... and Buried

John McCain is dead.

Literally, obviously; but figuratively, also- and almost as obviously.

At the time and not being prescient, I was not overly impressed by this:

 

It was on October 10, 2008, during a closely contested presidential campaign featuring Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain that

At a town hall event in Lakeville, Minnesota, a woman in the audience made a false and offensive claim about Obama.

 “I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him, and he’s not, um, he’s an Arab,” she said.

Without hesitation, McCain took the microphone from her. “No, ma’am,” he responded. “He’s a decent family man [and] citizen that just I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what the campaign’s all about. He’s not [an Arab].”

At the same event, another supporter expressed fear about Obama becoming president. McCain again stood firm. “He is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States,” he assured the crowd.

Many in the audience were not happy with his defense of Obama. Reports from the time say some people booed and called Obama a “liar” and a “terrorist.” But McCain refused to back down.

“I want to fight, and I will fight,” he said. “But I will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments, and I will respect him.”

At the time, a reporter for WRAL-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina was half-right upon writing "it's hard to see how his current appearance today dosn't cut against him.... But he was boxed in and had no choice but to do this."

It did cut against McCain. However, unless the mood in the Republican Party virtually reversed itself- and it didn't- between that point and Donald Trump's presidential run eight years later, Senator McCain did have the choice not to do that.

Donald Trump's words and actions did change everything, not only in politics, but in this country generally. Nonetheless, he less persuaded conservatives and Republicans than he did give license for their worst selves to manifest themselves.

 

The next time Republicans accuse Democrats of "violent rhetoric," Here's ONE of MANY videos as proof that they are full of shit.

Here's sitting US Senator Ted Cruz, doing a call-and-response with every response saying "He should be shot!"

ZERO PUSHBACK.pic.twitter.com/JEedZDljqk

— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) September 12, 2026

 

It's here that one is tempted to say "but what of the Democrats and anti-Semitism? Abdul el-Sayed, Hasan Piker, and the DSA?"  Brandon Herrera has a history of making derogatory remarks about American citizens, including women and homeless people. Therefore, to Speaker Mike Johnson, he is "a very serious candidate for Congress and a very thoughtful guy" who will be elected "and help us to save America to presrve freedom and bring down costs for the Americcan people."

HOLY SHIT -- Tapper plays Mike Johnson footage of Republican candidate Brandon Herrera describing moms as "cum trophies," mentions he called Nazi machine guns "the original ghetto blasters," and asks Johnson how he can support him. Johnson says "Herrera has run a very effective… pic.twitter.com/xfz2n8ZzmJ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2026

Donald Trump called former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman "that dog" and 1996 Miss Universe winner "Miss Piggy." More recently, he targeted New York Times reporter Katie Rogers as "ugly, both inside and out" and told Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey "Quiet. Quiet, piggy." 

Obviously, these are not the only sewer-level insults by Trump against women, just as he has ridiculed others on racial or other putrid grounds. And just as obviously, Ted Cruz has remained silent about all of these, aside from declaring "my favorite attribute about Donald Trump is the guy has cast iron balls at a level that there's no parallel in history." Speaker Johnson and most other Republicans have displayed nearly as much cowardice.  John McCain, war hero and defender of Barack Obama against a racially offensive remark, is dead, as is any sense of decency or courage in the Republican Party.

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Trump, Surprisingly Open-Minded

In the manner of Jim Steinman's lyrics for Meat Loaf, two out of three ain't bad.  Donald J. Trump is a  malignant narcissist, yes; pathological (only by definition #3) liar, yes; nuts, no.

He. Is. Absolutely. Nuts.
Beyond delusional. A fantasy making 9/11 about himself. Malignant narcissist & pathological liar. https://t.co/FKvzbTdb8V

— Jumbo Elliott (@JumboElliott76) September 8, 2026

At a 9/28/26 event at the White House honoring first responders of 9/11/01, President Donald Trump, according to CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, stated

For nine months, rescue and recovery crews worked day and night on the site. I want to just thank my people; I took a lot of my me(n) — I was building a big building in New York, and I took the whole crew down there right after this happened,” he said. “And they were — they had no hesitation — everybody went down with me. We went down, it was a big group of people. Wasn’t too much we could do, I’ll be honest — it was, you know, it was raw, and nobody’s seen anything like it, ever. We had other buildings; the United States Steel building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall down; the truth is it creaked a lot, it creaked. It still creaks. But it never came down, and I re(member) — I’ll never forget two firemen. We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen — big, strong guys — and I’m not the smallest guy in the world — they grabbed me under the arms, said, ‘Gotta get out of here.’ And they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I’m big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, ‘Fellas, I can run myself.’ But they were amazing, but they thought it was coming down; it didn’t come down. 

On 9/11/01, Trump was in Manhattan but many blocks away from the World Trade Center. He did not send a crew of workers to the site. The One Liberty Plaza office building reopened in October of 2001 and is reportedly structurallly sound to this day. Nor was Donald pulled out of the wreckage.

Other than that, most of what Trump claims is accurate. However, it is something else he said, neither true nor false, that got my attention.

After President Trump had jousted for several months with North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un, Trump remarked at a rally in West Virginia

"I was really being tough- and so was he. And we would go back and forth. And then we fell in love, okay? No, really- he wrote me beautiful letters, and they're great letters.

Often, Trump has boasted that he admires a guy because he's "powerful" or "smart"  "tough," "strong," "strong like granite".   He and Kim, however, "fell in love" after he received "beautfiul letters" from the North Korean.

That was before, but apiece with, the playing of the Village People's 1978 hit, the gay anthem "YMCA".  It became common to play the song at Trump rallies despite "the gay messaging in the song, the gay fantasy stripper-costumes, the gay dancing and faux macho posturing."

Just joking. It's not "despite," but "because," as he accompanies the song with his signature dance, the likes of which have never been popular with men in bars or clubs featuring heterosexuals. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

 

Donald Trump, the "grab them by the p_ _ _ _" guy, who always has flaunted having his way with the ladies, has the perfect cover, especially as the leading man in the portion of the Epstein files held back from the public. This should be reiminiscent of the Village People, each adopting a macho identity as "hard hat, soldier, cowboy, Indian, motrocycle cop, and leather man".  

Ooh, "two big strong guys," Donald says. Homo-erotic fantasies are not illegal and, generously, represent the diversity of the "gorgeous mosaic" of  American culture. At the least, the "G" in "MAGA" more accurately stands for "gay" than for "great".

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Trouble Now and on the Horizon

This is bad. But there is something worse- and far more significant.

Adam Jentleson,in the past has worked for John Kerry, John Edwards, Harry Reid, and John Fetterman (yes, that John Fetterman). Why he was working for inarguably the most pro-Israel Democratic senator, and arguably the most pro-Israel senator of any, is an intriguing question:

One difference between the war in Iran and the one in Gaza is that while the war in Iran is heinous for many reasons, Netanyahu is committing a genocide in Gaza. https://t.co/Mx1TcvzIeH

— Adam Jentleson (@AJentleson) August 13, 2026

Senior Policy Analyst Peyton Lofton of No Labels wrote last September 

According to the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics, which is based in Palestine’s West Bank and not controlled by Hamas, there were 2.19 million Gazans at the end of 2022. By May 2025, PCBS says, Gaza’s population was 2.11 million – a decrease of about 80,000 people or 3.6% of the pre-war population. 

While they haven’t released figures for 2025 yet, the CIA is a little more optimistic than the PCBS. By the CIA’s estimates, there were 1.99 million Gazans at the end of 2022 compared to 2.14 million in mid-2024, an increase of about 145,000 people or 7% of the pre-war total. 

So, Gaza has either shrunk by 80,000 people or grown by 145,000. Which of these figures is more accurate? We’ll probably never know.

My guess is that the Gazan population has declined marginally. However, Lofton notes

During the Rwandan Genocide, for example, an estimated three-quarters of the Tutsi ethnic group were murdered over the course of 100 days. And in the Holocaust, some 60% of Europe’s Jews were killed or forced out by the time the war ended – and the population never recovered.

We've all heard of the Holocaust. Yet, the genocide in Rwanda occurred fairly recently, and we have heard as much about that from Jentleson as we have the extermination of Iranian dissidents this past January. Similarly, Beijing's crusade in Xinjian province against the Uygurs, including mass detention, ethnic cleansing, widespread murder, and sterilization of the women seem not to have piqued Jentleson's curiosity.

Anger at Israel over its war against Hamas in Gaza is widespread among American youth, as Jentleson suggests. However, some individuals have more interest in the Mideast and more luxury to be engrossed in the subject. Those would be the affluent and, especially, the college educated, especially whites.  Jentleson is too embarrassed or dishonest to admit that, but the truth does not vanish because it is uncomfortable.

Moreover, Tanden's observation that there have been few protests against the war against Iran conducted by the USA compared to anti-Israel protests is obviously accurate.  Israel may be committing war crimes, which is a matter of interpretation, and is acting badly. That does not mean it is committing genocide- it is not- and Operation Epic Fury is a U.S. action ordered in our name by an individual we elected President.

And that is the problem- it is being conducted by Donald J. Trump. The vast majority of congressional Republicans are blindly following President Trump and most of them are intimidated by him. In many cases, Trump controls their political future, in which one kind word can lift them from obscurity and one complaint can send them into political obscurity. 

Yet, we assume that Democratic activists are immune from such pressure. Protests against Israel are held almost routinely now while protests against Trump's war are uncommon. There may be many reasons for that, but one of them is intimidation, treading lightly to condemn the man who calls his enemies "communists" and far worse, and who once called for the execution of his own Vice President.

And his sway over a large portion of the electorate is unprecedented in American history. The betting here is that Jentleson and others realize this and know that they are far safer attacking Benjamin Netanyahu and the nation he unfortunately leads.

.... which brings us to the bigger potential problem for Israel and American Jews and it's not from the left.

Trump: Chuck Schumer, who's a Palestinian. He's a full-fledged Palestine . In fact, I'm looking for Palestinian garb. I'm going to send it to him for his birthday. I know him very well. pic.twitter.com/qaKsb5lt2y

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 14, 2026

This is bigoted remark toward Palestinians, whom it is assumed are bad simply because they are Palestinian. 

But history teaches us that bias against one group is usually accompanied by bias against one or more other groups.  And Donald Trump has accused Chuck Schumer of being "a full-fledged Palestine" (sic), sparing Hillary Clinton, Hakeem the Dream Jeffries, and Nancy Pelosi his ethnic slurs.

Today, Donald Trump is pro-Israel because its head of state is conservative; secular; in power on the basis of support from religious extremists;bent on consolidating power in the executive brandh; being investigated for criminal violations.  Sound familiar?

However, Bibi Netanyahu will not be in charge forever, and possibly not beyond this year. Barring death, Donald Trump will remain.   It is not unlikely that at some point, he will turn against Israel, and he will not do so by citing serious and significant ideological differences.  His base will follow him because his base always does. And if this happens, the likes of Ilhan Omar, Abdul el-Sayed, Adam Jentleson and others will be inconsequential in comparison.

                   

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The Bullet that Wasn't

Las Vegas-based podcaster Brian Shapiro believes that the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in 2020 in Butler, Pa. was staged and claims (at 2:11 of this video)

It's the same reason Donald Trump is halting- or isn't allowing- an investigation into Epstein's ranch.

Have you heard this story? We've heard alleged (word indistinguishable) that there are children buried on that ranch and Trump is halting an investigation into it. Why would he do that? Why is it that Donald Trump doesn't want all the Epstein files to be released out there? Why is he halting an investigation into his own assassination attempt? I think I might be on to something here. That's what I think.

According to Tucker Carlson, Dan Bongino told him that Donald Trump had ordered that an FBI investigation into the Butler incident be terminated, which Bongino denies.  An email from 2019 alleged that rapes and murders occurred at the Zorro Ranch, Epstein's property south of Santa Fe. That prompted an investigation by the state of New Mexico. In March of this year the estate was raided after new allegations of serious crimes and the state's Attorney General later filed a lawsuit "to compel the Trump adminstration to turn over files that the state claims it needs to identify victims, witnesses and potential perpetrators connected" to the abuse which reportedly took place.  

So it appears that the Trump Administration has been stonewalling an investigation into the Epstein ranch, which since has been sold. It is less clear that the President has directly blocked an investigation into the assassination attempt in Butler, though it's likely that he has discouraged it. Shapiro adds

It's funny, though. The next day he plays golf and his ear grew back. It's intersting. We didn't see any cuts. We didn't see any bruises- nothing on his ear the next day when he was seen in public. I also find that to be a little interesting as well. It's the same reason Donald Trump is halting, or isn't allowing, an investigation into Epstein's ranch.

The Administration has done whatever it could, thus far largely successfully, to block release of anything pertinent from the Epstein files. That is because Donald Trump was deeply involved with Jeffrey Epstein and very likely with Epstein's criminal activities.

Donald Trump's behavior pursuant to Thomas Crook's attempt on his life on 7/13/20 comes from a different place. Medical records from the incident never were released. Recovering so quickly and completely after reportedly being hit by a bullet was extraordinary; such a resurection while daily taking 325 mg of aspirin- which greatly increases bleeding risk- is beyond that.

So how did Donald Trump pull it off? Not a fake assassination attempt, as Shapiro tends to believe he did. Though he probably did not play golf, he did fly to Milwaukee the following day for the Republican National Convention. The President is well known as an avid fan of professional wrestling (a fake admiring fellow fakes) and fortunately, a former wrestler and public official has an explanation: In March, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura appeared on Piers Morgan's podcast and

 Morgan said, "To be fair to Trump, when he got shot, he got back up and said, 'Fight, fight, fight!'"

"Oh yeah, right, right, right," Ventura replied. "You ever hear of a blade job?"

 A "blade job" is a term used in professional wrestling for when the performers actually cut themselves out of view of the audience so that they bleed during the match.

This does add credence to the notion that the attempt on Donald Trump's life was staged. However, if Trump had kept his head straight rather than turning slightly to the right immediately before allegedly being struck, the bullet would almost certianly have killed him. As it was, the FBI concluded that the candidate was struck by either a bullet or a bullet fragment. Had Christopher Wray's FBI admitted that Trump was not hit at all, Wray would have been in very serious trouble in a second Trump Administration, and very quickly.

Credit is due to Donald Trump, though. He employed all his acting skill- which is immense- to cut himself while pushed down by the Secret Service agents and, fist raised, defiantly yell "fight, fight, fight"  It was spectacular optics and became emblematic of his campaign and vision. It was a snow job eclipsing a lake effect winter storm in January in western New York.

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Eyes Closed Shut

Hey, everyone! You, too, can be as stupid as a bedpost and be a multi-millionaie many times over.

In the video attached to the tweet below, Bill Maher and Stephen A. Smith discuss how Donald J. Trump isn't really such a bad guy. Maher remarks   "... And also had some genuine black friends.  And black folks who like him.  Because it's complicated. Life is complicated." 

When one tries to tell us that evidence of friendship with black people proves that someone is not racist, one is very ignorant. The "some of his best freinds are colored" of Maher devolves into the "he likes sports, so he's not racist" of Smith. The latter responds to the host by stating

Trump and I werr friendly before he ran for President. He used to have me at boxing matches, particularly during the Tyson fights at Trump casinos. He would be at the Knicks game and stuff like  that.

O.K., O.K. If you like sports, you can't be racist. Got it. Smith contined

And if we were being totally  honest, all the brothers found him to be cool. They found  him to be very cool. So he knew his sports, alright, says what he feels. He bucked the establishment, which we loved, and we gravitated to that.

Oh, he knew his sports, alright.  In the early '80s, the United States FootballLeague had serious potential. Then when

Trump purchased the New Jersey Generals in 1984, it initially seemed like a typical vanity purchase by a wealthy businessman. He immediately made waves, signing Walker to a then-astronomical contract and filling sports pages with bold predictions.

But Trump had a problem: he didn’t actually want a spring football team. He wanted what he’d been denied multiple times—an NFL franchise. The NFL’s old-guard owners had repeatedly rejected his attempts to join their exclusive club, and that rejection gnawed at him.

So Trump developed a different strategy. If he couldn’t join the NFL, maybe he could force them to let him in....

His plan was audacious and, in hindsight, catastrophically flawed. He would push the USFL to abandon its successful spring schedule and move to the fall, directly challenging the NFL. The collision would either force a merger (giving Trump his NFL team) or create enough chaos that the NFL would buy out USFL franchises (also giving Trump his NFL team).

Most of the owners, who wisely were loathe to go up directly against the powerful NFL, resisted. However

Trump was persuasive and relentless. He painted a vision of major network television deals and packed stadiums. He convinced enough owners that the league voted to move to fall starting in 1986.

It was a decision that would kill the league.

But, hey, he liked the sports and "bucked the establishment," so all is cool.  Maher then remarks

And also of a cerrtain age, and there's like, a certain understanding that men- white men of that age, they're not- they're going to be a little grandpa. We don't say that anymore but was he really in his heart hateful? I don't think his motivation is "I don't like black people." His motivation is everybody must love me.

Well, yes, we all understand that Donald's concern never has been for others but for himself, and at the expense of others, which Trump views as proof that he is benefitting.  Donald has a sort of perverse appeal, yet as this period's most common cliche has it, "two things can be true at once."

MUST SEE 🚨: Stephen A. Smith and Bill Maher disputed the notion that Trump is a "terrible racist."

Smith: "If we’re being totally honest, all the brothers found him to be cool. They found him to be very cool. So, let’s be clear. Because he knew his sports, all right? He would… pic.twitter.com/kNCzLhTVNk

— Dr Charlie Ward (@DrcharlieWardQ) July 15, 2026

This is Donald J. Trump, raised in Queens, New York City, and heir to $413 million. He has bragged that he graduated first in his class at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and, though a lie, Trump did graduate from the prestigious Philadelphia institution.  This was no Roscoe P. Coltrane of Hazzard County, Kentucky or soemone's uneducated grandpa. Not everyone gets to experience an exceedingly privileged, urban background and exhibit behavior excused as "grandpa."

Donald has done everything he could for several years now to convince us that he is a racist, short of declaring "I am a racist," a declaration which thus far has proven a bridge too far even for him.  He did, however, channel the "blood poisoning" of Adolph Hitler's "Mein Kampf," when in an interview in December of 2023 he remarked of immigrants crossing our southern border 

Nobody has any idea where these people are comming from. And we know they come from prisons. We know they come from mental institutions and centters, islands we know they're terrorists. Nobody has ever seen anything like we're witnessing right now. It is a ver sad thing for our country. It's poisoning he blood of our country. It's so bad and people are coming in with disease, people are coming in with- with every posssible thing that you can have.

"Poisoning the blood of our country" is textbook racism, not even reducible to a "joke" the President claims to have made when he's called on something he has said. We learned years ago that "My New Order," a collection of speeches of the Third Reich's Strongman, was one of Trump's prize possessions. And more recently, when Haberman and Swan noted that the President compares himself to Mao,Stalin, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and, of course, Hitler. 

Combine all of the above with the President restoring Confederate names to nine military bases and his Administration removing slavery exhibits from Indepence Hall in Philadelphia and other efforts to erase black history, and the pattern is clear. The signs are flashing red. It's not only their problem, but our problem also, that individuals such as Bill Maher and Stephen A. Smith are color blind.

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A Foreign Policy Legacy

Jews, apparently in honor of Proverbs 10:7, say "may his memory be a blessing."  Christians often say "thoughts and prayers" etc.  The former being more sincere, I'll go with the former in regard to Lindsey Graham. Rest in peace, Senator.

But to the substance of the matter.  The South Carolina senator was a fierce advocate of  regime change in Tehran and was very effective in persuading President Trump to start the current war.  Moreover, as  Vivian Salama of The Atlantic wrote on July 13

Once the war began, he accused America’s European allies of expecting U.S. leadership without assuming enough risk themselves, a sentiment the president shared. After speaking with Trump about what Graham described as “our European allies’ unwillingness to provide assets to keep the Strait of Hormuz functioning,” Graham said on X in March that he had “never heard him so angry in my life.”

“The repercussions of providing little assistance to keep the Strait of Hormuz functioning are going to be wide and deep for Europe and America,” he added in that post. “I consider myself very forward-leaning on supporting alliances, however at a time of real testing like this, it makes me second guess the value of these alliances. I am certain I am not the only senator who feels this way.”

Steve Schmidt recognized the Senator found his "need for 'relevance'" as "a cast member in the most malignant reality show ever made." So as President Trump continued to criticize NATO, Graham began second-guessing the alliance. In an opinion piece appearing in The Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria argued that the President has "set off a chain reaction" by successfully leaning on our European allies to ramp up their defense spending. He notes

America’s dominance within NATO has given Washington enormous advantages. The U.S. has more than 30 military bases across Europe, and these have allowed it to project power not just in Europe but in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. U.S. operations in the Middle East, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and more recently with Iran, have depended heavily on access, basing and overflight rights in Europe. Often NATO countries have allowed the U.S. to use their facilities even when they disagreed with the war being waged. But as Europeans see that America is unreliable or even hostile, they will feel less need to accommodate Washington.

Zakaria explains that "Europe may refuse" if "Washington wants to relax pressure on Moscow in a bargain with" Putin or "hesitatie" if the President "wants to intensify pressure on Iran or China." And

For American defense companies, this could be a major loss. For American strategy, it could be larger still. Weapons sales are not just commercial transactions. They create habits of cooperation and shared strategy.

There is a final danger. We speak easily of “Europe” spending more, but defense budgets are still national. And most European governments are broke. As analyst Liana Fix notes in Foreign Affairs, the country with the greatest capacity to spend is Germany. And it is now beginning to do so on a remarkable scale.

This is necessary. Germany has been too passive for too long. It is a liberal democracy deeply embedded in Europe, and there is no reason to fear some aggressive impulse hiding in its political DNA. But size and power matter in international politics. A Germany that spends vastly more than its neighbors will inevitably create anxiety in France, Poland and the smaller countries around it.

The genius of America’s post-1945 strategy was that it solved this problem. It made it unnecessary for European countries to think and act like traditional great powers. Under the U.S. umbrella, France and Germany did not have to balance each other. The U.S. damped down the intra-European rivalries that had produced centuries of catastrophic war. It created a system that was stable, peaceful and pro-American.

Lindsey Graham supported Ukraine and Israel and was an unabashed "hawk" in an age, and with a President, which is not clearly defined by "hawk" vs. "dove."  The foundation of President Trump's foreign policy is not internationalism or isolationism. It is unilateralsim and a hostility toward nations whose leaders Trump is not personally fond of.  Lindsey Graham never really understood that, or is appetite for genuflecting to power was too much to overcome.

   

 

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Oh, But Platner!

Do you really want to go there, Scott Jennings?

NAILED IT: Scott Jennings: “[Graham Platner] was vetted. People knew all these things and a whole bunch of Democrats in Maine showed up and voted for him anyway. And a bunch of [people] from around the country sent him money anyway… What changed? Why are you bailing on Graham… pic.twitter.com/ufml9nRrIn

— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) July 7, 2026

A year ago, Illinois' senior US Senator wrote letters pertaining to the Epstein files to the FBI and the Justice Department in which

Durbin said his office had learned that after that, the “FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division … on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline.”

“This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests,” the letter said.

“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned.”

Well, of course, they were. Well before Trump was revealed to be Jeffrey Epstein's best friend, there were numerous incidents dating to 1985 in which Donald was accused of sexual misconduct.  In one of these instances, a civil court jury in the Southern District of New York in May of 2013 found Mr. Trump liable for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll many years earlier and for recently defaming her. He was found not liable for rape but presiding judge Lewis Kaplan

later clarified what the “not rape” finding actually meant. In denying Trump’s motion for a new trial, Kaplan wrote that the jury had “implicitly found that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers” — conduct that most people would understand as rape, even though it fell outside the narrow New York criminal statute requiring penile penetration.

Not surprising. Trump had previously inadvertently tipped us off to his modus operandi. The Access Hollywood video from 2005 had Donald bragging

I'm automatically attracted to beautiful women- I just start kissing them, it's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait.And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything (including) grab 'em by the p_ _ _ _."

Trump's sexually aberrant behavior is far more extensive and spans far more years. And notably- also in contrast to Platner- it includes a criminal conviction, in which Donald

was found guilty on 34 felony counts after prosecutors alleged that he engaged in a "scheme" to boost his chances during the 2016 presidential election through a series of hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and then falsified New York business records to cover up that alleged criminal conduct.

That's our President! That's the guy Scott Jennings continually and consistently defends on CNN. It's the fellow who has been nominated by Jennings' party three times- not for US Senator from New York or Maine or anywhere else- but for President of the United States of America.

It's too easy to characterize Jennings as a bigot. Something larger is going on here. President Trump has reposted and promoted an Untruth Social post in which the tweeter approvingly compares the President to Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Tamburlaine, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, and Stalin.

Trump, a longtime sexual predator and arguably pervert, is a "colossus in the Republican Party" who has "exercised total command of his party," as Jonathan Swan puts it.There is a Democratic Party which at this moment is actively trying to push a bad guy out of a Senate race, which will be a successful effort. And there is a Republican Party which has pulled a very bad guy twice into the presidency and given him the loyalty few of them would give Jesus Christ.

 

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Worthless Poll

There's something happening here. But what it is ain't exactly clear, wrote Stephen Stills in 1966.

Joe Walsh, former GOP member of the House of Representatives who has since become a Democrat, believes he knows what's happening here.

Hey Democrats, this isn’t good. I love this country, and I’m super proud to be an American, no matter who’s in the White House. I’m proud to be an American even tho we have a fascist in the White House. Hey Dems, if you wanna win, you better stop this unpatriotic shit. Now.👇 pic.twitter.com/d7aeVWekzA

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) July 5, 2026

It's clear only that Republicans feel more of what they believe is "pride" than do Democrats. It's a little difficult to understand when Republicans are led by, and idolize, a guy who in the first minutes of his first presidential term, targeted "American carnage" and whose words since reflect that view of this country. America as "rigged, corrupt, and evil" (10/22) and its people as "bloated, fat, and disgusting" (2/25).  In between, presidential candidate Trump

publicly urged Republicans to oppose a bipartisan border and immigration bill in early 2024, framing its passage as a political win for Democrats and inviting blame if it failed; multiple contemporaneous reports cite his speeches and social‑media posts urging GOP lawmakers to reject the deal […

News reporting from February 2024 documents that Mr. Trump used public remarks and social posts to tell Republicans not to support the bipartisan border bill, describing the legislation as a “great gift to the Democrats” and a “Death Wish for The Republican Party,” and urging GOP senators to oppose it so he could run on immigration in 2024, which led to Republican opposition and the bill’s collapse. These accounts record both direct public statements—remarks at rallies and posts on his platform—and the observed voting behavior of GOP lawmakers who rejected the measure after his pronouncements. The contemporaneous narrative frames the instruction as strategically motivated: Trump presented opposition to the bill as a campaign asset designed to keep border policy a central 2024 talking point, and he later publicly celebrated the bill’s failure, saying “I think it’s dead!”. The coverage treats his comments as influential on legislative outcomes, citing both public appeals and reported private directives that aligned GOP votes with his position.

      

Donald believed that President Biden's bill would help secure the border, hence national security. Nonetheless, for political advantage, he urged GOP members of Congress to oppose the legislation, thus dooming it.

Just kidding- the idea that it would help the USA was a bonus, the cherry on top.  Democrats and the media pretend that the one issue which doomed Kamala Harris was inflation, yet immigration- Biden's inability or unwillingness to seal the border- played roughly an equal role.

Democrats, for whatever reason(s), have chosen for years to ignore Donald Trump's evident disdain for this nation, and the media therefore has, also.  Casting Democrats as the doom and gloom party and Republicans as the party of patriots is a long and fruitful tactic of the GOP, from at least the "Democrats always blame America first" of 1984.

So in June someone at Gallup must have come up with the idea of asking respondents whether they are "extremely" or "very" "proud to be an American". The polling organizatio then summarized the results as "Democrat's Pride Swings with the President- Republicans' Doesn't."

The results, however, swing with how the respondents characterize "proud" because Gallup chose not to define or clarify the term.  Being proud is to have pride, "a feeling of pleasure and satisfactaction that you get because you or people connected with you have done or got something good."

So, this: Republicans may typically be proud of their country because they believe that they themselves (or their children or parents) are responsible for the greatness of the country. Democrats may- and probably- more often attribute the country's greatness to others- soldiers, health care or day careworkers, scientists or engineers doing important work for the nation, or others acting in the public interest. 

That's only speculation, of course, but reasonable, and more than Gallup chose to do. Similarly, the latter could have followed up with the obvious question as to what makes the individual extremely or very proud to be an American. In December, 2024 72% of Republicans supported President-elect Trump "pardoning those who forced their way into the Capitol," an attempted coup. That could have been a clue. 

The reasons individuals would have cited probably would have been enlightening. At the Great American State Fair celebration of King Donald in Washington, D.C.  

Crowds were building in the area several hours before the evacuation. Tina Hale, 58, of Cohoes, New York, watched three of her grandchildren children dip their hands into a pool of water near a museum. Hale pointed toward the sky and urged them to look up as three military jets roared above the crowd.

"If that doesn't make you proud to be an American," she said.

Kaboom! There you have it. Proud to be an American because we're the biggest, baddest badasses on the block. No one going to mess with us! And she speaks for a lot of Republicans. 

And many of them answered that poll, without Gallup asking what it means to be proud of were  Steve Stills understood what Gallup, Joe Walsh, or the Republicans exploiting the survey results don't: what it is ain't exactly clear. 

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Wild Distortion

   

J.D. Vance tried to prove a point but failed:

In a clip from an interview with the Daily wire's Michael Knowles, posted Tuesday to the social media platform X, Vice President J.D. Vance augmented that knowledge with the impressive insight that in today's world, even proressives and atheists worship their secular idols using christian forms.

In fact, Vance described that secular worship as "a disgusting butchering of the Nicene Creed." 

"One of the really interesting things about the secular, hyper-progressive, hyper-liberal age that we live in," the vice president said at the beginning of the clip, "is you realize how many of the rituals and institutions and practices of Catholicism show up in the modern world completely divorced from the God part and the grace part of  it."

Therein lies the key to Vance's argument- secular progressives have adopted Christian rituals divorced from God and grace. Hence the deceptive allure of that which they worship.

"So," he continued, "we're thankfully- thanks to Donald Trump, I would say- we're past the point where most people, at least that I see, hang out those hideous signs in their yard that say "in This House We Believe- blah blah blah blah blah- love is love, science is science, no person is illegal.'"

Indeed, those multi-colored, virtue-signaling political signs amounted to a blight on many residential neighborhoods earlier this decade.

"That sign," the vice president added, "is like, such a disgusting butchering of the Nicene Creed."

Vance then characterized that butchering as evidence that "people still have this desire to profess, to do it very publicly, and even to do it in this kind of cadence that you  see in the Nicene Creed, and of course they do it in this very politically motivated way."

He is such a dud. LOL https://t.co/8k4njY2Gjg

— Jumbo Elliott (@JumboElliott76) June 30, 2026

In all fairness, J.D. Vance isn't a dud. But in all accuracy, he's making this stuff up. The Nicene Creed was initially adopted by the First Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. and altered by the Second Ecumenical Council in 381. This was when Christianity was Christianity, not divided among Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestant, hence 1136 years before the start of the Protestant Reformation. The current iteration was approved in 2011 by a Roman Catholic group, the International Commission of English in the Liturgy.

The Nicene Creed is more commonly invoked in the Catholic mass than in Protestant worship service. However, in its current version it is accepted by virtually all Protestant denominations (of which there is a boatload) because it is a statement of the Christian faith, not peculiarly Catholic.

Vance maintains that the In This House We Believe sign utilizes a "kind of cadence that you see in the Nicene Creed." But the Creed begins only with "we believe," an unmistakably generic phrase. It does not begin with "In This _____ We Believe," as do the yard signs. "In This House We Believe" is eloquent and assertive, whatever the ensuing message. It's hard to believe that the signs are meant to be reminiscent of "rituals and institutions and practices of Catholicism." The cadence is not being copied.

The Vice President could have stated his disagreement with a) "Black Lives Matter"; b) "Women's Rights Are Human Rights"; c) "Science Is Real"' d) "Love Ia Love"; or e) "Kindness Is Everything". But his is a party whose fuhrer has said "I love the poorly educated," so respecting your supporters enough to explain your disagreement is prohibited. Instead, it is branded as "hideous.... virtue-signaling" and hatred of God.

Most of all, it probably was an effort by preppry "J.D." to prove his Roman Catholic bonafides. He believes he needs to do that on the chance that he'll have to run in the 2028 Republican presidential primaries rather than simply being elevated to the presidency upon invocationof the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.

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"Girlfriend?" Is That What They're Calling it These Days?

Do you really want to argue this, Gutfield?

Melania Trump has claimed that "Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump" and that she did not know Jeffrey Epstein until she attended a  party in 2000, at which time she was introduced to Trump at a party. That is, generously speaking, dubious.

Fox News clown Greg Gutfield says "I can remember, not too long ago, how often I heard that Melania Trump was an escort."  However, it was only yesterday that a video from May 1, 1999 surfaced in which Bob Sokoles of WHAS in Louisville met up in Kentucky with Donald J. Trump, who

addressed her as “Melania Knauss from New York, from Austria.” The interviewer greeted her and asked him if he was at Churchill Downs by Chapel? The President replied, “It’s certainly beautiful. I can’t imagine a better investment. I’m here because a friend of mine has horse racing today.”

pic.twitter.com/X8nYog72BI This was in 1999
She was a fucking Escort working for Epstein and Donald Trump was married to his 2nd wife Marla

— Irlandarra (@martinez_j7902) June 2, 2026

Few are calling Melania a prostitue, a whore, or even a "slut" passed among the guys. The only serious claim is that she was an escort. And now we have video in which Donald Trump pronounces the last name of his "date" as if the "K" is not silent. 

So he was dating  and didn't know how to pronounce her last name. It is almost as if the relationship the young lady had was a transactional one, with a man who is believed to think that everything is transactional and for whom values always are subordinate to money and pleasure.

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Malingn Influence Almost Beyond Human Comprehension

Democrat Rafael Warnock of Georgia is a great Senator but he's wrong about the last thing he says here:

Raphael Warnock: “JD Vance is perhaps the most craven politician in the American landscape. Here’s a man who called Donald Trump America’s Hitler. He’s just deeply craven. It’s hard to know really what his moral center is. In some ways he’s scarier than Donald Trump” pic.twitter.com/ehLHnsdOqo

— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) June 14, 2026

It's hard to determine who the most craven politician is in the American landscape because Vance has a lot of competition in that area. However, the Vice President is not scarier than Donald Trump- and Vance himself is evidence of that.

As noted here, in 2016 J.D. Vance "wrote to his former law school roommate Josh McLaurin, 'I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a**hole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler. How's that for discouraging?'"   On two consecutive nights in March of 2016, DonaldTrump insulted the wife of Senator Ted Cruz. On the second occasion, Trump "retweeted a post showing a side by side image of Heidi Cruz and Trump's wife, Melania. Text on the picture read. 'No need to spill the beans.' The images ae worth a thousand words.'" (The photo was of Heidi appearing extremely unpleasant.) In that same campaign, candidate Trump called rival Marco Rubio, then a Florida senator, "Little Marco", "Mr. Meltdown", and "lightweight choker".

Now, all three are so up Donald Trump's rear end that only their ankles are visible. Nor has the President lost his touch.

Stephen A Smith on CNN: "The president is certainly an upgrade from what we were seeing from Joe Biden in terms of his alertness and what have you" pic.twitter.com/L9yaQKqPf0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 14, 2026

This was nothing compared to the embrace the likes of Rubio, Cruz, and Vance have given Donald. The response from "Stephen A" to CNN's Kasie Hunt included some criticism of Trump. After Smith, a well-known New York Knicks fan, criticized Trump for having attended the third game of the NBA championship series between the Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs, Trump responded on Untruth Social with

Stephen A. Smith is an arrogant fool, a low IQ individual. In other words, he’s 'dumb as a rock,' and totally unqualified to ever think of running for high political office, or even low political office, for that matter! He’d get annihilated in a debate by the most incompetent of politicians. Joe Biden’s now 'fabled' performance would look great by comparison to anything that this loudmouth huckster has to offer, which isn’t much! Within a few weeks, they’d laugh him out of politics!!!"

And then Smith decided he could pacify Trump by claiming "the President is certainly an upgrade from what we were seeing from Joe Biden in terms of his alertness and what have you". Trump evidently falls asleep periodically during official events, which speaks of his alertness. We would know more about the President's health, were any medical records released. They have not been, and that's by design. 

One wonders: how would SAS have responded had any other public official referred to him as "an arrogant fool, a low IQ individual," and "dumb as a rock"?  Any one with any self-respect- and Smith has more self-respect than almost anyone alive- would have condemned the individual who assailed him.

But this was Donald Trump rudely and obnoxiously condemning an individual. And Smith did what so many others have done when falsely denounced by Donald J. Trump- fold. No other public official has so often humiliated others and profited by it. Trump gets away with it, as no one else has, can, or will. His sway over people, almost demonic, is incomparable. 

And that is why Senator/Reverend Warnock is wrong, uncharacteristically, when he suggests that anyone is scarier than Donald J. Trump.

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Still a Snowflake

Adding to her MAGA credentials, a Republicn congresswoman is joining the effort to rewrite Donald Trump's history as we learn

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said the allegations that Trump was guilty of colluding with the Russian government were false….

"I will be putting forward a resolution to void the fraudulent impeachment of President Trump during his first term in office. Russia collusion never happened," Luna wrote in a statement on social media.

She did not come up with this idea on her own because the effort of congressional Republicans

first reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by a White House official, would allow Trump to claim a symbolic victory on a key grievance from his first term. But experts say it would have little legal significance, since the constitution provides no procedure for undoing an impeachment.

Trump is the first president in US history to be impeached twice. The first case, in 2019, centred on allegations that he abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a political rival. He was acquitted by the Senate in February 2020.

The second followed the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, when members of Congress accused him of inciting an insurrection. He was again acquitted after leaving office.

According to the Journal, Trump and his allies are seeking a congressional resolution that would effectively expunge the impeachments from the historical record. While such a measure would carry no legal force, supporters view it as a symbolic repudiation of what they regard as politically motivated proceedings.

I will be putting forward a resolution to void the fraudulent impeachment of President Trump during his first term in office.

Russia collusion never happened. This has been proven by evidence released by ODNI Gabbard. It was a terrible lie that tore this country apart, and was…

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) June 12, 2026

The two impeachments agains Donald Trump were not based on the Mueller report. The first, pertaining to Ukraine, had little to nothing to do with either "Russia collusion" or Donald Trump's status as a Russian asset and the other pertained to the coup attempt of 1/6/21. 

However, erasing the record has been an obsession of Donald Trump for several years. Even during the presidential campaign of 2024, there was an attempt to expunge the two impeachments of Donald Trump from the historical record, as the NBC affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama reported at the time.

The effort resumed after Trump began serving his second term. The New Republic noted last August 

The Smithsonian has removed Donald Trump from its exhibit on impeachments under pressure from the White House, reported The Washington Post. The remainder of the exhibit focuses on Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton, effectively returning the exhibit to the way it looked in 2008.

A temporary label had been plastered on the exhibit since 2021, playfully notifying visitors: “case under redesign (history happens).” The “American Presidency” wing’s updated signage now explains that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal” over the course of American history.

The change was the result of a White House–initiated content review in the wake of an art director’s ousting.

Of course, the two indictments of President Trump cannot be annulled, cancelled, repealed, rescinded, revoked, or voided. (Insert preferred synonym here ______ .)  Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which enumerates the powers of Congress, gives the House of Representatives the authority to impeach, and the US Senate the authority to convict, a federal official.

The document says nothing suggesting any authority to reverse an impeachement, and clearly neither body of Congress can do so. Congress can pass a resolution to pretend the impeachment(s) never occurred, just as it could pass one declaring that the winner of Super Bowl 60 was the New England Patriots. 

That would not erase the Seahawks' victory or championship. Of course, it would make Donald J. Trump feel good. And there is nothing more important to Donald Trump than feeling good, other than reipping off the American people and making the American people and his adversaries feel bad.

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No Bullet

I don't care about Megyn Kelly's rant about Scott Pelley, her profanity, or even the non-war record of Mr. Bone Spurs, Donald J. Trump. I care a great deal more about the "sacrifices" Kelly claims the President has made on behalf of the country while he has accumulated billions of dollars during his second term in office.

Yet, none of that contributed to Donald Trump now being a two-term President, unlike the "bullet (he took) for his country."  It's a myth which won't die until Trump does, and not even then if the history books are written by historians frightened to report the truth.

"How dare you begrudge Donald Trump and the sacrifices he's made. Trump literally took a bullet for this country so FUCK OFF Scott Pelley. The absolute arrogance and nerve of that asshole!"

- @megynkelly https://t.co/PL1qBgiJXC pic.twitter.com/jakix796AZ

— The Megyn Kelly Show (@MegynKellyShow) June 9, 2026

Eleven days after Matthew Crooks tried to assassinate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, the FBI concluded "What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject's rifle." Good thing, too, that the agency leave open the possibility tthat Trump was struck by a bullet, lest director Chris Wray's tenure not last beyond January 20, 2025 at 12:00 noon. 

Yet, as reported initially by New York magazine, journalist Olivia Nuzzi had

visited Trump's Florida estate in early August. It had been less than a month since he nearly escaped death at his Pennsylvania rally on July 13.

Like many have in recent weeks, Nuzzi appeared to fixate on Trump's injured ear and marveled at how—after a bullet buzzed right past it, leaving it bleeding—it was able to heal so quickly. She asked Trump about his injury, which left his face and ear bloodied on stage, and she reported that he responded by tapping the spot allegedly struck by a bullet fired at him by Thomas Matthew Crooks.

"The particular spot that he identified with his tap was pristine," Nuzzi wrote. "I scanned carefully the rest of the terrain. It looked normal and incredible and fine."

Nuzzi later added: "An ear had never appeared to have gone through less. Except there, on the tiniest patch of this tiny sculpture of skin, a minor distortion that resembled not a crucifixion wound but the distant aftermath of a sunburn."

We all remember Trump in Butler grabbing the right side of his head and dropping to the ground with the help of Secret service agents Secret Service agents. The Republica triumphantly rose back up with a "trail of blood streaked aginst his cheek", then triumphantly yelling "fight, fight, fight" in a dramatic scene worthy of a blockbuster Hollywood film.

And "Hollywood" is the operative term. This past March, former Minnesota govrnor and professional wrestling superstar Jesse Ventura was interviewed on Piers Morgan's "Uncensored" podcast. Morgan

said, “To be fair to Trump, when he got shot, he got back up and said, ‘Fight, fight, fight!’”

“Oh yeah, right, right, right,” Ventura responded. “You ever hear of a blade job?”

In professional wresting, a “blade job” refers to an athlete using a concealed razor blade to intentionally cut themselves to simulate a blood injury during a match.

When Morgan asked Ventura if he believed the assassination attempt was fake, the former Navy SEAL remained skeptical.

“I don’t know,” Ventura said. “Where’s his scar today? Come on, Piers, you’re gonna tell me this guy’s (Trump) a big hero now?”

Donald's WWE (and UFC) fandom is the stuff of legend- and reality. In April of last year, CT Mirror explained

Trump and several Cabinet members sat cageside at the UFC match in Miami; Trump himself holds a spot in the WWE Hall of Fame, where his official bio page notes that he’s the first WWE Hall of Famer to hold the presidency. Ahead of last weekend’s annual WrestleMania, wrestling news sites were abuzz with rumors that the president might again be ringside. At the same time, one of professional wrestling’s biggest stars, Roman Reigns, made headlines for declaring himself as a Trump supporter.

The former CEO of WWE, Vince McMahon, is a longtime friend of the president’s and financial supporter of his political endeavors; McMahon’s now-estranged wife, Linda, is also a former WWE CEO and a current member of Trump’s Cabinet. And the CEO of UFC, Dana White, introduced Trump before he spoke on the final night of last summer’s Republican National Convention — Hulk Hogan also spoke, ripping off his shirt to reveal Trump/Vance campaign merch — and attended Trump’s inauguration in January.

Trump also is a student of professional wrestling and 

The kinds of theatrics baked into the massive success of professional wrestling have been on display throughout Trump’s ascendency in American politics. On the campaign trail and now in the White House, a Trump event has a distinctive feel, a well-honed blend of spectacle, pageantry and hypermasculinity. It’s a style that feels lifted from the professional wrestling handbook, where aesthetics and narrative device choices are central to the delivery. In professional wrestling, this product is a form of entertainment that lets fans — predominantly young men — openly feel and freely celebrate masculinity. In the second Trump administration, the product is a barrage of new policy measures intent on crafting a very specific version of America where the feelings of men are prioritized and their power is irrefutable.

But that's not the half of it. Most significantly:

Central to the concept of professional wrestling is the practice of kayfabe, or committing to the illusion that clearly staged events are real and true. It’s a narrative device that asks audiences to suspend their disbelief, not in a way of passive acceptance, but rather active participation in the creation of what is possible.

 “It really does matter how well you’re doing the performance, but then what also really matters is how much the audience is going to buy into it. If they’re emotionally connected, that’s where the buy-in comes in,” said CarrieLynn Reinhard, an associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Dominican University and an expert on narrative devices in professional wrestling. “When you look at what Trump does, he is very good at getting to people’s emotions and understanding their emotions and — I’m going to say — manipulating their emotions for his own goals, and in doing so, he focuses on a reality that he believes in or at least he performs to believe in.”

President Trump could erase any doubts about being hit by a bullet were he to release the full, unredacted medical records of his care following the incident. Yet, he has not, and will not, do this.

The white Santa, white Jesus woman has conned much of the centrist and center-left media into believing that she has made a break with President Trump or MAGA because she is fed up with the Administration's war in Iran. But that is probably due to her perception that Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of the Jewish state, is pulling the strings of the President. She remains the propagandist who can actually claim Donald Trump "took a bullet for this country" and has made great "sacrifices".

President Trump is not stupid. He knows that, if he avoids disclosure of the most important details of his life and presidency, he will have the mainstream media and people such as Megyn Kellycontinue to  eat out of his hand. 

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