Second, this is the single post of the week reserved for generous paid subscribers. If you want in, you can upgrade below. If your budget is already tapped, I get it. Free content will resume tomorrow. Thank you for your support.

Picture it, if you will: An elderly lady* strolls up to the front door of the White House swinging a pair of McDonald’s bags like she’s dropping off a fresh batch of banana bread to her neighbor. Not a side entrance. Not some guardhouse or security checkpoint. The front door. And who answers? The President of the United States, personally, like he just happened to be breezing through the foyer when the Ring went off and thought, “I guess I’ll grab that.”

*The “elderly lady” in question is literally the exact same age as me, and yes, the media referred to her that way no fewer than three dozen times. If anyone needs me, I’ll be soaking my bunions and watching Wheel of Fortune with the volume cranked all the way up.

Probably because the delivery dinosaur gal was wearing an instantly-recognizable red DoorDash T-shirt (that also handily identified her as a harmless grandma), there was no Secret Service shakedown. Not even a “can we help you?” or “ma’am, we’re gonna need you to step away from the residence.” Just a smooth exchange of fries, a sweet $100 tip, and a quick chat about how great Trump’s “No Tax On Tips” initiative is. Oh, and—talk about a miraculous coincidence—camera crews just happened to be on hand to capture the drop-off from every possible angle.

There’s a stunning and scandalous twist to this story, though, and you probably won’t believe it so I hope you are sitting down.

Read more

Sometimes the news cycle doesn’t matter. Sometimes finding the funny is too hard. Sometimes you just need to grieve.

Yesterday we said goodbye to our baby’s baby. Lola was a cat; a beautiful kaleidoscopic tortie-tabby mix, if we’re being technical. But she wasn’t just a cat. She was a delicate thread in the fabric of our family, woven through and around so many moments and memories that it’s honestly impossible to imagine a world without her.

And now we don’t have to just imagine it—somehow we have to live in it.

We should never have even had the privilege of Lola in the first place. She was an impulse purchase; a last-minute scramble nearly two decades ago when life decided to teach my very young daughters a lesson about death that none of us was ready for.

We basically needed a cat that day. Eenie, meenie, miney, Lola.

If you’re a crazy cat person or just enjoy a good cry, here’s that chapter:

Lola filled a hole in our hearts and in our home. For an extraordinarily long time, she wanted only Sasha—which was fine. It was perfect, actually. It was as if she knew. Sasha was her person and her purpose, and we loved her all the more for her single-minded loyalty.

Lola had the softest fur you’ve ever felt and the exact face of Bastet, the iconic Egyptian lioness/goddess. (No, actually though.) She was also scrappy and fearless and guarded the house like a German Shepherd. Woe to the neighborhood tomcat that wandered into our yard.

Social she was not. When company came over, Lola would curl up under the farthest bed. She once slunk into the living room when my brother who lives in the same town was over for dinner. “Did you get a new cat?” he asked. She was fifteen.

It took ten years—maybe it was twelve—before Lola began to warm up to the rest of the family. And by warm up to, I do not mean “went out of her way to cuddle with.” I mean “let us pet her briefly.” Nobody minded. It was understood: she belonged to Sasha.

Then three years ago, Sasha did something unthinkable: she grew up. She graduated high school and moved to New York City and Lola was stuck with me and Joe. She decided, pretty much that first night, that she’d be sleeping with us from now on, specifically directly between our heads, if it wouldn’t be too much bother. By this point, she was old and we were old and everyone was too tired to argue.

Maybe she had simply mellowed. Maybe it was any port in a storm. Whatever the reason, Lola let us in. She snaked around my ankles when I cooked and sat at the edge of the tub when I bathed. She knew the sound of my toothbrush meant bedtime and would assume the position. During the day, she made Joe’s office her own, claiming her spot on the back of the sofa where the sunlight poured in all afternoon. There’s a Lola-sized dent in the cushion that will probably outlive me.

Her decline was gradual until it wasn’t. Even when her eyes had clouded over and it was clear her hearing was nearly gone, she could still jump onto the bed, got excited about catnip, and would announce precisely—and loudly—when she wanted to eat.

And then one day, she didn’t want to eat. Just like that. Hard pass. We tried all the things the internet tells you to try. She wasn’t interested. We pleaded. She refused. We prayed. She slept. We cried. She shrank. Finally, we made the awful call, the one that supposedly makes you a noble, selfless person because you are putting your pet’s comfort and quality of life before your own broken heart, except why don’t they let you do that for people then?

There’s nothing I can say that could do our sweet Lola justice. I’m struggling for words—as if the right string of characters could somehow bring her back to us. I want you to know her, to appreciate her, to mourn her. And maybe, if that’s your thing, say a little prayer for her. She probably would have hated the attention, but if you said it was for Sasha, I bet she’d allow it.

RIP, Lolabug. Our world will never be the same without you.

If we’re playing “he-started-it,” I suppose an ironic finger would be pointing at Pope Leo XIV, who held a weekend vigil calling for peace. In the quick four-minute address, the pontiff denounced the relentless pursuit of power and money, war in general, and what he called “the delusion of omnipotence.” It was run-of-the-mill papal stuff; precisely what you’d expect from the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church and the planet’s premier peacekeeper during a period of intense geopolitical conflict.

And yet.

Trump apparently took that delusion of omnipotence bit personally, responding in a way only a man with an ego that requires its own airspace could: with a lengthy Truth Social post in which he accused the Pope of being—among other things—weak on crime. But, you know, with more ALL CAPS emphasis.

Yes, Trump openly suggested that the Primate of Italy—a man whose entire job description is “encourage folks to be more like Jesus”—needs to up his perp-wrangling game. And “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela”? Really? We are not living in medieval times. These are not the Crusades. The Pope, by the very nature of his position, is sort of obligated to condemn anyone attacking anyone else. That’s not Advanced Theoretical Theology; it’s more like Gospel 101.

Which also raises what I think is a fair question: what exactly was the expectation here? Was Trump waiting for Leo to ring him up with a congratulatory, “Great job with that ‘open-the-effing-strait’ business! ‘I’m gonna bomb the blank out of them’ was also divinely inspired. You’re doing the Lord’s work, Sir,”?

In POTUS’s mind, there seems to be no required separation of church and state. Even if you are the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, talking about peace means you are automatically “weak on crime.” Criticizing war rhetoric makes you “terrible for foreign policy.” And if you say anything that could be construed as a personal attack, you’re clearly batting for the “Radical Left.”

This, of course, is because Trump looks at everyone and everything through the same lens: you’re either with him—and I’m talking one hundred percent all-in—or you’re against him. Loyal ally or arch-enemy. Chosen member of the inner circle or Mentally Disabled Low-IQ TOTAL LOSER who should really see a Good Psychiatrist. And apparently, that includes Vatican City’s tippy-top dog—a man who, according to Donald Trump, wouldn’t even have the keys to the Popemobile if it weren’t for him!

“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise,” Trump wrote, in case you missed that part. “He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”

Humble, it was not.

Pope Leo responded to the irreverent post by saying he has “no fear of the Trump administration” and vowed to continue to push for world peace. As one might expect.

And just in case the “weak on crime” critique didn’t fully land, Trump followed it up by posting an AI-generated image of himself cosplaying, well, the Son of God. The digital artwork showed Trump performing what appeared to be a hands-on healing, surrounded by adoring followers, the American flag, a bald eagle, the U.S. Capitol, some soldiers, a Top Gun-style fighter jet flyover, the Lincoln Memorial (or possibly the Pantheon), the Statue of Liberty, and—of course—fireworks.

What was the prompt here? “Generate a photo of a ruggedly handsome Trump healing a man Jesus-style and include every single symbol of America you can think of plus an old-timey nurse and lots of random fingers. Make it extra biblical… and don’t forget the pyrotechnics!”

Honestly, the only things missing were a Red Sox jersey and Kid Rock.

When a massive chunk of the mediasphere imploded over the “offensive and blasphemous image,” alert netizens were quick to point out that the post was originally made by special envoy Nick Adams, who posted it over two months ago with the caption “America has been sick for a long time. President Trump is healing this nation.”

POTUS, on the other hand, decided to play dumb. “I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross, which we support… and only the fake news could come up with that one,” he told reporters outside of the Oval Office yesterday (a move the media was quick to mock). Nevertheless, he quietly deleted the post shortly thereafter.

Trump is no stranger to AI-blending his likeness with legendary figures, of course. He’s been a king, a superhero, a Star Wars Jedi, and—in what appears to be his first foray into computer generated sacrilege—Pope Donald I. Would anyone actually be surprised if he did intentionally take it all the way to the top of the holiness pyramid?

The gamut of responses ranged—predictably—from unhinged rage to “who edited the original image to add Satanic symbolism?” to OMG, lighten up, Francis.

If I were giving out Comment of the Day awards, the tallest trophy would go to this dude:

At some point, you have to admire the efficiency of it all. The Holy Father gives a four-minute speech about harmony, and within 48 hours we’re arguing about whether the President of the United States meant to portray himself as the actual Prince of Peace while simultaneously grading the Pope’s crimefighting record.

Is it just me, or is the simulation getting crazier by the day?

Leave a comment

Swing by the collection plate.

Apparently, after umpteen months of Epstein-related accusations, FLOTUS felt compelled to announce that she knew nothing about the man’s nefarious activities, was not his friend, found everything about him repulsive, and that any claims to the contrary—current or forthcoming, presumably—are nothing but filthy, disrespectful, mean-spirited lies.

In her statement, Melania referenced the “fake images and statements” of her and Epstein that have been circulating [actually, she said calculating, but since her English is way better than my Slovenian, I’ll let it slide] on social media for years, and urged media consumers to “be cautious about what we believe.” She called on Congress to give Epstein’s victims their day—public hearings, sworn testimony, the whole bit. Oh, and by the way, Epstein did not introduce her to Trump. They met randomly at a party. Just in case you hear otherwise.

The online reaction was swift and predictable. Half the internet cheered: Yes! More transparency from the Trumps! She’s rallying around Epstein victims! The other half leaned in like it was a Bravo reunion: Ooooh, she knows something ugly is coming. She’s trying to get ahead of it. The First Marriage is toast. Neither response was convincing or could be categorically dismissed. (My personal favorite, though, was that this was Melania trying to deflect from the Iran mess. With Epstein! You honestly can’t make this stuff up.)

Over the weekend, however, another possible explanation for the impromptu appearance exploded across X—and centered around a name most people probably hadn’t heard until five minutes ago: Amanda Ungaro.

If you’ve been blissfully offline, here’s the short version: Ungaro is a Brazilian model who claims to have been close friends with the Trumps. Ungaro moved in the First Couple’s social circle for years through Paolo Zampolli, her romantic partner for nearly two decades and the man often credited with introducing Donald to Melania. At some point, both Ungaro and Zampolli were made ambassadors to the United Nations, representing Grenada and Dominica, respectively. (A reminder that in some corners of global diplomacy, “ambassador” can also mean “guy with a great Rolodex.”)

By Ungaro’s own account, her “friendship” with the Trumps included a New Year’s Eve celebration, a White House Easter children’s party, and a Fourth of July photo-op. You know, events where presumably hundreds of people gathered and to which—if you were an ambassador, for example—you’d almost expect an invitation. But okay. BFFs if you say so.

Ungaro and Zampolli had a child, Giovanni, and eventually split (after she caught him sexting a hooker, as one does). The ensuing custody battle made Kramer vs. Kramer look like Demi and Bruce on a family vacation.

That was way back in 2023. After the relationship imploded, Ungaro promptly moved to Florida, where she met and married a Brazilian doctor, João de Araujo. Fast forward to last year, when—based on “anonymous tips”—Ungaro and her new husband were arrested on more than a dozen felony charges tied to a medical spa the duo were running.

Authorities alleged the spa was illegally offering procedures like Botox, liposuction, and “buttocks fillers”; the charges included unlicensed practice of medicine, grand theft, and organized scheme to defraud. Not only was Araujo not licensed in the U.S., but reportedly Ungaro was also performing procedures unlawfully. (Although she vehemently denies these claims, investigators say they found videos on her phone of her doing precisely that, which is awkward.)

At the time, Ungaro was living in the U.S. on an expired visa. Whoops.

While Ungaro was in jail, officials quickly learned of her noncitizen status. The New York Times implied that Zampolli used the ultimate Trump card, so to speak, to have her detained by immigration as part of his custody pursuit. (Zampolli insists that he called to “ask for an update on her case.” Which could be true in the sense that “we just circumnavigated the moon” is true.)

“Amanda Ungaro was placed in ICE custody and ultimately deported, an outcome that may well have happened regardless of Mr. Zampolli’s meddling,” the Times reported. “But the ICE official’s willingness to spring into action for a Trump ally—even one in a low-level, largely ceremonial role—reflects a recurring theme of the second Trump administration: The levers of the federal government can be pulled to settle a personal score.”

Ungaro was on their radar. She’d already been arrested. The Trump administration has been pursuing deportations harder than Pepé Le Pew hounded Penelope Pussycat. But obviously, her being booted is just another example of good old-fashioned connections at work.

That was last summer. After her arrest, Ungaro spent three and a half months in an immigration detention center before being sent back to Brazil “in her prison uniform, with nothing, not even a cell phone.” Details about how she passed the next five months are scant, but this week, she popped up on X to taunt FLOTUS in a series of increasingly unhinged tweets (that have since been memory-holed completely).

So here we have a woman who went from hobnobbing with the political elite to prison and deportation admitting that she “has nothing left to lose.” She’s hurt (furious? murderous?) that Melania didn’t even use her clout to have Ungaro’s immigration case dismissed, so now she’s going to take legal action, expose everything, tear down the whole corrupt system if it’s the last thing she does!

(Weird that she never thought of outing all of these horrible cretins when she was on the guest list. But anyway.)

True to her word—sort of—Ungaro sat down this week for an interview with Spanish-language newspaper El País from “her penthouse in Rio de Janeiro.” Yes, penniless to penthouse in less time than it takes to grow out bangs. The woman sure knows how to rebound!

The internet promised it was going to be positively presidency-ending.

For context, this is the guy who has been hyping Amanda’s interview as the one that would finally—gloriously and irreversibly—destroy the Mar-a-Lago monarchy:

In reality, the piece was barely even presidency-adjacent. The “bombshell revelations” by the woman threatening to take down the Trumps? Basically that she once flew on Epstein’s plane (not a single Trump was present) and that she is currently “at war” with her ex—two tidbits that have already had their moment online. The not-even-remotely-explosive interview is little more than a recycled account of Ungaro’s dysfunctional relationship and her deportation woes.

“What is unusual in the case of this former model who worked at the United Nations is that, alongside her former partner and the father of her son, businessman Paolo Zampolli, Ungaro had in the past shared evenings with the Trumps at the family’s Mar-a-Lago mansion, including a party to ring in 2022, which she now recalls as one of those ‘incredibly boring six-hour events,’” El País reported.

It couldn’t have been a bigger non-story if it had been passed out to a gaggle of influencers outside the West Wing in a white binder.

The internet, of course, is insisting the interview’s utter lack of presidential scandal is more of the media famously protecting Trump. I guess on account of how they never publish anything unflattering about him? Hahahahaha my unicorn and I are dying.

So once again, we’re back where we were before the latest promise-of-a-bombshell: in that familiar media-loving place where everything Trump does is to pivot attention to literally anything but Epstein. (*Except when Epstein is the pivot. Try to keep up.) He gives a speech? Distraction. Doesn’t give a speech? Detour. His wife gives a speech… about Epstein? Decoy. Starts WWIII? Duh. All I know is that for a supposedly-dead guy, Jeffrey Epstein has an uncanny ability to dominate the news cycle.

What do you think? Diversion? Dud? Detonation? Let me know below. :)

***I couldn’t decide on today’s quiz, so you get TWO! Lucky you(s). :)

Leave a comment

Swing by the bookstore/tip jar!

The latest storyline? No, not not my president. That’s been done. It’s not my country.

Yes, it’s no longer enough to denounce Donald Trump or demand his immediate impeachment and permanent exile; you must declare America the irredeemable supervillain in every global storyline—past, present, and future. You have to march in the streets with a Soros-funded sign, wave literally any flag but the American one, and awkwardly apologize to foreigners for existing. You are required to post somewhere on social media at least once a week, “WE are the assholes. Us! America.” Failure to do so will result in the automatic assumption that you’re a gun-toting, MAGA redneck. Fines may apply.

If you think that’s just a fringe internet take limited to the comment section or the occasional entitled Olympian, allow me to introduce you to the professional version. According to filmmaker Michael Moore, America (with Israel’s help) is trying to wipe out one of the greatest civilizations in human history. We are, in his telling, uniquely violent, singularly evil, and—his words—essentially the terrorists.

Meanwhile, Iran is framed as the noble inheritor of ancient Persian brilliance; the birthplace of civil liberties, math, medicine, music, culture, and art. (Claims that, to be fair, range from largely true to wildly overstated.) But somewhere between “Persia invented algebra” and “modern Iran is a beacon of light,” we’re supposed to ignore the small, inconvenient detail that the people currently running the country are not exactly carrying on Cyrus the Great’s legacy.

“Iran is the cradle of one of the greatest civilizations this planet has ever seen,” Moore writes. “While our ancestors in Europe were still figuring out how to build a hut, the Persians had already written the world’s first declaration of human rights, built a multicultural empire that treated conquered peoples with dignity [emphasis mine], and were doing math and medicine that we wouldn’t catch up to for a thousand years.”

It’s not even subtle: we’re basically the descendants of a bunch of bumbling doofuses, and sure, Iran might invade other countries—but they’re extremely respectful about it. We don’t even have the decency to be courteous in our conquest! So gross.

The reality is, the Islamic Republic Moore is rhapsodizing about is a theocratic regime that jails journalists, silences dissent, enforces religious law, and punishes its own citizens—particularly women—the minute they step out of line. It controls what people can say, what they can see, and—minor footnote—has spent decades funding proxy militias while chanting “Death to America” at official rallies. But sure. Tell me more about their contributions to math.

I’m not saying that the United States is a stellar example of geopolitical virtue. (Please read that sentence again before scrambling to the comments to call me a moron.) I’m not even saying we’re not, generally speaking, despicable. The U.S. has a history of downright indefensible actions—notably where Iran is concerned. But there is a fake-spaceship-size difference between admitting your country is capable of horrific acts and deciding that if we’re the villain, the other side must be the hero. That’s not how this works. Sometimes it’s not villain versus hero—it’s villain versus different villain.

“We’re the bad guys!” Moore insists. “If you didn’t realize that under previous presidents, at least Donald Trump has ripped off the mask and shown you who we really are!”

That kind of America-the-Awful absolutism would be easier to take seriously if it showed up consistently. It doesn’t. I don’t recall this level of existential self-loathing when Obama was droning half the Middle East or when Biden was ordering airstrikes in Syria. Which suggests the issue isn’t the behavior—it’s how loudly and unapologetically it’s being carried out.

Here’s the part the Michael Moores of the world never acknowledge: If Iran is such a glorious place, why are its own citizens constantly risking imprisonment—or worse—to protest it? Why are women tearing off their hijabs in the street, knowing full well they could die for their defiance? Why are journalists silenced, critics imprisoned, and protesters publicly executed?

And perhaps most awkwardly—why are people fleeing places like that to come here, while exactly [*checks notes*] zero Americans are sneaking into Iran on inner tubes under the cover of darkness to escape a spray-tanned tyrant?

It’s honestly the strangest form of moral gymnastics I’ve ever seen.

You don’t have to think America is perfect. No functioning adult does. You don’t even have to believe we’re mostly decent. But if you’re part of the camp who feels criticizing America isn’t enough—you now have to invert reality entirely, where the more despicable a regime is, the more it gets framed as “complex,” “misunderstood,” or my personal favorite, “actually kind of amazing if you think about it”—you’re no longer condemning history, you’re rewriting it.

(Also, if you genuinely think the country that lets you post, protest, rant, and rebrand it as the Voldemort of foreign policy is a greater global menace than the one training its kids to be suicide bombers, feel free to take that opinion on a little field trip. Compare notes. See how it travels.)

I’ll go ahead and point out that America didn’t invent the concept of doing questionable things on the world stage. That’s been a popular international pastime since Napoleon decided Europe would look better under French management. The difference is, we’re the only country expected to both run the world and apologize for it at the same time.

Other nations flex their power and pursue their own interests, and it’s called sovereignty. We do it, and it’s a moral emergency. Meanwhile, plenty of the same countries held up as victims are actively begging for American aid, relief, intervention, or support the minute things go sideways. It turns out being the global superpower is like being the mom on a family vacation: everyone rolls their eyes at you, questions your decisions, and still expects you to have snacks, directions, and a backup plan at all times.

We didn’t start World War I, World War II, the Korean War, or the Gulf War. And yeah, we turned Vietnam into a full-blown disaster—but we didn’t light the match. To be clear, acknowledging that “everyone else does it” doesn’t excuse it. But it does matter when we start pretending that one country is uniquely corrupt in a world where power has always been exercised imperfectly—often brutally—by nearly everyone who has it.

The part that would be funny if it weren’t so wildly detached from reality is that every single person typing “America is evil” is doing so from the comfort of a place where they are actually allowed to say that out loud, repeatedly, with zero fear of a knock on the door.

Try tweeting that from Tehran and see how that works out.

Again, this isn’t a defense of sweeping military meddling. It’s not an AMERICA THE PERFECT bumper sticker in long form. It’s a critique of selective outrage and the moral reframing of reality. I know you’ll LMK what you think in the comments. ;)

Leave a comment

Tips welcome, too.

This is the single post of the week reserved for generous paid subscribers. Upgrade today (an annual subscription comes out to 30 cents/post) and you’ll instantly be one of them.

Don’t forget, annual subscribers get a free signed book and ALL supporters get the opportunity to be featured in my one-of-a-kind Subscriber Spotlight.

Thank you for helping me make a proper living doing what I love the very most. :)

After fumbling her way through months of failed “Epstein files rollouts,” Pam Bondi was finally relieved of her Attorney General duties. It seems Trump decided the only thing more dangerous than whatever is actually in those files was the person managing their so-called release. So he fired her.

It was history’s most amicable split since Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin “consciously uncoupled,” with both parties politely professing their mutual admiration and promising to say laser-focused on co-parenting the country.

The left, meanwhile, can’t decide which of the two they should hate more.

LUNATIC LIBERALS: “Bondi lied to the American people to protect her pedophile boss! And Trump just uses people until he doesn’t need them anymore.”

That’s the logic. She was covering up Trump’s dirty Epstein secrets all along, but now she’s outlived her usefulness—that part’s a little unclear, TBH—so he threw her away like an empty gum wrapper.

Except there’s a problem with that reasoning. A big one.

Read more

“Be home by midnight or you’re not going to prom.” Those were my parents’ parting words on my eighteenth birthday—which happened to be the night before my senior prom. This was 1987, when parents didn’t negotiate and kids didn’t argue.

I was home by midnight.

This week, Trump unleashed a similar ultimatum. It wasn’t a thinly veiled threat; it was a promise: Open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. Eastern Time on April 7 or I will bomb the blank out of you.

A little over an hour before that deadline, Trump popped onto Truth Social and announced that, after some last-minute discussions and a whole lot of “hold on, let’s not do that just yet,” an agreement had been reached. The attack was off!

Not canceled entirely, of course—this is 2026—but postponed. A mutually agreed-upon ceasefire. Two weeks to flatten the country. Iran was given fourteen days to ink a deal, open the gas pipeline, and behave like a country that does not, in fact, want to be reduced to embers.

For folks keeping score at home, we went from “we will take the entire country out in two hours” to “let’s circle back in a fortnight.”

Naturally, the internet immediately split itself into three predictable camps: one calling the pause capitulation—just do it already—another hailing it as a brilliant negotiating move—and a third just whispering, okay but also… thank God. Those are the only acceptable reactions: coward, genius, or sudden religious awakening.

Haters dubbed yesterday TACO Tuesday—a nod to columnist Robert Armstrong’s “Trump Always Chickens Out” term for tariffs. Which might get you some retweets if you didn’t realize that Iran was reportedly stationing civilians—including children—at or near the exact infrastructure target sites. Bridges. Facilities. Strategic choke points. The kinds of places that show up in headlines when people start talking about precision strikes. Which puts a slightly different spin on the whole “why didn’t he just do it already?” conversation.

It’s one thing to pound your chest about decisive action when you’re imagining empty targets and clean hits. It’s another thing entirely when the bullseye comes with a human shield made up of eight-year-old limbs. But that reality doesn’t trend quite as well as “he blinked.”

And here’s the part that somehow gets lost between the hot takes and the hashtags: nobody with a conscience or a soul actually wants this war. No sane human was dragging out a lawn chair, cracking a beer, and settling in for what they hoped would be a spectacular opening night of Middle East Mayhem: Lights, Camera, Catastrophe. There were never going to be celebratory fireworks or a grand finale—just body counts, human heartache, supply chain chaos, $9 gas, and a whole lot of unimaginable consequences.

“Trump caved,” diehards said. Did it matter? The apocalypse has been postponed.

You can probably guess how well that’s going.

STERN, SELF-IMPORTANT, BUSYBODY MEGA-COUNTRY: “Okay, do you pinkie-promise to put down your weapons and stop holding our oil hostage?”
TERRORIST REGIME [suppressing a giggle while actively reloading]: “Yup.”

Within hours of the ceasefire announcement, Iran was already claiming it had been attacked—without naming who did it—while fresh strikes, drones, and sirens were still being reported across the region. Gulf states were intercepting incoming fire. Israel is right this minute bombing Lebanon—an effort to dismantle Hezbollah—with Netanyahu claiming that “Lebanon isn’t part of the two-week ceasefire.”

Apparently war doesn’t wear a watch.

Vice President J.D. Vance called the ceasefire a “fragile truce,” which would be like calling a Category 5 hurricane a “light breeze.”

While all of this was unfolding, the United Nations tried to pass a resolution to reopen the Strait of Hormuz (I was today-years-old when I learned they could do that). Two countries abstained. Eleven voted yes. Two voted no.

The two “no” votes? Russia and China. Permanent members. Automatic veto. End of discussion. So even though the rest of the world lined up and said, “Maybe not destroying the global economy would be a good idea,” Russia and China effectively said, “Screw you.”

You shall know thy enemy by his vote.

As of now, the world is pretending the ceasefire means something. Both the U.S. and Iran have “claimed victory.” (Maybe if we let them both believe it, this thing will end?) Oil prices are already dropping—on the strength of a maybe, which tells you panic drives prices more than access does. Stocks are soaring, the markets are rebounding, and investors are treating this like stability—even though, technically, nothing has been resolved.

But the Dow.

Leave a comment

It’s called buyer’s remorse—and according to the giddy liberal media, Republicans are currently deep in its clutches.

You’ve probably seen the headlines. Polls are showing “concerns,” “mixed feelings,” even “regret” among people who voted for Trump in 2024. The numbers are—always—framed as ominous, historic, the beginning of a great unraveling. The base is cracking. The spell is breaking. The party is in ruins!

I see comments on this stack daily expressing frustration, fatigue, even outright fury over Trump’s presidential performance. I do not begrudge anyone these feelings. I get it. When you think you’re ordering a steak and you get ground mystery meat, it’s natural to feel let down.

Let’s recap:

He ran on no wars. We’ve got missiles, moving deadlines, and an increasingly alarming situation in the Middle East.

He ran on affordability. Gas is through the roof, utilities are spiking, and a single pound of beef now costs more than the national minimum wage.

He ran on energy independence. We are, once again, in a complicated relationship with countries we swear we don’t need.

He ran on peace through strength. We got Operation Epic Fury. (Maybe he should have named it Operation Muscular Dove.)

He ran on law and order. We got laws. We got orders. The “and” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

He ran on draining the swamp. The swamp is, alas, as swampy as ever.

The disappointment is hard to describe. Remember when you were a kid and you begged for Sea-Monkeys for your birthday and they turned out to be tiny stupid brine shrimp that looked nothing at all like the adorable little cartoon primates on the packaging?

That.

But there’s a big difference, I think, between “Man, I wish things were going differently” and “If I could go back in time, I’d give my vote to Kamala!”

Because, lest anyone forget, those were the only two viable options on the table. Not Trump or Ronald Reagan reincarnated. Not Trump or a descendant of Mahatma Gandhi. Not Trump or the ghost of John F. Kennedy Jr. It was Trump… or the word-salad-spinning, merry Christmas-hating, hyena-cackling wonder.

#NeverForget

Just for sport, let’s run that alternate timeline for a second. Imagine there’s a President Harris in the White House right now. With the same Iran tensions. The same threats to the Strait of Hormuz. The same energy markets holding their breath. Do you feel… better? Calmer? Safer? I mean, maybe. (I wouldn’t, personally—but I’ll allow it.) The tone would almost certainly be softer, the language more measured, the delivery less Sean-Penn-on-a-bender. But the underlying reality would pretty much be the same.

Harris was consistently pro-Israel and supportive of U.S. military backing when necessary. Which means we’re still staring down the same geopolitical mess, just with fewer ALL-CAPS WARNINGS and more circular, say-nothing press briefings. Gas prices are still reacting to global supply fears, not feelings. Rent is still obscene, housing is still scarce, and Taylor Swift is still selling out stadiums. So yeah, we might trade the profanity for something more joyful—but let me be clear: we’re not escaping the consequences.

In the modern polling ecosystem, it apparently takes very little to qualify as a full-blown emotional crisis. You can check a box that says “I have mixed feelings” and suddenly you’re being counted as part of a softening, wavering, possibly defecting bloc of voters who are one bad headline away from switching teams.

But are they? Would these voters actually change their vote if they could?

When you dig even slightly beneath the surface, the answer is… probably not. A small percentage say they outright regret their vote. A somewhat larger percentage admit they have some concerns. But the overwhelming majority? They’re still right where they were—just a little less enthusiastic about it. Which, last time I checked, is called being an adult.

It’s possible to admit that Jurassic World isn’t a cinematic masterpiece and also appreciate that it’s not The Emoji Movie. It’s possible to think the job is harder than you expected without believing you chose the wrong career. It’s possible to be really freaking annoyed at your annoying spouse and know, in your heart, that someone else would probably annoy you even more. And that someone matters. Because, again, the alternative here wasn’t a mystery applicant or a blank slate or a magical third option that only exists in post-election hypotheticals. It was a candidate that 77.3 million voters actively did not want.

Oh, wait. The guy you voted for made big, outrageous campaign promises and he’s not keeping every single one of them? Welcome to literally every presidency ever. (And sometimes that’s a good thing. Remember, Harris ran on taxpayer-funded gender-reassignment surgeries for noncitizen inmates.)

According to PolitiFact—which is aggressively keeping track—nearly a quarter of Trump’s promises have been kept, while a third are stalled due to inaction from Congress, roadblocks from the courts, or lack of White House initiative. Even PBS had to admit that “Trump fulfilled a decent chunk of his domestic agenda in his first year.” Want to know how many promises PolitiFact considers broken? 1.3 percent. One-point-three.

Alas, the media loves a narrative arc, and “Trump voters regret everything” is a particularly satisfying one. It hands them the moment they’ve been rehearsing in the shower since 2015: a slight majority of the country admitting they were right, we were wrong, and that all the world’s chaos is basically our fault.

But “I have concerns” is not a conversion story. It’s a mood. And moods are not the same thing as decisions. You can wish things were smoother and still feel confident that what you’ve got beats the alternative. You can roll your eyes at a headline, cringe at a quote, disagree with a decision (or thirty) and still, when asked to choose again, pick the same box.

Also worth noting: when someone tells a pollster they “might change their vote,” they’re doing so from the comfort of a reality where they don’t have to actually test that theory. There’s no Sliding Doors version of events, no “here’s how this plays out under President Harris” preview. No alternate-universe gas prices, foreign policy decisions, or painful press conferences urging Americans to unburden ourselves from what has been. It’s pure fantasy imaginings.

In hypothetical land, everything sounds great—until you remember the speech policing and the climate mandates and the Make Abortion Great Again hats. (Really.) And when you do, you just might rethink rethinking your vote.

For all the talk of “Republican regret,” a recent CNN analysis showed Republicans still leading Democrats—comfortably—on some of the biggest, election-making issues of the day: the economy, immigration, and crime. Not by a hair, either. We’re talking real margins. Which is a little awkward if the narrative is that Trump voters are stampeding toward the exits. Because if that were actually happening, you’d expect Democrats to be, I don’t know, picking up the ball and running with it. Instead, they seem to be standing there holding protest signs while the other team casually jogs past them into the end zone.

Yes, some Trump voters are uneasy. Many are frustrated. Lots are less confident than they were a year ago. Some are all three (hi!). But I still believe the overwhelming majority of us would rather fall face-first out of the world’s tallest coconut tree than be watching President Harris update us on the War in Iran.

Am I wrong? I know you’ll let me know below. ;)

Leave a comment

Tips are terrific, too!

It was like a scene out of Black Hawk Down: When Iranian air defenses shot down a U.S. fighter jet, the two American airmen on board somehow survived the crash—only to find themselves stranded in the enemy’s backyard. One was quickly rescued. The other was left hiding in the mountains with little more than a pistol and a prayer while U.S. forces raced to locate him, misdirect Iranian troops, and get him out alive. Trump later called the mission an “Easter miracle,” a hard assessment to argue with.

It was, by any reasonable barometer, a high-stakes situation—one that could certainly necessitate a president clearing his schedule for the afternoon. Especially given what was already unfolding in the region—escalating tensions, threats to one of the planet’s primary oil arteries, and consequences that have the entire globe on edge.

In other words, if ever there were a solid reason to skip the media circus for a few hours, it was this.

But no. As soon as the White House announced a “press lid” for the rest of the day, the internet put on its tap shoes and dusted off its favorite tune: “Trump Is Dead!”

That was it. “No more questions.” That was the smoking gun that turned social media completely feral.

By Saturday, the president’s alleged passing wasn’t merely being whispered about on one or two rogue feeds; it was trending: Trump had died of a heart attack. No, he’d been shot and killed by a federal agent. No, he wasn’t dead yet but he’d had a massive stroke and was in critical condition. No, he was definitely dead—they suicided him to save face and pull us out of Iran.

Folks weren’t merely out there speculating; they were making unequivocal claims and definitive announcements. They were sharing timestamps. They were using words like credible and confirmed and official and multiple witnesses.

In a disturbing number of cases—and you knew this was coming—they were celebrating. Because of course they were. (And please trust me, these were the nicest examples I could find.)

Fueling the rumors further was Trump’s decision to spend Easter in Washington, D.C., instead of heading to Mar-a-Lago—an obvious red flag, if you’re the kind of person who thinks skipping a golf weekend during a war signals imminent death. Once the conspiracy spiral got too big to ignore, White House communications director Steven Cheung took to X to assure Americans that their leader had not, in fact, been Weekend at Bernie’d.

“There has never been a President who has worked harder for the American people than President Trump,” Cheung wrote. “On this Easter weekend, he has been working nonstop in the White House and Oval Office. God Bless him.”

For reference, we went weeks without seeing Joe Biden so much as wave from a balcony and the national response was essentially, “Eh, he’s probably napping.” But Trump goes quiet for an afternoon and suddenly we’re all watching a live-action Netflix documentary titled The Final Hours. To the blue-check brigade, if Trump is talking, he’s unhinged. If Trump isn’t talking, he’s on life support. Those are the options. Once again, the middle doesn’t exist.

The White House’s official Rapid Response account handled the rumors with its usual professional, measured tone.

I’m not going to lie: As familiar as I am with the narrative playbook, when I went to bed on Saturday, there was still a part of me that couldn’t entirely dismiss the allegations. I mean, I know how deranged the media and (some) demoncrats are… but on the flip side, how (and when!) would they tell us if POTUS had suddenly and unexpectedly crossed the rainbow bridge?

Plus, other than the weapons-grade moron comment and Cheung’s Trump-the-tireless-worker-bee explanation, the internet seemed perfectly content with the presence of a dude in uniform by a door as definitive proof of life. (I was sort of hoping for a hostage-style selfie with a newspaper myself.)

I woke on Sunday to a slew of HE IS RISEN texts. Apparently, our Lord and Savior wasn’t the only one prone to miraculous reappearances. On what was arguably the most sacred day of the Christian calendar, Trump had been up since dawn firing off his usual brand of BRAGGADOCIOUS and Very Enthusiastic posts.

One, however, stopped me in my tracks. It couldn’t be real. I prayed it wasn’t.

*Sensitive, easily-offended readers may wish to avert their eyes*

It was real. And yes, he wrote Fuckin’. With the apostrophe.

This was our commander-in-chief’s Easter Sunday sunrise post. The online response ran the predictable gamut from “This is EXACTLY what I voted for! #FAFO” to “More disgusting, demented proof that Trump belongs in a mental hospital.” Chuck Schumer called him an unhinged madman; MTG agreed: “He has gone insane.” Iranian media outlet Mizan claimed that “Iran’s steadfastness and resistance have driven Trump to the brink of madness.” They may not have been entirely wrong.

On the surface, the post seemed like something Trump might write—this is the man who boasted “I’m gonna bomb the sh*t out of Iran,” after all—but the full-throated embrace of the mother of all profanities was unusually aggressive, even for Trump. Yes, he insults his enemies and adds colorful, dwarf-adjacent adjectives to their names (crooked, crazy, nasty, sleepy, shifty, radical, failing, little, lyin’), but something about this particular post read like someone told a 22-year-old intern “just take whatever you think he might say and turn it up a notch or seven.”

Or maybe POTUS has just reached the “don’t make me come in there” phase of foreign policy. It’s hard to say at this point.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole thing, to be honest. Obviously it was cringy and reckless and not exactly presidential. If you were a TDS-riddled liberal, you’d consider it a gift. But I try not to have a knee-jerk reaction to anything Trump says or does. On one hand, I’ll take a tough-talking, no-nonsense leader over a doormat any day. But open the Fuckin’ Strait? You crazy bastards? Praise be to Allah? That’s not diplomacy. That’s a bar fight waiting to happen. A Quentin Tarantino script. An interfaith truck stop manifesto that somehow made it onto White House letterhead.

As of now, here’s where we’re at: Trump has extended the deadline for compliance twice. Yesterday, he told Fox News that if Iran doesn’t fully open the Strait of Hormuz by tomorrow (Tuesday) evening, he’s “blowing up the entire country.” So that’s cozy. Iran’s counteroffer was, essentially, “What if we made this worse?”—floating attacks on critical infrastructure in Israel and U.S.-aligned Arab states, which would knock out power, disrupt daily life across the region, and send energy prices into a fresh panic.

Basically, we’re at “put your missiles where your mouth is.” On both sides.

We’ll know more today at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, when POTUS pries off that “press lid.” With real-life reporters. Asking actual questions. In real time. With no filters, no edits, no carefully cropped Marine-by-a-door photo to reassure us that somewhere, behind that wall, a president is allegedly doing presidenty things.

In the meantime, I’ll be refreshing X, trying to figure out what’s real, what’s rumor, who’s actually alive, and whether anyone is even in charge. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Leave a comment

Got some spare change? Drop it here!

Because, you see, we were no longer citizens of the state we had paid taxes into for more than five collective decades.

It turned out, simply taking her first breath in the Golden State didn’t mean a lick when it came to her right to claim residency—even after living there for the first fifteen formative, consecutive years of her life.

Apparently, sweeping dismissal of your GPS coordinates at birth only applies at the state level. It turns out, whether you’re from Azerbaijan or Zimbabwe, if you land on American soil long enough to expel an infant from your nether regions, thanks to the 14th Amendment, that child emerges holding a golden ticket to automatic, lifelong U.S. citizenship.

Ratified in 1868—when long-distance travel meant a horse ride into town—14A explicitly grants citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and guarantees equal protection and due process under the law. It made sense at the time that a country still reeling from a brutal civil war might try to define, in writing, what it means to be an American—especially for former slaves, who had just been freed but were not yet recognized as citizens.

Excellent work. Five stars. Would ratify again.

The question isn’t about historical appropriateness—it’s whether we’ve quietly expanded an antiquated provision far beyond anything it was ever meant to cover… and then declared the conversation over. Because thanks to the same constitutional clause, today a tourist can practically go into labor on a layover, and if her uterus cooperates, leave with a United States passport. (For the baby. The baby gets the passport. The mom gets stretchmarks and eighteen years of insomnia.)

On one side, the argument is simple: if you’re born here, you’re a lifetime member of Club Republic with the full benefits package. No debate, no questions. It’s been that way for over a century. It’s clear, it’s clean, and it prevents a tsunami of bureaucratic and humanitarian problems.

The other side [*waves wildly from the bleachers*] thinks maybe that rule—written long before people could fly across the world, pop out a successor, and then bolt with an all-access pass before the kid has even figured out how to focus—wasn’t exactly designed for the world we live in now.

That’s the debate. And normally, this is where everyone picks a team, posts a flag emoji, and moves on with their lives. Except. There’s a reason this issue isn’t going away. And it’s not because someone’s housekeeper had a baby and now we’re all supposed to panic. It’s because there is, very clearly, an entire industry built around this loophole.

“Birth tourism” is real. Anchor babies—whether you find the term disparaging or not—exist. Surrogacy-for-citizenship is a huge, lucrative business. Wealthy foreign nationals can (and do!) come to the U.S. long enough to give birth, secure resident status for that child, and then raise him/her/hir wherever and however they’d like.

What’s the big deal, you might say. That’s every parent’s prerogative.

Would you still say that (presuming you might, which I’m guessing you wouldn’t; I’m just being hypothetical here) if you knew that in Southern California alone, there are 107 Chinese-owned surrogacy companies advertising these services? Or if someone told you about the 500 birth tourism companies in the People’s Republic of China? Or if you were aware, as reported by The Wall Street Journal recently, that one CCP-connected Chinese billionaire claims he personally has over 100 U.S.-born children being raised in China?

According to author and investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, roughly 100,000 Chinese babies have been delivered here under these circumstances every single year for the past 13 years—something he calls a massive national security problem. “When the baby is ready to travel, they fly back to China, and the child will be raised in CCP schools with CCP control and CCP media,” Schweizer explains. “The problem is, when they turn 18, they’re going to be able to vote in the United States. They’re going to be able to contribute to political campaigns and apply for government jobs.”

They’ll also be able to serve on juries, purchase firearms, and serve in the military. So that’s comforting.

In other words, right now, more than a million “U.S. citizens” are being indoctrinated brought up in a system that is openly hostile to everything America claims to stand for.

(If there were an EXTRA BOLD key, I’d have used it.)

I say “claims to stand for” because plainly—inexplicably—there’s support for this within our own government. In states like Commiefornia, birthright citizenship isn’t just a pipe dream or a pet project; it’s a key component of the Democratic Party platform. Go figure.

As of this week, the issue is no longer theoretical, philosophical, or confined to spicy comment sections—it’s sitting in front of the Supreme Court of the United States, where it’s now a legal question. Not “is this being abused?” or “does this even make sense?” but “what does the 14th Amendment legally, technically require… and how far can we stretch that before it snaps?”

On his very first day back in the Oval Office, Trump signed Executive Order 14160, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” It seeks to end automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents who are not permanent, lawful residents.

The “no human is illegal” crowd, as you might imagine, is not taking it well.

Despite what the media will tell you, this isn’t Trump going rogue. It’s the global norm. The vast majority of developed nations—minus only the U.S. and Canada—require at least one parent to be a citizen or a legal long-term resident for a child to acquire citizenship at birth. Us? We give out keys to the castle like Halloween candy.

The current administration insists the system is being exploited—at massive, threatening scale—and that the Constitution does not expressly require the government to grant automatic, unilateral citizenship to every infant born on American soil. Opponents argue that changing this interpretation would create chaos, undermine settled law, and create a cascade of bureaucratic nightmares.

And heaven forbid lawmakers, you know, be forced to make actual laws.

For what it’s worth, we update legal codes all the time when the world changes. We stopped regulating how many cows you can drive down Main Street once Main Street stopped being, you know, mostly cows. We dropped the rule that someone has to walk in front of your car waving a flag once we realized the car itself was supposed to be the faster option. We moved on from “no pigs in the parlor” once people stopped casually sharing their living rooms with livestock. We even relaxed the whole margarine crackdown when it became clear the government didn’t actually need to be involved in your breakfast. At some point, you acknowledge that the context has changed dramatically enough that perhaps the law should follow.

The birthright argument isn’t about ideology. No decent human wants any child to be legally homeless. It’s not about “hate,” “fear,” “fascism,” or whichever buzzword is trending this week. Setting boundaries is what you do when you care about something—not when you want to destroy it. It’s about governance—and whether a rule written 150 years ago still makes sense, or whether we’ve been running a 19th-century program on a 21st-century operating system and just praying the whole thing doesn’t crash.

In what sane world do you take a law written for a world of horse-drawn carriages, open sewers, and the occasional roaming goat and insist it applies perfectly, without adjustment, to a world of international air travel, luxury surrogacy packages, and same-day passport photos? Why does everything always have to be all-or-nothing? Why can’t it ever be “Damn, this train is picking up speed. Maybe we should add some guardrails”?

So now we have the Supreme Court stepping in to decide what, exactly, the 14th Amendment covers. Not in theory, not in a history book (like those are trustworthy), but in 2026, where travel is easy, money is mobile, and working the system is practically an Olympic sport. According to the New York Times (which also reported that an end to birthright citizenship would “disproportionately affect babies born to Asian parents,” which I’ll just leave right there), the court is expected to rule by late June or early July.

To be painfully clear, I’m not saying there aren’t countless legitimate, sympathetic cases to be considered. If a child is born here, grows up here, goes to school here, builds a life here, contributes to society here—that’s one thing. I’m just suggesting that maybe there should be some citizenship criteria beyond where your mother happened to be standing when her water broke.

Leave a comment

Tips help keep me sassy!

Picture me doing what I do—frantically scrolling the internet in search of something ridiculous to write about—when I see it. They proposed it and I joked about it and now here it was, actually happening: Mount Trumpmore.

“Secured by ropes, a team of intrepid sculptors chisel away at a very famous quiff as the shock first addition to Mount Rushmore in 85 years is revealed,” the Daily Mail wrote. “The world-renowned memorial to the US’s most revered presidents is having a controversial fifth face added in the form of one Donald J. Trump. The 45th and 47th US president is joining legendary predecessors George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.”

Did Trump approve this? Did he order it? In the middle of a war? Are taxpayer dollars paying for it? Is the media going to cover it? Will there be enough weighted blankets in the world to mop up the liberal meltdown?

All of these things were metaphorically streaking through my brain at the exact moment I realized that I am a bona fide, card-carrying, premium-grade sucker.

“Good one,” one commenter wrote. “You had me for a sec,” said another. “Best. April Fools. Post. Ever.”

[*Checks calendar*]

Right. Of course. Obviously.

As I continued my search for something newsworthy to skewer, I realized that the entire mediasphere was participating in the festivities. “The War’s Finish Line Is in Sight,” Reuters roared. Yeah, right. “Kristi Noem’s Husband Accused of ‘Bimbo’ Cross-Dressing Fetish in Leaked Messages and Photos,” the New York Post joked. Maybe crossed a line there, but as headline pranks go, it was… visual. “NASA Sends 1st Crew to the Moon in 53 Years,” WRAL wisecracked. Oh, so I guess we just dusted off our map to the Moon, fired up the rockets, and forgot to mention it until now? Exactly how stupid do you think I am?

Apparently, very. Because all three of those headlines turned out to be real. After briefly scanning the first two (and seeing some pix of Mr. Noem that I can never unsee; bless), I figured I had to cover the Moon thing. The one that I had literally not even heard a single peep about, even though my actual job is to read news headlines all day every day.

As I was prepping this piece, NASA was busy prepping to launch four astronauts on a ten-day trip around the Moon—the first time humans have traveled beyond low Earth orbit since 1972. (To clarify, the eleven-minute Katy Perry press tour to the edge of the map doesn’t count.) Every single media outlet I visited was running “live updates” a full eight hours before the anticipated takeoff.

“The astronauts are walking to the van that will take them to the launchpad.”
“The crew has boarded the van.”
“The astronauts are now en route to the launchpad in the astrovan. It’ll be a 15-20 minute drive.”

Riveting, it was not.

The mission has been christened Artemis II, and allegedly it will take the astronauts on a half-million-mile trip around the Moon before “splashing down” (is it me or does that sound eerily hopeful?) in the ocean off San Diego on April 10. There will be no lunar landing, just a loop. A celestial drive-by. The goal, we’re told, is to test the spacecraft, pave the way for an actual touch-down “sometime in the next few years,” and eventually set up a “long-term human presence on the Moon.”

You know, like how you plan a weekend in Scottsdale to see if it’s somewhere you might want to retire.

The media is super-hyping the mission’s firsts: first woman, first Black man, and first Canadian to go to the Moon. First crewed flight of the Space Launch System (SLS). First use of laser communication from deep space to transmit high-speed, high-def video. First fully functioning toilet in space. First ultra-high-speed reentry (25,000 MPH, making this group the fastest-moving humans in history). First time we’ve treated “going back” somewhere like a historic breakthrough.

All of which raises an entirely new slew of questions: how, exactly, did we go from nothing whatsoever to “we’re launching humans around the Moon tomorrow” with zero buildup? Where was the drumroll? Where was “Trump Takes the Moon”? Where were the breathless countdown graphics, the panel discussions, the ominous music and B-roll of rockets at sunset? What happened to the Space Race after 1972? Did everyone just collectively decide, cool, we did it, and pivot to pickleball? Because I feel like “hey, we’re sending humans back around the big ball of cheese for the first time since cable TV was invented” is the kind of thing that might have come up before Greg from WRAL was live-blogging a van ride to the takeoff site.

Maybe it’s just me?

Regular readers already know I’m highly suspicious of the original “Moon landing” story. Equally notable (questionable? dubious?) is that we let more than a half century pass before we even thought about a return trip. I know, we won the Space Race! We didn’t need to think about it! Plus it was so darned expensive, and I guess NASA doesn’t have access to the same money printer the rest of the federal government does. Anyway, that’s why we took the technology that got us there and either destroyed it, lost it, or shoved it into a drawer labeled “Moon stuff” (nobody really knows, TBH) and called it a day.

Until now! And—conveniently—it’s all going down just as Costco-sized crashed spaceships are being discovered and Congress is holding UFO Transparency Hearings and the White House is reportedly preparing to release “the UFO files” on its newly registered website, aliens.gov (but actually). Let’s just say the timing is… curious.

A conspiracy theorist might wonder about it. She might even postulate—briefly and purely for fun—that either they’re trying to redirect attention to something shiny and far away, they’re laying the groundwork for a new trillion-dollar “space economy”… or they’re using taxpayer dollars to plan and plot an escape route to their vacation planet for when they unleash nuclear war or the next plandemic.

Could be any of those… or none. It could just be that NASA wanted to beat Elon to the Moon. What do you think? LMK below!

(If nothing else, lift-off is cool to watch. I’ll give it that.)

Leave a comment

p.s. As I was writing this, I had a flashback to a blog post (remember those?) I wrote about fifteen years ago and had to resurrect it. Technically it’s a day late, which is probably a good thing. You’re welcome.

April Fools Can Suck It*

*that was the actual title

My kids came home from school today all fired up, rattling off the many “hilarious” April Fools pranks their friends were bragging about pulling on their families.

“Can we do that?” they begged. “It’s so awesome!”

“I hate April Fools,” I told them. It’s true. I also hate Halloween and Disneyland and TV and chocolate and cotton candy and honestly, I don’t know why anybody ever let me have kids in the first place, because clearly I was not built for this crap.

“Please help us think of a prank! PLEASE!” they begged, so of course I was googling ten minutes later, on account of the guilt I have about hating everything my kids love. The very first thing I discovered in my search is that people are batshit crazy. I am not even making that up.

Here are just a handful of the “super-fun, kid-friendly pranks” I found that people are actually, willingly engaging in:

1. Put a rubber band around the kitchen sink’s sprayer and wait until someone turns the water on. Hahaha that’s so awesome and also who do you suppose is going to clean that nightmare up? Or console the whiny kid whose hair just got soaked (the same kid who freaks out if her part is two millimeters off center)? That would be me, jerk. So thanks for the super fun idea, but I’ll pass.

2. Turn up the volume as high as it can go on someone’s computer or radio before they turn it on. Great. Now my kids are orphans because I just had a heart attack. Way to go, Internet. I hope you feel good about yourself.

3. Buy some clothes that are several sizes too big for your kids, so that when they put them on they’ll think they shrunk! So this is how rich people do April Fools Day! Oh, Biff, you’re just too, too much. Look at all of these positively gargantuan garments. For a fleeting moment, I thought I was withering away! (Also, my kids are not idiots. But nice try.)

4. Grab a few pairs of your hubby’s or kids’ undies and sew them together. Next time they go to grab a clean pair, they’ll get more than they bargained for! You’re joking, right? I have a “sewing pile” in my closet overflowing with shorts that need buttons and skirts that need hemming and straps that need shortening. None of it fits anyone and it’s all out of style because it’s been there since 1997. But I’m going to whip out a needle and thread and stitch some perfectly good skivvies together as a joke? Exactly how much crack are you smoking these days, Internet? I’m calling Betty Ford.

5. If you happen to have a blow-up doll hanging around, dress her up and strap her in the passenger seat of a friend’s car. If you happen to have a blow-up doll hanging around, you probably don’t have many friends. I’m just saying.

6. Put a sheet or two of plastic-wrap over the toilet seat. I don’t know about you, but scrubbing piss off my bathroom floors is just a little slice of heaven in any otherwise ordinary day. When I see (smell) that delicious yellow ring, I dance a happy jig every time. All day long I sit and wonder how I might possibly get more of this unique and pungent delight in my life. Thanks again, Internet! You never let me down.

7. Smear Vaseline on your door handles. Or maybe draw a mural on your leather sofa with Sharpie instead—because it would be easier to clean.

8. If you know someone who loves Oreo cookies, scrape out the white creamy filling and replace it with white toothpaste. Okay, fine. This one isn’t that bad because at least I’d get to eat the filling. Do you think they’ll notice my teeth marks in the chocolate part, though?

9. Coat a bar of soap with clear nail polish so no suds will form. What a total waste of nail polish. Everyone knows kids don’t touch soap.

10. Make fake “ice” and psyche out your kids with warm beverages. You guys. This is like a full-on craft project involving blocks and tin foil and craft beads and the actual oven. So that you can PSYCHE OUT YOUR KIDS WITH A WARM BEVERAGE. Who has this kind of time on their hands? Because I would like to outsource literally every miserable task in my life to them.

11. Fill a bowl with Skittles, M&Ms and Reese’s Pieces. Now you’re just being an asshole, Internet. Pranks are supposed to be harmless and fun.

12. Put some powder on top of the ceiling fan blades and wait for someone to turn it on. Respectfully, who hurt you? Also see #s 1 and 7 and then please, get help.

13. Scrape all of the deodorant out of someone’s Speed Stick and replace it with cream cheese. And then the person with sticky cheese pits killed everyone else in the house, I hope you’re happy.

At press time, we are still looking for a “super-fun, kid-friendly prank” that will not end in a homicide. I welcome your thoughtful suggestions.

Yes, these are the types of things I used to write before I was busy exposing corruption, fighting tyranny, and calling out wokeism. Anyway, I hope nobody got played with a fake snake or a positive pregnancy test yesterday. Thanks for indulging me. :)

Swing by the tip jar!

Leave a comment

This is it; the single post of the week reserved exclusively for generous paid subscribers. Upgrade today and you’ll instantly be one of them.

Annual subscribers get a free signed book and ALL supporters get the opportunity to be featured in my one-of-a-kind Subscriber Spotlight.

Thank you for helping me make a proper living doing what I love most. :)

The Hollywood Cloning Factory is a lot like Area 51: nobody’s actually been there, but everyone’s got a theory about it. The suspected list of celebrities who’ve been body-doubled is longer than a Pink Floyd deep cut: Paul McCartney. Avril Lavigne. Megan Fox. Katy Perry. Eminem. Britney Spears. Selena Gomez. Beyoncé. Taylor Swift. Jim Carrey. All of them—and honestly, countless more—no longer of this earthly realm but in fact replaced by synthetic replicas. Three-dimensional deepfakes. Literal carbon copies.

The latest supernova to join their ranks? Angelina Jolie. RIP, pretty lady. I hope it was painless.

The proof? This week, “Angelina” appeared at a Tom Ford event in Shanghai, where she floated down the red carpet, smiled for photos, and delivered a perfectly serviceable line about being grateful to be there. The problem? The woman in the footage didn’t even look like the Jim-Carrey-Temu version of the former Mrs. Pitt. It wasn’t the makeup. It wasn’t the angle. It wasn’t plastic surgery. It wasn’t jetlag or adrenochrome or a Vaseline-smeared camera lens.

It wasn’t her.

Read more

That last one has been floating around for so long it’s basically a decorative pillow at this point. We don’t even react to it anymore. We’ve heard it. We suspect it’s probably true. But it just sits there, nestled between “you don’t actually need shampoo” and “giants once roamed the earth.” What should I make for dinner? Did I remember to schedule the pest control guy? Who took my—oh wait, never mind. Found it.

And yet. Every once in a while, someone comes along who isn’t a comment-section crusader with a Punisher skull avatar and his own Telegram channel. He’s not a professional tax protester hawking a $399 “Free Yourself from Debt Slavery” online course. He’s not even a TDS-riddled liberal who refuses to pay taxes as a middle finger to Trump. (Why didn’t I know that was a thing when Obiden was president?)

This time, the guy is Joe Banister, a former IRS Criminal Investigation Division Special Agent. Not some dude who “did his own research.” Not a guy who “read a blog.” His job was literally to track down people who didn’t pay their taxes. By his own account, he took that task seriously—legally, morally, and ethically.

One day, Banister was listening to a radio talk show and the guest was explaining how paying income tax is in fact not obligatory. That there is no law on any book, signed by any president, that obligates citizens to pay it. Banister’s response—as a responsible federal employee who took an oath to uphold the Constitution—was, “No, lady, Americans are required to pay this, and I’m here to make sure of it.”

So he set out to prove Radio Lady wrong. He started digging into the tax code—deeply, obsessively, the way people do when they’re either trying to prove a point or ruin Thanksgiving forever. Eventually he came to a conclusion that, depending on your tolerance for chaos, is either incredibly intriguing or patently maddening: There is no law requiring 97% of Americans to file and pay federal income tax. In fact, by filling out a tax return in the first place, Banister says that we’re essentially creating a contract between ourselves and the IRS that actually gives them the authority to assess the tax we claim to owe.

Cute, right?

And here’s the weird part: Banister didn’t just think these things quietly in his own home while filling out his 1040 form like the rest of the dutiful peasants. He said it out loud. To other people. On camera. He put it in writing and gave it to his IRS supervisors. (Bless his heart, he thought he might even get a raise or be crowned Employee of the Month.) He shared it with the top dogs at an aviation company who, based on his presentation, stopped withholding taxes from employees’ paychecks.

The government reacted in the way only the government could when an insider breaks from the script: they forced his resignation, arrested him in front of his colleagues, and indicted him on felony charges. One count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and three counts of assisting in filing false tax returns. The basic “we’re not even a little bit amused” starter pack.

The thing that keeps this from being just another clickbait headline or internet rabbit hole, though, is that the jury acquitted him. Not a plea deal. Not a technicality. The phrase “by reason of temporary insanity” never entered the chat. The jury agreed that Banister had committed no crime.

Which raises what I think is a perfectly reasonable question: If filing and paying income tax is the clear-cut, settled, indisputable fact they’ve promised us it is… how does that happen? Because according to the record, the government didn’t exactly come in swinging with a detailed, line-by-line explanation of the law Banister allegedly violated. They didn’t bring in an expert witness to dismantle his claims in open court. They didn’t walk the jury through the definitive, explicit statutory authority that supposedly makes this whole thing obvious. Their argument basically boiled down to, “Because we said so.”

Meanwhile, the jury sat through hours of Banister explaining, in detail, why the existing code showed that wages were not lawfully taxable income. Twice. And then they agreed with him.

In a sane world, this would be an explosive revelation—up there with vaccine injuries and deaths, VAERS numbers, and the undeniable connection between autism and immunization. Instead, it follows a familiar script: the truth laid bare… followed by the sinking realization that some systems—often, the most fraudulent—are too big, too powerful, too profitable to topple.

Here’s the thing. If income tax were a lone injustice—the single shady way the government tried to extort us all—we might be inclined to let it slide. You know, on account of the military and Medicare and law enforcement and all those other things our taxes allegedly bankroll. (We’ll just put aside the money that goes to terrorist organizations and SWAT raids against raw milk producers and the like. We don’t get to decide how federal funds are allocated, okay?)

But we literally broke up with England over taxes. Like, staged an entire revolution. Remember “no taxation without representation?” We dumped an otherwise perfectly good empire—and an aggressive amount of tea into the harbor—over it!

And yet. Two hundred and fifty years later, we’re getting hit with taxes all day every day like a prizefighter in the twelfth round.

We’re taxed when we earn money.
We’re taxed when we spend it.
We’re taxed when we save it.
We’re taxed when we invest it.
We’re taxed for owning things.
We’re taxed for selling things.
We’re taxed for inheriting things.
We’re taxed for giving things away.
We’re taxed for improving things we already own.
We’re taxed for driving.
We’re taxed for dying.
We’re taxed for temporarily existing somewhere outside of the residence we’ve already paid taxes on.

HOTEL CLERK: “Your room will be $179.”
YOU: “All in?”
HOTEL CLERK: “Depends. Are you planning to stay in it?”
YOU: “Well, yeah.”
HOTEL CLERK: “With the occupancy tax, it’ll be $209.43.”

We didn’t get here overnight. The federal income tax began, as all great American traditions do, as a “temporary” measure. An emergency, if you will. First flirted with during the Civil War, it disappeared, reappeared, got smacked down by the Supreme Court, and then finally came roaring back with the 16th Amendment in 1913—because nothing says “this will be used responsibly” like permanently legalizing a move the government’s been trying to mandate for decades.

It started modestly, of course. A gentle little tax on the wealthy. A light lift. A patriotic contribution. And then, like a cancer, it grew. And grew. And grew some more. Fast forward a century, and we’ve got a system so sprawling that it takes 14 forms, a spreadsheet, and a minor in accounting to figure out who owes whom and how much.

Enter Donald Trump, who has repeatedly floated the idea of dramatically reducing—or outright eliminating—federal income taxes, which is the political equivalent of walking into the DMV and announcing you’re thinking of abolishing lines. He hasn’t said income tax is illegal, mind you—just that it’s an unfair burden that perhaps something like, oh, I don’t know, tariffs could eliminate.

Sort of like they did before the 16th Amendment was ratified.

Joe Banister has been beating this drum for nearly three decades. Alex Jones covered his story last year after Banister called the Internal Revenue Service “the original deep state operation.” (The guy worked for the IRS. Let that statement sink in.) Laura Logan interviewed him this week. So did Dinesh D’Souza. Why now?

Maybe because when a sitting president starts talking about eliminating income tax altogether, people don’t just nod and move on—their little ears prick up. Is that possible? Would it be legal? They get a little… hopeful. They start doing their own research. (And if you do that, you’re going to find Joe Banister.) They start asking questions. The same questions we’ve all heard for years but never really stopped to think about.

Now we’re thinking about them. A lot.

And here’s where your friend Pollyanna thinks this gets good: it’s one thing to scare, indict, or discredit a single guy. It’s quite another when thousands (tens of thousands? millions?) of people start asking the same question at once. That’s not a fringe theory anymore. That’s a pattern. And patterns are a lot harder to sweep under the rug.

Who knows? Maybe nothing changes. Maybe we all keep filing, keep paying, keep assuming someone else has verified the “rules” somewhere along the line. All I know is, the list of things that used to get you banned for saying out loud seems to be shrinking by the day—and I’m here for it.

NOTE: I am still paying my taxes currently. I have not tried either of these “methods” below. I’m just sharing what other people are saying/doing. (But I will be looking into both!)

I know that some of my subs are already… withholding your own taxes indefinitely, ahem. Tell us what you’re doing, what you think about all of this, or where you think it’s going in the comments. :)

Leave a comment

So that’s fun.

The branding makes it sound like something you’d use to store a coupon for kombucha or your bunion surgeon’s business card, but it’s actually a globally standardized system for verifying vaccination status, maternal and child health records, and, eventually, “broader personal health summaries” across borders.

If you wanted a more economical term for it, you’d call it a digital ID.

“The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, in partnership with the Temasek Foundation, have launched a new three-year initiative to help Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) transition from paper-based health records to secure, interoperable digital health wallets (DHWs),” the press release gushes. “The programme aims to strengthen national health systems, improve continuity of care and ensure individuals have trusted, portable access to their essential health information.”

It’s worth pointing out that Temasek is a Singapore government-owned outfit with deep ties to Bill Gates and Pfizer, including an early, massive investment in BioNTech. But it’s just a programme! Think MyChart, you know, but with a passport. For “trusted portable access” to our essential health information! It’s a convenience. A gift from the biotech gods, practically. It’s certainly not, like, a mandate or anything.

Except… we’ve seen this movie before. We know how it starts—“temporary,” “convenient,” “for our safety,” “just for travel.” We know the cast of characters. We know the script. And we definitely know how it ends. So forgive me if I’d rather give birth to an angry, fully grown porcupine than buy a ticket.

Sure, they don’t come out and call it the next necessary rung on the social credit system ladder. But if you were designing one of those, name one thing you’d do differently.

Literally, zip. First, you’d tie identity to something uniquely personal and verifiable—like health records. Then you’d digitize it. You’d make it portable across borders. You’d link it to access—but slowly. Start with travel (everything else in due time, pets; be patient). You’d roll it out under the banner of public health so anyone who questions it sounds like a lunatic. And of course, you’d partner with the exact same cozy little network of governments, tech platforms, and pharmaceutical companies that turned freedom into fiction under the auspices of the Covid “emergency.”

“Through our partnership with WHO, the Temasek Foundation hopes to support countries in moving from fragmented paper records to secure Digital Health Wallets that individuals can carry with them wherever they go,” the release continues. “By testing this approach in pilot ASEAN Member States, we aim to demonstrate how trusted digital tools can strengthen health systems, improve continuity of care—including for families and children—and build the local capabilities needed for governments to scale these systems nationally.”

See, they wouldn’t need to do it if it weren’t for those meddling fragmented paper records. They want to “ensure that individuals can carry their essential health information with confidence and dignity” (I mean, can we talk about the humiliation of carrying a grubby paper immunization card?). It’s for the children!

And I’ve got an oceanfront condo in Kansas to sell you.

You may recall that Trump formally moved to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO in 2020—a process that takes a year to complete and which Biden promptly reversed the minute he got his decrepit fingers on the autopen. Literally on Day One. Upon reclaiming the presidency, Trump immediately resumed the withdrawal, completing the exit in January of this year and halting all funding and participation in WHO-related activities.

As wins go, it was the equivalent of getting the license plate number of the jerk who rear-ended you.

The problem is, you don’t actually need to be a member of something for it to function as a gatekeeper. Sure, you can “opt out” on paper, but if every airport, border crossing, and international system is playing by the same rules, you’re not opting out—you’re just opting to stay home. Which is cute, in theory. It might even give you the illusion that you’re sticking it to the system. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I know what you’re going to say. You’ll quit your job, burn your passport, tell your family abroad it’s been real. You’ll opt out harder. You’ll boycott that system with Ironman-level energy. But even if you swear on your TSA PreCheck that you’re never leaving the country again, you’re not exactly living in a snow globe. The World Health Organization can’t (currently) boss Americans around inside the U.S.—no one from Geneva is kicking down your door with a clipboard and a nasal swab—but that doesn’t mean you’re magically insulated from whatever the rest of the world decides to do.

We live in a country that runs on global everything: supply chains, pharmaceuticals, research, travel, commerce, the whole enchilada. So when 194 countries start moving in roughly the same direction—tightening entry rules, standardizing health requirements, aligning policies—those decisions don’t politely stop at the border like, “Oh, sorry, the U.S. opted out, carry on!” They show up here sideways. Medications get scarce. Prices creep. Products disappear. Employers, universities, hospitals, and airlines start adopting the same frameworks because it’s easier than operating in a parallel universe. It’s less “you must comply” and more “this is now the operating system.”

But, you know, at least it’s… interoperable.

You can absolutely choose not to participate. You just can’t wish away the environment that participation creates. It’s like refusing to join a group chat that everyone else is using to plan dinner—congrats, you’re not in the chat, but you’re also not eating.

A note to the woke protestors out there: hate Trump all you want. Make the signs. Chant the chants. But for the love of all that is holy, don’t lose the plot. Because while you’re rallying against “authoritarianism,” a global autocracy is being built in the background—mostly out of sight and entirely out of reach. And for now, the only thing keeping that dystopia off your doorstep is a president willing to opt out.

Convince me I’m wrong.

Well, whaddya think? Share in the comments. :)

Leave a comment

I’m talking specifically about Kash Patel, a man who, not that long ago, promised to make an inherently tight-lipped institution the “most transparent agency ever.” (Is it just me, or is that the equivalent of a pastry chef pledging to whip up the “healthiest deep-fried Oreos on the planet”?) He insisted truckloads of documents would be made public. He presented himself as the patron saint of accountability. He swore up and down that sunshine is the best disinfectant. You could practically hear the FOIA requests writing themselves.

You may recall last summer, when Patel went public with what sounded like a bureaucratic fever dream: the discovery of a “secret room” (it might have been rooms, plural; the details are vague) inside FBI headquarters that was bursting with highly sensitive, undigitized documents related to Russiagate, the Mueller probe, and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s alleged role in the January 6 “Capitol attack.” Material evidence that could implicate senior officials from previous administrations in a coordinated effort to take down Trump. Just sitting there, untouched and unread, many stored in “burn bags” that, strangely, nobody ever got around to actually torching.

And then… nothing.

I’m sorry, what? This would be like discovering a hidden trap door in your house labeled “TOP SECRET—FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT OPEN,” and then walking away and leaving it for… what? A rainy day? The next owners? A sign from God delivered by butterfly during a rare Super Flower Blood Moon?

Also, can we talk about “secret rooms” in the FBI for a sec? Because I was under the impression that the agency itself was the secret room. Like… isn’t the whole complex already where the secrets live? Why do we need a secret “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility” inside the secret place? Who is in charge of deciding which secrets need to be extra-secret? Is there a guy with a clipboard going, “Okay, this feels like a regular secret… but this one? This one’s going to need to be reduced to ash. For now, stick it in a room no one knows exists inside a building nobody can access”?

And on that note, do you mean to tell me that the FBI—the nation’s most powerful investigative arm—actually has a formal system in place for destroying potentially incriminating records… and then sometimes forgets to use it? That’s not federal policy. That’s a scene from The Naked Gun.

“Everything will be exposed,” Patel promised, before the world got so busy with ICE raids and UFOs and WWIII that we all just sort of forgot about it.

Fast forward to now, and thanks to a Judicial Watch lawsuit, we have something slightly more concrete than internet chatter: a federal court filing confirming that the FBI is indeed sitting on somewhere between one and two million pages of records—all largely ignored since the Comey era—and estimating it could take up to a year just to process them.

“A few burn bag documents were released to the public, but most were not,” Texas Border Business—the lone interested media outlet—reported. “Along with newly disclosed material from the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence, the documents, Judicial Watch noted, added weight ‘to charges that starting in 2016, top government figures, including then-President Barack Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden, [FBI Director James] Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Hillary Clinton and others conspired to protect the Clinton presidential candidacy, defame candidate Donald Trump, and later destroy his presidency.’”

I know. These things take time. Of course they do. But we’ve now reached the point where Judicial Watch—basically a FOIA request with a pulse—got tired of waiting for the FBI to investigate itself and is in court trying to force a timeline for release. (I’m sure half a million citizen journalists would gladly volunteer to review a few pages apiece. Just a suggestion.)

Here’s what’s weird, though: if these documents really do point to sweeping nefariousness tied directly to Democrats, you’d expect a sprint to release them, not a bureaucratic jog. I get that there are processes—classification reviews, interagency sign-offs, a million pages of paperwork that don’t exactly scan themselves—but still. When your entire brand is “we’re the ones who will finally show you everything,” you’d think this would look a little less like a retirement project and a little more like a priority.

Just to recap: federal investigators found a hidden room—possibly several—within a secure facility. Stashed in this surprise find were reams of damning documents that were labeled to be destroyed. Except they never were. Nor were they released. They were just relegated to paperwork purgatory by Clipboard Guy and left to rot.

Which leaves us with a few familiar possibilities: Perhaps this is just bureaucracy moving at the speed of, well, bureaucracy. Maybe it’s more of that Byzantine 5D chess we keep hearing about and there’s a strategic reason for the dramatic slow roll. It’s possible they unearthed something truly explosive and are trying to figure out how to handle it without blowing up the entire federal government. Or—and I say this with love—there’s always the chance we’re watching the same political tap-dance we’ve been complaining about for the last decade, just with different dancers.

Here’s the part my inner Pollyanna begged me to point out: yes, Patel is running the FBI—but he’s still running the FBI. The same institution, the same processes, the same layers of procedural molasses that don’t magically disappear just because new management hung a different sign on the door.

Which would be a perfectly reasonable explanation—except “slow and methodical” was never part of the “we’re gonna blow the doors off this place” sales pitch—the one we bought into, argued for, and maybe even felt a little smug about.

Judicial Watch is demanding the FBI and DOJ release what they have. Not a teaser. Not a timeline. Every last page. Swiftly and completely. As of now, what we’ve got is confirmation that the documents exist… and a sternly-worded demand for disclosure. Another “the smoking gun is sitting on my desk” moment—followed immediately by “but you can’t see it yet.” If that feels weirdly familiar, it’s because it is. Apparently, transparency—like those healthy, deep-fried Oreos—hasn’t quite been mastered yet.

Leave a comment

The tip jar is always open!

You’ll never guess which side favors the flimsier definition when it comes to voting by mail.

(Interestingly, the word “deadline” originated during the American Civil War, when it referred to a literal line that prisoners couldn’t cross without being shot dead by a guard. Not really a lot of room for interpretation there.)

Anyway, this week, the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether mail-in ballots that show up a few leisurely rotations of the Earth after Election Day should still count—as long as they were dropped in the box on time—prompting several justices to ask, in so many words, if the deadline is actually the deadline plus five days, isn’t that just a new deadline?

Conservatives believe ballots need to be received on or before Election Day. Period. Not “my assistant swears she mailed it on Monday.” Not “floating somewhere in the USPS abyss with good intentions.” Received. By the day we have collectively recognized—since 1845—as Election Day.

Liberals are acting like this is a shocking new development rolled out by MAGA to disenfranchise as many voters as possible. A cruel and unusual burden. An impossible standard. “What if there are mail delays?” they cry, as if the United States Postal Service just sprung into existence last week and we have absolutely no historical data on how long it takes to get a piece of mail from Point A to Point B. “What about early voting?” they gasp, because clearly the concept of a voting window that closes at a specific, predetermined point is just too complex to wrap their heads around.

You know what else has deadlines? Everything.

Your mortgage. Your credit card bill. Homework. School enrollment. Tax filings. Airline check-ins. Hotel check-outs. College applications. Vehicle registrations. Subscription free trials. Amazon returns. If you miss those, no one shrugs and says, “Well, she meant to pay her Visa bill on time, so let’s just go ahead and count it.” No, you get a late fee, a penalty, or a polite-but-firm “too bad.” Because that’s how deadlines work. They are, fundamentally, not suggestions.

But with elections, we’re supposed to pretend time is a loose concept. “Well, it was mailed by Election Day!” Sorry, doesn’t count. Should’ve mailed it earlier. This is not a surprise party. No one is sneaking up behind you on November whatever-it-is yelling, “Gotcha! It’s voting day!” We know when it is. We’ve always known when it is. It’s the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Has been for nearly two centuries. Worried about your vote arriving in time? Here’s a thought: Build in a buffer like a functioning adult.

Republicans are not floating some radical new restriction here. Mail-in voting wasn’t designed for procrastinators. It started during the Civil War so that soldiers—who were, you know, actively on battlefields—could still cast their ballots. Over time, states expanded absentee voting to people who were genuinely unable to show up in person: the elderly, the ill, those traveling, overseas military. You had to request a ballot. You had to have a reason. And—brace yourself—you had to plan ahead. It worked just fine.

Over the years—almost always in response to “wartime necessity”—the system got stretched. First it was mainly for active military. Then anyone “vulnerable to attack” who might be afraid to leave home on Election Day. Then traveling salesmen and railroad employees. As people became more mobile, rules loosened. Exceptions multiplied. Deadlines blurred. And then Covid hit—remember how they constantly compared it to a war?—and we were all supposed to pretend the virus would kill us all if we stood in line together to vote (but not if we were positioned on a little yellow arrow in a grocery store six feet away from the next shopper, sitting maskless in a crowded restaurant, or part of a BLM protest). In other words, what started as a practical accommodation turned into a postal free-for-all that election scholars will be debating until the sun burns out.

You may recall Election Night in 2020, when Trump had a solid lead over Biden in several key swing states. By morning, supposedly as mail-in ballots were counted, all four states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia—had flipped. “Republicans vote in person and early!” the left shouted. “Nothing to see here!” Legit or not, the whole mess left lots of Americans with exactly zero faith in election integrity. (Except the Vees of the world, who lost that ages ago and refuse to partake in the puppet pageant at all.)

Call me crazy, but what if we went back to what actually made sense: in-person voting as the default. If you can get to the grocery store, Target, your kid’s soccer game, or the gastroenterologist’s office for your colonoscopy, you can get to a polling place. Make it a national, PTO holiday. For those who genuinely can’t (see above) appear in the flesh, absolutely, allow exceptions. But make them actual exceptions. Apply in advance. Get approved. Mail your submission back by a clear, firm, not-even-close-to-the-deadline date so we’re not all sitting around waiting for ballots to casually wander in like dads in Home Depot.

This is not voter suppression. It’s basic organization.

We are capable of astonishing logistical feats in this country. We can track a $7 Amazon package in real time as it makes its way from a warehouse in Denver to a front porch in Poughkeepsie. We can file taxes electronically, transfer money instantly, and order sushi from our phones at a red light. But asking people to mail a ballot a week or two early? Suddenly we’re all helpless Victorian orphans at the mercy of the Pony Express. I’m going to tiptoe right out on a limb here and say that deadlines only work if they mean something—and Election Day is hardly a moving target.

Here’s the best part: we may not even know what the rules are until June. As in, months before the midterms. States are already scrambling to prepare for a system they don’t fully understand yet, trying to explain it to voters who, according to election officials themselves, need to hear something a dozen or more times before it sticks. So we’ve managed to create a process where the deadline is negotiable, the rules are fluid, and the instructions are TBD… but we’re all supposed to feel extremely confident in the outcome.

Good luck with that.

Can’t wait to hear your collective thoughts! :)

Leave a comment

The bookstore/tip jar lives here.

When my daughters were little, American Girl dolls were all the rage. They were far from cheap—back then, pushing $100 apiece, but they came with a book!—so each daughter had exactly one. (Of course the clothes and accessories cost as much as full-size human fittings, so I’d do my best to find those, pre-loved, on eBay). In theory, I was all in. A doll that actually looked like the child playing with it and not an anatomically impossible pin-up girl with a lifelong commitment to stilettos? Novel. Refreshing. Sign me up! The fact that the company managed to sneak historical lessons into playtime like literary carrot muffins was a Clinique gift-with-purchase-level extra.

For not the first time this decade, I’m on my knees thanking the Lord that my babies are grown. Because it’s entirely possible they would have asked for the American Girl Eid a-Fitr Celebration Outfit for their birthdays—the thing comes with a hot pink rhinestone-studded headscarf, for crying out loud, of course they would have asked for it!—and then we’d be having an ugly conversation not about historical oppression, but oppression that is very much alive today and extremely busy weaving itself into the fabric of our society.

And obviously, you’re a jerk if you say that last part out loud.

Read more

(Is it exhausting being right all the time? Asking for a friend.)

It’s a terrifying thought. After all, Iran is not some digital outlier under extreme scrutiny. Here in the U.S., we’ve got cameras in classrooms, at checkouts, on intersections, outside stores, inside elevators, in neighborhoods, on front doors, over our babies’ cribs, in parking garages, on our computers, in our hands, and sometimes strapped to our faces virtually 24/7. We are, at this point, a species that has collectively decided to film itself from every conceivable angle and then upload it to the cloud like that’s a completely neutral decision with no possible downstream consequences.

We’re cute.

What’s funny (in the way a carbon monoxide leak is funny) is that the Continuous Tracking™ brochure frames our nonstop documentation as a feature. A security upgrade. Another way to keep us “safe.” It was bad enough when we only had to worry about what our own corrupt government was doing with all of our data; now we’ve got to plan around hijackers, too?

With all due respect, of course we do! On what planet is “if you’re wearing a KICK ME sign, someone’s going to take you up on it” a shocking revelation?

Because in reality, we’re not talking about some elite, impenetrable, sci-fi surveillance grid here. We’re talking about millions of internet-connected cameras—many of which are, according to actual cybersecurity experts, “trivially easy to hack.” As in: not Ocean’s Eleven. More like your nephew after two YouTube tutorials.

What’s almost impressive—in a deeply concerning way—is how often unauthorized access doesn’t involve some sophisticated, high-tech tool or elite-level training. Instead, it relies on something both simple and abundant: laziness. Outdated software. Default passwords. Permissions handed out like party favors. Entire networks of cameras basically sitting there like, “Hi, welcome, please enjoy this live feed of everything.”

“Companies have advertised cameras hooked up online, accessible with cellphones, with feeds easily diverted by hackers,” NewsNation wrote. “Many are installed with minimal security by unsophisticated users who fail to set up passwords or install security patches. Securing cameras takes constant vigilance, but hacking them takes identifying just one exposed vulnerability, such as an outdated system or a generic password like ‘1234.’

One expert literally described vulnerable feeds as “fish in a barrel,” which is not the phrase you want associated with your national security strategy.

And just to make things extra efficient for the cyber intruders, we’ve layered AI on top of all of it, so instead of being forced to painstakingly review footage for weeks, now anyone can just… search it. Instantly. People, patterns, vehicles, routines—pulled up like you’re summoning a restaurant reservation.

In other words, this isn’t just a wartime problem. This is a “we built a global, always-on, poorly secured camera network and then acted surprised when someone used it” problem. War just happens to be the moment when the stakes got high enough that everyone suddenly noticed.

The issue isn’t that cameras exist. At this point, that ship has sailed, circled back, and installed three more cameras on itself. The issue is that once the system is in place—once everything is recorded, stored, and searchable—you don’t get to decide who ultimately accesses it.

Which brings us to the part where everyone starts wondering what, exactly, we’re supposed to do with this information. And the answer is: probably less than your most anxious instinct is telling you (throw your phone into the nearest lake and move to a yurt in the forest), and slightly more than your most relaxed instinct would prefer (tell yourself, “I’m boring, nobody’s watching me.”). In other words, it’s less panic immediately and more maybe don’t set your password to password and call it a day.

You don’t need to install a moat and fill it with alligators to protect your home—you just need to not be the easiest house on the block to break into. Putting up a few motion lights, closing the garage door, and not “hiding” a spare key under the doormat will likely send ninety-nine percent of perps looking for an easier target. Your digital life isn’t all that different. If you leave the front door unlocked, don’t be surprised when someone lets themself in.

So, yeah. Cover your camera when you’re not using it. Suck it up and set up the annoying two-factor authentication. Take five minutes and see what apps actually have access to your camera and microphone. Update your security software like an actual grown-up. Replace that password you’ve used 2,386 times since 2004 with something that’s not your dog’s name or your date of birth. Stop clicking “allow” like it’s a SKIP TO RECIPE button and ask yourself if the app in question really needs to know your location. Try to be just a little less… hackable. You’re not paranoid; you’re paying attention.

As always, LMK how you voted in the comments!

Leave a comment

Tips welcome!

Welcome to week five of the congressional game of chicken.

For thirty-five consecutive days, roughly 50,000 TSA agents have been working without pay as Congress continues its standoff over a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (which includes TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, Border Patrol, the Secret Service and more). It turns out, the vast majority of DHS employees are classified as “essential” workers—which, in practice, means they fall somewhere between air traffic controllers and ER surgeons on the importance scale, but apparently somewhere below Congress on the getting-paid scale. Go figure.

Democrats have refused to sign off on the funding bill without major immigration enforcement policy reform. Republicans say they’ve agreed to considerable changes already—but refuse to greenlight a number of key Democrat demands (like banning ICE agents from wearing masks, which they believe are critical to protecting federal officers from being identified and harassed).

In the meantime, no paychecks go out… not because the government is out of money—well it is, but it has the planet’s fastest currency printer—or the Office of Personnel Management misplaced the Venmo password, but because without an approved budget, the Antideficiency Act makes it illegal to pay federal employees. (It’s actually not quite as bad as it sounds; federal law guarantees all employees receive retroactive back pay once funding is restored. The problem is, not many can afford to be on the work-now-get-paid-eventually plan for long.)

Can we just acknowledge how completely insane this setup is? Only in America could the government look you dead in the eye and say, “Your job is so vital to national security that not showing up for work is literally not an option, ever,” while also sneaking a clause into your employment contract that says “also if we’re acting like big, fat babies and can’t get along, we don’t have to pay you until after we make up.”

Who signed off on this? Who was in the strategic planning meeting and said, “I know, let’s define ‘essential’ as ‘no matter what we do—including but not limited to temporarily turning your role into a volunteer position and removing your ability to participate in the economy entirely—you must continue clocking in,’” and everyone else just nodded and then they all went to lunch?

I guess government has never attracted the best and brightest.

Anyway, here we are: with spring break in full swing, security lines looking like mosh pits, TSA no-show rates as high as 40% in some major airports, and hundreds of agents rage-quitting because—shockingly—people tend to enjoy being paid for their labor.

If government dysfunction were an Olympic sport, we’d be setting world records (and then probably refusing to certify them).

In a Trumpian twist that’s both ironic and iconic, POTUS announced that starting today, he’ll be sending in Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to assist skeleton TSA crews with security screening. Yes, ICE—the same agency at the center of the entire standoff—is being positioned inside airports (as in, places specifically designed for people entering and leaving the country).

“This is about helping TSA do their mission and get the American public through that airport as quick[ly] as they can, while adhering to all the security guidelines and protocols,” White House Border Czar Tom Homan said in an interview.

Democrats, as you might imagine, are less than thrilled. “The last thing the American people need is for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports across the country potentially to brutalize or to kill them [emphasis mine],” Representative Hakeem Jeffries told CNN’s Dana Bash dramatically yesterday—effectively recasting something travelers normally find highly reassuring as something that’s supposed to evoke existential dread: ‘Oh, crap, they’ve got federal law enforcement agents here. Well, this probably ends in a fatality.’

If only there were a billionaire somewhere with the resources to casually underwrite the federal government so workers could still get paid while lawmakers pout and play stalling games!

Oh, wait.

“I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country,” Elon Musk posted on his own platform on Saturday, presumably between launching rockets and tweeting memes.

NOTE: Grok estimated this little move would cost the almost-trillionaire a mere $7 million a day until the shutdown is, well, shut down. If the impasse dragged on for a full year, we’re talking $2.5 billion—which is still less than .3 percent of Musk’s loose-change pile.

Of course, there are a few logistical issues with the rocket man’s patently generous offer. For one thing, there’s the small matter of whether a private citizen—even one with the net worth of a mid-sized country—can legally fund federal employees. (Spoiler: not easily. The money would have to go through the Treasury, Congress would have to approve it, and the whole thing would have to be sprinkled with virgin unicorn tears and then notarized by seven committees and a subcommittee.)

But let’s not get bogged down in technicalities. The real question for the left is philosophical: Which is worse? Do you want ICE agents—whom you’ve repeatedly described as inhumane, dangerous, and fundamentally incompatible with civilized society—running airport security? (I mean, you just know that one agent is going to find a pair of rogue nail clippers on some dude and promptly deport him.) Or do you want Elon Musk—the guy who bought a social media platform and immediately turned it into a free-speech free-for-all—cleaning up your petty mess? Because those appear to be the choices currently on the menu.

It’s almost poetic, really. In their effort to block immigration enforcement funding, Democrats have managed to create a scenario where the only immediate fixes are either expanding the presence of the very agency they oppose… or accepting financial rescue from a man most of them despise. This is not what game theorists would call a “win.”

Over the very busy weekend, Democrats floated what they proposed as a seemingly-reasonable compromise: a standalone vote to fund TSA immediately and deal with the rest later. Republicans swiftly rejected it—not because they oppose paying TSA salaries, but because they don’t want to separate TSA funding from the bigger DHS fight. From their perspective, once you solve the problem everyone’s up in arms about, the urgency to fix everything else mysteriously disappears. From the Democratic side, tying TSA pay to immigration policy is the problem. Frustratingly, neither is wrong.

So the bill failed, security lines are still insane, agents are still unpaid, and both camps are accusing the other of holding the country hostage—while the actual hostages are stuck in security, barefoot, clutching Ziploc bags of toiletries. At this point, the only thing moving faster than the TSA line is the blame.

LMK what you think (and if you plan to travel anytime soon hahahaha my oldest daughter is in the air as you read) in the comments!

Leave a comment

Something like that seems to have happened this week at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a certain judge stepped on a legal Lego and snapped.

The saga involves Olympus Spa, a Korean-style women’s wellness center in Washington state offering traditional body scrubs, communal baths, saunas, and massages. The relevant detail here is that for the most part, patrons are full monty the entire time. As in buck naked. Completely clothes-free. Clad in nothing but what the good Lord dropped them off here in.

For this very reason, the spa—from its inception—declared itself a space for women only. I can’t believe I have to qualify this, but by women I mean actual women. As in, humans born with milk-producing mammary ducts and fallopian tubes and wholly unburdened by testicles.

You already know where this is going.

The spa’s longstanding policy eventually collided with Washington state’s Law Against Discrimination when a possible pervert delusional dude biological male who identifies as female was refused admission. His little feelings predictably bruised, Danyell (*not his real name) reported Olympus to the Washington State Human Rights Commission, which in turn accused the spa of violating the state’s public-accommodation law.

The spa pushed back, arguing that being forced to admit biological men into a nude female-only facility violated their First Amendment rights, including freedom of religion and freedom of association. (Not to mention freedom of common freaking sense.)

Before I go any further, I have a burning rhetorical question: Who are these people? Who are the supposedly sentient beings who feel entitled to red carpet treatment in places they’re patently unwelcome? Forget about gender for a second. Imagine a hard-core carnivore waltzing into a vegan restaurant swinging a lamb shank or a guy wearing tap shoes bringing a leaf blower into a silent retreat. Why does one man’s right to be rude or delusional trump the rest of the planet’s right to peacefully go about their lives? Sorry, I digress.

The Ninth Circuit Court somehow sided with the fully intact biological man who wanted to bathe nude with minors. The three-judge panel ruled that running a spa is a commercial service—not a constitutionally protected activity. In other words, once you open your doors, you don’t get to decide who walks through them—even if your entire business model is, quite literally, based on who is and is not allowed in the room.

To be fair, the court would say this isn’t about anatomy, it’s about access. And my dad really did buy Playboy for the articles.

In the 2-to-1 decision, Trump-appointed judge Lawrence VanDyke was the sole voice of reason, sanity, and—ultimately—profane hilarity.

***Delicate readers who are offended by common slang terms for body parts—specifically genitalia—may wish to skip to the poll at the end or abandon this post altogether***

In a… memorable dissent explaining why he disagreed with the ruling, VanDyke wryly wrote:

“This is a case about swinging dicks. The Christian owners of Olympus Spa—a traditional Korean, women-only, nude spa—understandably don’t want them in their spa. Their female employees and female clients don’t want them in their spa either. But Washington State insists on them. And now so does the Ninth Circuit.

As much as you might understandably be shocked and displeased to merely encounter that phrase in this opinion, I hope we all can agree that it is far more jarring for the unsuspecting and exposed women at Olympus Spa—some as young as thirteen—to be visually assaulted by the real thing.”

In other words—the man snapped. I’m not even mad.

Alas, Judge “swinging dick” VanDyke’s comment was not well-received around the water cooler. Judge Mary Margaret McKeown, who wrote the majority opinion dismissing the spa’s complaint, wrote a response—supported by 28 other judges—accusing VanDyke of “ignoring ordinary principles of dignity and civility” with his “crude and vitriolic language.”

This is a woman, I’ll gently remind my readers, who just cheerfully used the full weight of her judicial authority to declare that any person who has a penis but wishes he didn’t (or claims to wish he didn’t) is welcome to go skinny dipping with the gals. But please, Ms. McKeown, tell us more about dignity and civility. Clearly you’re an expert.

Judge VanDyke didn’t back down after the verbal spanking by his peers—he doubled down.

“I’ll respond briefly to my colleagues’ discomfort with how I’ve written this dissent. My distressed colleagues appear to have the fastidious sensibilities of a Victorian nun when it comes to mere unpleasant words in my opinion, yet exhibit the scruples of our dearly departed colleague Judge Reinhardt when it comes to the government trampling on religious liberties and exposing women and girls to male genitalia. That kind of selective outrage speaks for itself. The public deserves a court that is actually trustworthy. We should be earning that trust, not demanding it like petty tyrants.”

You can argue all day long about whether VanDyke’s response was appropriate for a man of his position, but is that really the point? Should the bench be held to some quixotic standard where slang isn’t allowed to exist? Would it have been acceptable if he’d written “pendulous phalluses” or “oscillating intromittent organs?” Is the crowd who literally cannot define the word woman actually trying to make this about semantics?

This is the part of the story where I always find myself smacking my forehead on my desk and asking, how did we even get here? Not in the “how did this literal case wind its way through the courts” sense… but how did humanity collectively arrive at a place where the law can look directly at a room full of naked women—including minors—and say, with a straight face, that the only relevant consideration is whether that one guy feels entitled to be there?

Obviously, that didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of years of inch-by-inch concessions, semantic gymnastics, and a cultural shift so aggressive that basic biology is now treated like a fringe opinion held by people who probably churn their own butter. And at every step along the way, anyone who dared to raise a hand and say, “Wait… are we sure about this?” was dismissed as dramatic. Or bigoted. Or behind the times. And so the line kept moving. Slowly. Relentlessly. Until one day we woke up and realized the line wasn’t just blurred—it was gone entirely.

We’ve got men in our locker rooms. Men in our sports. Men in our bathing suits and our gynecologists’ offices and our makeup commercials. I mean, if a female-only nude business can’t draw a line at biological sex, what space can? It’s not a question of where this stops—because clearly no category or context is immune—but when?

If you ask me, this boil on humanity’s backside is going to fester until women—actual, reality-based, ovary-carrying women—put our perfectly pedicured feet down. When we stop supporting businesses and brands that openly insult us to our faces. Not the ones—like Olympus Spa—that are valiantly trying to fight for our rights, but the companies that have no problem offending us in an effort not to offend the statistically tiny minority of the population that woke culture has decided is more deserving of respect than we are. Think Target and H&M and Maybelline and MAC and Nike and Chanel and Calvin Klein and Diesel and Urban Outfitters and the list goes on and on.

And that’s exactly the problem. If we boycott every company that refuses to acknowledge two distinct sexes, we’re going to need to whip out our sewing machines and start crushing flower petals to make lip stain.

I’m in if you guys ladies are.

For now, the Ninth Circuit’s ridiculous ruling stands, and Olympus Spa remains in a legal fight that may eventually reach the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, somewhere in the federal judiciary, at least one judge appears to have officially reached his breaking point. I feel him. And sorry if you were offended, but I’m here for it.

LMK if I’m crazy—theoretically at least—in the comments.

Leave a comment

buy me a coffee

P.S. If you’re not following the brilliant and passionate Jennifer Sey and this topic matters to you, you might want to remedy that immediately. Check out her latest video: