Category Archives: comrade trump

things happen

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Obscenity piled on obscenity. It was completely obscene for Comrade President Donald Trump to welcome Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia into the White House. It was obscene that he held a formal state dinner to honor the Crown Prince. It was obscene that Trump referred to MBS as an “extremely respected man” who was also “a friend of mine.” It was deeply, deeply obscene for Trump to praise MBS for his work on human rights. But most obscene of all was his defense of the assassination and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi.

ABC News reporter Mary Bruce asked a question: “Your royal highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you? And the same to you, Mr. President?” Trump’s answer:

“You’re mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen. But he (MBS) knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest.”

Things happen? Things like assassination and dismemberment? They just happen?

There’s a lot of blood on those hands.

Jamal Khashoggi, a reporter who was critical of Saudi royalty, had fled to the US out of fear of government reprisals. In 2018, he wanted to marry Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish citizen. It would be his second marriage. In order to remarry, Khashoggie needed official documentation that his Saudi marriage had been dissolved, which required him to visit the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He made his first visit to the consulate unannounced, out of fear that he might be kidnapped and returned to Saudi Arabia. He was told he had to come back later. Khashoggi brought Ms. Cengiz with him on his second visit, but asked her to wait outside.

She waited. He never came back out.

US intelligence agencies determined that a Saudi hit team had been assembled on the order of Mohammed bin Salman. That team was waiting for Khashoggi. They tortured him, strangled him, and dismembered him with a bone saw. We know this because Turkish security agencies had bugged the Saudi consulate and made the tape of the assassination available. The assessment report by the CIA (along with a copy of the audio tape) was given to Trump. He stated he didn’t listen to the tape; he refused to release the report to the public.

Seven years later, Trump is back in power and trying to help rehabilitate the reputation of MBS. Trump’s sons are engaged in developing golf resorts in Saudi Arabia. Trump’s golf courses in the US host tournaments sponsored by Saudi money. Saudi royalty buys expensive Trump properties. These things, these deals, they just…happen.

Let’s face it, Trump likes powerful autocrats who can make things happen. I’m fairly certain he wishes he had more power to make things happen to persons who “a lot of people” don’t like. MBS can order a reporter kidnapped, tortured, murdered and dismembered; Trump has to make do with blowing up boat crewed by anonymous Venezuelans who might be drug runners or might just be unlucky fishermen. Trump wishes he could wield the sort of absolute power MBS has, and that should scare the absolute shit out of all Americans.

Things happen, and Trump says we shouldn’t embarrass the people involved in those things by asking impertinent questions. He especially dislikes it when those impertinent questions are asked by women. Like ABC’s Mary Bruce. Like Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey (who Trump pointed his finger at and told her, “Quiet, piggy.”). Like all the women victimized by Jeffrey Epstein.

Things happen. We’ve been waiting for them to happen to Trump. It’s time for us to stop waiting and make things happen. Yesterday’s near-unanimous vote to release the Epstein files during the visit of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia was a fine beginning.

a consummation devoutly to be wished

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I’m hesitant to write this. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m happy to write it. I’m hesitant to hope it might be true. I’ve hoped this hope so many times in the past, and each time that hope has been soundly kicked squarely in the yorbels. But I dunno…this time…maybe? So what the hell, I’m going to write it.

We may actually be seeing the beginning of the end of Comrade President Donald J. Trump.

Why do I think that? Epstein.

Let’s face it, MAGA has repeatedly demonstrated that they’ll forgive Trump for anything. The open corruption, the galactic level hypocrisy, the gobsmacking incompetence, the extravagant lies, the destruction of the East Wing of the White House, the inability to maintain a coherent thought for any length of time, the complete and utter lack of loyalty to his subordinate, the destruction of a health care system they rely on, the destruction of civil liberties. MAGA has always found ways to overlook, justify, or even celebrate that shit.

And to be honest, a sizable chunk of MAGA will forgive Trump for boinking teenaged girls. They may claim to be disappointed that he boinked teenaged girls while he was married, but they’ll forgive him for it. Some will even applaud him for it.

But Epstein?

Epstein is different. Epstein exists outside the ‘boys will be boys’ framework. Epstein has become shorthand for ‘child sex trafficking.’ And child sex trafficking has been a mainstay of right-wing conspiracy theories for a long, long time. These people spend a LOT of time thinking about forced sex with young girls. If you recall, the QAnon movement was solidly locked into the notion that powerful (mostly Democratic) politicians and Hollywood elites (exclusively Democratic) had formed a cabal of Satanic/cannibalistic pedophiles who kidnapped, imprisoned, raped, and murdered children for their adrenochrome.

The loopy passion of QAnon was matched by—and eventually merged with—the loopy passion of MAGA. The membrane between QAnon and MAGA became even more porous and the loopiness escalated when Epstein died while in Federal custody. There was a feeding frenzy of conspiracy theories detailing how and by whom Epstein was murdered. Q/MAGA was energized during the 2024 election by Trump’s promise to release all the Epstein files if he was re-elected.

And hey, bingo…he was. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters the Epstein client list “is on my desk right now for review.” Q/MAGA got excited. The truth was going to come out. Any day now. Really. Get ready. It was coming. Finally we’d know the truth. Just as soon as Bondi finished reviewing all the files. The Epstein client list would be made public and the elites would be held accountable for their horrific crimes. Q/MAGA could hardly contain itself. The anticipation was intense.

Then, on a busy Friday over the 4th of July holiday weekend, Bondi quietly announced that the Epstein client list…well, it didn’t exist. Sorry. Oh, and Epstein wasn’t murdered; he just killed himself. Case closed. Nothing to see here. What’s on Netflix this week?

Q/MAGA was…stunned. Then angry. Righteously angry. Now they feel betrayed. Not just by Bondi’s bait-and-switch, but by the possibility—wait, the probability—the OMFG certainty that Trump, his ownself, was on the list. Not just ON the list, but very likely FEATURED throughout the Epstein files. All of that loopy passion began to turn against Trump…and that’s a LOT of loopy passion.

I wrote about this back in July. In response to a question, I said this:

I don’t for a moment believe this will take Trump down. But I DO think it will weaken him. And I’m good with that. I don’t think there’s any single issue or scandal that can pull him down, but I think every issue that causes him to bleed a bit should be amplified. Death by a thousand cuts…that works for me.

I’m starting to change my mind on this. I’m starting to believe the sheer depth and scope of all that Epstein-inspired loopy passion could take Trump down. Again, I’m hesitant to hope for it, because there’s been a Friday the 13th quality to Trump; he doesn’t stay dead.

But maybe this time? Maybe dead Epstein will take Trump down? There would certainly be a sort of poetic justice to that. Maybe this could actually put an end to our national heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that Trump has inflicted upon us.

‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

UPDATE: Today Trump announced that he’s asking the Department of Justice to investigate Democrats linked to Epstein. Just Democrats, apparently. The most obvious reason is to draw attention away from himself. A less obvious reason: by getting the DOJ to investigate Democrats, the DOJ can then refuse to release the Epstein files because of an “ongoing investigation.”

EDITORIAL NOTE: Seriously, we need to burn the patriarchy to the ground. Just about everything that’s fucked up in the world has its roots in patriarchy. Or capitalism. Much the same thing, really. Burn patriarchy and capitalism will also go up in smoke. Burn it.

yeah, we’re going to attack venezuela

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As you know, Comrade President Trump ordered the destruction of at least 10 vessels in the Caribbean, killing more than 40 people. He and Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Biceps) claim these boats were manned by Venezuelan drug couriers and jammed full of illegal Venezuelan drugs, but they haven’t offered an ounce of supporting evidence. Nor have they asked for Congressional approval to kill random Venezuelans.

Now Trump and Hegseth have ordered the aircraft-carrier USS Gerald R. Ford to leave the Mediterranean Sea and make way to the Caribbean. There are already eight Navy vessels (crewed by some 6,500 sailors and Marines) operating in the Caribbean region. Why do they need an aircraft carrier?

Good question.

By the way, this isn’t just any aircraft carrier. The Ford is the world’s largest aircraft carrier. In fact, she’s the largest warship ever constructed. She carries an air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft, including F/A-18 fighters, which have a range of over a thousand miles and can carry laser-guided bombs and missiles for air-to-air, air-to-ground, and anti-ship assaults. Wait, there’s more. The Ford is also the heart and command center of an entire carrier strike group. That means she’s usually accompanied by at least one cruiser (armed with guided missiles for ship-to-shore combat) as well as a couple of destroyers (also armed with missiles for both ship-to-shore or ship-to-ship combat) or frigates (similar to destroyers, but smaller, faster, and more maneuverable. but still stocked with a whole lot of missiles), as well as a logistic ship and a supply ship.

USS Gerald R. Ford

SO MANY MISSILES! Clearly, a carrier strike group is massively over-armed for attacking and sinking a few small suspected drug-running vessels. There’s only one reason to send the Ford and its attendant strike force to the Caribbean.

The US is going to attack targets ashore. Venezuelan targets.

Now, you may be wondering, “Greg, old sock, what has Venezuela ever done to us?” The answer is: nothing, really. I mean, sure, Trump says it’s all about drugs, but like so much of what he says, that’s bullshit. Relatively few drugs are trafficked through Venezuela. If it was about drugs, we’d be attacking Colombia or Mexico.

The most optimistic analysts suggest we’d attack Venezuela because the current government is making the region less stable; taking down the Maduro regime, they think, would help stabilize South America. But does anybody really believe Trump cares a rat’s ass about South American stabilization? Marco Rubio, the so-called Secretary of State, has some strong feelings about the Maduro government (I don’t know why and couldn’t be bothered to find out), but Trump wouldn’t open a door for Rubio, let alone attack a sovereign nation for him.

It might be because of the number of Venezuelan immigrants coming to the US. There are something like three-quarters of a million Venezuelan immigrants living here now. And who can blame them? Life in Venezuela is grim. But 750,000 Venezuelans is less that 2% of the immigrants living in the US. Then again, math isn’t Trump’s strong suit.

Bullying is his strong suit. Picking on much weaker opponents, that’s also one of Trump’s strong suits. And hey, we can safely bully Venezuela. I mean, their annual military budget is about 1/18th the cost of the USS Gerald Ford. I’m sure they’ll put up some sort of defense, but c’mon. It’s not what you’d call a fair fight.

I’m sure there are some military analysts who can cobble together some legitimate-sounding reason for the US to attack Venezuela. But the real reason is probably that Trump and Hegseth want an excuse to impress the world by the size of their dicks.

a tiny period of temporary release

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Let me first say this: this is NOT about golf. It’s also NOT about television. It’s about assholes. I don’t watch much television–couple hours in the evening, that’s about it–and aside from women’s futbol, I don’t watch much sports on television. But recently, wanting a tiny period of temporary mindless release, I decided to turn on the quietest television sport. Golf.

It was awful. Not awful in the expected way. Awful in an asshole sort of way. Instead of the tranquil, hushed environment I expected to see, there was a loud, raucous, obnoxious crowd jeering and aggressively insulting European players. And who was leading them on? Comrade President Donald Trump.

Guardian sports analyst Bryan Armen Graham noted that the behavior reflected “what’s been an incremental breakdown in public behavior. The country now lives in all-caps, from school-board meetings that sound like street rallies and comment sections that have spilled into the street.” He’s talking about the phenomenon I call Asshole Culture.

I first used the term ‘Asshole Culture’ in August of 2021, in a post about the MAGA response to an unvaxxed man on his deathbed, admitting that Covid was real and pleading with people to get themselves vaxxed up. The MAGA response was what you’d expect–cruel, scornful, aggressive, hateful, profoundly and proudly stupid.

A month later, I felt the need to explore Asshole Culture a bit more carefully in a post called I Am Asshole, Hear Me Roar. In that post, I described the credo of Asshole Culture:

I do/do not want to do this thing. I don’t care if it helps/hurts other people. You can’t make me do or not do this thing. I will go way the fuck out of my way to create a disturbance sufficient to make others miserable in order to do/not do/stop other people from doing this thing. I am Asshole, hear me roar.

I’d expand that credo now. It’s not just about things assholes do/do not want to do; it’s also about things assholes do/do not want to exist (mostly trans folks and, to a lesser extent, Democrats). I’ve written about 40 posts on Asshole Culture (I say ‘about’ because I got distracted while trying to count them and couldn’t be bothered to start over). Here’s a list of topics I’ve written about in which Asshole Culture has had an influence:

  • gun rights
  • vaccines/face masks
  • libraries
  • trans kids in sports
  • ebikes
  • insulting behavior toward Volodymyr Zelenskyy
  • MAGA humor
  • Trump’s ear bandage
  • Kristi Noem / puppycide
  • MAGA support for Trump’s hush money/stormy daniels/repeated infidelity
  • Trump role as bull goose looney of Asshole Culture
  • Trump as martyr
  • Matt Gaetz omfg
  • MAGA response to white supremacist mass shootings
  • MAGA congress
  • Twitter
  • Attack on paul pelosi
  • Abortion
  • Trump’s theft of classified documents
  • Facebook
  • Will Smith bitch-slapping Chris Rock
  • Celebration of January 6 insurrectionists
  • Nazi free speech
  • Kyle Rittenhouse

I used to believe Trump supporters did cruel stupid shit because they were too stupid to grasp that what they were doing was cruel. Over time, it’s became clear to me that many of them are doing cruel stupid shit because they’re cruel. Not just cruel, but performatively cruel. In your face cruel. Visibly and vocally cruel. And because of Trump, they now believe (and they’re too often correct) that they can be cruel without any fear of consequence. It’s led to louder, more aggressive, celebratory cruelty.

We’re seeing it everywhere. Every day ICE agents are openly committing atrocities, confident they won’t be held accountable. Recently a Fox News personality casually mentioned murdering the homeless on live television, and to my knowledge he hasn’t even been reprimanded. Yesterday, a television news report on the day’s second mass murder was interrupted to announce a third mass murder had taken place. Comrade President Trump orders the murder of suspected criminals in international waters with a shrug at the law.

It shouldn’t surprise me that asshole culture has spread to the golf course. Golf in the US has always been a sport for conservatives with money and MAGA has a lock on that demographic. Even so, I didn’t expect to hear a television golfing audience yelling ‘Faggot!’ at golfers on the links.

Flann O’Brien wrote: Anybody who has the courage to raise his eyes and look sanely at the awful human condition…must realize finally that tiny periods of temporary release from intolerable suffering is the most that any individual has the right to expect.

Those tiny periods of temporary release are becoming tinier still.

we’re straight up murdering people now

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Yesterday the United States military attacked and destroyed a civilian vessel in international waters, killing eleven people. Comrade Trump claims the boat was carrying narcotics bound for the US, and that the victims were members of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan drug cartel.

The alleged ‘drug boat’ moments before being obliterated.

That may be true. We don’t know. We can’t know because we blew them up. What we DO know is this:

  1. It was a civilian vessel.
  2. The vessel wasn’t an immediate threat to anybody or anything.
  3. There was apparently no attempt to intercept the vessel.
  4. There was no attempt to disable the vessel.
  5. There’s no declaration of hostilities against Venezuela.

In other words, the Trump administration hasn’t presented any evidence to justify the use of military force against this boat. It appears to be an extrajudicial killing of 11 people. Which is illegal as fuck.

If we can locate and track the vessel accurately enough to fire a missile up its ass (and we obviously did), then we can track it long enough to intercept it in US waters. At that point, we could determine if there were, in fact, narcotics onboard. If so, we could then detain the crew, interrogate them about the source of the drugs, and hold them for trial in a criminal court. We could have followed the law.

But nope.

There appears to be no reason to blow them up except to gratify the blood lust of Trump and his Cabinet of Nazgûl. This is literally murder. It’s criminal on the part of the people who ordered the missile fired and the person who actually fired it. However, there’s no chance any of them will be held accountable.

It’s important to remember that back in February, just a few weeks after Trump resumed the presidency, Pete Hegseth summarily fired the senior Judge Advocates General of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. These are the officers responsible for enforcing the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Hegseth actually said the JAGs were fired because he didn’t want them to be “roadblocks to orders given by a commander in chief.” That was, in effect, an announcement that Trump intended to use US military forces in ways forbidden by the UCMJ.

And now he has. And what’s perhaps scarier is this: military personnel have shown themselves willing to execute orders they know are illegal, in direct violation of the oath they swore when they entered military service.

Killing these eleven people in this particular way–and doing it openly–is a test and a declaration. It’s a test to see the domestic and international response. And it’s a declaration that Trump intends to use the US military in ways that are expressly forbidden to further his own political and personal agenda.

This is straight up dictatorial bullshit. And with a MAGA-controlled Congress, Trump will get away with it.

tactical yardwork

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I’m sure you’ve all asked yourselves this very same question: “What do I do when I’ve declared a national emergency and activated the National Guard to fight crime, but then there’s almost no crime to fight?” It’s annoying, right?

I mean, they elect you to be POTUS and they give you the entire District of Columbia National Guard to play with, so obviously you’d want to use them to guard the nation against something. Otherwise they’re just wasted, sitting there on the shelf. So, crime. Nobody likes crime. Crime is a good thing to fight. Everybody likes crime-fighting. It’s popular on television. It’s not YOUR fault there’s not much crime to fight.

Courageous National Guard troops, dressed in camouflage AND hi-visibility vests engage trash.

So there you are, you’ve got your troops all dressed up and no crime to fight. What to do, what to do? EASY! Make them fight trash! DC is host to tens of thousands of foreign tourists who toss trash all over the fucking place because that’s how they behave in foreign countries. Except, not so many people are coming to DC now, because they’re not really welcome. Besides, you’ve told them DC is a dangerous shit-hole. So the trash assault is a pretty short term event.

Courageous National Guard troops mulching like nobody has mulched before.

But hey, DC is also beautiful. Trees and bushes and all sorts of pretty flowers, and that shit has to be mulched. The National Guard may not be trained to mulch, but they know how to improvise, adapt, and overcome. Issue them rakes and hoes and other geoponic implements, and turn them loose. They’ll mulch the absolute shit out of whatever needs mulching.

Tactical yardwork is fine, but you really really wanted them to fight crime. That means you have to send the troops where crime exists. Fortunately, there are some pretty tough, crime-ridden neighborhoods in DC, neighborhoods where people don’t always feel safe at night, neighborhoods where news photographers are reluctant to visit. There’s no point in sending your troops there. However, you’ve heard from your pretty-eyed Vice President that vagrants–actual people without proper employment and/or lacking a fixed abode, like in those movies from the 1930s–have been loitering around Union Station. Vagrants are smelly (probably) and unsightly, like windmills off the coast of Scotland. We can’t have that. Also, somebody on your staff might have said something about maybe somebody they knew almost had their luggage stolen while at Union Station.

Courageous National Guard troops supported by an MRAP guarding carry-on luggage.

Now that’s crime worth fighting! Deploy the MRAP! Nothing discourages loitering like a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle. Ain’t nobody gonna sleep on benches–if there were any benches–at Union Fucking Station when your National Guard is on duty. Ain’t nobody gonna roll away some poor tourist’s Samsonite hardside, not when you’re in charge and you have a MRAP handy.

So there you are. You’ve ended crime in DC. Trash is gone. Plants are mulched. You’ve established peace through superior firepower. Now all you have to do is wait for your Nobel Peace Prize. It’s good to be POTUS.

i don’t have time for your trans bullshit

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Look, this is really simple. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Trans people are people. Same goes for non-binary folks.

Trans military troops are troops. This is so fucking obvious, but there’s a lot of macho bullshit involved here. Again, it’s really pretty simple. Trans helo pilots are helo pilots, trans mechanics are mechanics, trans medics are medics, trans EOD specialists are EOD specialists. A helo or an unexploded bomb doesn’t care about gender. Piloting helos and defusing bombs are skills that can be learned. Sure, some folks will be better at it than other folks, but that’s just how the world works. It’s massively stupid to refuse to enlist anybody willing to put on the uniform, shoulder a weapon, and walk a post.

Trans athletes are athletes. There’s SO MUCH bullshit about this topic. It shouldn’t surprise anybody that not all athletes are equal, and not all of that is due to native talent. There are dozens of ways one athlete can have an advantage over another. There are technological advantages, in gear and in training. Having cutting edge equipment and sophisticated training tools make a difference. There are massive financial advantages; rich kids can afford trainers and gym fees and gear beyond the reach of poor kids.

And yes, there are genetic/physical advantages. Why was Michael Phelps such a good swimmer? He had unique physical attributes—a long torso, short legs, long arms, large hands and feet, and double-jointed ankles—that gave him a physical advantage over other swimmers. High testosterone levels can matter in sports, but variances in testosterone levels occur naturally (which is why you see those commercials for men with ‘low-t’). Even so, sports governing bodies like the NCAA created policies that require trans women (this apparently isn’t an issue for trans men) to complete a full calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment before being allowed to compete in women’s sports. If a trans person excels in sports, it’s for the same reasons anybody excels in sports. Hard work, good training, dedication, and maybe (like Phelps) some quirk of biology.

Trans teachers are teachers. Math is math, geography is geography, grammar is grammar, history is…well, debatable, but the eccentricities of history aren’t dependent on the biology of the teacher. Trans shopping clerks are shopping clerks. Whether you’re shopping for a sweater or a lawn mower or a canoe or patio furniture, all you want is somebody who knows the product they’re selling.

I could continue this. Trans surgeons are surgeons, trans plumbers are plumbers, trans lion tamers are lion tamers, and and and. Trans people are people. There’s no point in waffling about this. Yes, people will have different opinions on the matter, and yes, they’re allowed to voice those opinions, but no, you don’t have to respect those opinions.

And by the way, it works both ways: Trans assholes are assholes (uh…I’m talking personality here, not anatomy. Although that would also be true). My point is this: if you don’t accept trans people as people, then the problem isn’t with the trans folks; the problem is you’re an asshole.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This trans bullshit is another facet of patriarchy. We need to burn the patriarchy to the ground. Then dig up the roots and burn them. Then piss on the ashes before burying them in lye. Then nuke it from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure). Then have some of those little lemon cakes.

trump, uninterrupted – the difference between a madman and a genius

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Okay, so Comrade President Donald Trump was in Pennsylvania, right? Attending some sort of conference about energy and innovation and AI and all that. It was your basic POTUS meet and greet event. His job is simple: show up, say a few words in support of something or other, then hop back in his plane and get out of Dodge. Anybody could do that.

But Trump, Jesus suffering fuck. His brain is…damaged. He suffers from logorrhea–the inability to stop talking, which is a symptom of any number of personality disorders. He simply can’t just shut the fuck up. In Pennsylvania he started to say something about Lee Zeldin, the current EPA administrator, and how quickly Zeldin was approving permits for electrical plants (which may or may not be true, who knows with Trump?). And suddenly he veers off into the ether and he’s talking about (and I’m NOT making this up) his uncle John and the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.

Guy’s somewhere off in his own little ugly world.

This is directly from the transcript. Prepare yourself.

They’re building plants already, and they have — they’re building plants, and they have already their permits. And I have to take — I have to brag just for a second because when I first heard about AI — you know, it’s not my thing. Although my uncle was at MIT, one of the great professors, 51 years, whatever, he was the longest serving professor in the history of MIT. Three degrees in nuclear, chemical, and math, that’s a smart man. Kaczynski was one of his students, do you know who Kaczynski was? There’s very little difference between a madman and a genius. But Kaczynski, I said what kind of a student was he, Uncle John, Dr. John Trump, he said what kind of a student? And he said, seriously good. He said he’d go around correcting everybody. But it didn’t work out too well for him, didn’t work out too well, but it’s interesting in life. But I will say this, that we have the greatest brains, we have the greatest power and we are going to have more electric. I said to some of the guys coming in, they wanted to hook up to the grid. I spoke to Mark and Jeff and a lot of people, and they said, well, we want to know about the electric, because I was told we’ll need from David. The first one — you’re the first one that told me that’s why I hired him because I said he told me something I didn’t know. He said you need double the electric of what we have right now and maybe even more than that. Remember that? And I said what, are you kidding? And that’s double the electric that we have.

I don’t even know where to start. I mean, even if we ignore the fact that the whole story about Trump’s uncle and Ted Kaczynski is ENTIRELY DELUSIONAL, this is nuts. Okay, okay, Trump’s uncle John? He really was a smart guy. Got a M.S. in physics and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering (not ‘nuclear, chemical, and math’ but okay). And yeah, he did teach at MIT. But Kaczynski didn’t attend MIT. Also? John Trump died in 1985. Kaczynski wasn’t identified as the Unabomber until 1996.

So this entire conversation Trump describes COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED. Is he just making it up? Is he just bullshitting? Does he believe it did happen? I don’t know, but the fact that he’s in front of a camera telling this story AS POTUS is just completely insane.

But even beyond that, he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “We are going to have more electric.” What does that even mean? “[W]e want to know about the electric, because I was told we’ll need from David.” What? Told we’ll need what from David? And who the fuck is David? And this: “He said you need double the electric of what we have right now and maybe even more than that….And I said what, are you kidding? And that’s double the electric that we have.” Double the electric? And Trump is somehow surprised that ‘double the electric’ (whatever that means) is “double the electric.”

Trump also, by the way, dismissed wind energy because (and, again, I am NOT making this up) wind is ‘intermittent.’ It doesn’t blow all the time. I guess he thinks if the wind stops blowing, the electricity goes off. I don’t know, maybe nobody told him about batteries. He’s also opposed to wind energy because he believes they’re made in China, and claims China doesn’t have any wind farms.

“I ended Joe Biden’s war on clean, beautiful Pennsylvania coal, totally ended it. Coal has equal if not greater status. It’s a very powerful — it’s a very powerful thing, coal. China — it’s sort of interesting. China makes windmills, but how many wind farms do you see in China? I haven’t seen any lately, it’s sort of crazy. They buy — they build the windmills, sell them into our country, sell them all over the world and they ruin their fields and ruin their valleys. And then you look at China, where’s your wind farm?”

China does make wind turbines (not windmills, for fuck’s sake); Trump is right about that. But China has also been building wind farms since 2005. They have a LOT of wind farms. But Trump’s never seen one, so…they don’t exist?

Personally, I’m inclined to think Trump hates wind because of what it does to his hair.

The entire transcript (which you can read here) is full of this free-floating babbling bullshit. Which is my point, if you can call it that. It’s never clear whether Trump is just lying to the public or if he’s actively delusional. Or both. Probably both.

And he’s the goddamned president. We are so deeply, deeply fucked.