By Bob Gaydos

A deadly flash flood killed more than 100 people in Texas.

I’m so angry. Angry that the daily insanity of life with Trump makes it difficult to be sad. Just sad. Not frustrated and sad. Not bewildered and sad. Not dumbfounded and sad. Not furious and sad. Just sad.

The overlapping and competing of emotions is a byproduct of having to wake up each day in a “what the hell did he do or say now?” world. Like most of you, I’ve come to expect that, although I hesitate to say I’m used to it.

But that doesn’t matter when I just want to feel the sadness and sorrow for the families of all those young girls who drowned when a raging Guadalupe River swamped their summer camp in Central Texas. My god, what a tragedy. Impossible to imagine.

But at the same time, I also have to deal with the fact that Elon Musk, richest and second weirdest man on the planet, says he wants to start a new political party in the United States, to put pressure on both Republican and Democrats to create his view of society, which could have the beneficial effect of frustrating Trump’s MAGA agenda simply because Musk has so much money and he apparently now hates Trump. And he knows how to rig elections. So, is this good or bad?

Plus, Musk is the one who said Trump’s name was all over the Epstein files, and he likely had a look at them when he was Dogeing. But now, Pam Bondi, a thoroughly horrid human being, says those Epstein files she said she had on her desk to review, in effect, don’t exist. No client list, the attorney general says. And Jeffrey committed suicide. Case closed. And I am beyond angry at this load of BS and coverup for Epstein’s good friend, Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Texas is now more than 100 and they are still looking for more than 160 people, including 12-year-old girls missing from the church camp and you just know many won’t be found alive at this point and I am depressed thinking of them and area residents trapped in their homes.

As the story continued for days, Trump hadn’t said much about the deaths and, when asked if he would go to Texas, he said “maybe Friday.” But while the flood was still raging, he was putting on his greens and eating ice cream.

Yet he had previously had no trouble making a quick visit to fawn over the cruelly named Alligator Alcatraz in Florida. And I am angry again that this concentration camp for immigrants and whomever else ICE snatches off the streets actually sells souvenir merchandise and that it was thrown up in a couple of days in an area crawling with alligators and prone to flooding and that it is all pipes and canvas and wire and could be blown over in a heartbeat as hurricane season comes to Florida.

Which, of course, Trump didn‘t consider or care about when he decimated the workforce of the National Weather Service, which may have contributed to the lack of advance warning in Texas, for which Trump will accept no blame, as usual. Nor will he show any human empathy for the victims and their families. Incapable.

Meanwhile, rescue help pours into Texas, including from Mexico, and money for the rescue and the victims — millions — is pledged by just regular citizens, Trump still hasn’t shown his face or said that he’ll make sure the advance warning system the people of Kenn County asked the state of Texas to pay for but got only chump change will actually be built, even though he has effectively eliminated FEMA.

For me at least, the profound sadness this story deserves gets lost in anger over the lack of preparedness or concern for all affected and all the nonsense previously mentioned above as well as the insulting news that Bibi Netanyahu has written a letter nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for dropping a dozen bombs on Iran, blowing up a lot of rock and stuff, but likely no uranium and probably guaranteeing that country will now certainly develop a nuclear bomb. And that Bibi will now be Trump’s new best friend since he says he’s disappointed in Putin and, well, you know about Musk.

And yes, there will be, Trump has decreed, a mixed martial arts fight on the White House lawn next Fourth of July to properly celebrate this country’s 250th birthday. Seating for 20,000. No word on ticket prices yet.

I am beyond sad.

By Bob Gaydos

Something to consider as you stock the cooler, clean the grill and get the burgers, hot dogs and buns ready for Friday’s Fourth of July celebration: On the eve of Independence Day, Paramount Global, parent company of CBS, agreed to give Donald Trump $16 million because he didn’t like the way the staff at 60 Minutes, the premiere news show at CBS, edited an interview with Kamala Harris last October.

That’s pretty much the gist. Paramount, an entertainment company which has no business owning a news media operation, figured it was cheaper to buy off the president of the United States, than go to court and defend its journalists’ rights under the First Amendment  to the Constitution. A free press, to be specific.

Trump, who was running for president against Harris at the time, sued 60 Minutes, claiming the edited interview was defamatory to him. Editors at 60 Minutes, which has continued to tell the truth about Trump, said it wasn’t. The board at Paramount said we have a bottom line to worry about, new projects to worry about and we don’t want Trump siccing his legal goons on us. They didn’t say that, but that’s the gist.

Trump, who threatens lawsuits almost as much as he lies, just recently threatened to sue both CNN and The New York Times for their reporting on leaked information regarding U.S. bomb strikes on nuclear power sites in Iran.

Trump immediately bragged that the attacks had “decimated” Iran’s nuclear weapon capability. But U.S. intelligence reports a couple of days after the attack cast serious doubt on that assessment. Trump demanded a retraction of the reports by both news agencies.

CNN and The Times stuck to their guns and their reporting. CNN said it will issue no retraction. The Times issued a statement saying, “No retraction is needed. No apology will be forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so.”

I sincerely hope so. The Times appears to have gotten over its infatuation with tiptoeing around Trump. Couldn’t have come at a more important time.

The truth is the truth and a free press is a free press. Both have been under constant attack since Trump entered national politics and, unfortunately, a lot of Americans in my opinion have forgotten what it means to have a free and independent press.

You hear a lot of complaints about the so-called “mainstream media,” whoever that may be, but I think the slow death of so many local newspapers, bought up by corporate interests with no journalistic background and concerned only with their bottom lines, has caused many Americans to forget what it means to have a free and independent press delivered every day on their doorstep.

After a while, you don’t know what you don’t know because nobody’s telling you. Except for Trump and his henchmen on social media. And Trump siccing his lawyers on anyone who dares even suggest that he might not be telling the truth.

You can say this is a bit personal for me since I spent more than 40 years working for daily newspapers, 23 of them writing editorials on an almost daily basis. I loved it. From my observation, so did most of the people I worked with. Also, from my observation, the people running the show recognized that, with the freedom guaranteed under the Constitution came a responsibility to be honest and truthful and factual. That’s our job. Tell the truth. Let him sue. We’re not called the Fourth Estate for nothing.

Anyway, something to think about. Have a hotdog on me, forget about the fireworks and maybe let the people at 60 Minutes know you appreciate their efforts.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

I didn’t get one.

By Bob Gaydos

This will be short and maybe a little personal because it’s Monday and it’s hot and buggy outside and I’m still brooding over not being invited to the Bezos wedding in Venice.

I mean, yeah, it was ostentatious and not that I would’ve known how to socialize with Oprah, the Kardashians, Tom Brady, Bill Gates and a bunch of influencers I never heard of, but I don’t cause trouble, I do have Amazon Prime and it would’ve been nice to see Venice.

It certainly would’ve been more fun than following the daily doings of Trump and the dumpster fire that is the Republican Party in the Congress. The big story of course is this big, awful budget bill that Trump wants passed in one shot, instead of holding hearings on budget proposals from various departments the way Congress usually does it. Get all the lies in one basket, pass it and go home. That’s the plan.

So far, it’s not working because it’s such a cruel bill, skewed to take from the poor and give to the rich that even a few Republicans have had to say so. There’s several thousand inches of copy on it in The New York Times if you want to know all the details. Basically, poor people lose healthcare and very rich people get very richer and ICE gets to build a big special prison all its own.

All it needs is a couple more Republican senators with a bare minimum of decency to kill it, but so far there don’t seem to be any. The Trumper likes holidays, so he wants the bill passed by July 4 so he can celebrate. He’ll probably invite Bezos for a big Mac.

Oh yeah, the prison that ICE would get to build, Trump and the MaGAs would no doubt love to use as a new home for Zohran Mamdani, the Muslim Democratic Socialist who just won the Democratic primary for mayor in New York City. Trump‘s already called him a communist. A Republican senator suggested he was a terrorist. The president’s press secretary suggested he might be worth investigating since he’s a naturalized citizen. I’m surprised the men in the masks haven’t already shown up.

This is not how I like to start my week. I mean, I would’ve gone out and rented a tux if Bezos had invited me.

Too hot and buggy. Talk to you tomorrow.

By Bob Gaydos

Zohran Mamdani (smiling) left Andrew Cuomo (rear) in the dust in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City.

That loud sound of the very ground being torn apart on the East Coast was the political equivalent of an earthquake.

Tuesday, Democrats in New York City chose a Muslim Indian born in Africa to be their party’s candidate for mayor over former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams. Oh, and the chosen candidate, a naturalized citizen, is a Democratic Socialist.

Go ahead. Read that again. I’ll wait.

Zohran Mamdani, a little-known state assemblyman from Queens, shocked the political world and scared the pants off wealthy backers of Cuomo and Adams as well as many city businesses, who feared Mamdani’s basic platform issue of higher taxes on them and a lower cost of living for city residents.

Blasphemy! they cried. Communist! the MAGAs bellowed. Holy crap! Democratic leaders gulped.

Indeed, in a city where being a Democrat almost always guarantees being elected mayor, Mamdami’s victory left many of those so-called Democratic leaders befuddled in the middle, still looking for a way to fight Donald Trump and his MAGA cult without jeopardizing their own political status.

It might be just the earthquake the Democratic Party needed.

Clearly, the victory was a major rebuke to the Democratic establishment. Apparently, enough voters were finally fed up with overlooking the sins of the chosen political elite and allowing them to just move along as if nothing in their past really mattered when it came time to vote. This time, it apparently did matter.

Cuomo talked a lot about crime, which is actually down in the city. He ran a largely lackluster campaign based on his name recognition and the fact that he was a city boy from Queens who once was governor and so presumably knew best what was best for New Yorkers.

This required voters to overlook the fact that he was forced to resign as governor because of numerous allegations — by staff and other women — of sexual misconduct. He denied the charges, but the state attorney general was investigating him.

There was also his mishandling of the Covid crisis when he ordered elderly patients in overcrowded hospitals to be sent to nursing homes, where they received a lower level of care. Many died.

Plus, he was generally regarded as a bully.

None of this stopped him from running for mayor. I guess he needed the job.

For his part, the Adams administration has been a public relations disaster, marked by an almost weekly resignation by some top aide for questionable behavior.

Adams himself faced federal charges of taking illegal campaign contributions, but the Trump Justice Department, ever looking for some quid pro quo, agreed to drop the charges in exchange for Adams cooperating with ICE rounding up immigrants, or whomever, on city streets.

Apparently, that’s not exactly the way to win the hearts or votes of New Yorkers.

The big money people are rallying behind Cuomo and Adams, letting them know that the funds will be there if they want to run as independent candidates in November. Because, what do thousands of New York City Democrats know about what’s good for them? Also, that thing about higher taxes on rich people, free buses and affordable supermarkets.

Of course, Mamdani being Muslim, there are also the inevitable slurs, and fear-mongering about terrorism and accusations of anti-semitism.

For his part, he has pledged to step up efforts to combat antisemitism in the city. He says his argument is with Israeli President Bibi Netanyahu and some of his military policies, not with the Jewish people. A distinction some can’t, or refuse to, understand.

In any event, Mamdani on the East Coast shook up a static Democratic establishment by appealing directly to the people in plain language about everyday problems. Kind of like Bernie Sanders, another Democratic Socialist, did in 2016, when Democrats went for the establishment presidential candidate.

On the West Coast, a member of the Democratic establishment, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, recently struck a nerve in a somewhat moribund Democratic Party by taking on Donald Trump in plain, blunt language over ICE kidnappings in Los Angeles. Basically, calling a bully a bully, a liar a liar. Come and get me.

Polls showed a lot of Americans, not just Democrats, like Newsom‘s message.

Now, if Democrats can take off the gloves and go coast-to-coast with a message most Americans can understand and agree with, they might be able to put the fear of God (losing elections) into enough Republicans to stop the Trump onslaught on democracy and the rule of law while there’s still a country worth saving.

Start spreading the news: When New Yorkers say, “Hey, enough’s enough! Get oudda here!” it’s worth paying attention.

By Bob Gaydos

Trump drops an F bomb on Israel and Iran on the White House lawn for making him look bad.

Ok, let’s start with what we know.

— We know that the U.S.  dropped several “bunker-busting” bombs and also launched a bunch of missiles from submarines, targeting three nuclear weapons facilities in Iran.

— Trump did not consult with Congress,as required by law, before he ordered the attack.

That’s it.

We know this not only because Donald Trump said so, but because Iran and Congress confirmed it.

What we don’t know could fill thousands of inches of newspaper copy, untold hours of TV and podcast time and millions of hours on social media. In fact, it has. In fact, that’s why I stopped making a list of what we don’t know as I started writing this column, realizing that, with Donald Trump, you just never know.

That’s because with Trump, he never knows. It’s always about the show. Looking strong. Looking decisive. Looking important. Looking like he knows what he’s doing. Kind of the exact opposite of that sorry military parade he threw for his birthday.

Trump has always wanted to drop some bombs. After all, why be president if you can’t do that? His aides likely stopped him from doing it the first time around. This time, he’s loaded with incompetent sycophants. Bombs away!

But Israel had already softened up Iran when Trump sent B2 bombers in for the kill. Except that we don’t know that they actually killed Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It’s likely they wounded it badly, but no one really knows where that weapons grade uranium is except the Iranians.

Then we had all that nonsense with both countries continuing to attack each other after Trump announced a ceasefire on his social media account, which is apparently where all important presidential decisions will be announced in the near future. In all caps.

Apparently, Israel and Iran had started some military activity against each other and couldn’t just stop because Trump said so. I mean, they have some pride, too. And why waste the ammo?

Who knows? Not us. We do know this embarrassed Trump so, since he was apparently still in attack mode, he dropped an F-bomb on both countries in public, not his social media account. Used the presidential “F” word. They didn’t know what they were ##**+! doing, he said of two adversaries who have been doing it for a long time.

But the optics were bad for Trump. He had bombed Iran into peace, at least temporarily, but missiles were still flying. Don’t they read his posts?

At any rate, at this moment, which is all we have with Trump’s actions, there is apparently a ceasefire and no new war in the Middle East. That, of course, is always open to change. Trump may have blundered into a qualified success by dropping bombs on a universally hated country, since Iran is the leading supporter of terrorism on the planet.

Yes, there is that little matter of Congress not authorizing the attack and his Intelligence Director saying Iran posed no immediate threat to the U.S. because it wasn’t developing nuclear weapons. A couple of more things we know.

OK, a couple of things we don’t know: (1) How long Republicans in Congress will continue to abide this reckless, unlawful behavior and (2) how long MAGA will excuse their proclaimed “peace president” for putting their sons and daughters and maybe the world in peril just for the headlines.

Meanwhile, as he heads to a NATO meeting just full of new opportunity for grandstanding and bluster and also embarrassment, who knows where ICE will be kidnapping dark-skinned people off the streets and what program to help the elderly, the infirm, the addicted, the cash-poor will be eliminated? Where will he call out the National Guard to create chaos and fear?

You never know with Trump because he doesn’t know, or care. He’s got a flagpole to put up on the White House lawn.

It’s always about the show.

By Bob Gaydos

Sunrise at Stonehenge during the summer solstice.

It’s official. Today is the longest day of the year.

AI says so: “The longest day of summer in 2025, also known as the summer solstice, will be Friday, June 20th. This is when the Northern Hemisphere will experience its longest period of daylight and the shortest night of the year. The solstice marks the official start of astronomical summer.”

The Old Farmer’s Almanac and NASA say so: “The 2025 summer solstice falls on Friday, June 20, at 10:42 PM. ET. This marks the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, when the Earth’s tilt positions it closest to the Sun.”

Man, I’m embarrassed to admit this news kind of took me by surprise. I mean, every one of those 151 days since January 20 of this year has felt like the longest day of the year. I know you know what I mean.

Well, it’s late afternoon as I’m writing this and I’ve still got more than six hours for the official entry of summer and if the gods are with me, I may survive the longest day of the year without the USA going to war again.

It seems Taco Don has pulled his usual schtick and backed off from threatening to kill the leader of Iran and give Israel our bunker busting bombers to wipe out Iran’s nuclear facilities for at least “two weeks.”

That gives his staff and any Republican left in Congress with a shred of pride enough time to give our confused leader a little dose of reality to go with his bombast. Also to give delegates from France, the UK and Germany an  opportunity to meet with an Iranian delegate to consider ways to end the war between Iran and Israel without blowing up the world.

It’s similar to Trump backing off threatening 80 percent tariffs on Chinese goods and blowing up the stock market. That little insider-trading maneuver helped Donald and a few close friends make a bundle while backing off also preserved the portfolios of so-called average Americans. Supposedly we’re still talking to the Chinese, although they say we’re not.

Funny, India says Trump had nothing to do with stopping the fighting between it and Pakistan, although he says he did.

And, remember that Salvadoran native Trump’s goon squad deported to El Salvador against the judge’s orders? Trump repeatedly insisted he could not be brought back, despite repeated court orders to do so, because, well that’s a different country.

Remember? Well, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in Tennessee and recently appeared in court to face criminal charges for allegedly transporting migrants within the U. S. One constitutional crisis averted.

Also, the Fed chairman still has a job and we have not, despite various poorly disguised threats, invaded Panama, Greenland or Canada yet. As far as I know. But then, this is the longest day of the year, and Trump, the consummate car salesman, has yet to sell the Tesla that Elon gave him.

So who knows? Maybe I should just count my blessings, enjoy the sunshine, the air conditioning, have a little supper and find a movie to watch.

Wonder if “The Longest Day” is on Netflix.

By Bob Gaydos

Crowds did not flock to Donald Trump’s birthday parade in Washington DC on June 14.

  When the “leader“ of the free world is a racist buffoon and you’ve been pretty much calling him that for about 10 years, it can sometimes be challenging to know where to go for the daily report. Same old, same old, you know? Anyway, for me, when in doubt, go to Jimmy Cannon.

   So …

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I don’t want to go to war with Iran because BiBi Netanyahu wants to outdo Trump in the strongman competition. Especially since Trump voided the deal with Iran that prohibited it from developing weapons grade uranium for nuclear weapons. Also, Trump needs to be reminded that only Congress can declare war so he needs to calm down about evacuating Tehran and dreaming of bunker-busting bombs.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: How do they let him out in public without a leash? In Canada for the G7 Meeting, Trump said they should never have kicked Russia out, that it was all Trudeau’s fault. Russia was kicked out in 2014 for seizing Crimea from Ukraine. Trudeau became Canadian prime minister in 2015, but why bother with details? Also, Trump got his alphabet all mixed up, thinking that the UK was part of the EU. Then he gave a speech that rambled on into immigration and other topics not on the G7 agenda until cut off by the host and, having a short attention span, left the conference after one day, saying he was looking for some kind of surrender from Iran or a peace agreement or a cease-fire or something. Plus Zelensky was showing up the next day. Embarrassing.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: when an elected state official and her husband are shot and killed in their home and another elected official and his wife, in the same state and of the same political party, are shot and seriously wounded and the gunman has a hit list of political targets, all of the same political party (Democrats), when the president, a member of the other political party, is asked whether he plans to call the governor of that state (Minnesota), you know, to maybe express sympathy, promise aggressive legal action and decry politically motivated violence of any kind against any party, even though the governor actually ran as the vice presidential candidate on the ticket opposing said president, I do not expect the president to say he “may” call the governor (Tim Walz), then add, “but he’s a terrible governor.” I really do not expect that, but then, see “racist buffoon” reference above.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I’m old school enough to think that when a United States senator (Alex Padilla) is roughed up by federal agents, thrown to the ground and handcuffed just because he tried to ask a question of a cabinet official at a public meeting, the president, when asked about it, expresses concern and maybe even dismay and promises to look into the incident immediately. I don’t expect said president to say, “He’s new. He looks illegal.”

— Maybe it’s just me, but: How about that parade, huh? Creaky old tanks, no dress uniforms, antiwar protest songs, commercial sponsors, nobody watching except for a few people paid to be there and soldiers marching clearly out of step. Do you know how hard it is, when you are drilled from day one in the army to march uniformly in step (Hut, two, three, four! Your left, boom, your left, boom.) to purposely “march” out of step? Yet the troops chosen for the Trump birthday parade on Flag Day managed to do just that. They should get a medal. If he hadn’t nodded off he might’ve noticed. Of course he did find time to sign some souvenir flags, breaking protocol and the law in the process because he has to put his brand on everything. Pete Hegseth looked like he was dying for a drink. Marco Rubio just looked like he was dying. Ivanka didn’t bother to show up for daddy‘s birthday. The rest of America, millions of people, held their own parties in towns, villages and cities to let him know what they thought of him and his crew. Not much.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: When the news is all-Trump all the time, there’s a real temptation to ignore professional training and just go ahead and bury the lead. 

By Bob Gaydos 

Senator Alex Padilla is grabbed by federal security agents and removed from a public meeting.

Trying to monitor how the No Kings protests are going but a thought prompted by social media posts the past couple of days keeps bugging me: The utter hypocrisy of the MAGA crowd.

No, it’s not a new thought. I’ve been thinking and saying it for years, but it just struck me again in seeing MAGA reaction to two separate events.

The first was the outrageous and unlawful treatment of Senator Alex Padilla at a public event in Los Angeles. Padilla, a Democrat and the son of Mexican immigrants, represents California. He went, escorted by Trump-ordered National Guardsmen, to hear a public statement by Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem about the handling of immigration protests in Los Angeles.

When he identified himself as a senator (he was actually wearing a shirt with the US Senate logo on it) and said he had a question for Noem, he was immediately grabbed by her security detail, manhandled, dragged into a hallway, forced down to his knees and handcuffed behind his back. A United States Senator. Representing his constituents.

When video of the incident appeared on social media, there was immediate outrage among non-MAGA cultists. How dare they!? Noem could’ve stopped the manhandling at any time since Padilla is the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee which oversees issues regarding the border. She has to know who he is. Instead, her office first tried to claim Padilla was lunging at her. The video shows otherwise.

The point here, though, is that when that video showed up on social media, many MAGAnuts were quick to throw likes on it, indicating approval of the rough treatment of Padilla, regardless of the facts. Hey, it wasn’t their senator. It was California’s Senator. Shut him up. Rough him up.

For his part, their leader, Trump, when told of the incident, said, “He looks like an illegal.” Case closed.

The second “event” was a statement from Trump signaling a change in immigration policy: “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace. …

“Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers, they have worked for them for 20 years. They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be, you know, great. And we’re going to have to do something about that. We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have maybe what they’re supposed to have, maybe.

“We can’t do that to our farmers and leisure, too, hotels. We’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”

Sensible Americans simply saw this as a reasonable and inevitable change in policy, whenever it actually comes about.

It’s also a very un-Trump-like comment demonstrating common sense, compassion and a grasp of reality. Since he’s big in the hospitality business, however, there’s also some self-serving. Still, it’s a significant change from the current process. Go after actual criminals. Yet his staff hates it and so do many non-farmer MAGAnuts who like the unwarranted roundups of “illegal” looking people. They said so on social media.

But my point here is that  farmers, hotel and hospitality business people, many of whom are Trump supporters, were also fine with grabbing “illegals” off the street and sending them away somewhere. But when it came to their own bread and butter, it was a different story. They didn’t vote for that, they said. They didn’t like it and, coincidentally, the polls showed it and Trump needs their support. So much for common sense and compassion.

Apparently it does matter whose ox is being gored.

By Bob Gaydos

Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton settled their differences.

“May you live in interesting times.”

He keeps saying this, my friend. Over lunch. On the phone. “May you live in interesting times.”

It doesn’t help. Not when the current interpretation of “interesting” vacillates among “chaotic,” “disturbing,” “infuriating,” and “frightening.”

First of all, a lot of us (including me) have been blaming the Chinese for this bit of wisdom generally regarded as a curse. Not so, Google’s artificial intelligence informs me. (Glad it’s good for something useful.)

Direct quote from Google search: “The phrase ‘May you live in interesting times’ is often attributed as a Chinese curse, but it’s actually an English expression of unclear origin. It’s likely the phrase was misattributed as a Chinese saying, possibly by British politician Sir Austen Chamberlain in the 1930s. The phrase itself, ‘live in interesting times,’ can be traced back to the late 19th century in British political circles.”

So that’s that on the quote. The times, alas, are still with us and currently amount to two super-wealthy sociopaths swapping threats and insults with each other via social media in an apparent attempt to control the world.

I don’t really have a favorite in the cat fight between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. I don’t really find it entertaining. I just want them both to lose. That’s the only positive outcome I can see, but I can’t yet imagine how it comes about.

What I can say is that this was inevitable. Two spoiled little rich boys used to getting whatever they want who don’t give a damn about anyone else, totally lacking in impulse control and mostly in the dark about proper social behavior. Plus, they’re racist and bigoted. And liars. And cheats. And millions of Americans admired them and thought it was a wonderful idea to put them in charge of our country and our lives.

Interesting indeed.

What is interesting right now is watching to see if any Republican in Congress takes sides in this fight. Who represents the greatest threat to their continued presence in Congress? After all, that’s pretty much all they care about these days.

I would think Trump does because he’s got the MAGAnuts behind him. Musk has the money to threaten their reelection, but Trump still has the cult of personality going for him and the voters behind it. Elon is definitely damaging the golden boy’s image, but is anyone really surprised that Trump is in the Epstein files?

But is this any way to run a country? Is this any way to make America great again? An old man with declining mental capacities, sitting in the Oval Office and insulting world leaders who come to visit with him. A Nazi-saluting, richest man in the world, who may well have stolen the last presidential election for the man he is currently insinuating raped young girls.

Some choice.

Once upon a time, “gentlemen” settled differences of opinion without involving the rest of the world. Aaron Burr, at the time the vice president of the United States, finally got fed up with the opinions and statements of Alexander Hamilton, some of which were published in newspapers, and challenged his longtime political rival to a duel. Let’s settle this.

Pistols at the Weehawken Dueling Grounds.  Apparently, kind of like the Meadowlands of the day. On July 11, 1804, Hamilton was mortally wounded and died the next day. Burr was charged with murder, but eventually acquitted. He was later also acquitted of treason charges, but his reputation was shattered and his political career was over.

Interesting times.

By Bob Gaydos

Trump’s TruthSocial post

Boy, you take a couple days off from the news to do some weeding and cleaning up and it’s almost impossible to know where to start catching up on the craziness.

I guess the logical place to start is with my reading about Trump posting on his official social media page that Joe Biden was actually killed in 2020 and it’s been a robot parading around impersonating him ever since.

I had to go back and read that a couple of times just to be sure. Hard to top this one. Trump even repeated the revelation verbally to other real people later on. I guess the robot must have malfunctioned in that debate with Trump.

Qanon, where the story originated a few years back, must be thrilled, but I am at a loss for words.

I mean, you might as well have told me that the other stable genius and apparent no longer co-president Elon Musk was hooked on drugs and that he ran his whole DOGE scam while in a Ketamine cloud.

No way? Really? The guy who wants to single-handedly repopulate the Earth with as many willing partners as possible? The guy who recruited Steven Miller’s wife away from the White House to be his, umm assistant? The guy who bumped the Treasury Secretary in the hallway of the White House (not that he didn’t deserve it) and showed up for work the next day with a black left eye? That guy?

So Trump actually fired him because he found out Musk had no idea how government works and wasn’t actually saving any money in the budget? Oh, and the drugs story in the New York Times.

Well heck, turns out attention to detail hasn’t actually been a major requirement in this Oval Office. I also learned that Tulsi Gabbard, Director of Intelligence, is contemplating providing Fox News style daily briefings in the Oval Office instead of the normal written reports that every other president has always received. Apparently Trump “doesn’t read.” He’s actually only made 14 daily briefings since he took office. He’s golfed more than that. Shocking.

It’s probably safe to say that those daily reports did  not include mention of Sen.  Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, telling a constituent at a Town Hall meeting not to worry about someone dying because their Medicaid had been cut off because, “We are all going to die.” Touching.

The report also probably wouldn’t mention that Bobby Kennedy Junior over at the Health Department issued a report labeled Make America Healthy Again (MAHA, got it? ) that was written entirely by AI because all the researchers and scientists in the department have been fired. Also, it was totally false.

It seems actual scientists and doctors read the report and said none of the studies and reports, etc., listed in MAHA existed. Phony, like Bobby. C’mon, really?

The last surprise was a big one. Ukraine managed to pull off a massive drone attack inside Russia and destroy or disable about 40 strategic bombers as they sat at airfields. One-third of the Russian bomber fleet. No injuries for Ukraine. Huge. A plan a year in the making.

The big surprise? U.S. intelligence agencies knew nothing about it. That’s the kind of thing that’s not supposed to surprise them. Trump‘s response was that it wasn’t fair for Ukraine to attack those planes because they were “just sitting there not bothering anyone.” He said it would have been different if they were attacking someone in combat. “It’s like hitting someone who’s already down,” he said.

Keen sense of warfare there. Also, a strong suggestion of where his sympathies lie. Zelensky had this ace in the hole the whole time, including in his White House visit. Ukraine didn’t trust the U.S. with this big secret. Now the world knows.

It was just a couple of days off. This can’t survive.