Saturday, January 03, 2026

This Is Going Well

I’ve served on the Homeland Security Committee for the past three years. I’m 100% for strong safe secure borders and stopping narco terrorists and cartels from trafficking deadly drugs and human trafficking into America.

Fentanyl is responsible for over 70% of U.S. drug overdose deaths and fentanyl comes from Mexican cartels made with chemical precursors from China and trafficked across the U.S. Mexico border.

Mexican cartels are primarily and overwhelmingly responsible for killing Americans with deadly drugs.

If U.S. military action and regime change in Venezuela was really about saving American lives from deadly drugs then why hasn’t the Trump admin taken action against Mexican cartels?

And if prosecuting narco terrorists is a high priority then why did President Trump pardon the former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez who was convicted and sentenced for 45 years for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into America? Ironically cocaine is the same drug that Venezuela primarily traffics into the U.S.

The next obvious observation is that by removing Maduro this is a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies that will ensure stability for the next obvious regime change war in Iran.

And of course why is it ok for America to militarily invade, bomb, and arrest a foreign leader but Russia is evil for invading Ukraine and China is bad for aggression against Taiwan? Is it only ok if we do it? (I’m not endorsing Russia or China)

Regime change, funding foreign wars, and American’s tax dollars being consistently funneled to foreign causes, foreigners both home and abroad, and foreign governments while Americans are consistently facing increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare, and learn about scams and fraud of their tax dollars is what has most Americans enraged. Especially the younger generations. Boomers and half of Gen X will cheer on neocon wars and talking points, but the other half of Gen X and majority on down see through it and hate it.

Americans disgust with our own government’s never ending military aggression and support of foreign wars is justified because we are forced to pay for it and both parties, Republicans and Democrats, always keep the Washington military machine funded and going.

This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end.

Boy were we wrong.

As the baby boomers slip away both in votes and power, the electoral future will be decided for candidates that focus on American economic populism and promising prosperity for Americans only.

As of right now, neither party is offering the solution.
Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change. I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress. Trump rejected our Constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the Administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.

This strike doesn't represent strength. It's not sound foreign policy. It puts Americans at risk in Venezuela and the region, and it sends a horrible and disturbing signal to other powerful leaders across the globe that targeting a head of state is an acceptable policy for the U.S. government. This will further damage our reputation – already hurt by Trump’s policies around the world – and only isolate us in a time when we need our friends and allies more than ever.
Speaking of Americans at risk, Citgo just got people out of Venezuela. This is not the 1950’s. Oil is not sending people into chaos. They don’t need chaos. They need stability.

The likeliest outcome is a hike in the global price of oil.
Call the names:
5. I have no respect for Donald Trump. He diminishes everything he touches. But focusing on him right now is like being bitten by your neighbor’s unleashed, unfenced rabid dog and focusing on the dog. If we don’t hold his enablers to account we’re going to keep getting bit.

6. This doesn’t happen if McConnell didn’t press the Republican Senators to ignore January 6 and vote not to remove Trump from office in spite of House impeachment. If they had any shred of patriotism, Trump wouldn’t have been able to run again.

7. This doesn’t happen if SCOTUS doesn’t expressly grant a convicted felon and proven malignant narcissist with near complete immunity for any crimes he commits while President. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

8. This doesn’t happen if Republican Senators don’t confirm every grossly unqualified nominee - RFK Jr., Hegseth, Gabbard, etc. Those Senators knew their spines were being tested in those early days, because if they folded for them, they could be relied on to fold for anything.

9. This doesn’t happen if SCOTUS doesn’t decide that they have the unilateral power to amend the Constitution by gutting Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and allow someone who had engaged in insurrection against the United States to hold federal office. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf

10. And of course, this doesn’t happen if the House GOP took their oversight responsibilities seriously. From recissions to tariffs to Epstein, a House majority that allowed oversight would have checked an out of control executive long ago.
Sean Casten, IL-06.
No. The U..S. won’t sell squat. It’s a global market. Oil is a fungible good. The U.S. won’t sell to China. China will buy on the market. And Trump hasn’t nationalized Venezuelan oil production. He’s lost in a world 50 years gone. But he thinks saying it makes it so. So...that plan didn’t survive its first contact with reality. 

I told you the President has no idea how government works. But he’s focused like a laser beam.
New: Sources in the #Venezuela opposition tell me the opposition has been in touch with “governments across the world” following the arrest of #NicolasMaduro Those countries include France, Argentina, Ecuador, Panama and Paraguay who the opposition says expressed their support for “restoring the will of the people” in Venezuela.

Note the country not on that list.
Sadly, yes….
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🪦

Whistling past the graveyard.🪦 Trump has never learned a lesson in his life. A dead cat would bounce better. A reminder Trump didn’t consult Congress. And Congress is already running from him. Yeah, that cat was DOA. Does he imagine he’s running the government here? Pretty sure that’s not the lesson Issa said Trump had learned.

Future’s so bright….
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He’s Blinking….

...very, very slowly.
Reporter: You said Maduro is responsible for drug trafficking. You recently pardoned the former president of Honduras convicted of drug trafficking. Can you explain these situations? Trump: He was treated like the Biden administration treated a man named Trump. This was a man persecuted very unfairly. He was the head of the country. He was persecuted very unfairly.
A government of one man, not of laws. One very tired, old man who falls asleep when he doesn’t hear his name mentioned often enough.

Trump, after all, is the measure of all things.
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Question:

If you were to blow up the Capitol building during the State of the Union, killing all inside, would you have taken over the federal government of the United States?

That’s the premise of “Designated Survivor,” where the lowest person in the line of succession (AgSec, IIRC) is not in the building at the time. Congress is gone; the POTUS, VPOTUS, and Cabinet are gone. The TV series is about how the government continues and recovers.

Trump didn’t take out the Venezuelan government, nor disband the military. I think he’s going to be quite surprised at what he didn’t do. He didn’t even leave boots on the ground.

The POTUS is an unreliable narrator. Isn’t there a cognitive dissonance between calling him delusional, and saying he’s “speaking the quiet part out loud”? He didn’t even tell Congress what he’s doing. I don’t know that he’s briefed anyone in Congress on what he did. And now?
Sure he is. Trump also thinks the Chair of the Fed sets interest rates by fiat. Five years in, he still has no idea how government works. He has no idea what that means. We’ll have to see if Congress decides to get off its backside now. I’m sure they’re waiting for the polling results.
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I Grok Grok*

*How many posters on BlueSky or Twitter even know the word was created by Robert Heinlein for Stranger In A Strange Land, where it’s a Martian word that means whatever you want it to; and so means nothing. Heinlein knew what he was doing. I’m quite sure Elmo didn’t.
Media is starting to report the Grok child porn story but way too many are centering the bot's "apologies" and "admissions" without explaining that these are being generated in response to user requests and are not in anyway authentic or meaningful.
There’s nothing authentic or meaningful about AI. The media’s been missing that point all along. In the end, it’s not the people who are sheeple; it’s the journalists. They’ll catch up to AI, eventually. Long after the rest of us have.
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“Woof,” Indeed

Broadcast news is a national conversation? Are we in the’70’s again? 

Never mind. Trump is trapped there eternally. That’s the real national problem no one will talk about.
The fun part about binging “The West Wing” is thinking about how Aaron Sorkin’s White House would respond to these kinds of optics.
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🤦‍♂️

Shit, fool! Cook a pot. It takes two hours, if you’re starting with dried. 1 hour if you have fresh. Or just open a can and heat it. 15 minutes.

Or find another restaurant.

This ain’t rocket science.
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Now I Feel Even Better About What’s Happening This Morning

Taylor: It was worrying enough at the beginning of the trump administration almost ten years ago now, when I remember people who were first interacting with him, coming back from meetings before I'd gone into oval office meetings with him, saying he can't pay attention to anything, don't go in with more than two topics to bring up with him. You're going to have to repeat yourself constantly and having trouble getting the president focused. That was ten years ago that people around the president were worried about his health,

And a lot has happened since then. And there's a very different Donald Trump with a diminished schedule. Statistically, 40% fewer meetings than he had ten years ago in that first administration. I mean, he is a diminished president. And you can't just say, well, it's because he's tired or he's done everything. To me. It seems like there's all the warning signs that something else is going on here with the man, and he's continued to mislead us about his health.
And mislead us about what he's up to:
By July, the family and their lawyers had written an 18-page draft outlining some of the ways they might appeal to Trump’s pardon czar, Alice Marie Johnson. From Trump, they’d learned the language of modern political grievance: “Just like President Trump, President Hernández is a victim of lawfare, waged by the Biden administration.” If pardoned, Hernández would return to Honduras and dedicate himself to building a political movement in Latin America aligned with Trump’s foreign policy ambitions. The memo noted that Hondurans would go to the polls on Nov. 30 to elect a new president, and it suggested a timely pardon could energize conservatives in a region threatened by “radical left” regimes, including China and Venezuela. (Johnson didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

But it wasn’t only Trump who could benefit from a pardon. Castro, Hernández’s successor, repealed the legal framework that had established the country’s semi-autonomous economic development zones, including Próspera. That led the Honduran supreme court to declare those zones unconstitutional, triggering still-unresolved lawsuits from their investors. (Próspera continues to operate.) The memo asserted that Castro’s administration “has effectively stolen billions” from the financial backers of Próspera. The memo named Peter Thiel (“a longtime collaborator of Vice President J.D. Vance”) and Marc Andreessen (“who also donated millions to ensure that Trump’s policy goals could be achieved”).

A timely pardon—especially one delivered before the election—might remedy all that. It could also give Trump one more regional ally against the “narco-dicatorship” in Venezuela, where the Trump administration in September would begin launching military strikes against boats suspected of carrying drugs.
It seems everything really is connected.
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The Best I Can Figure Out

The U.S. did NOT topple the Venezuelan government this morning. Yes, there is a criminal case againnst Maduro, in SDNY. Which means, yes, several contradictory things are true at once: Although I don’t see how this gives the U.S. control of Venezuela’s oil if the government of Venezuela is still intact. So, this might be an argument in court: (Although I’m not sure how strong it is, except in the court of public opinion), I’m still not sure what the point of this exercise was. We didn’t attack the government of Venezuela. We sent in military forces to capture a government leader we claim was the head of a drug cartel. Trump just pardoned a former government leader who was convicted in a U.S.court of running a drug cartel. (Whether his capture was lawful is a more salient legal defense issue.)

Somebody make it make sense. 😵‍💫

Adding: I expect the legitimacy of the evidence is going to be challenged; which is certainly SOP in a criminal case. But that is an entirely different ballgame in the federal courts now.
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Ninth Day of Christmas 2026: Wondrous Love


Still my favorite recording of this song.
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Friday, January 02, 2026

Rust Never Sleeps

Knowles: The man barely ever sleeps…

Mockler: Trump has repeatedly fallen asleep in cabinet meetings, and I reject Michael's framing that he was transparent with the Wall Street journal. What he said to the Wall Street journal is that he is in perfect health. He's in perfect shape. This is exactly what trump criticized Biden for. He is now doing the exact same thing. We see trump falling asleep in the middle of press conferences on camera. We all see it. We see his swollen ankles. We see his black, bruised hands. He's reportedly taking 3 to 4 times the recommended dose of aspirin, which shows that his judgment is clearly off. His health is deteriorating far more than the white house house is revealing. But what I find the most concerning, I think the most concerning out of all of this has to be the insecure projection in regards to the autopen. So he removed Biden's portrait and he replaced it with the autopen. But when trump is asked when Trump is asked about multiple pardons, including the pardon of the binance founder or even the pardon of the former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, Trump says, quote, I don't know him or I don't know the guy, so you can't in one breath accuse Biden of using the autopen then not even know who you pardoned yourself. It's either one of two things. He doesn't know who he's pardoning on a daily basis, or he does know. And he willingly pardoned the former Honduran president who trafficked 500 kilos of cocaine into the U.S. Michael, which one do you think it is?
Mockler: Wealth inequality isn't being driven by immigration. Wealth inequality is being driven by the rich getting rich due to Trump's policies….

Knowles: No, it’s migration

Louis: Rent in Manhattan right now is between $3,500 and $5,000 a month… I guarantee you it is not migrants to New York City that are driving the prices that high.
I want to see the GOP implode and turn to dust blown away on the wind, but the price is high, and it’s real.
Mockler: I disagree that the government shutdown aspect didn't work. I can just speak for from a personal lens. One of my close friends, mom, didn't understand that she was reliant on these ACA subsidies until the government shutdown hit, and now she's been laser focusing on what's going to happen next. Because, you know, it's hard when you're a paycheck to paycheck American, a 400% increase in your premiums could be lethal for you. So now she actually did see that 400% increase. And she's been hyper focused on this since the government shutdown. So it did help bring awareness to the issue.
And Comer thinks the electorate are going to blame a faceless group, instead of the man who said he’d fix it by now? Article III, and the 5th and 14th amendments, are SUCH a pain in the ass! Our man on their side. Q: does that make it seem more legitimate? Or more batshit crazy than Nick Shirley already is? An argument coming soon to a federal courtroom near you. Buy some more popcorn. 50 states and the people in them are guilty until proven innocent. The price is already high. They are determined to make it higher.
Taylor: Ayn Rand wrote this essay called the monument builders, where she went through the history of despots throughout time, who built monuments to themselves while they were in power from the pyramids all the way to Soviet Russia, where the train system that Tucker Carlson lauded a few years ago was built by the generous hands of workers who were forced to do it. And now we have Donald Trump, who is spending taxpayer dollars to honor himself by building monuments to himself. There is no better or more on the nose of someone's authoritarian tendencies than their desire to build monuments to themselves.
Pretty sure that law doesn’t make it an impeachable offense for the President to direct others to slap his name on the building. The law just means Trump can’t change the name by fiat.
Moynihan: I think you can say a lot of things about Donald Trump—saying that he's unproductive or isn't working hard enough is not one of them.

Taylor: He didn't come down to work until 11 A.M. when I was there.

Blow: Literally one of the laziest presidents in modern American history. I'm old enough to remember when he was castigating Barack Obama for playing golf and literally said, I will be working so hard for you that I will never go out and play golf. Those are his words. 2017 and now he has been playing golf every single weekend, and sometimes during the week.
The loyal opposition are a pack of fucking idiots.
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Vance Will Express Outrage Towards France In..:

 3…2…1…

French authorities will investigate the proliferation of sexually explicit deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence platform Grok on X, the Paris prosecutor's office told POLITICO.

French lawmakers Arthur Delaporte and Eric Bothorel contacted the prosecutor's office on Jan. 2 after thousands of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes were generated by Grok and published on X.

"These facts have been added to the existing investigation into X," the prosecutor's office stated, noting that this offense is punishable by two years' imprisonment and a €60,000 fine.

The two lawmakers confirmed to POLITICO that they had filed reports with the authorities.

For the past two days, hundreds of women and teenagers have reported that their photos published on social media have been “undressed” by Grok — the artificial intelligence integrated into the social network X — at the request of users. These AI-generated photo montages “violate the dignity of the people depicted,” argues Delaporte in his letter to the public prosecutor, seen by POLITICO.

When contacted by POLITICO, the French digital affairs office said three government ministers — Roland Lescure, economy and industry minister; Anne Le Hénanff, junior minister for artificial intelligence and digital affairs; and Aurore Bergé, equality minister — have reported "manifestly illegal content" to the public prosecutor and a government online surveillance platform Pharos, to "obtain its immediate removal."

France's High Commissioner for Children, Sarah El Haïry, said she was “outraged” by these practices.

The case will bolster the investigation already opened by the French cybercrime unit against X, which was expanded in November to include antisemitic and Holocaust denial statements disseminated by Grok.
I was reading an article earlier today, about how the AI eggs Trump put into one basket were likely to break this year, with the animosity towards “data centers,” and AI proving to be far less spectacular than the hype promised…and now this.  One of those things nobody told us AI would do. But it’s perfectly logical, isn’t it?

After all, what does AI know?

Oh, and all those howls of indignation over the European Union penalizing Twitter for reasons no one really clearly understood? Odds are, everyone will understand this.

Aye, there’s the rub….
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Consider It A Good Start To The Year

Is nobody gonna comment on the last line of the President’s statement? Or is it too easy and obvious? I like the contrast. I also like this guy. He’s saying the right things at the right time.

No wonder Trump and the Establishment (I AM a child of the sixties) are upset by him.
Swinging back to that last line, because I can. And back to what Mamdani is doing for the rest of us. Do you see what I’m doing here? Sometimes Twitter does the work for me. What was that line from FDR about how he relished his enemies’ hatred? I’m starting to feel like that’s a dance tune. Or at least a tune I can dance to. And I don’t dance. Don’t ask me. Here we are again. And the universe provides what I needed, an end to this when I was just wondering how to do that.
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Happy New Year!

 


And then they moved my cheese, 🧀, and changed it to “B.C.E.”
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Bari Weiss Thinks She’s Inventing Social Media

"On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we've taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you."

That changes now. The new CBS Evening News starts Monday at 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS.
I’m guessing none of these stories will be covered, since they don’t involve the “perspective of average Americans.”
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Eighth Day Of Christmas 2026


The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.

Had I not found content among the shows
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?

What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart’s blood stop
Or strikes a sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?

--W.B. Yeats
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Thursday, January 01, 2026

Government By Idiots

For decades, federal judges treated the U.S. government like a special kind of litigant. Not because judges are naïve, but because the Justice Department was supposed to have one non-negotiable currency: credibility.

That currency is getting torched in real time.

A 60 Minutes investigation highlighted more than 35 cases in which federal judges said the government provided false information, including false sworn declarations “time and again,” according to NYU law professor Ryan Goodman.
Yes, I’m repeating myself; but it fits here, too.
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🧶

Is our children learning?
The video, which questioned whether there were any children at the facilities, has rocked the entire day care community in Minnesota. On Dec. 30, the Trump administration declared that it was freezing child care funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some day care centers partly in response to the claims made by the video’s creator, conservative influencer Nick Shirley.

Those funds, which help poor parents pay for child care while working, are a lifeblood for many day cares.

In his video, Shirley claimed that Somali day cares had defrauded the state by $111 million.

In response to those claims, state officials visited all 10 of the facilities featured in Shirley’s video earlier this week. The state has not yet released any details on the findings.

The Minnesota Star Tribune also visited all 10 facilities, and found children inside four of them when invited inside. Six other facilities were either closed or employees did not open their doors.

A Star Tribune review of state enforcement records and court filings shows that none of the individuals publicly identified as owners or operators of the 10 businesses have ever been charged with fraud or any other felonies. However, seven of the eight facilities with publicly available licensing records have been cited by the state for violations over the past four years, with some cited dozens of times.
The interesting thing is, the article is replete with mentions of records of violations (none of them necessarily egregious or serious), which indicates state oversight is alive and well. Which further indicates, if there was fraud to the tune of $111 million, somebody would have noticed it before now. Not to mention the question of federal oversight of the money they distribute. Whatever happened to the IG’s I assume are supposed to pay attention to things like this?

I’m not sure this “controversy” lasts as long as next Monday. I say that because the state of Minnesota has grounds to sue for the suspended federal funds (the Feds have no valid grounds to withhold them, in brief). That increases by at least every state with a Democratic AG who has lost funding with even less justification.

Watch it come crashing to a halt when the states move for summary judgements, and the DOJ has to rely on Shirley’s video and pulled-from-his-ass claim of fraud. This is post-November 2020 all over again.

Why do I get the feeling there’s a theme here? Or at least a thread of continuity….

Epilogue: to prove I’m not exaggerating.
BOMBSHELL: Federal judges say the U.S. government lied in 35+ court cases, falsified records, fake declarations, sworn statements built on fiction.

This isn’t a paperwork mistake. It’s systemic deception.

When judges and legal scholars are saying it looks intentional, the rule of law is already on life support.
For decades, federal judges treated the U.S. government like a special kind of litigant. Not because judges are naïve, but because the Justice Department was supposed to have one non-negotiable currency: credibility.

That currency is getting torched in real time.

A 60 Minutes investigation highlighted more than 35 cases in which federal judges said the government provided false information, including false sworn declarations “time and again,” according to NYU law professor Ryan Goodmane.
I like to think the infamous Kavanaugh footnote is a sign word of this has already percolated up to the highest court.

I also think it means the cases about freezing childcare support will crash and burn faster than I expected.  I’ve never seen a report like this. This is…mind-blowing. 🤯
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Saving You The Trouble Of Reading The WSJ

No, it doesn't make sense. I know a number of people on blood thinners. That’s not the way you think about it. And the danger of “thin” blood is excessive bleeding; especially internally. I know how bleeding is treated for patients on drugs for excessive coagulation. The effect of the drug can be stopped almost immediately. I don’t know if that can be done for excessive aspirin consumption, but I wouldn’t assume it. Who knew video was just another form of still photos? (Yes, he’s as credible on this as he is on blood clots (why you take blood thinners).) When I was a younger man, I gained a lot of weight by eating too much; and it wasn’t too much salad and water. I’ve lost some of that weight (not enough), by changing my diet. I never ate two hamburgers and a fried fish sandwich at one sitting, but these days a hamburger is enough for almost the entire day. Sometimes it’s too much. Younger me also didn’t think his metabolism would “slow down” with age. Present day me, now knows better. And I’m nearly 10 years younger than the President.

I say this because it’s obvious from appearances the President is obese. You don’t sustain that kind of weight except with large meals. Even with slower metabolism.

It’s a comment on the guy’s assessment of his health, if I’m not clear.
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Schadenfreude Socialism

We call those the “good old days.” I couldn’t hear the rest of what he said for the sound of so many heads exploding. Is it wrong that I enjoyed that? We’ve been trained to call that “socialism.” Except in the 1950’s we taxed at that level to do things like build the interstate highway system. I went to college in a small, East Texas town that built a hotel for the city because the city needed a hotel. Back in the ‘50’s. The town I grew up in, near that town and built on the wild capitalism of the Texas oilfield, had two banks: People’s, and Citizens. Nobody thought it sounded socialist; although it does. The frigidity of rugged individualism; the warmth of collectivism. We fool ourselves on the former, of course. There is not one rich person in this country who earned it all by her/him-self, without relying on customers, or the federal government, or investors, or all of the above. The veterans of WWII were disgusted by the Hollywood films they came home to, that made it seem like the war was won single-handedly by John Wayne. Vietnam Veterans got Rambo revenge movies. 

Besides:
  And I’ll just drop this in here. I was living in Austin the first time it was supposed to rival Silicon Valley. The term used was actually “Silicon Prairie.” (Which would be West Texas; or Waco, about 100 miles north up I-35. Austin is on the edge of the Hill Country. It ain’t on a prairie.) That was about 40 years ago. Tesla moved in outside of town. Tesla’s future rests wholly on shareholders; not so much on product. And Apple’s not relocating from Cupertino anytime soon. Austin quit waiting for a “Silicon anything” a couple of decades ago.
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10 CEO’s

Well, 7 CEO’s, the Chair of a major law firm, a major shareholder, a couple of news network Pooh-bahs unworthy of their position. I gave up honoring news people when I realized Walter Cronkite shouldn’t be the most trusted man in America, and Ben Bradlee wasn’t an American hero despite what Robert Redford made him look like. I know enough about lawyers to never expect them to act against what they think is their self-interest. CEO’s? I’m a child of the ‘60’s. I still, in my private dreams, want to “stick it to the man.” Even though all my devices are made by Apple, and I make regular purchases from Amazon.

To be honest, I’m pretty disappointed in myself, when I stop to think about it.

I know it’s fun to point out the failings of others. But what’s the point, except to be angry at someone? I’m more outraged by Bezos’ wedding and his editorial control of WaPo. Then again, the WSJ is a very good newspaper with a terrible editorial page.

Go and please the world. But pick better moral avatars than CEO’s and lawyers and network executives, or principal shareholders.
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As I Was Saying..:

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Happy New Year!

2026 is off to a great start!
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Um, Yeah….

Trump at Mar-a-Lago: "We have a lot of leaders here, great leaders like Tom Emmer. I watched him on television talking about Somalia today. He's talking about the Somalian population, and not very nicely. He was not nice. But that's okay. We need you in Minnesota. We want to take back our country."
From fraudsters? Or from non-white people? We really should connect the two.
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The Criminal Case Against Trump…

 …that never got tried (because of the election, not because of Merrick Garland. Investigations began shortly after Garland was appointed. He could hardly have started them before. And there were months of privilege fights just to get access to some evidence, evidence on cell phones, etc. It’s called “due process of law.” As Jack Smith pointed out, the case didn’t fail because of the immunity decision, either. It stopped because a majority of voters didn’t care, and elected Trump. Smith told the House committee the criminal case could still be tried.) is now going to be tried on Twitter (the very definition of a kangaroo court).

One egregiously stupid defense is that the First Amendment allowed Trump to commit fraud:

(I’ll pause in my headlong flight to point out Mike Davis is egregiously stupid:
Question: But the president’s statements that he believed the election was rife with fraud—those are statements protected by the First Amendment, correct?

Smith: Absolutely not. If they are made to target a lawful government function and are made with knowing falsity, then no, they are not. That was my point about fraud not being protected by the First Amendment.

Question: There’s a long history of candidates speaking out about what they believe is fraud or other problems with the integrity of the election process. And I think you would agree that those kinds of statements are at the core of a presidential candidate’s First Amendment rights, right?

Smith: There is no historical analog for what President Trump did in this case.
Most of the arguments on Twitter are going to rely on people being egregiously stupid, and ignoring Smith’s testimony.)

In that spirit, let this suffice:
I might agree with Mark Slackmeyer that Trump is: “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!,” just as Nixon was. And we may get no closer to trying Trump than we did Nixon (another reason to stop calling for the application of the 25th, though it doesn’t apply at all). But the would-be defense attorneys on Twitter are clowns and goobers. Jack Smith is so far ahead of them, he’s finished the race and started a new day. They are left benighted in their ignorance. Leave them there.
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WE WERE PROMISED FLYING CARS!

ICE has a $170 billion budget, and this is how they spend it.

Don’t sleep on the fact that promised future (from the ‘50’’s, but it carried over into the ‘60’s) was exclusively white in all the pictures. Pretty much in the sci-fi of the day, too. In fact, I can still only think of two Bradbury stories, ostensibly sci-fi because they include space travel or nuclear holocaust, that explicitly included (in fact, centered on), non-white people. Otherwise, default white was never not the way to default. But to rely on that, now?

The irony is, not the resurgent racism (this is still America), but this:
Reichlin-Melnick, a frequent critic of Trump's immigration policy, made the observation in response to a new report in The Washington Post that ICE plans "to spend $100 million to recruit gun-rights supporters and military enthusiasts through online influencers and a geo-targeted ad campaign, part of what the agency called a 'wartime recruitment' strategy to hire thousands of officers" — featuring ads with taglines like "Destroy The Flood" and "The Enemies Are At The Gates." [Or "We will not live like this anymore," because we were promised a clean WHITE!, and peaceful, prosperous future.” See how this works?]

"Virtually all the money for this explosion in staff evaporates on October 1, 2029, meaning the agency will likely have to fire thousands of people unless Congress steps in and gives them billions and billions of dollars more for their annual budget," wrote Reichlin-Melnick on X.

This comes amid other reports that reveal ICE is facing a number of obstacles in the recruiting process.

In particular, more than a third of prospective recruits this year failed the basic fitness test after they lied on their applications and Homeland Security officials loosened the screening process to try to increase the rate of hiring, creating an awkward situation as many of them had already been given job offers and needed to be reassigned.
If the new Congress doesn’t revisit the ICE budget before ‘29, things eventually get interesting. 

One more reason to go on living, I guess. Especially since that all-white future is no closer than it was 60 years ago. And our government is not as close to producing it as it was 60 years ago.

In the meantime, they’re gonna burn a lot of money. That’s not going to endear them to very many people.

It’s the little things that end up meaning the most.
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New Year's Day 2026



Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

3:2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

3:3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

3:4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

3:5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

3:6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;

3:7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

3:8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

3:9 What gain have the workers from their toil?

3:10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.

3:11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

3:12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live;

3:13 moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.

Psalm 8
8:1 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

8:2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.

8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

8:4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

8:5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

8:6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,

8:7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

8:8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

8:9 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

8:9 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Revelation 21:1-6a
21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

21:2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;

21:4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."

21:5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

21:6a Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Matthew 25:31-46
25:31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 

 25:32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 

 25:33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 

 25:34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, 

 25:35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 

 25:36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' 

 25:37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 

 25:38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? 

 25:39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' 

 25:40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.' 

 25:41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, 

 25:42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 

 25:43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' 

 25:44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?' 

 25:45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' 

 25:46 And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life." 



So, to start the year: apocalyptic. Seems like starting with the end. Did you realize the Greek name of last book of the New Testament is transliterated as the “Apocalypse” of John? It’s not the opposite of “Revelation,” it’s the synonym.

Once a year is about how often the Apocalypse of John appears in the lectionary. Here it is, joined by Ecclesiastes, which also appears about this often. I once used Ecclesiastes in a service, honoring a young high school graduate about to go to college. I reminded her, in the words of the Preacher, that if the making of books there is non nd, and much study is a vexation. Nobody really wants to hear the Wisdom of the Preacher. Both texts are joined here with Matthew’s parable about the sheep 🐑 and the goats 🐐, one I’ve used so often I fear I’m turning it into a cliche. It’s also apocalyptic. In Matthew’s telling, it’s the last thing that happens before sheep go off with Jesus, while the goats face the final end of their good days.

These are the lectionary selections for New Year's Day. Nothing like starting the year with doomsday, huh?

“To everything there is a season" already violates our sense of time: and what is the apocalypse, if not the end of time? “Party’s over, out of time,” and all that. We want to fantasize about the end of time, watch movies about the end of life as we know it, even read comic books relentlessly focused on life after societal death. But we don't want things to be seasonal, we want them to be occasional, and the occasion to be right now, if we need it; and later, if we don't need it right now. That’s why we like apocalyptic scenarios right now: seasons are always irrelevant, the crucial time is always right now, and the end is not really the end.  Some of that is because we’ve already really kind of broken the seasons, literally as well as figuratively. Long out of school as most of us are, our lives are still ruled by school holidays: summer, then Christmas break, then the Easter holiday, then summer again. But the seasons mean less than nothing to us. One season just means we run the A/C, the other just means we run the heat; and in between the only other variation is whether to mow, rake, or shovel. There is no rhythm to our seasons anymore, except the rhythm of shopping (Christmas, especially after Thanksgiving Day), or maybe what sports events we follow.

"To everything there is a season?” and today we take that to mean the season of our success is over, and all that comes now is the end of time. Apocalypse is the revelation of our failure; now is the winter of our discontent, but it is never made glorious summer. Winter is coming, and it’s the End of all things. John had a vision of the end of all things, but he saw a new heaven and a new earth. But not one coming as the result of human endeavors, but as a consequence of justice.Today we’ve gone Greek; Ancient Greek. Beginning and the End of the Universe is chaos, and that state of things will inevitably return. Civilization is the ordering principle, but it ultimately fails, and the rule of nature, nasty, brutish, and short, reclaims all. All of us, that is; but we are all that matters. Isaiah’s holy mountain was at least a peaceable kingdom including humankind and all of creation. Our apocalypse always wipes nature out; or at least relegates it to the background where it doesn’t matter. And our apocalypse is always a revelation of the inescapable truth of now.

That’s the Greek apocalypse: a grim inevitability that didn’t reveal any deeper truth, but was just the inevitable consequence of the state of the universe. Ecclesiastes, John of Patmos, and Matthew are describing the same inevitability, but for a very different universe. The Preacher gives us the good order of the quotidian:
I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.
John gives us the good order of the end of all things, following a truly nightmarish view of the future that rivals any zombie apocalypse or comic book scenario:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."
Complete witham assurance we can rely in it! And Matthew tells us, in apocalyptic terms, both what the consequences of how we are living will be, and the very simple thing we can do about it.

When you think about it, what more do you need to hear on the first day of a new year?

Now you’ll forgive me, I have black-eyed peas and cornbread to prepare. Lots of ways to start the year off right, some more important than others! 


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