This is Not a Great Sign

 

Trump: "When you go to a voting booth, and you do it the right way, and you go to a state that runs it properly, you go in -- they even asked me, they asked me for my license plate. I said, 'I don't know if I have it.' They said, 'Sir, you have to have it.' I was very impressed… pic.twitter.com/SVP1xAsdH0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 18, 2025

I guess there are other things (many!) I could have to say about yesterday's events, but I'm just singling this out here: Trump's brain was trying to grope after the term "driver's license", but it came up with the entirely different "license plate." It's just a word substitution in one sense, a misspeaking, but it feels like a sign of senility, 

Well, to me anyway. It's like when he seems to have wires crossed regarding "political asylum" and "mental asylums". Or when he insists he has to show his ID to buy groceries. He may be losing his mind or, and this is also really quite terrible--he never had much of a mind to lose. 

He thinks solar energy doesn't work at night. He thinks magnets won't work when wet. You can look those things up. Trump has never looked up anything, ever and it shows.

Now MAGA being MAGA, they might just insist this is the strength of Trump: he so muscular he can just wrench his license plate off the car and fold it up in his wallet. Ignoring that Trump says batshit things in all seriousness is worrying as hell.

That's how we got here, and literally millions of lives at any time could depend on Trump not being full-blown delusional. Yet here he is, doing "peace negotiations" with a mental deficit and a florid personality disorder. 

We Have Other Things to Worry About, Elon

 

Musk: And eventually, all life on Earth will be destroyed by the sun. It's gradually expanding, we do at some point have to be multi-planetary civilization because Earth will be incinerated… pic.twitter.com/gMrW39tiBf

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 6, 2025

I know, Getting gobbled up by the sun is pretty, pretty, pretty BAD, but like, it's a few billion years off. You might as well get choked up about colliding with Andromeda (I guess we'll have to be multi-galactic people sometime or another). The climate change is really very likely to get us first--

And he supports Trump, who unfathomably thinks "clean coal" is a thing. So, let's just take that with a grain, hm? 

RFK Jr. is Stupid as Hell

 

RFK Jr on measles: "The MMR vaccine contains a lot of aborted fetus debris." pic.twitter.com/wq7S3xssl7

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2025

No, it does the fuck not.  Not a lot. Not any. 

Literally none.

He could look this shit up, you know. He could ask somebody competent who works with viruses. He could realize there's just some stuff he doesn't know, leave it the hell be, and call it a day. There's a lot of things I don't understand. I can't split the fucking atom, okay? 

But then there's Bobby Big Britches, with a big dumb crazy-eyed straight face:

"Don't take the vaccines! They're full of DEAD BABY!" (PS--it's very QAnon-friendly.)

This is the kind of fear-and horror-invoking nonsense you get from the kind of pud-whittling midwit who truly believes there's a grand conspiracy to make planes shit health-altering chemicals out of their backends because he can't comprehend a simple concept like "Planes high, air cold." 

Honest to God we're in the fucking ENDARKENMENT over here. And what's worse is--I don't know that he's that stupid because there are just rotten-souled propagandists who will say ANYTHING no matter how screwed up for attention and political influence. 

What do we do with the dark folks?  Grab a goddamn torch. 

MS Paint-13 and our Dumbass President

 

TRUMP: He had MS-13 on his knuckles, tattooed!

MORAN: That was photoshopped

TRUMP: Terry, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime. I picked you. But you're not being very nice. pic.twitter.com/NgCpEB8o1S

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 30, 2025

I was certain that Trump was cynically using visual propaganda in a way that took advantage of the utter dupes and dopes that are his people, but the above interview snippet sure does look like someone showed Trump the picture of the knuckle tattoos, helpfully Photoshopped so that he would understand the interpretation of them, and took it to be, uh, part of the picture.  

People around him are offering cynical visual propaganda to use, but he's such a Fox News pilled dopey old grandpa, he believes what he's being told to say.

We saw this just earlier in his Time Magazine interview as well:

"That's not what my people told me--they didn't say it was, they said it was--the nine to nothing was something entirely different."

Yeah. Sometimes his people don't tell him anything, and sometimes they completely lie to his big stupid face, apparently. 

A Very Ugly Truth

 

Despite the dark horizon envisioned Sunday evening, there was a momentary market rally on Monday based on, of all things, fake news, possibly furthered in part by a single optimistic Tweet that there would be a pause on the tariff scheme. Despite the various iterations from Trump that yes, the tariffs were going to happen anyway, there was a wonderful rally Tuesday, based on I don't even know what. Wishful thinking? 

People still seem stuck on the idea that the tariff thing is a bargaining position, not a structural reorganization based on, as near as I can tell, a near-total misunderstanding about how everything to do with the economy actually works. 

But at some dark, terrible point, you have to stare into the tan Shinola'd visage of the aging dumbfuck pictured above who did that to his hair and went out in public, as he has done for decades, and realize the simple truth. 

He's really very stupid. He's not taking some deal, even though all manner of countries have been trying to get hold of him. (70? All of them?) He's already got the deal he wants.

They are literally kissing his ass, he says. And I have told you about his relationship with ass-kissing.  It's his life support system.  He has every eye on him. People are telling him he's wrecking everything--and like a toddler wreaking havoc, he's loving it.  And he gets to prove something--he was right, and all the smarty-pants people who said otherwise will find out.

We're Sticking it to Those Penguins, Though

 

The funny/not funny thing about Trump's "reciprocal tariffs" is the way the White House apparently just willy-nilly came up with a plan to suit the ill-informed whims of a mentally ill man who doesn't know what he's doing.  The places being tariffed are internet domains, the alleged tariffs the location have on us is somewhat fictitious, and the formula for levying a "reciprocal" tariff is a bit of slap-dash treating a trade deficit like a tariff and, hoo boy. 

This is "nuking the hurricane" territory.  His sycophants are arguing, "Well, we have to trust him! He's Mr. Art of the Deal, right?"

(Um. No, he isn't. He's a glorified failure who cheats.)

Anyway, at least we are sticking it to those very duplicitous thieving Heard Island penguins, whose exports include, per their trades minister, Binky: "bit of extra fish", "shiny pebble" and "piles of poo for some reason, you weirdos." 

Isn't that a kind of grim satisfaction in the teeth of losing a healthy economy?

Fresh New F*ckery Incoming

 

President Trump on JFK Files: "We are tomorrow announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files...I don't believe we are are going to redact anything...it's going to be very interesting...approximately 80,000 pages." pic.twitter.com/0NW4QdLSzL

— CSPAN (@cspan) March 17, 2025

Remember when the White House traipsed some little right-wing influencers off with their photo op and their binders of nothing-burger Epstein files? 

Well, I think this is kind of like that, except it smells to me that they are doing this on the same day that Trump is going to be in contact with his buddy Putin and has been talking about pre-surrendering Crimea and continuing to lie about Ukrainian forces surrounded and so on. They have a good idea which showcase the goofballs in our media are going to pay attention to on this cursed game show.

 It feels like a distraction that will be as enlightening as a flashlight with a dead battery. I mean, we will see....

TWGB: Citizen Krasnov?

 

I'm just a simple, mostly reality-based blogger, and I have to admit, the "Krasnov" story about Trump being recruited by KGB in the 1980s both interests and concerns me. On one hand, I'm skeptical, because I remember the "Steele Dossier" dropping shortly before Trump's first term and well-enough after the election and coloring all investigation into the Trump/Russia ties in the public opinion with a hint of scurrility. 

In the public mind, everything regarding the connection between Trump and Russia was supposedly a little bit fake, because despite every nugget of fact that Trump did seem oh so very partial to Russia and enamored with Putin, we were supposed to not connect the dots and fail to acknowledge the evidence of our eyes.  The Republican US Senators who wrote the intelligence report on Russia's connection to Trump concluded they most certainly did help him in 2016. 

So, I get the game by now--let's call this a "limited hangout". Maybe there was an attempt at a KGB recruitment of Trump--after all, he subsequently did publicly downgrade NATO--what is up with that? 

Maybe Trump is just a dipshit who misunderstands NATO as, not a defense against Russian aggression, but a kind of protection racket. He is kind of stupid.  Is that so wrong? (For someone in the office of the presidency--it is so much wrong it is like a mirror universe, an "opposite day", an abortion of reality.) 

And what of Trump's business connections--oh, shit, well, here's the thing. Trump's good friend Rudy Guiliani oversaw the transition from the Italian to the Russian mob SOME PEOPLE SAY. Anyway, there's a good book about Trump business and mafia and mafiya connections from Craig Unger. Is it persuasive? Folks don't want to say--but me, I think probably.

Cowardice Chasing Stupidity

Welcome to a stupid enterprise--emissaries from the Trump Administration appearing in Riyadh ready to deal away things they have no control over to appease Russians who our best intelligence indicates have no intention whatsoever to end the war in Ukraine.  They sat there and discussed what we were willing to stipulate without Europe or (and ESPECIALLY) Ukraine there, like their input would not matter. 

Because what the hell is the country that was actually invaded even doing in the picture, right? Let alone our NATO partners, huh? Like, what ABOUT Poland?

The picture above is a portrait of "cowardice chasing stupidity". Collectively, they might know what they are doing has no fucking chance in the world of leading to anything productive because of course not--but they are all dancing to Trump's incredibly foolish tune. 

Remarkable! Or, The Perpetual Trump Gluteal Osculation Machine

 

Sean Duffy, a reality TV star, Fox News guy, former US Congressman, now Department of Transportation guy, said Trump's leadership has been "remarkable".  Being on "Road Rules" qualifies you for DOT because "roads". It is known. And "remarkable" certainly is a word. 

It doesn't have to mean "remarkably good"--and it doesn't. Maybe he meant it that way.

But it was "remarkable" in the sense of being appallingly racist, sexist, stupid and self-inflating. A projection of blame onto other people as both a deflection and a cover-up for suborned insecurity. Duffy has his ass to kiss, and he did fine. 

And I don't care, because what followed was astonishingly typical and horrific. Trump blamed DEI (which seems to mean "people of color" in Trump's mind) and Biden for what happened, because he wants to speculate about who to blame and is uniquely incapable of either knowing his role or shutting his hole. 

On behalf of Generation X, I apologize for Sean Duffy. Being a sell-out Boomer ass-kisser was certainly a choice, and one he didn't have to make. I guess that's just the way the Reality Bites. Some of us still keep it real, though--and here's my opinion on Trump.

Malicious Compliance?

 

Monday night, people became aware of a memo from the Trump Administration that halted payments regarding all sorts of things.  That memo said to pause "all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance." 

Well, that wasn't very specific. So maybe the memo was drafted by someone who didn't exactly know what all the programs were, but figured they were all suspect. Or maybe the memo was crafted by someone who really did want all the programs everywhere halted, but didn't know they would be leaving the Administration red-faced and red-assed.

Trump loves doing stuff, and also hates to be blamed for doing stuff. Somebody might get "you're fired'd" for this. I would like it to be Russell Vought, who hasn' t even been confirmed for OMB yet, but who is the Project 2025 guy who thought up this exact kind of thing, was singled out by the Trump Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt as the guy to contact, and is forever stuck in my mind as being the guy in the first Trump admin who halted the aid to Ukraine for the first Trump impeachment.

That CRT/DEI Stuff Meant American History

 

The Air Force confirmed it has dropped a training video with the famed Tuskegee Airmen following Trump’s DEI crackdownhttps://t.co/bU3AoQ1LHG

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 25, 2025

The story of the Tuskegee Airmen doesn't take away from the story of America, it only challenges some of the myths of White America.  It stays a story about American greatness if we accept that they, like the Navajo code-takers, were a part of this nation's cherished diversity being a boon to us. Just like the story of Japanese-Americans who fought even while their families were interred by our government because of their patriotism. 

Pete Hegseth is far too young to know about "That's no lady, that's my WAF" jokes. The Trump Administration fired a Coast Guard Admiral and maybe the reason was because she was a woman.  Was she the problem? Or was the problem--the metrics she supposedly failed by--culture war ideology that detracts from the actual mission to protect the homeland?

Matt Gatz is Not Even Old.

 

What in the world is with the button-nose no shift of genetics had given this weird, appalling man? The unnaturally pointed chin, the Suprise brows?  A man in his thirties should not look more weird and fucked up than a Las Vegas superstar in his--I don't know--70's? He seems like a bastard Wayne Newton or a mutant Chuck Woolery. 

Situation artificial, also pretty fucked up. 

This is a guy who has "too much hookers and blow" written all over his trampoline-tight face. Theory people in TrumpWorld do not even really love themselves.

UPDATE: Why does he try so hard to be pretty when he has this mind of his?

When Russia Has Shown You Who They Are

 

All the videos of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight showing the damage show holes in the wreckage have entry holes on the port side and exit holes on the starboard side, likely with a slight angle from below. pic.twitter.com/z4NxEapLWd

— Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) December 25, 2024

Russia shot down that plane just like they shot down MH17 in 2014 and just like they shot down Korean flight 007 41 years ago. Soviet or Putin, we have a structure of murderousness and lying; and taking no responsibility for the loss of many human lives. 

Russia needs disinformation to exist, and this is why I deplore the idea that the structure for seeking out disinformation is being dismantled in the name of "free speech." Democracy can only exist with a well-informed public, yet US conservatives like the idea of a disinformed public softened up by foreign powers because they have so far benefitted from it. 

If I hadn't in the last 40 years of my political awareness seen a brilliant reason to not support the GOP ever--holy shit! Watergate, Iran/Contra and the yellow cake /WMD's lies are like tiddlers in comparison to any and every pretense that Russia is a reasonable honest nation we can do business with. We are absurdly weakened by such a stance. 

Drone-Mania!!

 

You know, while the quality of mercy is not strained with respects to highly performative Republican arsehats, the benefit of the doubt has been badly overdrawn, and when former PA gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano posts something like the above, well, I presume "cultural illiteracy" as well as several other kinds. The kneejerk, Pavlovian tendency to seize any passing whaaambulance in their jaws is something MAGA's will simply have to see to on their own. 

While many no doubt assume their audience is stupid, I'm pretty sure.... well, you KNOW.

But with respects to the headline-writer at The New Republic--is it the "worst"?

There is--another. Nancy Mace speculates they could be from something "outside our universe." 

So, What is Going on on Twitter?

 

You can actually make all of this up and somehow keep your account. pic.twitter.com/quGzcoCMbw

— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) December 16, 2024

No nano technology was used to post this reply, but without RNA, our DNA would not still be here. It didn't need nanotechnology to get us here and never will. MRNA vaccines are made with messenger RNA--biological code.

 We are not being linked by our cell phones to a super collider connected to Satanism for some weird reason. Not sure who we have to explain this to. (But for the love of all that makes sense, 5G is just what comes after 4G which comes after 3G--the "G" is for "generation.")

These are the kinds of people who reject vaccines. 

No, We Most Definitely are NOT

 

Senator-elect Jim Banks on RFK Jr: "This country is ready for a big debate about vaccines." pic.twitter.com/UAxv6pMmvf

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 13, 2024

This country is not ready for a debate on vaccines. Vaccines are not a debate topic. This is like debating whether the earth is round. They aren't political. They aren't something any jackaloon with a big old opinion should have a dopey say-so about. They are being made political by chiclet-heads.

Wait. I take that back. That's needlessly insulting to gum. 

RFK. Jr. is working with a lawyer who petitioned to "revoke approval of the polio vaccine."

The polio vaccine. When I was growing up, if there was a medical Mount Rushmore, Jonas Salk would've been on it. It's safe. It virtually eradicated a genuinely terrifying disease. 

We Have Met the Stupid, and it is Us

 

I have talked about the stupidity of using polling as a "story" for news purposes before. People are measuring opinions, but you can't measure facts. If an opinion is just wrong as to the facts, what did you learn? People might not answer honestly. They might be just vibing and have never thought about your question before. It might be useful for a news organization to see what sorts of things the public needs to be more educated about--but is it news?

Look, the above chart is from two years ago, about when I wrote the post I linked to. Yougov.com found that people wildly misestimate the size of various groups. When you see that people are estimating 21% of the population is transgender, bathroom panic starts to make more sense, until you ask yourself if people responding to the question even really understand fractions. Do people really think one out of five people are trans? Do they think like one in four are Muslim, and that one in three are atheist? 

These numbers don't jibe with anything in people's actual lived experiences. What this poll shows is that people are innumerate. Their mental math is broken. They aren't converting their concept of how many people per are anything--they are just really bad contestants on "The Price is Right".  

Welcome to the TrumpWorld Kakistocracy

 

Did you know that being a deer in the headlights "Me and My Shadow" fig leaf for El Cofeve might get you a berth as head of Homeland Security? Yep. Kristi "We Also Kill Dogs" Noem has gotten a little promise from the ship of state she chose to barnacle on. I guess it is something she promises beyond supporting Trump in his momentary "Swaycation" from a rally where he momentarily found himself beyond words. I'm trying not to think it's because she put a half roll of quarters in his front pockets and offered to make change. 

You know, if right wing fuck for brains want to pretend Kamala Harris slept her way to the top, there is no end to the fucktacular permutations amongst RW personalities permissible--especially if they have already demonstrated being down like a clown. I presume Marco Rubio's exceptional capacity for supine boneless nuggetry has enhanced his likelihood for being chosen for Secretary of State. I can also foresee his being eventually "You're Fired'd" after giving up a guaranteed lifetime Senate seat. Compared to the other Sec of State possibilities he seems like the least worst--so there has to be a catch. 

What if We Declined the Decline?

 

Reporter: A brand new analysis finds that Social Security would run out in six years if Trump's agenda is enacted pic.twitter.com/eLiOZPpvfb

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 21, 2024

Generation X people have never taken Social Security for granted, actually I think a lot of us came up thinking the rug would be pulled out from under us because that was how our generation experienced everything--as a recession. I mean, I definitely feel like at some point, someone in my lifetime said out loud with their whole chest that Social Security was the third rail of politics, but I never equally also felt it applied to me, because it felt like someone, somewhere else, was going to wind up the ladder I was supposed to retire on. 

Like, they were going to move up the age I could even get Social Security to an age where I wouldn't even be competent to apply, Like, I would have worked to my late seventies and be trying to sort out how Medicare Part D shit was going down. And just have new technocrat hoops my elderly ass would have to jump through. And a canyon my elderly ass might fall through. 

I'm in my 50's still wondering about that rug pull. Kamala Harris is eight years older than me and wants to save the thing Trump's economic plan would destroy--I guess none of his friends are counting on SS. They count on his tax cuts, though.