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

Posted on July 17, 2025 by greg

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.

you hear that, mr. trump? that is the sound of inevitability.

Posted on July 11, 2025 by greg

Two people I’d rather not ever think about for the rest of my life? Comrade Donald Trump and the late Jeffrey Epstein. But here we are.

I suppose it was inevitable. I mean, in a lot of ways MAGA is the bastard child of QAnon and the Westboro Baptist Church. We’re talking about people who’ve devoted a seriously big chunk of their daily lives to thinking about sexualized anti-government conspiracies. People who’ve built complex, contradictory theories about political figures (mostly Democrats) and Hollywood elites maintaining a series of subterranean facilities where kidnapped children would be raped and then murdered for their adrenochrome. People who claim to believe trans folks are lined up outside high school bathrooms and locker rooms so they can sexually assault girls. People who spend a LOT of time thinking about forced sex with kids.

So yeah, the ‘suspicious’ death of Jeffrey Epstein is chum in the water for MAGA. When Trump’s pre-election team promised to expose the “truth” about Epstein, MAGA ate it up with a spoon. They absolutely believe Epstein was murdered because he possessed sexually compromising material on powerful figures–a so-called ‘client list’. When asked about that list, Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review.”

Then on Friday evening–the 4th of July holiday weekend–Bondi quietly announced, “Hey gang, guess what, there IS no client list! Oopsie! Also? Epstein killed himself! So case closed! How about those Red Sox, huh?!”

MAGA was not amused. You spend years spreading chum in the water, you expect to catch a shark. Being told there IS no shark doesn’t go over well. And given Trump’s long, close relationship with Epstein, it was inevitable that things would get weird and nasty.

But nasty enough to get MAGA to turn on Mr. MAGA his ownself?

I was curious enough that I looked into one of the MAGA-most corners of the Intertubes. I used to check in on the ‘patriots’ of FreeRepublic on a semi-regular basis, just to have some idea of how their fevered right-wing brains work. Snce the re-election of Comrade Trump, I haven’t had the stomach for it.

Until yesterday. And reader, the MAGAverse is absolutely furious. Furious not just at Bondi for her clumsy bait-and-switch approach, but also at their boy Trump. Here are a few of the comments made on FreeRepublic:

I woke up this morning with the realization that the only explanation for this is that Trump is on the list. Nothing else makes sense. This is like Watergate. It will never go away, and it will lead to Trump’s resignation.
–by E. Pluribus Unum (Democrats are the Party of racism, anger, hate and violence.)

Something very big is being covered up.
–by Highest Authority (DemonRats are pure EVIL)

Let’s face it: Pam Bondi is doing just what Trump wants her to do.
–by hcmama

I think we all need to wake up to the real possibility he’s on that list.
–by Lil Flower (American by birth. Southern by the Grace of God. ROLL TIDE!!)

Looks pretty suspicious to go from “The List is ON My Desk Right Now” to “The List Doesn’t Exist.” Someone intervened that has the power to stop the list from being released by the Attorney General of the United States.
–by Bon of Babble (You Say You Want a Revolutioan?)

This decision is way past bondi’s pay grade. This is Trump. Period.
by USS Alaska (NUKE THE MOOSELIMB TERRORIST SAVAGES)

When you see a Freeper who signs his posts with ‘Nuke the Mooselimb Terrorist Savages’ turn on Trump, you know they’re serious. Not necessarily sane, but serious. The reality that their Golden Boy might be on the List of Epstein Kiddie Diddlers (if one actually exists) has to be massively discouraging for them. One way of dealing with that is to create NEW conspiracy theories to explain it. For example, there’s a contingent of Freepers who’ve decided to blame…guess who? That’s right; the Jews.

Ask Israel. They control The Stable Genius…
by Captainpaintball (America needs a Conservative DICTATOR if it hopes to survive. )

Everybody knows Trump and Bibi Netanyahu are BFFs. Combine that with the suggestion that Epstein was some sort of FBI/CIA/Mossad agent, and you’ve got another tasty conspiracy to dine on. But even better (and by ‘better’ I mean ‘more delusional’) are the Freepers who see all of this as part of Trump’s Super Secret Clever Plan to Thump the Democrats.

I think it’s POSSIBLE that genius Trump is making this too big to go away by showing a coverup. When the truth is released…we will get suicide after suicide with DimWITS and RINOs leading the way.
by politicianslie

My conspiracy theory. The Epstein files contain information that can bring down 0bama, Clinton, Clapper, Comey, Brennan… That is why they have to sit on the Epstein files
by Steven Tyler

Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it. Trump promises to release the Epstein Files to get people excited, then claims the files don’t exists, which gets people even more excited. Eventually all that excitement will reach the boiling point and then Trump will hold a press conference and reveal…Hey Presto! The files DO exist! And they implicate ALL of Trump’s enemies! Genius! Applause and fireworks! A chorus of angels sing as the anti-MAGA deviants are led away to concentration camps in Sudan!

Jesus suffering fuck, dealing with MAGA is exhausting. I need a drink.

first headline i saw this morning

Posted on June 29, 2025 by greg

So I wake up this morning to a headline saying MAGA extremists made a deal with other MAGA extremists to advance the massive tax cut bill proposed by THE MAGA extremist (yeah, I’m talking about Comrade Trump, and while we’re at it, how creepy is it that they’re now referring to him as ‘Daddy’?).

What was included in the deal? You don’t want to know. I mean, it’s so fucking discouraging. But it’s also probably almost exactly what you expected. So what the hell, here’s JUST ONE facet of that deal. Florida Senator Rick Scott (you know him as the Guy Who Looks Like Gollum Became a Vampire and Got a Job on Wall Street) said he wanted to “do more to reduce the amount of money spent on able-bodied adults who are allowed to enroll into Medicaid.”

You may not know this about Rick Scott. He co-founded a hospital corporation which eventually became Columbia/HCA, the nation’s largest for-profit health care company. That sounds sorta impressive, doesn’t it. BUT (there’s always a ‘but’ with these motherfuckers), Scott had to resign from Columbia/HCA. Why? You know exactly why (it’s always fraud with these motherfuckers). Columbia/HCA was found guilty of defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. Bill Clinton’s DOJ prosecuted the company and they were convicted of 14 felonies and fined $1.7 billion. At the time, it was the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history.

What did Rick Scott’s healthcare corporation do under his leadership? 1) They billed for tests that weren’t necessary and/or hadn’t been ordered by doctors physicians, 2) they attached false diagnosis codes to patient records to increase reimbursement to the hospitals, 3) they falsely claimed marketing and advertising costs as community education, and 4) they billed for home health care visits for patients who didn’t qualify to receive them. And that’s why Rick Scott was forced to resign.

Now that he’s no longer getting that sweet sweet Medicare fraud money, Scott wants to reduce funding for Medicare to prevent fraud. If you tried to write that into a movie script, nobody would believe it.

BUT that’s not all (it’s never ‘all’ with these motherfuckers, there’s always more). Scott said he and other MAGA conservatives want to “stop Blue State governors from taking advantage of Red States.” He actually said that, right out loud (these motherfuckers are always saying stupid stuff right out loud). That’s bullshit, of course. If you’re not already aware of this, blue states contribute nearly 60% of all federal tax receipts. Blue states generally pay more in taxes than they receive in government spending. Red states receive more money from the government than they pay in taxes. Red states leech off of blue states.

Rick Scott knows this; but he’s not the sort of person who is constrained by truth. Or fact. Or honor, or a sense of shared humanity, or any notion of decency, or or or. They’re all hypocrites, these motherfuckers. All of them. Every single one.

Anyway, that was the first headline I saw. I haven’t read any more news this morning. I don’t think I need to.

but that’s not the real problem

Posted on June 26, 2025 by greg

As you may recall, recently Comrade Donald Trump, as Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, made this claim on national television:

“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”

Yeah, no. Didn’t happen. Just another in the endless series of Trump’s self-aggrandizing lies. The Defense Intelligence Agency conducted a preliminary Bomb Damage Assessment of the US attack (that’s right, the DIA did a BDA) and assessed that the damage at the primary Fordo site was “not extensive.” Certainly, the site was not obliterated like Trump claimed. But that’s not the real problem.

This morning the Unlikeliest Secretary of Defense Ever, Pete Hegseth, complained about the news coverage of Comrade Trump’s pointless attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Hegseth claimed that reports detailing the limited damage done by the bombing was, in effect, an attack on the integrity and honor of the pilots and air crew who flew the mission. Which, obv. is total bullshit. Which, again, is in keeping with almost everything Hegseth says. But that’s not the real problem.

It’s been reliably reported that at the primary uraniam enrichment site at Fordo, two of the so-called ‘bunker buster’ bombs (okay, technically they’re called ‘Massive Ordnance Penetrators’ or MOPs) were dropped on the entry point to the facility and on a ventilation shaft, one after the other, to increase the level of destruction. The destruction that, you’ll recall, the DIA described as “not extensive.” Which means the MOPs didn’t do what they were intended to do. But that’s not the real problem.

Here’s the real problem: for a couple of decades, the threat of the ‘bunker buster’ gave the US leverage. Hostile nations, fearful of the power of that specific bomb, were reluctant to test the US resolve. If a nation started to build a highly secure underground facility against the wishes of the US, the US would dangle the ‘bunker buster’ and that was generally enough to dissuade them. The threat of the ‘bunker busters’ was enough to cow most of our adversaries.

They were incredibly effective as a deterrent…as long as we didn’t actually USE them.

Not anymore. Now everybody knows the most fearsome conventional high explosive bomb in the US arsenal can’t do what it was designed to do. You know North Korea is digging deep today.

Trump has once again made the US weaker. Nothing he can say or do—nothing Hegseth or any of Trump’s other sock puppets can say or do—can change the reality. Oh, the ‘bunker buster’ is still a formidable conventional weapon. But now the world knows it’s just another really big bomb, and if you dig deep enough it won’t hurt you.

the one thing everybody agreed on

Posted on June 15, 2025 by greg

Like a few million other folks, I showed up at the local No Kings protest. We were all there for the same fundamental reason: because Comrade Donald Trump and his cadre of Nazgûl have been merrily shitting on…well, everything that’s good and promising and hopeful and decent about the US.

People are pissed off about SO MANY things Trump has done (and intends to do). The attacks on immigration, science, trans rights, healthcare, civil liberties, the environment, due process, Gaza (and Israel and Iran and and and), veteran’s benefits, free speech, the national debt, the January 6th pardons, everything about January 6th, the assault on education, the assault on libraries, the assault on the very concept of Truth.

But one thread tied all the anger and frustration and resentment together. A deep, abiding rage against Donald Trump as a person. Not only for the horrors he’s inflicted on the United States, but a profound loathing for him as an individual. As I wandered through the No Kings crowd, I kept seeing this same sentiment. Fuck Trump.

People really hate this motherfucker and they hate him personally. They hate him for what he’s done, they hate him for what he wants to do, and they hate for him who he is. Which, I suppose, is only fair, considering how many people he hates for who they are. Trump has a singular talent for both hating others and being hated.

Why do people hate him so? Because he’s a liar, because he buried one of his many wives on a goddamn golf course, because he’s betrayed the United States, because he’s got truly godawful taste in everything, because he’s cheated on every wife he’s had, because he’s massively ignorant and unaware of it, because he’s a liar, because he’s fucked over every person and contractor he’s ever worked with, because he’s an unrepentant racist, because he hates women, because he loves autocrats, because he’s a liar, because he’s a coward, because he’s never owned a pet, because he’s a narcissist, because he pretends to support the military but believes they’re losers, because he’s a liar, because of his stupid fucking red hats, because he’s a phony, because he’s put incompetent people in positions of power, because he insults everybody who disagrees with him, because he’s a vindictive prick, because he’s a liar, because he’s rude, because of his stupid fucking hair, because he encourages his followers to be violent, because he hates immigrants but hires them to work for his resorts, because he’s shit all over the Arts, because he’s a liar, because he’s cruel and enjoys inflicting harm on others, because he pretends to be a Christian without having an inkling of Christian charity, because he’s a sex pest, because he’s committed many many crimes but has never been held accountable for any of them, because the people who like him are all massive assholes, because he’s a fucking liar.

I’m sure I’ve skipped a few dozen other reasons why people hate him. But I think you get the point. People sincerely hate Trump.

But there was another guy at the No Kings event. Bearded guy, dressed all in black, sitting on a granite railing. He was wearing a T-shirt that said “Hate Will Never Win.” I hope he’s right. I genuinely hope hate won’t win. But I also hope the hatred against Donald Trump will get people to stand up for themselves and for others. I hope it will get people to push back against his authoritarianism. I hope it will get people to vote. I hope it will get people to hold Trump accountable for all (or at least some) of the horrible things he’s done to this country.

And then I hope we can let go of that hate.

if we do this right…

Posted on June 9, 2025 by greg

Overheard in a hallway outside the Oval Office.

Trump: We must deport violent criminals.
ICE: Okay.
Stephen Miller: I want 3000 undocumented immigrants detained.
ICE: Okay.
Miller: That’s 3000 detained each day.
ICE: Oka…what? Each day?
Miller: Each day.
ICE: How are we supposed to identify, locate, and detain 3000 violent undocumented criminal immigrants each day?
Miller: Use the IRS.
ICE: Okay.
Miller: Find out who pays them, arrest them where they work.
ICE: Okay.
Miller: Take them when they’re picking crops.
ICE: Okay.
Miller: But at the end of the day, let them get the crops in first.
ICE: Okay.
Miller: Also, order them to appear at immigration offices to support their claims of asylum, arrest them at the courthouse.
ICE: Okay.
Miller: Might as well detain their families too. They’re probably illegal too.
ICE: Okay.
Miller: Any questions?
ICE: Nope. Arrest the ones who work, the ones who pay taxes, the ones who show up for their hearings. We can do that.
Miller: Good.
ICE: But what about those violent criminals?
Miller: If we do this right, the ones who are left will become violent. Then you can just shoot them.
ICE: Okay.
Some Random Democrat: We must focus on kitchen table issues.

whelmed

Posted on May 22, 2025 by greg

It’s been a month since I’ve written anything on this blog. A whole month. I used to write something here 2-3 times a week. I’ve never gone this long without writing something for the blog. Never. Why is this happening?

Here’s why: Trump trauma. Ever since the election, I’ve been…I don’t know. I can’t quite find the right word to describe this feeling. And it’s not just Trump (though Trump alone is enough); it’s also the collection of incompetent fascist nitwits he (and a complicit GOP Congress) placed in critically important political offices. That means that ever single day, including weekends, there are at least half dozen things so outrageous that they deserve a scathing blog post. And I just don’t have the energy to do that right now.

I mean, if Russia had done what TrumpCo has done to the United States (and for what it’s worth, you can argue Russia IS responsible), you’d say it was an act of war. In a mere one hundred days, TrumpCo has kneecapped the US. They’ve completely shredded our reputation for intelligence gathering and sharing; they’ve ignored basic operational security; they’ve gutted our ability to respond to climate disasters while simultaneously reducing the resources needed to warn the populace about those disasters; they’ve rolled back food testing, increasing the likelihood of contamination; they’ve made it easier to evade taxes and harder for the IRS to collect taxes and prosecute tax cheaters; they’ve cut spending on both medical research and Medicaid, which will certainly lead to increased childhood and elderly mortality; they’ve made air travel less safe; they’ve not only limited civil rights, they’ve actually rescinded civil rights that had already been established; they’ve sent out masked goon squads to kidnap and secretly detain people legally in the US; they’ve…well, you get the idea. TrumpCo has basically shit all over the US Constitution, and done it openly.

It’s overwhelming.

You know what? That’s the word I couldn’t think of when I began writing this post. That’s exactly why I haven’t written anything here for a month. I’m not just whelmed (from the Middle English hwielfan, meaning “to turn upside down (as a ship); to roll over and over”), I’m totally and completely overwhelmed. I’m whelmed the fuck over.

Stunned, exhausted, bedraggled survivors trying to escape a capsized ship.

I feel like the United States has been capsized, like we’re caught up in some political Poseidon Adventure. It’s as if the ship of state has been hit by a rogue wave and turned completely upside down, and we the people have to crawl and fight our way through the burning, topsy-turvy, almost unrecognizable wreckage of the nation we knew in an attempt to reach what used to be the bottom of the ship, hoping that somebody on the other side of the hull will be able to cut a hole through which we can escape to daylight.

Maybe that sort of rescue only happens in movies. But we have to try, right?

but what if he’s guilty?

Posted on April 20, 2025 by greg

The concept of due process is getting a lot of attention right now, and rightly so. It’s at the heart of the Trump administration’s attempt to destroy democracy. Due process–the adherence to the laws that balance the power of the State against the civil rights and liberties of the individual–is the primary defense against the US becoming a police state.

Most folks can grasp that concept in theory, but a LOT of people have trouble with the practice itself.

I spent seven years or so as a private investigator specializing in criminal defense; I had a contract with a Public Defender program. For the most part, the lawyers I worked for represented people charged with major crimes…robbery, rape, murder, etc. I rarely told strangers what I did for a living, because it would almost always result in some variation of this conversation:

“Do you ever have a guilty client?”
“Almost all of my clients are guilty.”
“How can you defend a person you KNOW to be guilty?”
“Because I believe in civil rights and liberties.”
“But if you KNOW they’re guilty?”
“They still have rights.”
“But if you KNOW they’re GUILTY?”
“The only way to protect the rights of the innocent is to force the State to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt every single time.”
“Sure, you have to protect the innocent, but if YOU KNOW THEY”RE GUILTY?”

The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution tells us No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. It’s really that simple. It doesn’t say ‘No citizen.’ It doesn’t say, “No white person.’ It doesn’t say, “No rich person.’ It says NO PERSON. Period. Every person who is at risk of losing their life, their liberty, or their property MUST be allowed the full protection of the law BEFORE any penalty can be applied.

“Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first–verdict afterwards.”

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who probably paid a higher proportion of his income in taxes than Donald Trump, has the right to expect the same due process of law as Donald Trump. Not because he’s been illegally detained and imprisoned (although he has), but because EVERYBODY in the US is–or should be–protected by due process. Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people in an act of terrorism 30 years ago yesterday, received more due process than Garcia.

I’ll also say this. As somebody who spent years helping defend the guilty, there is nothing more terrifying than an innocent client. There is so much at stake with an innocent client. Seeing an innocent person go to prison feels a hundred times worse than seeing a guilty person go free. And the ONLY way to protect the rights of an innocent person is to require the State to follow the law EVERY SINGLE TIME, even with the guilty.

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