rolled eyes, and unhappy medal winners who missed out of the top prize, but not today. Which brings us to that Shakespeare quote from The Merchant of Venice. (I know, I know, you can be forgiven for thinking it was an original WIlly Wonkaism)

The full line reads: “How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world”.

In our world full of strife, suffering, hatred, and war, this is what took place on the podium.

First there was this…

And then there was this…

True joy, true sportsmanship, exuberance, and one of the best pictures to come from this Olympics. Rebeca being bowed down to by two women at the top of the sport, two women who did their best, fell a bit short, but feel nothing but happiness for their fellow athlete.

Yes, winning feels amazing. Anyone who has ever competed in anything and won knows this. Losing sucks. But these photos capture how possible it is to feel it all at once. More importantly, how possible it is to be elated for someone else who managed to best you.

Yes, these women will take home their medals. But this memory — what they have in their hearts and minds, and the gift of this small good deed — given to Andrade and the rest of us, will shine on forever.

As the Clare Pooley quote goes, “In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”

Thank you for that reminder, ladies, and congratulations on winning the gold in the humanity all-around.

Years ago I asked that question. As scandal after scandal, vile rally after vile rally took place, I asked of MAGAts, what would it take to make them open their eyes to what they were supporting?

What would it take to make them realize they had been willingly marinating in a sewer of bigotry and racism and misogyny and callous disregard for human life (unless it is white and monied, of course).

What would it take to make them listen to the words being spoken when he did not think anyone could hear? I still am dumbfounded at how an excited yell ended the run of Howard Dean, yet ‘grab them by the pussy’ only endeared that sack of sewage to them more.

What would it take to make them see how his words were the literal definition of stochastic terrorism — how many more, like Heather Heyer, needed to die for that light to dawn?

What would it take for them to see how completely unfit a bankrupt reality show character was to setting foot in the Oval office let alone on the world stage?

What would it take to see how cozying up to dictators was completely anathema to what this country stands for?

What would it take to make them understand that people they actually knew and *gasp* loved were literal targets of his administration?

Mocking a disabled reporter at a rally did not do it. Mocking a literal prisoner of war and revered senator did not do it. Calling for punishment against any woman who sought out abortive care. Ripping families apart at the border. WIthholding visitor logs at the White House. Advising people to inject bleach or put light bulbs in their bodies or clean the shelves of horse dewormer to combat COVID. OVER A MILLION FELLOW CITIZENS DEAD BECAUSE HE COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO TELL YOU TO WEAR A MASK OR GET VACCINATED — EVEN THOUGH HE DID BOTH.

None of it turned their heads. Like any good cult member whose head is filled with painful cognitive dissonance, they simply doubled down, bought more flags, printed ever more vile t-shirts and buttons, and now join him in the march to completely dismantle this great experiment called The United States of America.

I have written several times this past week about his choice of VP candidate, James Donald Bowman James David Hamel James David Vance J.D. Vance JD Vance. A power hungry, shape shifting ghoul who realized years ago that the easiest route to the political top was to play the rubes. To say the bumper stickery things they could easily process. To play to their imagined fears. To target people they did not like. To blame the people they blamed.

Despite being married to a woman of Indian descent, and having three children with brown skin and Indian names, he gladly joined forces with the side that openly targets anyone with brown or darker skin. A man with an Ivy league education, married to same, who now openly castigates education as indoctrination and supports the abolishment of the Department of Education. A man who wants to track your menstrual cycles (read: fertility, hello, Handmaids Tale?), punish you for traveling for an abortion, and views you as lesser than should you be childless. Well, he does view as you as more than in one instance. If you are childless, he believes you should pay more in taxes.

I said earlier this week that given how his past statements about Trump, Hillbilly ELIEgy BS, and his feelings towards women have been front and center, I did not see him being long for the Trump world. Add to that the endless couch fucking memes (and the AP all but retracted their headline midweek about him NOT sexing up his loveseat as they admitted it was not properly vetted) and now the provable searching he has done for dolphin porn?

Well, your Maybelline Mussolini will not stand for being embarrassed for much longer. If I had to guess, he will pull Vance, throw him under the clown car wheels, back up and over him a few times for good measure, and replace him with someone equally abhorrent and equally unvetted. He will simply point to how our side switched the candidate at the top of the ticket, so he should get to do it, too.

Whatever. Again, his choices, which I am sure will be again influenced by Tucker Carlson and the Heritage Foundation, will just be another shade of Dumb and Dumber Vile and Viler.

But back to the wannabe dicktator…

Last night, while speaking to an assemblage of faux Christians at TPUSA (Turning Point), he dropped this bomb.

Trump: You have to get out and vote. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four years, it will be fixed, it will be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.. In four years, you won’t have to vote again. pic.twitter.com/DBGcBr3Wht

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 27, 2024

ARE. YOU. LISTENING?

This is the ultimate in what will it take questioning of you.

You claim to be patriotic. You claim to love this country. You constantly drone on and on about the founding fathers. Your allegiance has been to a crybaby loser whose sole drumbeat for nearly four years has been about election interference! and stolen election! Yet here he is — saying it out loud — that if he gets back into office there will not be voting ever again.

That doesn’t make you a little uneasy? That doesn’t strike you as unpatriotic? Illegal? AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION?

Small aside: Anyone who still claims to be an undecided voter in this race? GTFO. You are an attention whore who loves being pursued and courted or simply a willfully ignorant buffoon. The choice has never been so stark. One side openly campaigning to destroy our democracy and one side working to save it. It’s not a difficult choice. Unless you’re just fucking stupid.

Look, the man is undeniably a coward, a blowhard, filled more more hubris than a Goodyear blimp is with helium. And that is fine. In the public square. Even on your favorite reality TV program. Let him puff his chest, lie about his accomplishments, bankrupt everything he touches, cavort with porn stars and other sexual deviants. He is allowed to blather as much as he wants from any street corner in this nation.

But not from the Oval Office.

Because in the Oval Office these promises will be made real. Pr0ject 2O25 will be implemented. People you love will have their rights stripped away, their very lives literally endangered. Your wife’s menstrual cycle, hell, her BODY, will become government domain. Your taxes will go up, billionaires’ will go down. Agencies that protect everything from the integrity of baby formula to the water that comes out of your tap will be gone. And now, he is on the record as saying you will never need to vote again.

If this country’s media were not bought out largely by the same billionaires whose taxes will go down, last night’s words would be above the fold on every newspaper and the leading story on every news channel. But they’re not.

Because if they were, maybe, just maybe, that would finally get your attention.

Ha.

What will it take?

Who am I kidding? You’ll just throw on your Grab My Pussy t-shirt, buy another flag, and continue your slackjawed march to oligarchy.

Calling the Trump campaign/support brigade a clown car is not exactly history making. Given its endless supply of buffoons, blowhards, and batshit, likening it to a red nose parade is pretty easy.

You’ve got James Donald Bowman James David Hamel James David Vance J.D. Vance JD Vance out there caterwauling about childless women and their felines so much that Jennifer Aniston actually came forward with a statement regarding his pathetic stance and hopes that his own daughter could someday conceive lest she be thrown into the conservative litterbox.

Old JD is also on the record as stating that people with children should have more stake in voting, That their children should get voting rights and that their parents should exercise those rights on their behalf.

JD Vance says Americans without children should “face the consequences and the reality” and not get “nearly the same voice” in democracy

Vance: “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children.” pic.twitter.com/uYS6NcGkKn

— Pat Rynard (@patrynard) July 24, 2024

Hmmmmm, so much for Jesus being worthy of a vote, huh, JD? But it gets better. Here he is advocating for punishment for women who travel from their abortion banned states to obtain abortion medical care. Bonus: it includes one of their favorite spank bank add-ons: George Soros…

Unearthed audio: JD Vance calls for a “federal response” to block women in red states from traveling to another state to get an abortion pic.twitter.com/t9YAbFuoPc

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 26, 2024

And while old heterosectional Vance is out there stinkin’ up the political couch cushions with his sticky past and milquetoast presence present, you’ve got the Batshit Barbies, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene literally demanding proof of life from Joe Biden.

I’m not kidding. This is what the MAGAts have to offer. Derision, delusions, and DJT. That’s it. They have placed all their eggs in a fraying human basket with a maxipad on its ear.

That “took a bullet for you” strategy? With each passing day it falls further and further apart. The latest official salvo in the Eargate mystery came from FBI director Christopher Wray who said Thursday while testifying before Congress, “With respect to former president Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.”

Of course, Diaperload Don lost his shit on Truth Social over that.

Then there was the “Where’s the Obamas?” talking point they all began to latch upon since Kamala began running. Oooooo, there must be something amiss! Why hasn’t Barack endorsed her yet? They don’t believe in Harris! Right up to yesterday when Trump ALL CAPSed his way through another post calling her a “radical leftist Marxist” (words courtesy of the Sarah Palin Word O’ The Day toilet paper) and that Dems were “still holding out for someone ‘better”.

As the clown car started revving its engine on that one, BOOM. Their engine backfired again and the wheels just spun in place. Again.

We greeted the morning with a glowing endorsement from Barack and Michelle Obama.

Timing is everything, as they say, and the Harris campaign seems to have it down cold. Just as Biden’s announcement came after the RNC spent their week in the spotlight deriding his age, mental acuity, and his age, his age, his age… those running her campaign, and those who support her — LIKE THE OBAMAS — know when to pull the political trigger for maximum effect.

Just yesterday as Trump called into his favorite padded room, Fox “News”, with the sole purpose of smearing Kamala Harris, her campaign did what has needed to be done for years. It fired back, with a wink and a nod via a press release.

Calling him what he is — a 78 year old criminal. And highlighting his every frailty and flounder from naming Vance as his running mate to his praise of Pr0ject 2O2five (remember the rules for outsmarting the algorithms).

And yesterday Kamala made short shrift out of Trump’s refusal to debate her in September. While he mealy mouthed his way with excuses (see lack of Obama endorsement), she called it what it is: COWARDICE. She’s ready, he’s not. Back on his lifts heels he goes.

And I am loving it all. With two women at the helm of her campaign — Julie Chávez Rodríguez and Jen O’Malley Dillion leading the team as campaign manager and campaign chair, respectively — they are showing why women will win this race. Why Trump fears women. Why the entire MAGAt apparatus clings to their misogyny and attempts to relegate women back to the kitchen making them sammiches.

That whole ‘women are too emotional to lead’ garbage? That Hefty bag was thrown into their dumpster fire long ago. If ever a human was too emotional to lead, one need only look at year after year of Donnie’s midnight, ALL CAPS tanTrumps online. I’d sooner nominate a toddler denied an extra handful of Goldfish. They are far more temperate.

What is happening is that women are showing exactly why we make little incel knees quiver. Why the JDs and DJTs of the world throw every worn out trope at us. We are smart. We are cagey. And in an argument when we come at you with a smile (God help you if we laugh)? Life, as you know it, is over.

WTF? Absolutely. WATCH. THE. FEMALES.

It is so far past the time that this side begins calling BS out as BS when it happens. That is why a debate will be delicious. The thought of him rambling and lying and gaslighting being met by a slow burn smile and then a signature Harris laugh right to his Maybelline face? Inject that shit directly into my veins.

With just over 3 months to go, I expect their clown car to continually try to get some traction on something, anything, against Kamala Harris and whoever she chooses as her running mate. But putting bigger layers of misogyny, racism, and sexism down? All they’re going to do is spin their wheels even harder as this Blue Bus steadily pulls out, ahead, and over the finish line.

We’re not going back.

From the beginning JD Vance was a poor pick as a VP running mate for Donald J Diaperload. Laden with derogatory comment after comment about Trump, married to a woman of color, children with Indian names, a book-made-movie riddled with exaggerations and outright lies about his past, an affinity for eyeliner, and the Heritage Foundation as his main letter of recommendation?

He had, as the saying goes, the deck stacked against him.

But Trump is not one for stunning insights, long range chess moves, or even average intelligence, so with the HF stamp of approval, JD got the nod.

Since the convention we have seen the predictable:

Every Hitler comparison, plea to God, and screed of derision he ever made about Trump has risen up from the graves of the internet to follow him around like some Ghost of Twitter Past.

His wife, of Indian descent has been targeted by Trump’s pasty white demographic of Proud Boys, Nazis, immigrant haters, and straight up bigots. As pictures of their wedding emerged with she and Vance in traditional Hindi attire, their soft little heads exploded. Seeing him hold one of their brown babies? Clean up on aisle Nein.

His Hillbilly Elegy has been highlighted with every lie contained within. Every exaggeration, every contradiction. Contrary to his self depiction of him as so hillbilly be was basically Loretta Lynn’s next door neighbor, at best JD can be called Appalachia adjacent. He spent summers there with relatives. His upbringing was just north of Cincinnati where he wrote wistfully about molesting his couch. Sorry, JD, I’m sure it was consensual and you prefer to call it a loveseat.

And as for his affiliation with the Heritage Foundation? That takes little digging. A straight up opportunist, once he realized the ease of bilking the cultish rightwingers of both their money and their votes, he simply started saying the things that made the HF coven sit up and take notice. His embrace of all things Porject 2O25 (intentionally misspelled as every algorithm these days seeks it out for shadow banning), from the complete ban of abortion to deriding the very types of education that placed him where he is, bought him a ticket to ride.

And lest anyone is still in line ready to buy Trump’s and Vance’s bullshit of “We don’t know about Porjact twenty5”? Vance wrote the foreword for the book by HF president Kevin Roberts. Dawn’s Early Light is a masturbatory fever dream about how to overthrow Washington and reshape conservatism. Think I’m making up his ground zero involvement with P2O25 creators just to pile on? Think again.

As I wrote last week about his wife’s soul selling turn towards power and grift, Vance’s is equally as stomach churning. Two smart, educated, thoughtful people — one of them the EXACT demographic targeted with glee by the MAGAtry for years — turned towards the dark because power is more important than principle for some. So even as Trump and his clown coterie spent all last week screaming about mass deportations and immigrants, Usha Vance stood in the sewer than was vilifying her, her children, her parents, and Vance added to the mix with his own derisions.

I’ll say again, I simply do not know how one square’s these kinds of things within themselves, but then the Devil doesn’t require self awareness in his deals. Just a willingness to trade integrity, self esteem, and legacy for power and money.

So here we are, about a week from when Vance was announced as the running mate. A pick that was supposed to energize the base and also draw attention away from the age and decrepitude of the moldy gourd sitting atop the ticket.

Ahhhh, but what a difference a week makes.

With the announcement from President Biden that he would not be seeking re-election and was in fact throwing his full throated (ok, ok, scratchy, COVID throated) support behind VP Kamala Harris, the entire apple cart of the MAGA Party was upset, with JD going right under the wheels.

As Kamala was busy bringing in historic amounts of donations and endorsement after endorsement, his first foray into campaigning was receiving less-than-stellar reviews. Held in what can charitably be described as an intimate venue (his old high school auditorium), he had all the gravitas and aplomb of Ron DeSantis. His attempted jab at liberals fell as flat as a day old soda pop when he attempted to say that him having a Mountain Dew would be labeled racist by the left. Poor MD. While it does have a bad reputation as a internet punchline that includes the words ‘white trash’ (take one Google or trip to Reddit), it is simply one of a bajillion fizzy drink options, and one I don’t give two shits in an Appalachian whirlwind about.

But again, JDeSantis is not exactly a stand up comedian. Or self aware. And quite frankly, not ready for primetime, as the saying goes.

One of his bon rots (sorry, but bon mots are actually humorous, something JD is not) about Democrats and Harris in particular is making the rounds. In an interview from 2021 with Tucker Carlson he tries to cast this aspersion:

“We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. And it’s just a basic fact if you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it.”

But it was 2021!, you say. Yes, it was. And he was running for Senate then. And it speaks to his whole wet dream of a 1950s Mayberry utopia wherein wimmenfolk know their place, breed like rabbits, and keep a pie coolin’ on the windersill.

I think the whole attempt to use cat ownership as some slur against unattached childless women is so very weak. I can tell you, if I were a young woman surveying the current male landscape of gents who haven’t even mastered adequately wiping their own asses? I think a cat would be a much more amiable companion — and having had five cats, I can tell you they can be straight up emotional arsonists — than trying to housebreak an insecure Mama’s boy who is shaken by a woman with her own money, thoughts, and autonomy.

And while the right is out in full force right now scrambling for any slur against Kamala — she laughs too much!, she hates straws! — trying to call her childless is ridiculous. She has an amazing relationship with her stepchildren. Does that not count, MAGAs? Do you ignore and demean your stepchildren? Are they not family?

But back to Vance. Those inside the Great Pumpkin’s camp have been quietly talking to insiders about the buyer’s remorse going on. His lack of public recognition (only 13% polled knew anything about him), all the slurs against Trump being constantly highlighted, and voter furor over his spouse and her non-Christianity, added to his lackluster delivery skills? Word is they are looking through the crusty couch cushions for the receipt.

I admit watching that Hindentrump campaign go up in flames after the Kamala announcement has been satisfying. They have invested a year in their one talking point — Biden is old — only to now be saddled with the oldest candidate ever atop their ticket. They have a rapidly declining, nonsensical, spray tanned grifter and felon as their Great Orange White Nope Hope. And now with Kamala as his opponent? Guess who has stated he will not debate her?

Yep, Coward Von Bonespurs.

Their entire effort is in disarray — not that their campaign feng shui was ever radiating harmony and balance — and poor little JD is being set up to take the fall. Word of advice? You’re from the backwoods, JD, right? Right?? So you know what a chopping block looks like. Tread carefully. It may not be the Ides of March but it is always the Ides of Trump and the knives are out.

So it came to pass.

I wrote last week that all signs (read: three weeks of constant media story creation, polls paid for by Republicans) pointed to President Biden bowing out of the race by the weekend. That’s not magical prognostication on my part, just being realistic. I spend far more time online than most, and do not confine my surfing to one site where only my own thoughts are echo chambered back to me. I pay attention to what Musk is doing via X, the level of bot activity contained within those fetid walls of his; Threads, Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Stack Social, Medium; and yes, FOX, RedState, and TruthSocial (which is anything but truth or social).

The relentless banging of the “he’s too old” drum after one less-than-stellar debate turned into a media cacophony of an entire percussion section, complete with everything from timpani to steel drums. Add in the nonstop digeridoo type drone of frightened Dem lawmakers calling for him to step aside? Again, it was not unexpected. Especially when COVID sidelined him last week.

Small aside — I find it hypolarious (hypocritical and hilarious) how they love to poo poo COVID as just a cold for themselves, yet when Biden openly shared his diagnosis and his physician kept the world briefed, COVID suddenly took on mythic and deadly proportions in their ramblings. I would say ‘Make it make sense’, but consider the source. <insert mental gif of cow shitting in a field>

But I digress.

Regardless of what President Biden considered the tipping point in his decision, what we saw yesterday in his announcement that he would be stepping aside is notable, laudable, eminently patriotic. This is what putting country over party, over self interests looks like. This is what eschewing the pull of power means. This is the definition of acting for the “greater good”. Or to put it in Star Trekese — “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few … or the one.”

His timing was beautiful. The RNC spent all of last week’s convention bleating about Biden, his age, <insert all manner of manure>. With one fell swoop, he rendered their convention moot, smashed their main talking point, and hung the mantle of “Oldest Candidate EVER” firmly on Trump’s sloped shoulders. (Who incidentally spent all last night shitting his Depends on Truth Social, including demanding the DNC reimburse him for all his costs spent campaigning against President Biden.)

He also put his support firmly behind his current VP, Kamala Harris.

I can tell you that yesterday across the many platforms was a faction of Biden supporters, but especially phone bankers, activists, etc who began rending their garments, setting their hair on fire, and responding in a way that spoke more of a literal death than a figurative one. And I get it. To a point.

Supporting Biden through the years, but especially these last weeks when it was so obvious how much was being fabricated against him, took a lot of fortitude, emotion, focus. Get mad at the media, the Dem lawmakers who openly joined the fray, but to feel betrayed by him? Nah. Miss me with that. And as for the ones who spent yesterday in literal tears swearing they were not even going to vote now? GROW UP.

Was there general anxiety and some fear? Of course. Change frightens most people. Especially when we did not seek it out.

But here’s the thing — nothing, and I mean N-O-T-H-I-N-G — changed about our goal. Nothing changed about the dangers we face. Nothing changed about Project 2025. Nothing changed about the felonious rapist at the top of their ticket.

Another aside: I am growing increasingly alarmed over the number of people who openly admit they have not heard of Project 2025, know little about it. This has to change. Yes, the damned thing is nearly 1,000 pages long, but there are myriad summaries, breakdowns, memes, and reference materials available with a simple Google. DO IT. You’re in there, I promise you. Whether it is your money’s safety, your child’s education, your bodily autonomy, your parents’ Social Security, your government job, and on and on…

Again, I digress.

Vice President Kamala Harris is the new standard bearer moving forward. The Biden-Harris campaign war chest has been ceded to her campaign’s control; by 5pm yesterday the list of endorsements from PACs and party members was longer than my husband’s leg (I have short legs, would have been a bad example); by 1 am (yes, I am awake a lot in the middle of the night — hit me up, we can play Words With Friends) ActBLue had raised $70,410,317. That amount has only grown throughout the night/morning.

And this from legal analyst Tristen Snell:

Again, I stress I do not believe any demographic is a monolith when it comes to voting, but I also recognize when we are repeatedly saved by a voting behemoth. Black women have and will be instrumental in saving this democracy in November. Pay attention, and pay homage. And quite frankly, pay them back by voting with them. (Looking at you white women who constantly vote against your best interests.)

My point is that there is energy and drive and focus aplenty as we start this week.

And that is what I want to emphasize for anyone still feeling shaky this morning; anyone dreading the open misogyny and racism we know this country is oozing with; anyone who worries we won’t elect a woman. Before I went to bed, I spent hours on all the sites I mentioned. Dems are overwhelmingly galvanized and committed and excited to move this ball forward. Because it is firmly in our court right now.

As for the MAGAs? ON. THEIR. HEELS. Whine all they like about Biden’s age or bandy BS stories about his mental acuity — they were not expecting THIS. In the face of actual patriotism they do not know what to do. So they began scrambling. Their main talking points last night? Sit down…

Kamala wants to outlaw straws.

Kamala laughs too much.

And Trump’s latest offering from his mental rectum: Biden is faking COVID as an excuse.

They are now faced with a prosecutor against a perpetrator. A woman who does not back away from a fight. A black woman, no less. And they see exactly how energized is this blue wave. Yes, they are confused by how we can multi task — thanking President Biden for his accomplishments, leadership, and patriotism, all while getting behind his VP. They are stymied how a man can step aside and change his Twitter (fuck the name X, Elon) background to this.

They are incapable of understanding that we see them. We see through their bullshit, their never ending lies, their subterfuge. And we are not going to allow them to implement their ruinous, dangerous, murderous plans.

Perhaps what confuses them the most (besides our lack of flags, gold tennis shoes, and truck wraps) is this. In seeing them clearly this election stopped being about a candidate for us long ago. This campaign has never been about a candidate. It is about a future. A democracy. A set of protections. The rule of law. The way we should treat one another. The path forward, not backward. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Kamala Harris is an excellent candidate and state delegations have already began throwing all their support behind her ahead of the convention. Now, as her choice of running mate is being decided — swing state governors keep your ringers on — it is time to educate yourself about her. She has been sitting that one heartbeat away from the Presidency for 3 1/2 years. She is experienced, she is confident, she educated, she is respected on the world stage. She is ready. Accomplishments?

And for the record, I love typing SHE. We have seen for centuries that men have proven to be largely shit at being in charge in this world. The time is now. The goal has not changed. President Biden has been heroic in accomplishing so very much while in office, with nearly 6 months left to get even more done (bring on Dark Brandon), and in passing the baton to Kamala.

We are now holding out for a SHEro. SHE can do this. We can do this. Get out the vote, people. It’s going to be ok.

I swear, as much as I go on about how awful is the MAGAt party (there is no Republican party anymore, sorry), I find myself often screaming at my own.

How many times do we have to painfully be shown that the Democrat delusion that if we stay high and above board, they will somehow meet us there, only means we get shanked in the ballsac because they will never rise to meet us? Going high only leaves our delicate bits exposed to those who play their politics not just in the gutter, but far lower in the fetid sewers.

I wrote last week that I have to give it to the MAGAts in one area. They keep moving forward as a unit no matter what. Pussy talk? Write that shit proudly on a tshirt, ladies. Impeachments? Meh. Adjudicated rapist? Pfft. Rambles about sharks, windmill cancer, and Hannibal Lector like my father’s roommate in the memory care ward? He’s our guy! 34 felonies? BFD, rigged, fake news. Appears all over the Epstein files as a pedophile. Fingers in ears, lalalalalala.

They create and live in their own reality. Facts have no place there.

It is something the Ds have simply not mastered. The ability to just stay the fucking course.

Yes, President Biden is old. (SO. IS. TRUMP.) But one less-than-stellar debate performance and the whining, naysaying, doomsdaying, and fatalism started before the clock struck midnight. And as the media took the ember and turned it into a massive inferno, instead of coming out strongly, forcefully, and calling absolute bullshit on the relentless and honestly laughable tsunami of “reports”, Dem leaders buckled.

Which is the exact hoped for outcome from a media largely owned by MAGAt billionaires. Ignore their own emperor who is stark, fucking naked and in full senile decline 24/7/365. Hyper focus on the old guy who has accomplished so much during the past 3 1/2 years in office. Don’t report news, CREATE news. I have to hand it to them. They know their audience. The more salacious, the better. As the saying goes, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Unless, of course, we are talking about an assassination attempt. One of the biggest stories to happen politically since the attempt on Reagan, and the media is content with the Trump imposed blackout of any information regarding his condition, the shooting, any doctor’s report. Currently the national media is only reporting on it when they have no choice. It is local media and British media (BBC, Daily Mail, etc) where the actual journalism is taking place. They are the ones reporting on the shooter’s parents alerting police to their son being “missing” on the morning of the shooting. They are the ones who reported the cell phone had finally been breached by the FBI. They have reported on his Steam account and ominous posting about the 13th, “July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds.”

Only then, when it becomes obvious they are covering for Trump do they put together a minimal story and broadcast it.

Explain that to me. If someone had shot at Biden? Given how the media has all but climbed up his colon in search of any chink in his health armor, do you really think they would accept a blackout of any and all information with a threat of firing to anyone in the administration who would violate it?

Come on now.

So for three weeks we have watched as attacks on Biden ramp up. With no real, true, hard pushback from those who have access to the microphones, where are we? Falling the fuck apart, that is where.

There is the faction of (largely) young people who hold President Biden wholly responsible for the butchery happening in Gaza/Israel. I watch their posts daily, and while they are not wrong in their outrage, their despair, even their watching of trauma porn in the shape of any and all videos they can find that show the carnage and blood and bodies in the street — young and old — it is very apparent that far too many of them are viewing this through a pinhole of October 7, 2023 to NOW. So little historical knowledge or perspective about how long the bloodshed has gone on there; how tangled and effed up are our government’s policies regarding that region; how there is no magic wand to be waved, let alone by one man.

And while there are whataboutisms to go around (What about Kenya? Myanmar? Haiti? The Congo?), it won’t change anything about the hyperfocus on babies dying in Gaza. Again, they ARE right. What is happening there — and I reiterate, I do not care which side of the line, what is the religion, young or old — is horrific. Innocent people dying daily because of where they were born, where they are trapped. Just as innocent people were slaughtered in Israel on October 7th for the crime of attending a music festival and being in the wrong place and the very wrong time.

The focus and blaming of this faction of young voters obscures much of anything else right now. Again, I am not saying they are wrong for their horror, their anger — this is a demographic that has lived through far too much while being blamed for far too much for far too long — but the threats to not vote for Biden, to not vote at all, to write in Santa Claus — all will do nothing to help their own country which is seriously imperiled.

Another faction stomping their feet and making their own threats are older voters who should fucking know better, but are ready to pull a 2016 and protest vote should Biden step aside. So hyper focused on the possibility (looking more like probability) that their primary vote will be cast aside, they are setting their hair on fire. Honestly, I have less rope to hand these people because again, they are older and should know better, having actually seen what happens when pants wetting wins over protecting democracy.

And then there is the piece of the pie where all the handwringing, naysaying, seeing Trump slide through legal processes and get away with one thing after another has people on the verge of simply giving up. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THE OTHER SIDE WANTS. Drown us in bullshit, hubris, their Grand Canyon’s worth of lies that go unchallenged, algorithms that obscure reality, and now in-fighting — all designed to wear us down and make us give up.

And now President Biden has COVID — not a small thing for an 81 year old. Light symptoms so far, and that’s good. But also now the pretaped BET interview that aired last night is dovetailing with all the fatalism and speeding up speculation he will step aside soon. In the interview (again, pre-taped before any COVID test came up positive) he says that he would re-evaluate “If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, ‘You got this problem, that problem.’

If I had to guess, yes, a change is probably coming soon. And if it is going to happen, it needs to be soon. We have four months to get our shit together, rally around a new ticket, and get the vote out. Kamala and a swing state Senator or Governor makes the most sense strategically. The fun part of my mind has its own wet dreams — Kamala and Michelle Obama. Hell, Kamala and Barack Obama.

It really does not matter. A chair, a doorknob, a McFlurry, Jimmy Carter in hospice — I will vote for whoever is on the ticket because keeping Trump and his coven of 2025ers and bigots and religious zealots and Handmaid’s Tale lovers from accessing the kind of power that will endanger so many lives is paramount.

There is no softer tone at the RNC. Flying glass and a nicked ear have not turned down the dial on the vitriol. Far from it. The hate and pomposity and ignorance and lies and promise of Christofascism have been on full display. Signs call for MASS DEPORTATION — families, be damned. Buttons refer to Kamala Harris as a ho. Rally trucks are wrapped in pictures of Biden tied up in the back. Speakers call for blood.

They know what they are about. And they have horse blinders on as they gallop towards it. They have not hitched their wagon to a star, but a fetid outhouse named Trump. And their promises to shower us all in their autocratic, forced religion, oath to MAGA bullshit is very real.

We ARE better. Our ideas are better. Our hearts are better. Our grasp of democracy is better. Our hopes for the future are better. And our desire to protect those we don’t even know is better. What we need to work on is our fortitude, our stick-to-it-tiveness, our focus, and our goal. It cannot matter who is on the ticket, our voting for it is all that will save us.

We have four months. The answer is simple: Keep your eye on the ball and STAY THE FUCKING COURSE.

If you have spent any time online, especially in the hallowed halls of Tik Tok or Instagram, you have surely run across the term ‘pick-me girl’.

By definition, a pick-me girl is a woman who tries to stand out from other women to gain male attention, approval, and validation, often at the expense of other women.

Perhaps you know someone in your orbit who unfortunately falls into that category. Someone for whom the male gaze is the ultimate prize. Male acceptance the north star by which they navigate. For better or worse (usually worse), these women will willingly subjugate, demean, and debase themselves in the process.

If you are still unfamiliar and need a glaring example, then look no further than Trump’s running mate’s wife, Usha Vance.

If ever a woman radiated pick-me girl energy, it would be her. All the while, I do note, radiating sad acceptance of her lot when she does not think she is being watched/photographed. Zero sympathy points awarded. In fact, I deduct 30 points from Slytherin.

Here is some background about Usha. It is impressive … until it isn’t.

Usha is the daughter of Indian immigrants. Her mother is a Biologist and college provost. Her father is an engineer. By all accounts Usha excelled scholastically, received an undergraduate degree from Yale, a Master’s from Cambridge and graduated from Yale Law School in 2013. That is where she met Vance. Up until 2014 she was a registered Democrat. But the deals with the devil were too good to pass up and that changed (had to change) when she began clerking for boof King Brett Kavanaugh when he was in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She then went on to clerk for Justice Roberts.

She and JD got married in 2014. She continued her legal work while having three children — two sons and a daughter. In fact she worked right up until this week when she quit her law firm to complete her contract with Satan and maximize her pick-me girl energy by traveling to Milwaukee where her repugnant husband was named Trump’s VP choice.

I shared this morning that while I typically do not believe that any single demographic is a monolith, I do, however, make one exception. Trump supporters and voters are indeed a monolith. They are a monolith of abject stupidity, rampant self-loathing, glaring blindspots in which they do not see how they are currently actually targeted if not promised to be targeted should he get back into the oval, and people who are willing to sell their souls. It is a monolith of racism, bigotry, hatred of the other, willful ignorance, and a lust for vengeance against anyone they can blame for their personally acquired lot in life. The monolith encompasses misogyny, lying like breathing, and glee at turning this nation into some Christofascist, Handmaid’s Tale wet dream.

This is a woman who should know better. She has been educated at the highest levels, was raised in and is still of the Hindu religion, was solidly open minded and progressive in her thinking, her actions, even her choice of spouse until he made his deal with the devil. But then she told her scruples and dignity and integrity to fuck off when she went to work for Brett Kavanaugh. And now she is willingly being used as a visual token by a campaign that openly disparages anyone of color, who has promised to deport at the highest numbers ever seen, and who has no use for someone like her — brown, with a funny name, a child of immigrants, and not Christian — once they get what they want. The ultimate sellout and pick-me girl. She has aligned herself with the absolute worst elements in our society and is now actively helping to steal rights from other women in order to get what she wants. So I don’t care how many sad faces the photographers captured of her at the convention last night when she didn’t think she was being watched, she is there under her own steam. And the locomotive she is driving is dragging democracy down into the sewer with her.

What I find so very sad is that this woman not only has two sons by Vance, who are being raised in his new, repulsive ideology, but she also has a daughter who she is now willingly working to strip bodily autonomy and basic human rights from. It is completely shameful.

Vance is on the record saying women who are beaten should stay with their husbands. That he will work to completely outlaw abortions — NO EXCEPTIONS. So if his daughter is brutally raped someday and gets pregnant, too bad. If she marries an abuser? Stick with it, girlie. Cover those bruises with long sleeves and thick make-up. Education? Pfft.

That piece gets me, too. He is completely onboard with Project 2025 (now being rebranded as Agenda 47, even more dangerous) which demonizes education, especially collegiate (hello, Yale Law School — hypocrisy, party of 2, your table is ready), and would eradicate the Department of Education. The woman is degreed from Cambridge and Yale, for cripe’s sake. How does she square that with what she now represents?

How does she square any of it, especially her husband, who once called Trump a “moral disaster”, a “total fraud”, and “America’s Hitler”? A husband who is now a willing toadie, lickspittle, and power whore, funded by Peter Thiel, who would see 50,000 federal employees fired and replaced with sycophants who would pledge allegiance to Trumpism, not the Constitution.

She is standing by a husband who once Tweeted about Trump, “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us,” after the “Access Hollywood” tape was published in 2016.

And this one: “There is no moral equivalence between the anti-racist protestors in Charlottesville and the killer (and his ilk),” Vance wrote in a deleted-tweet.

He has liked Tweets that said Trump committed “serial sexual assault,” calling him “one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs.”

All of that to this: “I’m proud to be one of his strongest supporters in the Senate today and I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure President Trump wins in November — the survival of America depends on it.”

No, the death of this great experiment called the United States of America depends on it. Installing fascism depends on it. Enacting laws that violently target my trans son depends it. The complete stripping of female bodily autonomy depends on it. The elevation of their warped Christianity as a national religion depends on it. The further lining of rich donors pockets depends on it. The complete destruction of the rule of law depends on it. The eradication of Social Security, military benefits, overtime pay — all depend on it. The 900+ pages of their virulent playbook being enacted depends on it.

Usha is a learned woman. Vance brags about her absorbing 1,000 page books in mere hours. I refuse to believe she is not up to speed on what her husband has fully embraced. It is, in fact, his embrace of this heinous manifesto that gained him the recommendation of the Heritage Foundation to Trump for him to be the VP pick.

I feel nothing but disgust. No sympathy. She has watched as her once thoughtful, balanced, seemingly decent husband has turned into a pawn of the richest (Thiel), and has taken a dive headfirst into the sewer of Trumpism. Judgey? Sure, whatever. But I can tell you that if my measured, decent, progressive husband began spouting this level of dangerous bullshit, embracing measures that vilify our son, strip autonomy from our daughters, place me, my parents, and my children in danger as targets for our ethnicity, and endanger the future of this country? There would be a very public repudiation of him, a dumping of his shit on the front lawn, a bonfire of it all, and the fastest divorce you have ever seen. My integrity is not for sale. And my love has limits. And that limit is when someone proves they have no humanity.

Not so, Usha. Last night saw her fully dive into the MAGAt sewer with him. Nothing she does now will change that. She is a willing pawn, a token, a pick-me girl who is openly working against women, children, the elderly, the LGBTQIA, and this very nation.

Honestly, the only person with more pick-me girl energy than her right now? Her pathetic, greedy, power hungry sellout of a spouse.

I have the past week immersed in the wonder of my now 20 month old granddaughter. She is lovely, lively, talking up a storm, and provides, without even knowing, simple, pure joy. She also provides, without knowing, some of my darkest moments as I find myself routinely thinking about the world around her and how her country stands on a precipice.

I worry about the fact that she, at less than two years old, is having her bodily autonomy stripped away by ignorant, misogynistic politicians. I worry about the quality of education she will be afforded should MAGAts find their way back into the Oval. I worry about the volatility of this country, roiling with hatred, anger, pent up and misplaced rage. I worry about every trip she takes to the grocery store, the park, Starbucks for her weekly danish.

I worry because the breath of love I have held for her mother for 32 years, now contains her, too. That breath I will never exhale because I hold it worrying about every what if, skinned knee, heartbreak, lost opportunity, broken heart, possible accident, harm in any way.

So much of it can be traced to a vulgar, bankrupt, narcissistic, dumber-than-dogshit star fucker, so possessed of his own vanity that he rode his gaudy gold escalator down to the ground floor of Trump Tower, dragging us all down into the depths of his personally designed hellscape. This country has been on fire since that fatal fateful day in 2015.

He released every demon that had barely been kept in check by societal correctness. He emboldened every racist to take off their white sheets and parade proudly through the streets. He demonized every “other” — that target moving as fast as his gnat level ability to focus. In office he stripped children from their parents. He destroyed this country’s place on the world stage. He flirted with the world’s worst demagogues, compromising national security, and every military person stationed abroad. And when faced with the fact that he was going to lose the office he all but stole in the beginning, he and his bought out minions plotted to steal the 2020 election. Fake electors, fake stories of vans full of ballots in the dark, fake lawsuits, and when all else was failing — he ginned up his mouthbreathing, easily led base of gun loving, woman hating, LGBTQ+ attacking, racist, shit smearing MAGAts and had them descend on the halls of Congress.

Deny that last one all they like; obfuscate it all they desire — the videos will never go away. The shit may have been cleaned off the walls, but it will forever stay smeared over their names as J6 treasonists.

Not content to stay ostracized and relegated to the gaudy gold plated halls of Mar-a-Lago, the bronzed bumblefuck set about tightening his grip on the GOP. Whether through blackmail (looking at you Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz), love of power and the limelight (MTG, Lauren Boebert, Josh Hawley, all and sundry other peon MAGAt politicians), or simple hatred of the other (Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, all and sundry peon MAGAt politicians), the past three and a half years have been nothing but a continued ratcheting up of the rhetoric. Fomenting fear, creating bogeymen for FOX viewers, demonizing all who vote blue.

His every rally stop includes talk of retribution, retaliation, dictatorship. Project 2025 that strips rights, protections, entire systems of our government, replacing them with loyalty oaths not to the Constitution, but to Trump. His lackeys go on TV and openly speak of lists created of those who will pay, of blood, of violence, of revolution. And the dumbshits in red hats listen. They believe they belong to some super cool club of patriots who have been sanctioned to shed the blood of anyone who dares question, let alone gets in the way of Dear Leader.

But here’s the thing. Rhetoric typically is a one way road , UP. It only gets bigger, the threats grander, the lies bolder, the taunts more vile. And when that happens, it can backfire.

We saw it yesterday as someone took a shot at Trump at his rally. Positioned atop a building adjacent to the gathering, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, PA (I lived there for two years, nice place, my sister attended the high school Crooks later attended) fired towards the podium. One person died, another was injured, and Trump’s ear was bloodied by what law enforcement has said was teleprompter glass — although the Orange Hindenburg will ride the “bullet” story to his grave. (Authorities are still investigating but have said they found explosives in his car as well. He was a registered Republican. Just another raging white boy with a gun. True motive TBD.)

In the immediate reaction to the video that went everywhere, yes, cries of “staged” “fake” and Reichstag Fire” went up — after all, this is a lying, grifting, soulless, opportunist we are talking about here. The fact that Secret Service did not bundle him up and get him the fuck off the stage immediately, rather allowing him full access to potential other shooters so that he could pump his fist, shout “Fight, fight, fight!” and provide the photo that will now be on Time magazine speaks to complete dereliction of duty that, yes, could easily be construed as planned. (I refuse to place it here and amplify his photo op further.)

No matter. The image was snapped and within two hours was available on Tshirts, mugs, flags, anything to grift some more.

Here’s where I stand. No matter who fired the gun; no matter who was the intended target; no matter what was the motivation, this is not what we do. Fomenting violence, acting out that violence, is unacceptable. I don’t care who is in the crosshairs. It simply cannot be what we now slide into as some warped new normal. Personally, I want to see Trump in a jailcell before a casket. I want to see him lose again, in spectacular fashion, a resounding loss that sends a message to him and every person who is riding his spray tanned coattails, that we reject completely them, their vile agenda, their bloodlust.

He is alive. His ear will be fine. And let me make it very clear to those pundits who are now creating a story out of nothing about sympathy votes — NOT HAPPENING. Trump is exactly who he was when he woke up yesterday. A crimped ear changes nothing about his lust for power, his thirst for payback, his full embrace of Project 2025. He is still a pig, a conman, a Soprano wannabe, an stupifyingly ignorant sack of hamburger grease and ketchup.

He wants one thing: POWER. And he will do anything to get it back.

THAT is why there was, and continues to be, so much skepticism about the circumstances of yesterday’s events.

Sympathy? He got shot at, that has to suck big time. But no, I will not be genuflecting and shedding a tear for an Aquanetted a-hole who made joke after joke about Nancy Pelosi’s husband being attacked; a pompous carnie who attacks and endangers the lives of anyone who he believes wrongs him; a shameless self promoter who watched in glee as his supporters stormed the Capitol and attacked police.

No, I see him clearly for who he is. Yesterday changes nothing. It does not erase his felonies. It does not poof away his presence in the Epstein files or his alleged rape of children. It does not make me suddenly believe his protestations of knowing nothing about Project 2025. IT. DOES. NOT. CHANGE. MY. VOTE.

I will be voting for the side of the aisle that will better protect my trans son, your lesbian daughter, your wife who sadly needs an abortion to save her life from a pregnancy gone terribly wrong. I will be voting for the preservation of Social Security, the Department of Education. My vote will be to keep their warped Christofascist playbook far away from my granddaughter. My vote is for the future I want for her, for your children, your grandchildren, for all of us. My vote will be to save us from what would be an unrecoverable slide into fascism, governmental terrorism, and a smothering of our Constitution.

So to Donald Trump I say, slap a bandaid on it and from now on maybe think twice, and speak once.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, who am I kidding? We all know who he is and how he is going to exploit this.

Buckle up, everyone, it’s only going to get worse from here. We are voting for our very lives.

It was not unexpected. If anything, it had all been telegraphed by the protracted delay in their ruling. A delay that was purposed to continually kick the can down the road in terms of any judicial accountability for Herr Trump. With judges pockmarked throughout our system from lower courts to the Supreme, all adherents of the Christofascist march towards an America we no longer recognize, Trump is now positioned to reign, not preside, over this country should he be allowed back into office.

Led by John Roberts — whose legacy will forever be the buttfucking of the US Constitution and the complete corruption of this nation’s highest court — the decision has opened the door wide to immunity for any and all actions taken by the Oval occupant by merely stating they are within his/her constitutional duties. Think that is not dangerous? Add to it this portion that grants immunity “from criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility”. So a completely heinous, dictatorial act — like targeted murder, imprisoning political rivals — could be completely fine if it can be warped to pertain even just a small amount to his/her official status.

So basically, Watergate just became cool. No big. Because if you think Nixon would have ever resigned with this type of backing? Well, I want what you’re smoking.

This past week has seen this despicable, bought out, bribed out, blatant agenda wiedling court dismantle environmental protections, outlaw homelessness, and strip powers away from bodies meant to provide governmental guardrails, and now provide cover for a criminal desperately trying to re-enter office to keep from entering a jail cell.

This is not what the founders of this country envisioned. They ran from a King. They knew firsthand the perils of unchecked power. The blood that runs, the bodies that disappear, the rights that become nonexistent. Hell, look at what happens to opposition leaders in Russia in 2024. (Although I’ll be honest, the past 24 hours make me wistful for open windows on high floors, and a wish that Trump liked bad tea.)

I warned days ago to stop the pathetic handwringing and pearl clutching over a single debate. To open your eyes and stay the course. To VOTE like your life depends on it.

Now do you get it?

How many more degrees hotter does the pot have to get for this nation of frogs to realize we are being boiled? Rights have already been stripped from women. State after state has implemented laws taking medical decision making away from parents and doctors. School library shelves have been stripped of classic, important literature and books aimed at helping young people feel whole, seen, understood. States are cramming the Bible and Ten Commandments into their public school curriculums.

He is not back in office, but his minions are hard at work implementing Project 2025, which will become their entire playbook should he return.

Abortions? GONE. Period. No exceptions. Mailing of abortion pills will be a targeted crime. Doctors and nurses will no longer be able to even learn how to perform the procedure. They literally endorse the rhythm method for family planning in this 900 page manifesto. THE RHYTHM METHOD. Can I get a show of hands of who out there is a rhythm baby? I’ll start.

Think they will protect your gay child? Your trans cousin? Your bi partner? Ha. To quote, “the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights” — all terms that are getting cut “out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”

Erasure. There are no protections or rights if you don’t exist.

Climate? What climate? These dullards don’t understand 8th grade science yet Project 2025 would incentivize citizens to come after scientists under the False Claims Act for research misconduct. At the same time they will be getting rid of Domestic Climate Policy, Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon, Clean Energy Demonstration, The Clean Energy Corps, Environmental Justice & External Civil Rights, and on and on.

Department of Education? Gone. Project 2025 calls it “a convenient one-stop shop for the woke education cartel.“ Sesame Street? Bye, public funding. Healthcare? “In essence, our deficit problem is a Medicare and Medicaid problem.” Poof. Have all those babies and good luck feeding them and keeping them alive.

The 900 pages are staggering in what their plans are to completely strip away what makes this country function, how we are actually protected by many checks and balances built into food safety regulation (they see no need for this, specifically mentioning BABY FORMULA), banking regulations (hand that back to the banks to regulate themselves and take care of us). They will weaponize the DOJ allowing for the wholesale roundup of any and all who criticize the leader. Think Trump is spiteful and vengeful now? He is telling you what he will do. Every campaign stop, HE IS SAYING IT OUT LOUD.

And on and on the 900 pages go.

I see a lot of people calling for protests and marches. That’s all well and good. But the only place where the axiom “there’s power in numbers” truly applies at this point is the ballot box. And as for marching and protesting? Think about that in the context of another round of Trump. He wanted to have his masked up goons shoot protesters in DC. This SC ruling will now allow that to happen, because it will fall under his “constitutional” allowances. Some mealy mouthed bullshit about “protecting the greater good” and blood will flow in the streets.

That is not hyperbolic.

If this ruling had been in place the day after the 2020 election, he would have pulled off his coup. He would not have left office. His helpers, like Barr who was actually afraid of prosecution in the face of things Trump was asking him to do and said No, would have been free to obstruct, use fake electors, stay in place.

Much has been said in the past 24 hours about what President Biden could do in light of this Supreme pile of garbage. Suspend all elections till all Trump trial are over! Arrest Trump! Have Trump executed as an enemy of the state! Sure, why not? Well, I’ll tell you why. As much fun as it can be to watch Biden put on his sunglasses and embrace the whole Dark Brandon meme, he is not a sociopath. He is not a psychopath. He is a decent human being. And decent human beings don’t do things like Trump does, they don’t say things like Trump does.

I know people have their concerns about Israel and Gaza and our government, but you have to have concerns about this country’s future, too. You can do both at the same time. And you can insure that the administration that you have an actual chance of influencing stays in office. Because if you think Trump gives shit one about a dead baby in Gaza? You have not been paying attention and your willful ignorance will cost us all.

Trump is what he has always been. A self-aggrandizing, power hungry, mobbed up, cheating, Epstein enabling, adultering, failed businessman, adjudicated rapist, convicted felon, and pathological liar. And one whose mental faculties are failing more and more with each opening of his maw.

You unleash that back into the Oval Office? The United States of America; that grand experiment started so long ago with “We the people…” will be over.

Now do you get it?

Rude? Whatever.

Got your attention this morning? Good.

Last night, in what was sold as a debate — wait, let’s pause there.

Debate, n: a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward.

What took place last night was not a debate. It was what I wrote of yesterday. One decent, experienced politician at one podium, and one simian lobbing his own shit at the other. There was no discourse over policy, direction, or really even opposing arguments. Trump did what he does best — lied. Like breathing, he does not even have to think about what he is about to say, he just spews garbage. And Biden attempted to correct and fact check, but was swimming upstream against a tsunami of bullshit.

Anyone who has been in the presence of a loudmouthed, blowhard narcissist understands what they were watching. I loved my father, and he was a much better man at the end, but I have some serious hardcore memories of his bluster, bullshit, lies, and gaslighting, especially when he was out of his depth. The louder and more ludicrous he would get was his way of winning an argument. Emotional waterboarding. One would get so tired of even trying that they could not be faulted for throwing up their hands and shouting, “Yes, ok, the sky IS green. You win!”

In the presence of a head cold and a sore throat, and in the absence of any form of control or fact checking/pushback by CNN’s “moderators” you will brook no argument from me that Biden appeared less than he actually is. Contrast that with his immediate appearance at a Waffle House post debate where he spoke and took questions — strong, engaged, and conversant on the subjects at hand.

But that’s not where any focus was last night or will be found today as talking heads and a media which has proved itself to be nothing more than a clickbait addict fill the airwaves and websites with doom and gloom for Biden. (After all, it’s so much more fun to catastrophize, isn’t it?) And the fallout of it has been evident since last night. Handwringing and practically rending of garments on the Dem side. Gloating and glee from the MAGAts.

I say again, CALM YOUR TITS.

Obama vs Romney, 2012. He lost that debate. OBAMA. One of our finest minds and orators. He opted for an approach of being cautious and rational which ended up being perceived as “timid and disengaged”. Does anyone truly remember that debate? No. Because it was ONE. And what went on to happen? Two terms.

The immediate reaction last night was almost funny. Almost. Take Claire McCaskill, You would have thought someone died. Seriously. Heartbroken, bemoaning that Biden has created a “crisis among Democrats” after 90 minutes of trying to tread water in a sewer. To quote Sgt Hulka, “Lighten up, Francis.” And the onslaught of calls to replace him with a different candidate? Again, STOP. All I see is people panicking over one lackluster, cold and sore throat laden performance, and grasping for the closest life preserver, which in this case was Gavin Newsom.

As I said above, Claire and so many are acting like someone died. And actually I do liken this to when someone does die and the loved ones are faced with making a million snap decisions in a state of overwhelming shock and grief, and panic about their future.

If we were forced to wait two weeks after a loved one passed, actually take a breath and be able to swim out of the deep end of the pool of grief before faced with decisions about pricey caskets and post funeral brunches and prayer cards and thumbprint medallions, etc., how much less money would we actually spend? Given time to separate ourselves from intense emotion and knee jerking, which only serves to benefit the funeral grift game, and approach things in a much more calm, rational state of mind?

I can tell you from experience. My father would not be in the ridiculously expensive coffin in which he lay. My mother would not have jumped right into a “package” and assorted upgrades — I swear these things are sold like school pictures — that offered so many things that, in hindsight, were simply extraneous and at which my father would have rolled his Irish, cost sensitive eyes. But such is the nature of the beast. Given a chance to calm down, breathe, and recenter, my mother’s checking account would have thousands of dollars more in it. When I think about it, I hate how easily she was manipulated through her grief and shock. Even with my sister and I there beside her, the decisions were hers to make, and they were expensive.

And in the end? He is still dead. He does not care that his coffin is black and gold like his favorite Steelers, or that it is contained in a concrete vault, or that there are 500 prayer cards sitting in a box in Mom’s apartment or that there are DVDs collecting dust that spiral photos of him set against a bunch of questionable country and patriotic songs.

You know, here is where I will give the right a nod. No matter how pathetic, off, nonsensical, or criminal are their candidates, they tend to stay the course. They play the long game. Yes, in the case of Trump there is no question of the cult-like state of his followers, and the power hungry/blackmailed state of his enablers, but where are the calls to replace him? A convicted felon who cannot speak without creating an endless world salad bowl worthy of Olive Garden? A man who is literally decomposing physically and mentally in front of every set of eyes, yet there he is, their candidate, their Jesus Christ. And unless he strokes out or dies, he will continue to be their candidate.

A fascist who has made it very clear what his agenda will be if given the chance to darken the doors of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Project 2025, anyone?

Yes, Biden is old. SO. IS. TRUMP. And like Trump he could stroke out or die at any time, as could any of us. But I would vote for Jimmy Carter in hospice care before I would cast a vote that in any way would enable Trump’s reascension. I do not begrudge anyone a moment in this. Take it. Worry that another Ginsberg scenario could play out. But then move forward.

Our country’s entire future is on the line here. Do you want more of this Ten Commandments in classrooms bullshit? Or yesterday’s Oklahoma headline that now the Bible must be taught in public school? What happens when your wife gets pregnant and suddenly the world turns upside down and the only thing that will save her is ending the pregnancy, and you cannot find any doctor who will do it? What about when your child comes out as transgender and no matter how much you love them you have literally zero medical recourse to help them? Or when your gay marriage is overturned? When you cannot get a no-fault divorce, ladies? When the Supreme Court, which basically openly accepts bribes now with zero accountability is made even more extreme and Christo-fascist by allowing Trump to appoint even more Handmaid’s Tale lovers to the bench?

None of what I just wrote is me blowing things out of proportion or using scare tactics. It’s all happening now and is on the verge of happening if we lose our focus after one less-than-stellar performance. Look at everything this administration has done since 2021, the advances made, the focus on women’s rights, support of LGBTQIA, the decency and experience.

And then take a breath, recenter, and please calm your tits. We’ve got this.