Unsightly Mental Blemishes

So another chunk falling off the rotting pile that is the Trump Administration is imminent? This just might indicate so:

The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee formally subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify before lawmakers over her department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., issued the subpoena after five Republicans on the Oversight Committee and all Democrats voted in favor of a motion to call Bondi to testify about the release of troves of documents related to years of investigations into the late sex offender and his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. The motion was brought by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., earlier this month.

A Justice Department spokesperson called the subpoena “completely unnecessary” in a statement to MS NOW. [MS NOW]

And yet, like a steaming pile of dog turd, there’s a subpoena.

Is Representative and Chairman Comer (R-SC) tired of being the buffoon of the House? Or is he quite earnest about removing pedophiles from prominence, even if it involves his Party leader and President, and a consequent loss of prestige?

Or maybe he was offended by AG Bondi at her infamous hearing, or even President Trump and his war. Maybe he regards a political association with either of them to be repellent to his constituents.

This may prove quite interesting.

The Senate Goes National?

Pundits are noting that Senate candidates are reaching across State borders, probably more than usual, but still pursuing the typical pillar of candidate-hood – critical support. In Palm Beach, FL, Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton (R) is running campaign ads…

A super PAC backing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) for Senate is airing television ads in Palm Beach, Fla., where President Trump is spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort, as his endorsement in a competitive primary runoff hangs in the balance. [The Hill]

The candidate not receiving Trump’s endorsement should drop out, says Trump. Who will that be? No name, yet. Given Trump’s desperation to appear right – about anything at all these days – it’ll be whoever’s ahead in the polls on Texas’ Primary day. He’s apparently missed one deadline., which means the runoff cannot be disregarded and both Cornyn and Paxton’s names will be on the ballot. While Paxton doesn’t seem the type to discourage easily, Trump’s failure to pick anyone by an important deadline has to be a blow.

Back on point, Graham Platner (D-ME), according to Steve Benen …

… while Graham Platner is a Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, he wrote an op-ed for The Houston Chronicle [paywall] last week, taking aim at Republican Sen. Ted Cruz over his position on the war in Iran.

It’s a reflection of the centralization of power in D.C., especially in the super PACs and in a President who has attracted the attention of a usually politically apathetic group, now known as MAGA, who did not understand politics and was attracted to the comforting rhetoric of Donald Trump. Being politically naive and not aware of much more than his claims to wealth and his contributions to The Apprentice, while loathing Congress’ deliberate pace, the rumors of corruption, and its combative nature, they were easily influenced by deep pockets, which are now being tapped by certain Senate candidates.

The calculus that said rich politicians would be immune to bribery has proven, once again, to be false; billionaires are often the essence of avarice. That’s how they became billionaires in most cases. The American electorate needs to wise-up. Fast.

Polls, polls, everywhere!

The polls, for what they’re worth, are starting their annual migration to Mexico to pop out from behind every squeaky door in the joint. As I mentioned earlier, most of my polling information is sourced from 270 To Win, but I don’t plan to lean on polls heavily, and that’ll be reflected in my brevity and omissions in this regard: Good pollsters are referenced via 270 To Win, unless I run across the poll in some other way; questionable, unknown, and bad pollsters will be ignored. Most pollsters I’m seeing so far are unfamiliar.

Anew, Renew, Ptu! .. Ptui, I mean

Getting on with this tale for no pay….

• Mississippi held its primary last Tuesday and incumbent Senator Hyde-Smith (R) won her primary with an intriguing, if crushing, 80.6% of the vote. I have to wonder if there is some dissatisfaction with the Senator if 19+ points went in search of someone else. On the Democratic side, Scott Colom (D) won his primary with 73.3% of the primary vote. He is currently a district attorney for the State of Mississippi, and so knows something about government.

  Interestingly enough, the total votes in the Democratic primary exceeded that of the Senator, but not that of the Republican primary; however, Republicans are currently more fractious than Democrats, although progressives, authentic or faux, do seem to be working to falsify that observation.

  That said, I don’t think the seat of the Senator is up for grabs, but I do think this race could be a lot closer than Republican strategists want to believe. Colom’s big problem? Ty Pinkins (I), already qualified for the general election for this Senate seat because he’s not claiming Party membership (and therefore resources), may attract votes that would otherwise go to Colom.
• Illinois is holding its primaries today. WaPo reports the cryptocurrency industry is backing Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi in the Democratic primary, while Gov Pritzker (D) is backing his Lt Gov, Juliana Stratton (D). Both the crypto industry and Gov Pritzker, a billionaire, represent a lot of money, so Rep Robin Kelly is trying to use that concern as a pivot for her campaign. For the record, retiring Senator Durbin (D-IL) is a cryptocurrency opponent.
• For any of several reasons, Texas Senator Cornyn (R) is flipping on an important position:
  

  Cornyn, who previously opposed Democratic efforts to end the filibuster, flipped on the issue on Wednesday, writing in an op-ed in the New York Post, “My fellow conservatives and I have proudly used the 60-vote threshold to protect the country from all sorts of bad ideas and dangerous policies. But when the reality on the ground changes, leaders must take stock and adapt.”

  “For many years, I believed that if the US Senate scrapped the filibuster, Texas and our nation would stand to lose more than we would gain,” Cornyn wrote. “After careful consideration, I support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats’ obstruction, through the Senate, and on the president’s desk for his signature.”  [Roll Call]

  For the record, Democrats have been a speed bump by demanding reformation of ICE, with specifics, and to the SAVE America Act as they claim it would disenfranchise citizens, employing the filibuster to bust Republican chops. While the firing of Secretary Noem may be interpreted as a gesture to the Democrats, it was hardly adequate. I’m a Minnesotan in a suburb of the Twin Cities, and it is very clear from ICE behavior and investigative reporting that ICE was blundering about, breaking laws, arrogantly ignoring court orders, and, if it’s to serve Americans rather than paranoid xenophobes, discussion, debate, and reformation is a necessity.

  Off rant, it appears the Senator is feeling the pressure of AG Paxton, he of a thousand scandals and a mention earlier in this post, and Cornyn, desirous of retaining power and position, will reverse positions in search of reelection. As it happens, Public Policy Polling gives Paxton the lead over Cornyn, 45-42; Texas Public Opinion Research makes the lead 49-41.
• Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico (D) of Texas has his own set of problems, according to independent thinker Andrew Sullivan (paywall):
  

  Like many fundamentalists, Talarico also bungles the science.

  In Talarico’s case, it’s the science, what little there is, related to the transgender issue. Apparently, Talarico is a few steps behind. My thoughts on transgender are here.

• As Senator Mullin (R) of Oklahoma will be required to leave his current gig to accept, if confirmed by the Senate, the position Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Rep Kevin Hern (R-OK) is suddenly entering the Oklahoma Senate race, and with President Trump’s endorsement. The primary is June 16th, so Rep Hern has time to campaign and almost certainly win the primary. I can’t help but wonder if Republicans are considering abolishing DHS once Mullin is out of the Senate? Piecemealing DHS was noised about earlier this year. And will Trump’s endorsement be viewed as a blessing or a curse for Hern come Election Day?

And that’s all for today, time to fold up that 500 foot radio tower and slip it into my back pocket … oooops, that’s a bad rip. My tailor will be unhappy about that, I fear.

With the sudden resignation of Tulsi Gabbard aide Joe Kent, we have another piece falling off the Administration engine.

In case the above disappears:

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.

I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.

It has been an honor serving under @POTUS and @DNIGabbard  and leading the professionals at NCTC.

May God bless America.

My bold, and the judgment expressed in that bold is the most important part of this resignation letter, really. Mr. Kent was a low-profile member of the Administration, and his resignation may not resonate with most of the American public, the ultimate decision makers of the country. However, the accusation I highlighted should enlighten more of the American public to the essential mendacity of the current Administration, and drive away more lukewarm supporters.

I was contemplating when President Trump is likely to resign, and it occurred to me that if the House and Senate are overwhelmed by a blue wave this November, President Trump may be visited by Congressional GOP leaders sometime in late November to early January ’27, who’ll tell him it’s time to leave office, before the next Congress convenes and opens impeachment proceedings against Trump for incompetence and waging an illegal war.

Trump will yell, but if the GOP‘s fourth-rater ensemble is defeated as I suspect it’ll be defeated, he’ll be facing a very hostile Congress and a GOP which had been forced to put their trust in Trump and, for their troubles, been so utterly defeated that only the safest of seats will remain in their hands. Amid the screaming of cheating and calls for martial law and all the garbage that comes from chronic losers will be folks who’ll put country over party.

Yes, this is all overly-optimistic, and assumes the Democrats will recognize their own deficiencies and do something about them. So far, I understand DNC chair Ken Martin has refused to do anything responsible in the area of postmortems, but he still has time to retract those decisions, open the debates, and maybe expel some incompetent zealots practiced in the art of performative morality. If not, I can still hope new parties, or at least factions, centered around folks like Platner and Gallego, will appear and come to the fore, replacing the tired old Parties that have forgotten how liberal democracies operate.

The Bad Guy is dead, yet the President is outraged that his lack of knowledge and support for Europeans and NATO is resulting in his own teeth being kicked in:

President Donald Trump has berated and threatened America’s NATO allies. Now he wants these same countries to help unblock the Strait of Hormuz — and their response has not exactly been enthusiastic.

“This is not our war, we have not started it,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters Monday.

That appeared to sum up the mood among U.S. allies, with leaders from Berlin to London expressing reservations about Trump’s demands and indicating they had no immediate plans to provide military support to reopen the crucial waterway.

Iran effectively closed the trade route in response to the American-Israeli assault launched last month. This sent global oil prices surging and threatened an international economic shock, something economists had warned about before the war began. [NBC News]

Considering how poorly Trump treated the Germans, the Danes, the Brits, the Ukrainians, he shouldn’t be surprised that he’s getting no support in what amounts to his hour of need. But there’s more to this than a spat that pleases President Putin.

Think about it: Our abused allies are suffering roughly the same material pain as are the Americans due to the Straits of Hormuz being closed, yet their assistance is not being eagerly thrust upon us. Why? What we’re seeing is what separates professional politicians and leaders from arrogant amateurs like Trump and his minions: The ability to think more than a quarter of a year ahead.

Our allies are deadly tired of the foolishness and bullying of President Trump, and, looking ahead, they want their big North American ally, the Arsenal of Democracy, to return to the wisdom that has made Western Civilization the leading form of government throughout the world. The refusal of our allies to come running is a message to 300 million Americans, and the message is simple: Get rid of your amateur-hour piece of kitsch. Get rid of the whole crew. It’s time to find some adults who are willing to do the work to find our way out of this mess.

Khamanei is dead? Great. He was a theocratic bad guy. But the reverberations of his assassination, all the accompanying American government lies, waste of munitions, deaths of innocents, and the satisfaction of the romantic delusions of President Trump’s hunt for military glory – so long as he’s not in the line of fire – will ring ill for America long after Trump and Hegseth and Rubio and that entire crew of idiots is gone. The professionals had figured out that muscling our way in would not result in a peaceful, friendly, and prosperous Iran. That’s where wisdom begins, in realizing that being a brute in Iran will not work.

Cleanup begins by removing the old cleanup crew that can barely wipe its own nose.

Art as an institution in American culture and economics seems to be in an uncomfortable position. If it’s pop music then, economically, the artists often do well, but there’s always questions, spoken or not, concerning its seriousness, while its revenue numbers often mark it as successful – if that’s an appropriate metric.

Then there’s more traditional, expensive, and difficult to measure arts and organizations for classical music, ballet, opera, and their kin – venerable, yet with an economic history of patronization and support by members of the elite classes. Whether an organization or art form from this class is “successful” becomes even more problematic.

And whether such is an essential part of, say, American culture becomes a difficult question, because whether we should or should not publicly fund such organizations in a supposed meritocracy / capitalist society when its contribution is not easily convertible to a currency … I’m almost speechless at the complexities.

Now, add in the neediness of a billionaire whose essential crassness makes him ineligible for entrance into high class society!

Ric Grenell, a diplomat and favorite of President Trump, was made Executive Director for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts back in January of 2025. A very prestigious organization, the Kennedy Center suffered  an unprecedented cancellation rate of performing artists as its association with Mr Grenell and, more importantly, President Trump has reduced its prestige and importance on the American Arts scene; indeed, it has become so close to deserted that President Trump, undoubtedly in order to conceal his humiliation of being rejected, yet again, by the elite classes he’s so desperate to join, ordered it closed for renovation.

So is this important?

Certainly, the recent and sudden firing of Grenell^[1] marks another chunk of the edifice called the Administration falling off and into the encroaching Sea, a body of chaos engendered by the arrogant amateurism generated and embraced by the very Administration from which it was born and now driving it into madness and abject failure. If I may wax, errrr, poetic.

But Trump’s rejection by the nebulous upper classes marks another failure on his part. Artists, for all their perilous existence in garrets, are both the originators and the mediums through which morality, both its rules and the questions that surround and change, or confirm, that morality, are conveyed to the citizenry; often, artists are the recipients of largesse from the upper classes for their work as their work justifies such recompense.

The rejection of the Trump-Kennedy Center by the artist class marks the refusal of artists to be associated with Trump, whose worship of wealth is considered the mark of an inferior morality, even though he may have been so infused in a prosperity church. Grenell claimed big productions were coming, but in the end the Center is closed, instead, and Grenell … reassigned to a position that sounds as fantastical as Noem’s. Will Grenell stick around and continue to be humiliated by President Trump?

¹ Officially, Mr Grenell now holds the position of  Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions, which has undoubtedly led to a great deal of humor at his expense.

Long-time readers are aware of my fascination, healthy or not, with Professor Turchin & his colleagues’ work in structural demographic theory (SDT). One of the themes of their books on the subject is the struggle of those who are members of elite overproduction, which is a fancy way of saying that the population of the elite classes of a society tends to balloon in relation to the non-elite members, until those who must perform the work are insufficient to keeping the elite in the luxury to which they feel entitled. The struggle encapsulates the conundrum faced by children of the elite who discover they are to be ejected into the lower classes: perhaps they are not inheriting a title of nobility from their parents, or the fortune necessary to be recognized as a member of the elite classes; or whatever defines a member of the elite class in the contextual society.

A not atypical response to an impending downgrade in position is violence. Internecine wars, assassinations, that sort of thing. See Turchin & Nefedov’s SECULAR CYCLES for an authoritative overview. The point is that, for many humans, their position in the social order is so important that accepting a societal demotion, to maybe have to work for a living, is simply not acceptable.

So what brought this on? We’ve been watching The Sounds series recently, and what rocked my world was a scene in Episode 6 in which Tom, an alcoholic who has cheated on his wife and killed someone, is negotiating with his wife in the time-honored way of alcoholics in Western society, to not be booted out of the marriage. It was most painful, and I’m sure social workers and psychologists were shivering in recognition at his behavior, and his wife, a strong-will person herself, confronting the problem of knowing when to trust this person to which she’s been married for quite a while … and when not to.

But what really got my attention was not Tom’s, the alcoholic, arguments concerning trust, but when Tom, who comes from an elite family but, unexpectedly, will not be inheriting the family business, abruptly shouts, I’m not going to be poor! I shan’t reveal more in order to avoid the traditional spoilers accusation, but it made me shiver to realize that, for him, retaining his social position, as signified by wealth, was more important than the trust of his wife. That extra motivation made me wonder if the storytellers are familiar with SDT, because that frantic obsession and focus on wealth reminds me of some members of today’s society.

And it’s not a bad little series, if you’re looking for something to watch.

I receive email from moveon.org and other such organizations requesting signatures on demanding this and demanding that. I used to sign, but no more, which is good as demanding just seems like a poor word choice, although I have no suggested alternative. Getting all het up in a frenzy over petitions doesn’t seem to have much effect on our amateur Administration of incompetence, as it seems motivated by solely by money, and backed by clerics of Senator Goldwater’s horrified description.

What will? This guy, for example:

[John Bartman, a corn and soybean farmer,] criticized the president for gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development, which historically had purchased billions in food aid from American farmers.

“Right now, there’s 33 million people in Sudan who are suffering severe hunger,” he said. “And if those people at USAID were able to take our grain that we have, that billion bushels of wheat that’s just sitting there in our ending stocks right now, and give that flour to overseas, that would make a huge difference. It would give us a leg up and [help us] be able to make some money as a farmer, and we’d be able to have soft power again.”

Bartman added: “We would be the good guys in the world again — and maybe wouldn’t be in Iran right now.” [MS NOW]

Right there, from a farmer, we see opposition to the destruction of USAID by the arguably illicit DOGE, opposition to Trump’s War, advocacy for soft power, which is an approach to international relations involving foreign aid and persuasion, often loathed by the amateur set on the far right, and empathy for people in a country that our crass, obdurately amateur President calls a shithole country, quite in opposition to the best features of Christianity.

This interview is easily accessible by one of the backbones of the President’s support, the rural communities, and you can bet it’s being passed around. It’ll make people think.

Whether or not this will make farmers vote Democratic is an open question, given the blunders of the left; I could see a new political party appealing for their votes. But I think a substantial portion of the rural communities will realize, if they have not already, that the President, and all his loyal minions, have lost contact with the core concerns of the rural communities, much like the Democrats. Did they ever? Or was the rural community deemed a collection of suckers by the far-right extremists? I don’t know.

Where will this go? Hard to say. Those farmers who’ve found prestige in their Republican membership will stick to it, blinded by that prestige, even as their economic well-being begins to fray, and the central motivation of avarice reveals itself through corruption. Gains in prestige both satisfy and generate hunger for greater increases – and, –ahem– surely what worked before will work again.

But some will figure it out and abandon the Republicans.

Doc, you parked the plane in the factory! Again!

The Diamond Wizard (1954; Brit., The Diamond) is a run of the mill crime drama, featuring the theft of new American coinage. Now in Britain, it is laundered through the device of financing the creation of synthetic diamonds using a new process devised by Dr. Miller; the plan is to sell the diamonds as natural for a whole lot more.

Dr. Miller is an innocent inventor, and thus he’s kidnapped and forced to work for the thieves. Miller’s daughter, Marline, happens to work for the police, so when she becomes alarmed, she discovers that her father is suspected of being a criminal himself. Between American Treasury agents who find her attractive and thieves who consider her ineffectual, she becomes a victim herself, held in the abandoned factory where the diamonds are being manufactured.

By large, dangerous machinery.

But such machinery … well, let’s not give the game away. The characters try hard to reach reality, but remain trapped in their 2-D world, and the more nuanced consequences of being a criminal are largely unexplored. There are clever bits, but here I am, a month out on writing a review, and not remembering the plot very well at all. I am thus led to conclude this was unmemorable.

But still a bit of fun.

As an addendum, Wikipedia tells me this movie was filmed in 3-D. This was a surprise to me, but if you have the facilities, it might be worth tracking down a 3-D print of the film.

Two bad guys continue to mouth off at each other:

In his first purported public comments since his appointment, Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowed to keep blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the vital channel through which 20% of the world’s oil normally flows.

On Truth Social, Trump said keeping Iran from having nuclear weapons is “of far greater interest and importance to me” than the cost of crude.

Iran is also warning of more attacks. [CNN/World]

Much like the Bush II Administration, Trump is hiding behind a lie to justify Trump’s War: No one else is agreeing that Iran has nuclear wars arms. Don’t let his mendacity, no matter how much he raises his voice, mislead you and your fellow citizens into the material and spiritual disaster that is war. That this war is based on lies just makes it worse.

For the goat enthusiast, some more data: the Union Leader of New Hampshire (paywalled; via Maddowblog here) reports a Stunning upset … for a Democrat in a Republican district. Bobbi Boudman (D-NH) has defeated Dale Fincher (R-NH) in the special general election for NH District 7 by four points, which Steve Benen reports went for President Trump by thirteen points.

Ballotpedia is not yet listing results and may be waiting for an official result to be issued. This link should be updated when that happens.

At this juncture, there’s little enough of insight to mention any longer. There have been no changes of seats in the Republican direction, while the Democrats have, by now, quite a full kitty. If I were a Republican up for reelection I’d be very nervous. Some parts of the country are more volatile than others, so it’ll depend on where you live & run.

In general, though, I don’t wonder at the allegiance of Republicans to Trump. Most of them have their prestigious positions because of Trump and his connection to the MAGA slice of the electorate, not because of any connection they personally have forged. I don’t know if they didn’t try to forge one, or tried and failed. But there’s been remarkably few defections in the face of imminent disaster.

Long time readers may recall Kari Lake, a former broadcaster in Arizona, as well as failed Senate and gubernatorial candidate in the same State, and Trump devotee. Her latest political job was as Director of Voice of America where she laid workers off and tried to dismantle the Voice, and, well, her losing streak continues:

Press freedom organizations are celebrating the court decision invalidating Kari Lake’s tenure at Voice of America and nullifying the mass layoffs she ordered last year.

Reporters without Borders’ Executive Director Clayton Weimers, said the Saturday evening ruling “confirms what we knew when we first filed this lawsuit almost one year ago: that Kari Lake and the Trump administration acted unlawfully in gutting Voice of America (VOA). There is still more to unpack in this decision and work to be done to ensure VOA’s journalists get back to work. Beyond the immediate implications of the decision, this case is proof that fighting for press freedom matters.”

Lake, a former local news anchor and failed gubernatorial and Senate candidate, had tried to dismantle Voice of America, the U.S. government-funded international broadcaster created during World War II to provide news to a global audience, particularly to countries with little to no press freedom. Lake left her position as CEO on Nov. 19. [MS NOW]

Why is this important? Principally, it’s the judiciary once again stepping up to the plate and invalidating the President’s actions. Each such action brings the dubious decisions of Judge Cannon, who infamously worked to slow and stall Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s prosecution of the then-former President, and, separately, several SCOTUS decisions which continue to appear to be politically influenced, into a more stark and condemnatory focus. We can also deduce that Lake continues to make questionable decisions simply by working for Trump.

The judge is Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee.

Steve Benen expresses confusion over President Trump’s habit of giving everyone in sight … shoes. The Herald News has the story:

Have you ever imagined what it’d be like to spend a day in the president’s shoes? Well, for Trump allies on Capitol Hill, that aspiration isn’t as far-fetched as one might think.

In fact, a recent report from The Wall Street Journal details that President Trump has been gifting his favorite shoes, the Florsheim Cap Toe Oxfords, en masse to White House advisors, agency leads and seemingly anyone who finds themselves in the Oval Office with the salesman-in-chief (read: leader of the free world).

Welcome to the Hollywood universe that resides in President Trump’s head. I have no idea why he picked inexpensive Florsheim shoes, but it appears that he’s a vision in his head of all his men looking … the same.

In this Colbert video it looked like Trump was wearing the same shoes, too.

Can his signature blue blazer and red tie be far behind? A universe run by Donald Trumps?

This isn’t a joke. Given his pathological narcissism, it’s very possible he’s trying to populate his universe with himself. Psychologists must be planning to write many, many papers on this particular behavior. And, beyond the tie and blazer, what would follow that?

There’s been some reports that President Trump will determine when his goal of the unconditional surrender of Iran has been achieved. In accordance with his pathological narcissism, he feels that he must be in control of this, and for … I hesitate to say good reason, but it’s logical in context.

1. Iran is not likely to unconditionally surrender anytime soon. While the general citizenry may have many members in favor of said surrender, they don’t make the decisions. The government is the dominant social prestige ladder in Iran, bringing many material and psychological advantages to members; and it requires a putative belief in Allah. So long as the leaders decree no surrender, and enough folks agree they speak for the clerics and the divine, Iran’s defenders will fight; and Iran’s military, honed in the Iran-Iraq War, has a reputation and capability worth respecting.
2. If my reader has consumed The Art of War, by Sun Tzu, they may remember this, paraphrased: An aggressor, in order to win, must crush their enemy and achieve all of their goals; a defender must merely survive. So long as Iran can give Trump the finger, he has not won. He must protect his ego, it’s what his psychosis demands, and if that means he must redefine unconditional surrender, he will until he can quickly achieve that definition and remove himself from a situation that threatens to destroy him, even if only psychologically. I think the Iranian government understands this, and thus we see the CNN headlines Iran’s new supreme leader is still nowhere to be seen and Iran begins laying mines in Strait of Hormuz, sources say. The longer Iran pulls the American nose, the greater Iranian prestige, not so incidentally damaged by the losses of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the earlier loss of General Qasem Soleimanito an American drone strike, once the war is terminated and Iran, perhaps temporarily under American control, gets control back. Trump is perceived as their enemy, and they’ll happily humiliate the bully; it brings them prestige.
3. The selection of the son of the late Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is congruent with the above theme: defy the bully. Trump tried to decree he would select the leader, and he was ignored. He’s reached for the stars and was kneed in the groin by the Iranians. But there’s more going on, I think. I expect the Iranians are eager for a ground invasion, as that’ll give them more and more chances of inflicting defeats and deaths on the Americans. Enough losses and the Iranians will hope Americans will toss Trump out of office; as that would be a healthy move on our part regardless of Iranian desires, they might get their wish. My wish is we should do it before any more American lives are lost.
4. The mining of the Strait of Hormuz also serves as an attack on Trump, as jumps in the price of oil will be blamed on him, and not unfairly.

This war could become a long and painful tragedy. If Trump backs off too quickly, his tender ego will suffer damage, so he won’t leave immediately. But suppose an Iranian drone takes many lives, then Trump might feel it necessary to execute a ground invasion, and we’ll risk being in Iran for years.

This does not look good. MAGA had better run Trump out of the White House or they risk their own severe damage. MAGA pundits had best meditate on that doom.

Remember the tempest in a teacup that leapt onto our screens when President Trump used the bully pulpit to pretend he knows anything about pregnancy and pain-killers? Well, here’s the other end of the controversy:

They found that orders for Tylenol – also known by the generic names acetaminophen and paracetamol – were 10% lower than predicted for pregnant emergency department patients aged 15 to 44. And outpatient prescriptions of leucovorin for children aged 5 to 17 were 71% higher than expected during the same study period, late September to early December.

Researchers observed no similar shifts in comparable medications, suggesting the changes were directly tied to the briefing. [AP]

While there are certainly caveats, in the end it’s one of those incidents in which you have to ask if these people really deserve the label ‘thinking creatures.’

The Iranian government knows how to deal with bullies, perhaps because they’re bullies themselves:

• Iran’s new leader: Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei the country’s next supreme leader, state media reports, following the killing of his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. US President Donald Trump previously said Khamenei’s son would be an “unacceptable” selection. The announcement came hours after Israel launched fresh strikes which hit oil storage sites in Tehran. [CNN/Politics]

Bullies are never appeased, they just take more and more. President Trump will no doubt be puzzled by this selection, since he – in his mind, the biggest bully on the block said it could not be so, so it shouldn’t be – doesn’t have a sophisticated understanding of how the world works. He thinks he’s the biggest, so he wins. All those other enemies don’t matter.

But Iran’s government understands that knuckling under will make them dirt under the fingernails of Trump, and that’s unacceptable for a country that’s been more or less united for 1900 years. Not to mention a religious psychosis as big as most of its enemies’, which is the source of the iron in their backbone.

So don’t look for the new Khamenei to roll over and play dead on Trump’s say so. Iran will continue fighting until it’s been reduced to rifles and rocks, and even then former leaders with no future will retreat into inaccessible areas and try to become guerillas. In the process, Trump’s international reputation will degrade and he’ll be known as a buffoon. Well, that’s already common. I need a better thesaurus, maybe.

And Big Law (a name for a collection of law firms that work with the largest of companies), Paramount/CBS, and other institutions who calculated it’d be more profitable to make deals with Trump the Bully than defy them will not learn, not learn until their sources of revenue dry up and the boards in charge of the CEOs fire them for making the biggest mistake of their careers. For some such institutions, such as Paramount/CBS, that may never happen, as boss David Ellison and his father, Larry, have too much money to be fired, and thus that institution may be doomed. But in the area of Big Law, we’ve already seen such discharges occur. Look for more. Don’t invest in those corporations with CEOs that made that egregious error, unless they find a way out of it.

Drama queens in charge of military units. Lovely. Put them on the front lines, eh?

US military commanders have been invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical “end times” to justify involvement in the Iran war to troops, according to complaints made to a watchdog group.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) says it has received more than 200 complaints from service members across all branches of the armed forces, including the marines, air force and space force.

One complainant, identified as a noncommissioned officer (NCO) in a unit that could be deployed “at any moment to join” operations against Iran, told MRFF in a complaint viewed by the Guardian that their commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ”. [The Guardian]

Yeah, we hear this time after time here in the States because we’re the refuge for religious lunatics. No offense to all the other religious folks. But this sounds like everyone who thinks God talks to them, or who’ve deciphered a mathematical code, or had a vision from demons. Nothing comes of it, and in those rare cases where someone asks if they’ll be returning the donated money and items, the answer is a resounding NO.

Someone should ask them what it would take for them to give up their beliefs. I’d love to hear the answers. Most answers would be rank “NOTHING…”, since that’d be a fall from social position unacceptable to their egos.

President Trump’s need for Hollywood drama is going to be expensive:

Senior Republicans privately expect President Donald Trump’s administration to request tens of billions of dollars for the Middle East conflict and other military needs from Congress in the coming days, with some GOP lawmakers hearing estimates that the Pentagon is spending as much as $2 billion a day on the war.  [Politico]

It’s not just the money, but the hardware expenditures, as interceptor missiles take a while to produce. In fact, President Trump is trying to encourage higher production:

President Trump said major defense contractors have agreed to quadruple the production of “exquisite class” weaponry following a meeting Friday at the White House.

“They have agreed to quadruple Production of the ‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry in that we want to reach, as rapidly as possible, the highest levels of quantity. Expansion began three months prior to the meeting, and Plants and Production of many of these Weapons are already under way,” the president said in a post on Truth Social.

The executives of BAE Systems, Boeing, Honeywell, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon were at the meeting and another huddle was scheduled two months from now. [The Hill]

Although I’m guessing it’s so he can fire off more missiles at the Iranians; he’s not worrying about attacks from other nations. After all, what’s another foreign war or three?

Yes, The Environment Is Degrading Rapidly

True on so many levels, but we’ll stick with the political. Between dismaying jobs reports (“U.S. payrolls unexpectedly fell by 92,000 in February; unemployment rate rises to 4.4%“, and that’s my bold), an Administration entering a terminal phase, a war only thought desirable by fundamentalist evangelicals (Andrew Sullivan, paywall), the frantic clinging to tariffs by a President who has already been rebuffed on the subject by SCOTUS, and now news that President Trump’s erstwhile ally President Putin may be feeding military intelligence to Iran, Republican Senators up for re-election must be feeling the pressure, especially at open campaign stops where irate citizens, possibly jobless and hopeless about the future, with children in the military and facing a war where government officials with names like Hegseth and Trump are careless of the lives of those in the military, and not under the Senate’s control.

Look for tensions on the campaign trail to continue to rise as even safe Republican seats become endangered.

And Then To Particulate

Continuing the cereal, coated in milk to help the gravel go down easily.

• • Much to my shame, I missed the March 3rd primary results in Arkansas. Incumbent Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) won his primary, as did bankrupt farmer Hallie Shoffner (D-AR), both in convincing manner. However, Cotton’s vote count was roughly twice that of Shoffner’s. Unless a poll says different, I expect Cotton to coast to victory.
  • Rep Crockett (D-TX), who lost in the Democratic primary for the Texas Senate seat to James Talarico (D-TX), demonstrates proper behavior:
    

    Crockett called on the party to unite behind Talarico heading into what is expected to be a top race to watch this fall.

    “With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win,” she said. “I’m committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect democrats up and down the ballot.” [NBC News]

  • Emerson College has polls for Georgia. In the Republican primary, Rep Collins is only outpaced by Undecideds, 30%-40%. Maybe it’s too early in the political season, or maybe Republican voters are as unimpressed by the extremists as I. Rep Edwards has a long ways to go at 16%, and retired football coach Derek Dooley’s only at 10%. Meanwhile, the shark playing the accordion in the background is incumbent Senator Ossoff (D), who has everyone beat but has not broken the 50% mark. Not that he has to….
  • Pan Atlantic Research may claim multiple decades of work, but I’ve not heard of them and neither has Wikipedia, which is suspicious. But their results for Maine seem more sensible than other polls; they have Graham Platner (D) in the mix, but not dominating as did polls from other organizations. Unfortunately for Pan Atlantic, those other organizations consist of the outstanding pollster University of New Hampshire, which has Platner with 30+ point leads (see the earlier link to Maine). The thing about future forecasting is you don’t know who’s wrong and who’s right until the label future becomes invalid….
  • Senator Daines (R) of Montana suddenly withdrew from his primary and announced his retirement, in an unusual manner that he has confirmed was planned. He took those actions only minutes before the primary filing period closed, thus denying other politicians of the two major persuasions the opportunity to file for the primary based on the changed circumstances; apparently minor party members and independents can file regardless. Steve Benen has more details here. It appears the front-runner is now the US Attorney for Montana, Kurt Alme (R), and he is endorsed by Trump and state officials such as Governor Gianforte (R), for what it’s worth.
    For me, the real question is whether Daines leaving the race will elevate former University of Montana President Seth Bodnar’s (I) candidacy to viability. He wasn’t on my radar until now, but Montanans comfortable with a Senator Daines (R) may not be comfortable with a sneaky Senator Alme (R), and Bodnar does have statewide exposure; I’m not so sure the Democratic candidates have that. I do not happen to know the positions of either Bodnar (a little digging yielded nothing beyond boilerplate) or Alme, and I look forward to hearing of any polls. I did get this from the Daily Montanan:

    Montana’s 2026 Senate race has been considered safely Republican by analysts, but within hours of Daines’ announcement, at least one analyst moved the senate seat into a “lean Republican,” category.

    I’d go along with that.

That’s it for this bowl of Cap’n Crunch. Is that still a serial, or just a novella?

Gerontocracy:

1. government or control (as of a nation or organization) by people who are old
2. [etc, omitted] [Merriam-Webster]

Incidentally, when I was exploring for definitions, both Future Caucus and Teen Vogue had suspiciously similar wording for their introductory definitions of gerontocracy. I mention this not to imply plagiarism may have occurred, but because I recall an incident during the pandemic when Seattle was seeing a partitioning, temporary as it was, and the right decided to smear someone involved in that incident. When I searched on the fellow’s name, a series of right-wing sites appeared, using identical wording in the way Google displays such sample bites. It was maybe a half dozen sites, maybe more, the only exception being The Epoch Times, which had its own negative take on the person. It being a paywalled site at the time, and maybe now, I didn’t explore that particular article further.

Back to gerontocracy, this could be a coincidence, or perhaps Future Caucus and Teen Vogue are controlled by the same owner, who chooses to save money by minimizing what they pay to their starving writers, or both sites take content from the same source and republish under different names.

In any case, gerontocracy is noted in “The Public Fires Kristi Noem,” Ken Klippenstein:

Maybe that’s why Congress is seeing a record-shattering number of incumbent politicians who are not seeking reelection, while a strikingly high number of gubernatorial races are also up for grabs. The House of Representatives is on track to break a record, with some 32 Republicans and 21 Democrats not seeking re-election. The Senate is in a similar retreat, an effect not only of a tired and distrustful public that is sick of the status quo, but one precipitated by earlier clamoring for the gerontocracy to step away.

I’ve noticed the emergence of Senator Gallego (D-AZ) and candidate Graham Platner (D-ME), both youngsters, along with Dan Osborn (I-NE), who are all not in their seventies, nor even their sixties. They are part of a movement to remove the boomers from power, and the latter two are on the campaign trail, as I mention somewhere in this thread.

I had not heard the news that Governor Polis (D) of Colorado, the home state of corrupt former election official Tina Peters (R), is considering clemency for the felon. Anthony Coley is outraged:

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and the bipartisan Colorado County Clerks Association sent a joint letter to the governor in January urging him not to release Peters from prison. Also, the Republican district attorney who prosecuted Peters and the state’s Democratic attorney general oppose clemency

“Ms. Peters’ sentence was not harsh by any reasonable standard,” Matt Crane, a former GOP clerk who now runs the Colorado County Clerks Association, has said. “Granting clemency to an unrepentant convicted criminal who deliberately sought to undermine our democratic system would be deeply concerning and risks further eroding public trust in the institutions Americans rely on for free and fair elections.”

Whenever I feel like I may be having a knee jerk reaction, I like to go over the situation again, arguing against the knee-jerk. This time I don’t see any real holes: appeased bullies simply go back for more; the support is bi-partisan; so what if she’s seventy, folks live longer now and she should have known better, so we can assume she committed the crime  for personal gain.

We cling to principle in the belief that it’ll benefit all of us in the end, and Governor Polis needs to cling with both hands and his feet. Sure, Trump may continue to apply pressure. But each time he does, Polis’ defiance will make salient the antisocial, undesirable behaviors on exhibit by the current President, perhaps hastening the necessary impeachment and conviction this country needs.

Keep it up, Guv’ner.

In case my reader has been out of contact with the world today, sort of like me, there’s news that makes it look like the Trump Administration is beginning to, well, fall apart:

President Donald Trump said Thursday on social media he was firing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and would name Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace her.

Trump thanked Noem for her service, saying in his Truth Social post she “has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)” and that she “will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere.”

He said Mullin would take over the position March 31. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the Trump administration will work to confirm Mullin “as quickly as possible.” [CNN/Politics]

So many questions, to be sure.

Did Senator Mullin (R-OK) know he was the President’s pick for the open position? Or did this appear on Truth Social and he just had to deal? Did / does he know he can’t be both DHS Secretary and Senator?

But we can more or less guess why he was President Trump’s pick – because he projects toughness. He appears to be a large guy, too. It’s all about Central Casting, isn’t it, and we know it because

The spotlight is now on Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin as the Oklahoma lawmaker is poised to take over the Department of Homeland Security following Kristi Noem’s controversial tenure and firing on Thursday.

Mullin, 48, has no law enforcement experience but has been a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration and law enforcement. [ABC News]

The Senator has no applicable experience, but he’s ready to storm into one of the most important law enforcement positions in the country and, well, I hope he runs the agency with discretion and attention to the law, but he’s a Landgrebe nominee and that means both lavish devotion to the President and implies a certain haughty amateurism.

Perhaps Trump considers White House aide Stephen Miller, the anti-immigration voice in the Administration, too short and wimpy for the position. I’m quite serious, too.

According to Ballotpedia, Mullin, is still in the Republican primary for his seat, at least as I write this, and I actually don’t think he’ll drop out. His removal from the Senate is not a critical loss, it just means Thune has a smaller margin, and it may even make certain options easier to if Thune decides to become an independent power. But Mullin can still win his seat and resign from DHS at the end of the current term. But it’s also quite possible he’ll decide to stick with the executive branch. The Oklahoma Senate seat is considered quite safely Republican. I expect the margin this time around won’t be big, but it’ll remain Republican.

Was Noem ready for this? There were rumors that Noem was positioning herself to take the Presidency; I have to assume it’s harder for someone in her new, and quite obscure, position of Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas to try for a coup. But maybe that was only a rumor, as coups can be quite difficult.

Is this the first chunk of many to fall off the Administration? There are many irons in the fire that may blow up in Trump’s face.

• Trump’s War. I’m sure Trump expected it to be over with and tucked away by now. He’s even trying to insert himself into the process of Iran selecting their next leader. But Iran, by which I mean Iran’s government, is still defiant, still firing missiles, and forcing America and its allies to expend missile interceptors in defense, which means our stocks are becoming perilously low. If a story concerning low interceptor stocks gets lose in MAGA-land and weather improves, we could see a MAGA-mob in front of the White House demanding a resignation, a profound humiliation.
• Epstein Files. They are infuriating much of MAGA-land.
• Defense Secretary Hegseth. An incompetent who probably promised Trump a quick victory. Now Trump has casualties, military risk, and political risk.
• The White House Ballroom. Trump’s preoccupation, in the face of war, with his Ballroom is a prime symptom of his disabling dementia. A competent Cabinet would have removed him.
• Commerce Secretary Lutnick. He’s reportedly prominent in the Epstein Files.
• Messaging. Are we at war or just indulging in major combat operations? Trump says the former, his minions claim the latter. Only the Senate can save him, it seems, because the comedians are chortling too much.
• The markets are tumbling. Can Trump afford to completely lose Wall Street?

And so much more; it’s a cataclysmic indictment of amateurism. How much longer before Vance and the Minions act?

My primary computer is residing at a computer repair shop, where I hope it’s reparable. Meanwhile, posting will slow or even stop.

The goats are unhappy, mostly because they don’t like elections. Along with various primaries of March 3rd was a special election to Arkansas’ House of Representative, HD-70. This district went to Harris by 2 points, and was won by Republican Carlton Wing by 2 points, 51%-49%, both in 2024.

Wing has since moved on to another job, and the special election to fill the seat was won by Democrat Alex Holladay, by nearly 15 points. The total number of votes cast was roughly 50% of the 2024 election, which isn’t so bad for a special election.

The trend of seats flipping from Republican to Democrats continues, while I’ve heard none of the other direction. Not all seats flip, of course, but quite a number have flipped. Good luck to Mr. Holladay.