... 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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An Award Suitable for a God

An award is not a kegitimate award if it's created for a particular individual rather than because it's something worthy of creating for itself.

Just when you thought the GOP couldn’t be a more embarrassing cult, Speaker Mike Johnson presented Donald Trump with the “first-ever America First Award”:

“We have created a new award. We are going to do something we’ve never done before. We will honor him with a new award…… pic.twitter.com/CduOTi6k5X

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) March 26, 2026

As explained by USA Today 

The Republican Party gave the first-ever "America First award" to President Donald Trump on March 25, an achievement that follows backlash from legislators over his receiving of these newly created honors.

The award was presented to Trump at the National Republican Congressional Committee annual fundraising dinner by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said it was created with the president in mind.

"We’re going to do something we've never done before. We’re going to honor him with a new award that we'll present annually from this point forward, but he is the suitable and fitting recipient of the first-ever America First award," Johnson said. "We can think of no better title for what that is...that's this beautiful golden statue here, appropriate for the new golden era in America."

Not silver, not bronze, black or white, but gold, President Trump's favorite style of decoration. But now it has gone to a new level, one which has historical precedent.  In Exodus 32

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods[a] who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods,[b] Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.”  So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

However, Moses persuaded God to back off- temporarily. When Moses actually

approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.

A day or two later

Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”

So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”

The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”

And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.

A golden calf, then a few thousand years later, a golden statue, an idol Republicans will bow down to as a fancy representation of their earthly god.  This has gone beyond fondness and even reverence and now constitutes worship- an award created out of whole cloth, specifically for one person. It is no longer an earthly god alongside a heavenly one; the former has replaced the latter.

When the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin. There are consequences, God reminded Moses. Punishment already has come upon the American people for the great sin of worshipping a mere mortal, Donald J. Trump. But the real punishment awaits.

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Wimpy White House

Cleanup in aisle 6!

O.K., that cliche in so  2010 (or thereabouts) but still pertinent. First

The US launched its offensive against Iran because it knew Israel was going to attack and “that would precipitate an attack against American forces”, secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Monday.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” Rubio said on Capitol Hill after briefing members of Congress on the offensive. “We knew that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

The next day, House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson 

described the recent U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran as a defensive measure, saying, "Israel was determined to act with or without us" following a classified briefing on Monday evening.

Johnson told reporters after the briefing that Israel viewed Iran’s capabilities as an existential threat and was prepared to conduct operations regardless of U.S. participation. He said Israel’s assessment shaped American deliberations, and it was "determined to act in their own defense here, with or without American support."

But Johnson never has had to face election in anything larger than a blood-red congressional district in Louisiana, and Little Marco shrunk when facing Donald Trump in the GOP presidential campaign in 2016.  They either were unaware of what they were saying or did not understand the implication of implying that USA foreign policy is now subject to the whim of the Israeli government. Therefore, President Trump, ever with his finger on the pulse of voters (and foot on their neck) 

So, cleanup in aisle 6! Donald Trump to the rescue: What say you, Donald?

President Donald Trump denied Israel “forced” the United States into a joint attack that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Tuesday — and said if anything, it was the other way around.

Trump was asked about the strikes by ABC’s Rachel Scott while taking questions at the White House on Tuesday.

“Did Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran? Did Netanyahu pull the United States into this war?” Scott asked.

“No, I might’ve forced their hand,” Trump responded. “You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first, they were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn’t do it. They were going to attack first, I felt strongly about that.”

Trump continued, “If anything, I might’ve forced Israel’s hand.”

The president added both Israel and the U.S. were “ready” to strike Iran in the days leading up to the start of Operation Epic Fury. He said “virtually everything they have has been knocked out now, their missile count is going way down.”

"I might have forced their hand," says Trump of the Israeli leader who, following (scaled down) operations in Gaza, probably will not any time soon be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 

In December, Prime Minister Netanyahu offered "to the proud people of Iran" the message "Do not let these fanatic mullahs run your lives for a minute longer. The tyrants of Tehran- so cruel, so callous, and so cowardly- they won't last long."  Nevertheless, President Trump claims "I might have forced their hand."

There is little or no chance that Donald Trump would have had to force the hand of Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iran.  There is little or no chance that both Marco Rubio and Mike Johnson were imaging things when they revealed that Israel had boxed Washington into a corner (or so they believed) and that Trump therefore had no choice but to initiate Operation Epic Fury.

There is similarly little or no chance that President Trump was uncharacteristically telling the truth when, asked whether Netanyahu pulled the USA into the war, he stated unequically 'nol

Our appreciation should go to Secretary of State "Little Marco" Rubio for reminding us yet again how weak this President is. In complete control of the most powerful military arsenal in the world, he remains a weak leader, no doubt because he is a weak man. A strong leader would have told Netanyahu that we would hit Iran in our own way according to our timetable.

Trump demonstrated again that he is a wily politician. He both denied that the Netanyahu was pulling the strings and laid the predicate- fear of imminent attack- for launching his own attack. A strong leader either would have owned up to his motivation or state clearly that Cabinet officer Rubio was (for whatever reason) wrong. But Donald learned well from Bill Clinton, who famously remarked "when people feel uncertain, they'd rather have someone strong and wrong than weak and right."  

The American people now feel uncertain, and we certainly have a president who is typically wrong. However, has convinced most voters and publics that he is strong, even if he has to capitulate to another nation's timetable to prove it.

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Dare Him

Three members of the House of Representatives, one congresswoman-elect, and one Attorney General al are doing what they have to do. The guys from Louisiana and Massachusetts are wrong, but the latter is performing an important political function and public service. The Arizona Mirror notes that House speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)

initially promised to seat (Representative-elect Adelita) Grijalva whenever she requested it, but then backtracked and said he’d only do so after Democrats in the U.S. Senate agreed to support a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government.

Republicans and Democrats have been playing the blame game for weeks now over who is responsible for the shutdown, with Republicans falsely claiming that Democrats refused to vote for a stopgap funding bill as a way to protect health care services for immigrants who lack legal status.

“Speaker Johnson may be blocking my swearing-in, but he can’t stop me from showing up for the people of Southern Arizona,” Grijalva said in a statement on Wednesday. “Every day that goes by without representation is another day our veterans, seniors, and working families are left without a voice in Congress.”

Because Johnson has refused to seat Grijalva, she now holds the record for the longest delay in seating a member of Congress following a special election, a distinction previously held by Rep. Jimmy Gomez, of California. But there’s a huge difference: Gomez requested the delay due to family issues, while Grijalva and other Democrats have repeatedly demanded that Johnson swear in Grijalva.

Grijalva and her state's chief law enforcement officer are not sitting this out as

Last week, Grijalva and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sued Johnson for the delay, arguing that his stall-tactics have denied the more than 800,000 Arizonans in the 7th Congressional District their constitutional right to representation. Johnson’s obligation to deliver the oath of office to elected members of Congress is not discretionary, they said in the lawsuit.

Grijalva, along with other Democrats, claim that Johnson is blocking her from taking office because she would be the 218th vote needed to force the release of the FBI’s case files concerning pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Republicans have largely opposed doing so because President Donald Trump is reportedly featured in those files, as he and Epstein were close friends in the 1990s before they had a falling out.

Johnson has denied those allegations.

Well, of  course he has. His handler, Donald Trump, would expect nothing less. However, the Epstein files are sufficiently dangerous to the President that the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin of Illinoi wrote separate letters to Attorney General Bondi, FBI director Patel, and Assistant FBI director Bongino upon a Wall Street Journal report that 1,000 FBI agents were asked to peruse the files. Durbin asked 

My office was told that these personnel were instructed to 'flag' any records in which President Trump was mentioned.... Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned? What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?

If I were an adviser to the Administration, I would have recommended that Bondi maintain no personnel was told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned. The records pertained to a period well before Donald Trump ever was elected.

Nonetheless, there appears to have been no response from the regime. And according to NBC News, "Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche informed President Donald Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein that the Department of Justice and the FBI reviewed."  Surprise! They have not been released.

There was a curious discussion between an MSNBC host and U.S. Representative Seth Moulton about that very same deceased child predator, with a portion of the video transcribed beneath the tweet.

MOULTON: If you're one of the people, like Trump, who took advantage of young girls with Jeffrey Epstein--

SCARBOROUGH: We don't have evidence that he took advantage of young girls with Epstein

MOULTON: Right. Common sense be damned

SCARBOROUGH: Let's look at the facts. Is he… pic.twitter.com/GNmBSgjBcB

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 31, 2025

S.M. ... from this White House, you know, if you're a criminal, you're going to buy your way to freedom with Trump. If you are one of the people, like him, who took advantage of young girls with Jeffrey Epstein, then we're just going to make that go away. Fortunately-

J.S.: We don't have evidence that he took advantage of young girls with Jeffrey Epstein.

S.M.: Right, well, common sense be damned.

J.M.: I'm not saying common sense be damned. I'm saying facts. Let's look at the facts.

S.M.: He's obviously in the Epstein files. And the reason that, fundamentally, Speaker Johnson has us on vacation is because he doesn't want to seat the newly-elected Democratic Representative.

J.S.: But you said he took advantage of young girls. You have absolutely no evidence of that.

S.M.:I think it's pretty obvious that that's what is going on.

J.S.: You think it's pretty obvious?

S.M. And I think it's pretty obvious that a-

At that point, Scarborough cut Moulton off in order to ask print journalist and sometime co-host Jonathan Lemire his opinion.

Neither I nor Rupar knows a great deal about the corporate culture of MSNBC, nor what is recommended to its hosts by management, nor what discretion the hosts have. Although Scarborough was somewhat bizarrely defensive of the President, he may have been required, accurately, that there is no hard evidence that Donald Trump "took advantage of young girls."

So Scarborough may have played the role too infrequently played by news hosts when Republicans claim as facts items which are definitively false. (See "Russia Hoax.")

There is no such evidence that we know of. There is no evidence because the Epstein files have not been released.  It's lacking because Speaker Mike Johnson, a fully-owned subsidiary of Donald J. Trump, has called the House of Representatives into recess to avoid passage of a discharge petition which would force out of committee a bill calling for release of the files. 

Does that justify Representative Moulton claiming of the President what has not been proven? Absolutely.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt has the perfect platform to deny this allegation but has not directly addressed it. President Trump himself could specifically deny the allegation. Pam Bondi has had the opportunity, being asked at a committee hearing by Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse 

about reporting from author Michael Wolff, who alleged Epstein had shown him a photo of Trump with topless young women. Whitehouse questioned Bondi whether she was aware if the FBI had found those photographs in its search of Epstein’s estate.

Bondi shot back, accusing the senator of making “salacious remarks” and “trying to slander” Trump. The attorney general also alleged Whitehouse took money from “one of Epstein’s closest confidants,” Reid Hoffman.

The Attorney General thereby attacked the Senator and avoided specifically denying that Trump had engaged in such behavior.

But even if Bondi had uttered the simple, yet definitive, words "Mr. Trump never engaged in sexual activity of any sort at any time with anyone under the age of consent," it would matter little. The boss lies not often, but continually, and members of his Administration know they are expected to do the same, though not quite as frequently lest Donald not be #1 at something.

To be fair, the boss' lackeys have little reason to dwell on the topic of Trump's intimate involvement with the most famed, and possibly most active, pedophiles in American history. They are not pressed on the issue.

Democrats should be all over the airwaves and social media remarking about Epstein. Their goal should be to thwart the media's determination to ignore the issue, now that other matters are more pressing, more topical.

Most of us (warning: cliche ahead) weren't born yesterday. Trump and Epstein were close. There are photographs of them together and lewd birthday letter sent from Donald to Jeffrey including the line "may every day be another wonderful secret." The A.G. had perhaps 1,000 FBI employees flagging the files for Trump's name, she informed the President that his name was in them, and they've resisted with the power 

The possibility of disclosure of those files justifiably frightens, though far less than it would if the media and Democrats hadn't decided they constitute yesterday's news. Those files aren't going to release themselves, after all, and Republicans will not oblige Democrats by drawing attention to them.

That's why members of Congress such as Adelita Grijalva and Seth Moulton are critical. The former is suing House Speaker Johnson. The latter, speculating, is what, oh, probably around half of Americans believe- that Donald Trump has been involved, directly or indirectly, with underage females. If it's not true, everything Epstein can be released by Congress, if Johnson doesn't continue to run interference for the President. He can prove Moulton a liar. Challenge him to do so.

Johnson is not going to budge without application of pressure, by Democrats. Leaving it to the media to explore whether a President was involved in multiple and heinous felonies will be fruitless.  Moulton lacks hard-core proof but the evidence is all around us, in front of our noses, and as likely as the Arizona sun on a July afternoon. (Cliche alert.) We weren't born yesterday, though Johnson, Trump, and Bondi wish we were. 

And by all means, Democrats, do not allow the "White House ballroom" or the "Trump Ballroom" to gain currency with the public. It's the Epstein Ballroom. 

                   

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