Ain't That America XX

I’m going to try something different this week. Rather than focusing on the many bad things happening in this country, I have opted to focus on three things that piss me off … the phony peace deal between Israel and Gaza where the bombs are still dropping … the idea that this country is bailing out another country while our government is closed and our economy is in the tank … and the rise of Nazis, rapists and murderers in the GOP and the GOP doesn’t seem to care. And then we’ll have the good news, and there is some … from judges topping Cankles … to nekkid bike riders making a mockery of the DogKiller … and ending with No Kings Day and how the march is still going on and getting larger … so let’s dish …

In case you don’t know, it was President Joe Biden who secured the release of 140 hostages in Gaze while Cankles got 28 out. If anyone deserves credit it’s the Peace President and not the guy bombing boasts in the Caribbean.

But wait, there’s more … while Israelis and Palestinians danced in the streets when news broke overnight that a deal had been reached between Hamas and Israel over the first phase of a peace deal for Gaza, the terms of the deal were in place more than a year ago.

Gershon Baskin, the architect of the negotiations that freed the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, revealed that Hamas had agreed to the exact same terms of the Cankles deal in September 2024, in the last months of the Biden administration, but that Biden officials had disregarded it while Benjamin Netanyahu had refused point blank.

Bibi and Cankles met at Mar-a-Lago and decided to hold off on the treaty until Cankles took office to avoid giving credit to President Biden, so every single bomb, every rifle shot, on both sides,. And every death of men, women and children, is the fault of Cankles and Bibi who allowed war to continue and people to die so they could get the “win.”

Murderers and war criminals, both.

While hundreds of thousands of American service members brace for missed paychecks during the Cankles-GOP shutdown. The president decided to hand over $40 billion to Argentina … and to makes matters worse, his billionaire friends will make money on the deal while Americans go without pay.

Pay will be frozen soon for the troops and is now frozen for most federal workers and then the Cankles Regime began laying off government workers while the Treasury gives billions away to Argentina.

Hey MAGAts? How does this Make America Great Again? And how do you feel knowing that every single American is paying $100 each to save a foreign president from an economy he created? Do you have a wife and a couple of kids?

You paid $400 to help Argentina.

Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway and now they got caught referring to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and giggled about putting their political opponents in gas chambers … raping their enemies and driving them to suicide:

William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n–ga” and “n–guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

Vice President JD CouchF*cker Vance waded into the uproar, drawing criticism by saying a Democratic politician’s text messages suggesting the former Virginia House speaker should be shot were worse:

“This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia. I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.”

Remember JD was the wimpy little lapdog called Cankles ‘America’s Hitler’ and now he’s the guy who rationalized Young Republicans praising Hitler.”

When they show you who they are … racist, Nazis, rapists, believe them.

Out in Oklahoma, where new state schools Superintendent Lindel Fields—who took over for MAGAt faux Christian and porn addict Ryan Walters, announced that he is dropping a Bible-teaching mandate for Oklahoma public schools issued by his predecessor.

It’s quite simple: the Separation of Church and State keeps religion out of schools, but if you want to learn the Bible you can go to a religious school or a church. You don’t need to inflict your faith on others.

At the Pentagon this week a  flyer with the words “journalism is not a crime” appeared on the wall outside the “Correspondents’ Corridor” where journalists operate; it was a silent protest of Defense Secretary, and DUI hire,  Pete Hegseth’s new policy that severely restricts press access.

The policy criminalizes routine reporting, according to media lawyers and advocates, so nearly all news outlets … even Fox News … are refusing to abide by it and are giving up their access while vowing to cover Hegseth and the military from outside the Pentagon’s five walls.

Nice to see the press take a stand. Now, take on the White House.

US District Judge Susan Illston issued an emergency order that the Cankles’ Regime must stop firing workers during the government shutdown. Illston said the administration was acting without thinking through its decisions … go figure … and said:

“It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost and it’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”

Stand up!

MAGAt supporters who paid for the new Cankles watches are seriously ticked off with many calling the sale a scam ... the watches are actually made in Wyoming, not in Switzerland ... after their orders were never filled.

Wait. Cankles scammed you on your Cankles watch, for which you paid anywhere from $499 to $2,999 per watch, or $5,389 for the “Ultra Mega Collector Set?”

Huh. Who saw that coming?

This week Australia’s highest court rejected US conservative commentator, and certifiable nutjob, Candace Owens’ bid to overturn an Australian government decision barring her from visiting the country. Three High Court judges unanimously rejected Owens’ challenge to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s decision in 2024 to refuse her a visa on character grounds.

Sorry, Candy, they don’t want you.

The city of Lansing, Michigan will become an LGBTQ+ Welcoming City after City Council members voted unanimously  to pass a resolution expressing support for the LGBTQ+ community. The resolution “recognizes that, in the face of inadequate state and federal protections, we must take proactive steps to safeguard our most vulnerable residents.”

It’s a step and one step leads to another.

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and left in place the $1.4 billion judgment against him over his description of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as a hoax staged by crisis actors.

Good. SCOTUS did something right for a change.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport will not broadcast a video of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem saying Democrats caused the federal government shutdown  due to its “political nature” saying:

“The Port of Seattle will not play the video on its screens at SEA Airport, due to the political nature of the content. We continue to urge bipartisan efforts to end the government shutdown and are working to find ways to support federal employees working without pay at SEA during the shutdown.”

And then Phoenix  joined Seattle, followed quickly by Portland … Buffalo, Charlotte, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Dallas Love Field, Denver, JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, and San Francisco …

This is The Resistance at work.

Protesters rallying against the Cankles’ Regime in Portland put the city’s quirky and irreverent reputation on display last week by pedaling through the streets wearing nothing — or close to it — in an “emergency” edition of the annual World Naked Bike Ride. The ride usually happens in the summer, but organizers hastily said another nude ride was necessary to speak out against Cankles’ attempts to mobilize the National Guard to quell protests.

Crowds have gathered daily and nightly outside the immigration facility in Portland donning inflatable frog, unicorn, axolotl and banana costumes as they face off with federal law enforcement who often deploy tear gas and pepper balls.

Nekkid Resistance.

This week Cankles lied … what else is new … blaming the January 6 Capitol riot on former President Joe Biden, claiming that:

“THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6. If this is so, which it is, a lot of very good people will be owed big apologies. What a SCAM – DO SOMETHING!!! President DJT”

Trouble is, Biden was not president on that day and in control of the federal government, which includes the FBI.

Cankles was in charge on 1/6 and is trying to rewrite history.

The Cankles Regime raced to rescind layoffs of hundreds of scientists at the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] who were mistakenly fired on in what appeared to be a substantial procedural lapse.

Among those wrongly dismissed were the top two leaders of the federal measles response team, those working to contain Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and the team that assembles the C.D.C.’s vaunted scientific journal, The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The stupidity of this fascist clown car is stunning.

Cankles is quite upset about the photo of him on the latest issue of Time magazine, whining on Truth Social”

“Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time. They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Really weird! I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?”

Pictures don’t lie … and I notice you said nothing about your vagina neck.

Sean Duffy, reality show star and Transportation Secretary, says the No Kings protests are part of antifa, paid protesters.

It begs two questions, the first being: if antifa is anti-fascism and you, Sean Duffy, are anti-anti-fascism that makes you pro-fascism?

And who has so much money they can pay millions and millions of people all around the world to attend a No Kings protest. Like all in the regime, when Duffy speaks, it’s a lie.

As the House remains out of session into a third week, Speaker Mike Johnson defended his decision to not swear in Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva until the full chamber returns to Washington.

But maybe it’s the fact that Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who won a special election last month, would be the 218th signature needed to force a bipartisan vote to compel the release of more Jeffrey Epstein case files.

Little Mike is scrambling to save his master.

It appears that members of Congress are growing irritated by Border Barbie’s power. They claim that necessary government contracts are being slow-walked and that her office has become difficult to communicate with … go figure, there’s probably no photo op happening.

At the Federal Emergency Management Agency, housed in DHS, the DogKiller’s antics have significantly slowed the agency’s normally routine process of distributing much-needed funds to states trying to rebuild in the aftermath of natural disasters.

Huh, maybe the GOP should have seen that before they approved her nomination.

The US Chamber of Commerce sued the Cankles Regime over its decision to raise the fee for H-1B work visa applications to $100,000, arguing that Cankles exceeded his authority in altering the visa program.; you don’t say?

And are they going to ask where these extra funds will be going?

Admiral Alvin Holsey, the military commander overseeing the Pentagon’s escalating attacks against boats in the Caribbean Sea that the Regime says are smuggling drugs is stepping down.

It was unclear why Admiral Holsey is leaving less than a year into his tenure, and in the midst of the biggest operation in his 37-year career but one of the US officials—all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity—say Admiral Holsey had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats.

Holsey is Resisting.

Cankles #3 son, Eric, bizarrely stated he's Daddy’s "good boy"—and now a wave of mockery is lighting up social media. It started when CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked Eric:

"Obviously there are investment projects happening in Indonesia. First off, have you heard from the president?"

Collins was referring to a hot mic moment in which Cankles was overheard speaking to Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, saying "I'll have Eric call you" and referring to him as a "good boy." The audio immediately supercharged rumors of a corrupt backroom business deal, which has become commonplace with this regime but it didn’t help Eric’s Dumb reputation when he said:

"No, not about that but I'm glad he acknowledges that I'm a good boy. I am a good boy."

In addition to being an incredibly strange thing for a grown man to say, Eric’s Good Little Boy moment spurred on the internet:

"What grown man says he's glad his Dad thinks he's a good boy????"

"If a Democrat offered him a hug he'd rat his daddy out tomorrow..."

"'I’m a good boy' says 41-year-old Eric. And he knows it’s true, because he made all gone with his bowl of paint chips this morning. And unlike daddy, he hasn’t made boom-boom in his pants today. But it’s early."

"Eric … has somehow out-parodied The Onion's depiction of him.”

That family is the poster family for dysfunction/

Lastly, organizers for Saturday’s No Kings protests against Cankles said nearly seven million Americans took part—two million more than the first “No Kings” protest in June:

“In one of the largest single-day nationwide demonstrations in U.S. history, nearly seven million Americans gathered today, 2 million more than June, in over 2,700 cities and towns for the No Kings Day of Peaceful Action, standing together in nonviolent defiance of authoritarianism and affirming that this nation belongs to its people, not to kings. With more than 2,700 lawful and peaceful protests across all 50 states, today’s mobilization was 14 times larger than both of President Trump’s presidential inaugurations combined, marking a historic moment of unity and resistance,” the statement added. “From rural communities to major metropolitan centers, the message was clear: America will not be ruled by fear, force, or one man’s power grab.”

Cultists are, of course, denying those numbers but at the Columbia protest we met many Republicans who came out in protest of Cankles. Keep the momentum up and take that to the polls, this fall and in 2026.

Another One ... As If You Needed It ... To Cast A Goddamned Vote

We know he hates immigrants and people of color. We know he hates women … except the ones he pays for sex, like wives and porn stars. We know he thinks anyone who joins the military is a loser and a sucker. And now we know he hates first responders … and those who ran into the Towers on 9/11, especially.

You see, the _____ administration been siphoning off nearly $4 million from a program that tracks and treats FDNY firefighters and medics suffering from 9/11 related illnesses. The Treasury Department started withholding parts of payments nearly four years ago that were meant to cover medical services for firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics treated by the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program. Men and women who risked their lives that day, being punished by this corrupt administration.

The payments were authorized and made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health [NIOSH], which oversees the program, but rather than send the money to New York City, the Treasury started keeping some of the money.

The program’s director, Dr. David Prezant says he was docked about half a million dollars each year in 2017; it crept up to about $630,000 in 2018 and 2019, and this year the Treasury diverted $1.447 million through late August; he adds:

“Here we have sick World Trade Center-exposed firefighters and EMS workers, at a time when the city is having difficult financial circumstances due to COVID-19, and we’re not getting the money we need to be able to treat these heroes. And for years, [the Treasury and the _____ Administration] wouldn’t even tell us—we never ever received a letter telling us this."

Prezant never got an answer from NIOSH or the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], but finally, after complaining about the missing money for three years, NY state Representative Pete King put his political weight behind the inquiry and was told that some other agency in the city has been in an unrelated feud with the feds over Medicare bills. And so, the Treasury decided to stiff the FDNY.

Neither the Treasury Department nor the White House answered requests for comment.

King says:

“It’s disgraceful … I don’t even care what the details of this thing [are]. That fund has to be fully compensated, fully reimbursed … If anyone were true American heroes, it was the cops and firemen on 9/11, especially the firemen, and for even $1 to be being held back is absolutely indefensible.”

King wrote to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin asking what the problem was and for a solution and has yet to receive a response.

This is how we treat our first responders from 9/11? Well, it is from an Administration that allegedly billed We The People $100 million for an inauguration that didn’t cost that much, and is currently under investigation for those funds. It is from an Administration that thinks dead soldiers are losers. It is from an Administration that saw to it that the President’s son-in-law got a $2 million pandemic bailout while thousands of small companies went out of business and millions lost their jobs.

What can we do about it?

CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE!

Remove the criminals and con men—and women, Ivanka—from the White House. And remove all those in the GOP who stood by and did NOTHING while these crimes were committed.

NY Daily News

Bobservations

Not so much a Carlos story, but he’s in it … a lot.

Last week I drove him up to the Lancaster Country Courthouse for an interpretation. I waited in the hall while he did his thang, and when it was over he walked outside with one of the attorneys who asked him for a business card. Then the lawyer said:

“Gimme your number and I’ll shoot you a text.”

I died a little; we are not phone people, and while we have cell phones we have … wait for it … it’s epic … it’s so last century … we have flip phones. Now, that’s fine for me being that I enjoy, er, enjoyed, being a luddite.

Anyway, I suggested to Carlos that we look into getting him a smartphone so that he can use it for business—Tax Deduction!—and he contacted AT&T who we bundle our “stuff” with. Turns out we have been such good customers, we were able to get two phones with a nice little package and our monthly bundle will would only … go down by about $25 a month.

And that’s how, in the Year of our Good Lord He Finally Upgraded, Carlos and I have iPhones.

Now the hardest part was trying to make Carlos, whose one bad habit is that he thinks he knows everything and doesn’t need to read instructions or take his time, slow down and not fuck this up.

It’s a process.

Ain’t it funny how government—made up of mostly old white men who think they control the bodies of more than half the electorate—works?

Two GOP Senators Dan Sullivan and Marco Rubio posted about the passing of Congressman John Lewis last week. It was nice, except they each posted pictures of themselves with Not-John-Lewis, but with Elijah Cummings.

It looks like Sullivan and Rubio fit the description as morons and asshats.

When it rains …and boy, did it rain on Monday. I had to run into work in the early afternoon for a few minutes and as I was getting ready to go, we had a massive thunderstorm in town. Carlos asked me not to go out in bad weather and I reminded him that I’ve been driving for well over 100 years and could handle a little rain.

BOOOOOOM! A massive lightning strike hit close to our house and Carlos claimed it was God agreeing with him while I said it was the Goddess agreeing with me; so out I went.

Well, the strike was, in fact, awfully close to the house and fried our DVR. No big; a quick call to AT&T and a new one was sent out … and arrived less than 24 hours later, how’s that for service?

But … I came back from work and did a few things on the computer before dinner. Then we ate and after that I went back to the computer and … no internet.

Luckily, again, it was a minor fix—some kerfuffle about a battery and a loose cable or maybe hamsters getting off their wheel—and we were back online, until ….

The next morning the AC went out; the fan was blowing but the AC was not in attendance … on a day when the weather would hit in the high 90s and higher humidity.

Luckily, again, a repairman came out and fixed that in a jiffy; we still need a servicing done, and a new computer board, but we’re back to living cool and easy.

Until that next storm???

Let this sink in … Jenna Ellis, a top _____ campaign adviser appeared on the Russian-government funded TV network RT, which U.S. intelligence agencies have said played a role in the Kremlin’s plans to undermine American democracy.

During her interview, Ellis defended _____’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, bashed the American media as “propagandist activist media” and claimed Fox News—the news network most friendly to the president—of having an anti-Trump bias.

Why in the world is a _____ advisor campaigning for _____ in Russia?

Missouri Governor Mike Parson has announced that he will likely pardon Mark and Patricia McCloskey, AKA Ken and Karen, that white St. Louis couple who came out of their houses armed with guns and aimed them at peaceful BLM protestors in the street.

White couple pardoned for threatening Black protestors.

Racist governor.

Jim Justice, what a misnomer that is, is listed in Forbes magazine as a billionaire. He is also the richest man in West Virginia and governor of that state. In addition, he owns a vast array of businesses—coal mines, resort hotels and agricultural interests—many of them regulated by the state agencies he now runs.

Please explain then, why companies owned by Jim Justice and his family received up to $24 million from one of the federal government’s key coronavirus economic relief programs.

Oh yeah … Republican … Swamp … Liar … Thief. And a billionaire with his hand out for that guv’mint check.

Eyal Berkover is an Israeli model and actor and TV personality and an all-around hot slab of meat who seems to enjoy wearing as little as possible.

And I’m fine with that.

The Funny Papers

Nick Anderson, Steve Breen, Clay Bennett, Michael de Adder, Jim Morin, Mike Thompson, Bill Bramhall, Jack Ohman, David Horsey, Kevin Siers, Steve Sack