I’ve made an interesting, if not altogether surprising discovery in watching YouTube snippets of Jack Smith’s torment in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s latest kangaroo court proceedings. It seems that Josh Hawley isn’t just a weasel, but is also, along with John Kennedy (the Dixie John Kennedy), a tireless purveyor of professional grade stupidity. Such people should not exist, although the wise person does have to make allowances for living in a universe which seems to find our entire species faintly ridiculous.
Axes of Evil
Lest We Forget
The Congress of Ratfuckers
Not Technically Treason
Despite the understandable hysteria on the center left, Donald Trump’s geopolitical betrayals are not treason. The U.S. isn’t actually at war with any of the greasy dictators that he’s put us all at risk to curry favor with, so technically they aren’t enemies. Even though he’s giving aid and comfort to them, and definitely deserves to be put somewhere where he can’t contribute to the torture of innocents, he doesn’t actually seem to be at risk of being marched out of the White House at gunpoint by the forces of an irate U.S. general staff. (After Hegseth’s purges of any general officer with more than two neurons, a military coup has never seemed all that likely anyway, no matter what Trump and his dumbfuckery end up costing us.) This is a mixed blessing even for those of us who, in our allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, have always held the principle of civilian control of the military to be sacred.
I, for one, will hold to my principles, but I’ll also say that for the first time in my life, the shame of being a citizen of the United States of America, a country that elected Donald Trump twice, is overwhelming. Redemption is still possible, I suppose, but at this point I’d rate the possibility of it coming in my lifetime as slim to none.
Progress on Donald Trump’s Bucket List
√ War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity:
Ordered a February 28, 2026 airstrike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, Iran, killing at least 156 people. The victims included 120 children, 26 female teachers, and several parents who had come to the school. The fatalities also included a pregnant teacher and a six-month-old fetus.
Ordered aerial attacks on a number of unnamed Venezuelan fishing boats, killing their crews. Pilots of attacking aircraft were reportedly ordered by the Secretary of Defense to fire on any survivors of the initial bombing runs on their vessels as they struggled to stay afloat in the water, insuring that no one survived the US assault.
√ Murder:
Alex Pretti, Renee Nicole Good, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Silverio Villegas González, Keith Porter Jr., Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Joan Sebastian Guerrero, Mario Bass—all murdered at the hands of ICE, or while they were being held in its custody.
√ Sexual Assault/Rape:
E. Jean Carroll. (Also, whatever is in the Epstein files, if the Republican Party ever allows them to be seen in their entirety by ordinary mortals.)
√ Kidnapping and False Imprisonment:
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Andry José Hernández Romero, Leonardo José Colmenares Solórzano, Jefferson José Laya Freites, Arturo Suárez Trejo, Anyelo José Sarabia González, Jerce Reyes Barrios, Frengel Reyes Mota, José Manuel Ramos Bastidas, Albert Jesús Rodríguez Parra, Maikol Gabriel López Lizano. All were placed in restraints without due process and transported by air to El Salvador, where they were handed over to the tender mercies of the wardens of CECOT (El Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo).
√ Theft:
SSSI and Derco Settlement. Gen Digital Inc. False Claims Settlement. AECOM Hurricane Katrina Relief Settlement. Magnolia Diagnostics False Claims Act Settlement. Broadway Electric Inc. Settlement.
√Fraud:
Judged culpable, civil case of falsifying business records (34 counts) May, 2024. Judged culpable, civil business fraud, New York, February, 2024.
√ Bribery, Extortion, and Violations of the Emoluments Clause:
Smirking misappropriation of María Corina Machado’s Nobel Peace prize medal after he’d ordered a US armed invasion of her country to kidnap its head of state.
A Boeing 747 passenger aircraft given by Dubai, for unspecified reasons, not to the United States, but to Donald Trump personally.
Promising a $5,000 Trump Dividend to every adult American provided the Republicans preserved their congressional majorities in the 2026 midterm elections.
Demanding that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy investigate Hunter Biden while withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. Shortly after Ukraine announced publicly that an investigation would take place, the US government released the $400 million that was being withheld. A post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, or genuine extortion? We report, you decide.
√ Perjury:
In December 2020, he filed a federal lawsuit in Georgia to overturn the presidential election results, personally signing a verification swearing under oath that the voter fraud figures in the complaint were true and correct to the best of his knowledge. A federal judge later concluded that the records demonstrated an effort to press false claims in court, and emails from Trump’s lawyers acknowledged that some of the allegations were inaccurate. Legal analysts have argued that this sworn verification meets the elements of perjury because Trump had been briefed by Department of Justice officials that the claims were false.
√ Vandalism:
White House demolitions, uprootings, tacky remodeling jobs, and fake gold embellishments,
A fatally incompetent renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool,
The defacing, defunding, and closing of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
A gaudy and hideously expensive gold leafing of the Arts of War and Peace equestrian statues.
The impending construction of an obscenely large and gaudy marble eyesore, to be named the United States Triumphal Arch.
Nazis, the AfD, and “Christian” Democrats
Many German Christians, like their American co-religionists, seem much less Christian to an outside observer than they pretend to be….
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Excerpted from Der Spiegel’s newsletter Die Lage am Abend, September 24, 2026:
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Was Realpolitik zwischen CDU und AfD aber noch für Auswüchse haben kann, zeigt sich nun in Heidenau im Kreis Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge.
Dort fordern Stadträte von AfD und CDU in einem fraktionsübergreifenden Beschlussantrag, Stolpersteine »im öffentlichen Straßen- und Gehwegbereich« künftig abzulehnen. Viele Bürger, Angehörige und Initiativen, heißt es in dem Antrag, würden diese Form der Erinnerung an Opfer des Nationalsozialismus als »nicht angemessen« empfinden. Und, sinngemäß: Wer gedenken will, soll auf den Friedhof gehen.
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Just what excesses the realpolitik between the CDU and AfD can still produce is now being shown in Heidenau in the district of Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge.
In a bipartisan motion, city councilors from the AfD and CDU there are calling for a ban on the placement of Stolpersteine (stumbling stones, i.e., ten-centimeter concrete cubes bearing brass plates inscribed with the names and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution) “in public streets and sidewalks.” The motion states that many citizens, relatives, and public initiatives consider this form of remembrance for victims of National Socialism “inappropriate.” In essence, it argues that those who wish to commemorate (the victims of Hitler and his National Socialist Regime) should go to the cemetery.
End Times Euphemisms
Sadly, this is by no means a comprehensive list:
Peace Is Our Profession: the motto of the Strategic Air Command, responsible from 1946-1992 for deploying the US arsenal of nuclear-armed bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Strategic Hamlet: An open-air prison compound surrounded by fortified walls/fences with controlled access manned by armed security forces. It was thought by the US govenment and its puppet regime in South Vietnam that forcing the populations of entire South Vietnamese villages to relocate to such places would prevent the Viet Cong rebels from infiltrating and controlling the rural population of the country. Unsurprisingly, the name deceived no one, not even those required by the chain of command to commit themselves to rigorous self-delusion. The plan failed, the compounds vanished, the villagers went home, and the US and its puppets lost the war.
Full Spectrum Dominance: According to the US Department of Defense, “The cumulative effect of dominance in the air, land, maritime, and space domains and information environment, which includes cyberspace, that permits the conduct of joint operations without effective opposition or prohibitive interference.” According to anyone sane, nothing less than God-mockery on stilts.
Corpus Christi: the name of a Los Angeles class nuclear-powered attack submarine. Changed to The City of Corpus Christi when Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, a Roman Catholic, pointed out to the Department of Defense that Corpus Christi was Latin for The Body of Christ, which to him seemed inappropriate for the name of a warship. Apparently naming one The Angels irritated no one who needed to be appeased.
Extraordinary Rendition: Kidnapping
Enhanced Interrogation: Torture
Muskery, Muskerei
Turns out Elon Musk has TWO hats:
For visiting Washington, DC:
Trump Was Right About Everything
For visiting Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt:
Hitler hatte in allem Recht
Lessons Not (Yet) Learned
When in the course of human events, the government of the United States becomes the exclusive province of overfed white men trained by ossified institutions, funded in their ambitions by a viciously irresponsible oligarchy, and certified by a ritualized political system severed from anything resembling a natural constituency, this is apparently what we can expect:
from the center left, the Vietnam war,
from the center right, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,
from the fascist right, the Iran war.
There’s an implied progression here. Predicting what comes next in the sequence isn’t quite as certain as predicting the next number in a sequence of primes, but if you’re betting on anyone in a suit Making America Great Again, I suggest you consider upping the dosage of your favorite nepenthe.
Caveat Emptor in the Age of Generative AI
AI-generated media presentations will soon be able to approximate reality well enough to be accepted as reality by all but the most sceptical of us. What do we do when we can no longer trust our own eyes and ears to distinguish between media representations of real objects and events and those which have been fabricated by generative AI prompts?
I say we proceed cautiously, at least until we see how these new threats to our credulity are likely to play out. AI hasn’t yet made us as stupid as Sam Altman, Mark Andreesen, Peter Thiel or Elon Muck Musk would like us to be, so we might as well act like it. If something seems fishy, we shouldn’t accept it at face value, not without checking other sources. If someone wants us to believe in Jesus, UFOs, or Donald Trump’s sincerity, that’s their business. Whether or not it’s our business is up to us. We know the drill: Follow the money. Cui bono? What’s in it for me, for us? Who do you work for? We’re going to have to be masters of scepticism if we want to successfully navigate our way through the coming avalanche of AI-generated fakery.
How is this different from the various cons and manias of the past, from the Shroud of Turin to the Mercury Theater’s alien invasion? The difference is scale—everything, everywhere, all at once—and immersion. If we can’t look away, we’ll have no time to form our own judgments about what’s to be accepted as real and what is not—socially, economically, politically, we’ll be prime candidates for victimization.
In the end, what it comes down to is looking for ways to live which don’t require us to need or want anything offered to us by people we’ve learned, often at great personal cost, not to trust. Simply asking to be left alone is no longer an option.
Unbidden Bits—March 17, 2026
Does Donald Trump have any idea what’s meant by the wages of sin? No, he doesn’t. He does know from years of experience, though, that no matter what anybody says, it can’t have a goddamned thing to do with taxes.