Tom, I know these good ole FARM people. And I don't mean in that abstract, sociological "I've studied the heartland" way that coastal writers love to pretend makes them experts. I mean I share DNA with them. They're the ones whose Christmas cards I pretend get lost in the mail, the ones whose proudest possession is a framed photo of them beaming next to Mike Pence—you remember him, the former VP who discovered that "Hang Mike Pence" wasn't just a catchy campaign slogan. These are my people, and right now they're in a scene playing out in one of those depressing midwestern diners where they serve coffee that tastes like it was filtered through a gym sock and toast that's always just a touch too burned. There's a man—and it's always a man—sitting at the counter in his pristine MAGA hat (purchased, no doubt, at full retail despite all his complaints about inflation). He's having what I can only describe as an existential crisis over his eggs over easy.
You see, it's finally dawning on him that maybe, just maybe, hitching his wagon to a star that turned out to be a black hole wasn't the smartest move. The realization is spreading across his face like the margarine spreading across his mediocre biscuit—slowly, unevenly, and with diminishing returns.
This is the kind of mistake that makes marrying the wrong person look like a minor faux pas. It's beyond "I thought I could pull off bangs at forty" territory (though I've been there, and let me tell you, that's not pretty either). This is more in the realm of "I thought that raw fish from the Shell station would make a nice midnight snack" combined with "Maybe this Nigerian prince really does need my help."
And the truly delicious part? Fox News can't spin this one away. Not with all the hair spray in Roger Ailes' old supply closet. The crowd that's been gleefully "owning the libs" while waving flags of failed rebellions is about to learn a lesson that the rest of us mastered somewhere around kindergarten: Actions, as it turns out, have consequences. Who knew?
Well, actually, we all knew. Even my cousin Darleen knew, deep down, though she'd rather die than admit it at the Sunday potluck where that Pence photo holds pride of place between the sweet tea dispenser and her famous "Make Casseroles Great Again" green bean creation. Every single person who's ever read a book that wasn't ghost-written by a reality TV star knew. But try telling that to someone who thinks "doing their own research" means watching YouTube videos in their car while parked outside a Cracker Barrel.
The irony is thicker than the gravy on that man's biscuit, and about as hard to swallow. But unlike that gravy, this situation isn't going to get any better as it cools off.
Yeah, I came from them, too. Figured out by age 10 I didn't have to stay forever and was gone 4 days after HS graduation, to return a total 40 days in the next 30 years. The dumbasses I was in school with were morons then and have gone downhill from there since.
I stuck it out for two years at junior college, juggling classes and a job so I could eventually afford a real university—somewhere far, far away. I knew, even then, that I could never live there again. It wasn’t just the place; it was the people. I had nothing in common with them. They talked about things that didn’t interest me, cared about things that baffled me, and seemed perfectly content to stay put forever. I, on the other hand, was already halfway out the door.
Love your take on our world today. At least the cretins have generated some creativity that I hadn’t noticed before. As Greg Olear noted in his Last Sunday Pages, art is what the artist does, and sometimes, doesn’t do. Can’t wait to see what comes next, or doesn’t…
You pretty much nailed what’s going on. If we ever get to a position where this maladministration can be legally ousted (which doesn’t look likely now,) they should impeach Trump, Vance and the whole cabinet!
Thanks TC for doing such a great job keeping us informed. Also sane and sometimes even laughing. 2 additional pieces of news of the good variety—Glenn Kirschner will be joining Substack. His announcement and future plans are on his YouTube channel. Also Joyce Vance will do a zoom interview with Stacey Abrams on Wednesday night. The link to sign up is at the end of her latest column. These three people have a world of experience as lawyers and are outstanding explainers of the law. The more truth tellers we listen to, the better off we are. Justice matters. Truth matters. Honesty matters. 🤮🤡🎃💩🤮
Great stuff (as usual TC)!!! Keep the focus on this herd of jackals. Please keep the names of the “Senators” who have foisted this mess upon us. If McConnell wasn’t wimped out by certain pressures (instead of DOING WHAT HE WAS ELECTED TO DO) none of this crap would be happening!! Can we make a National Sissy Board with all their names on it??? I hope someone does. 🙏
If the Supreme Court rule in favor of the orange felon won’t they be putting themselves out of a job? Along with the spineless blobs that support him in Congress? No need for the judiciary or the legislature in a dictatorship, just a group of oligarchs and sycophants that may or may not fall from a 10th floor window.
I wonder if the average person realizes what is going on? It's less than a month and the price of everything keeps going up. It's going to blow up soon. Maxed out credit cards, people losing their jobs, the list goes on. Elon (and to a lesser extent Theil, Vance's guru) are rummaging through the government like bargain hunters at an estate sale. This is Grover Norquist's 12-year-old wet dream come true. (Makes me wish I had a time machine to go back to 1972 and pay some high school girl to give the 68-year-old virgin a blow job) Trump is a front, an Osato to Elon's Blofeld ("You Only Live Twice"). If there's no money to pay to pay the banks and credit card companies, then what?
My son-in-law heard a person at the next table today comment that Biden had already ruined the economy....while they were eating in a restaurant! I said you should have ask the person where they heard that...and he said he didn't want to cause a problem in the restaurant. Then on the NBC evening news I heard Stephen Miller comment on FOX that our personal information at the treasury had not been compromised....LOL I wonder how many people believed him????? I sure didn't! He has creeped me out since the first time I saw him! Grrrrrr!
I knew the Palin MAGAt bitch would whine, next will be McCarthy. Both should be tarred and feathered. They really are Nazis of the first order. And proud of their evil. Just wonder if Vlad is Nazi-like in any way besides killing off his opponents and screwing smaller countries. I guess gulags can sub as concentration camps…
Regarding Jamie Raskin's appearance on Face the Nation yesterday, I watched that interview - and was heartened by it.
And I've been saying for some time now that if the Dems win back both houses of Congress, I fully expect a third impeachment. And yes, I fully expect third time will be a charm.
All that assumes other currently unimaginable cataclysmic changes don't occur within the basic structure of the US Government and/or the Constitution.
Dear Dilbert: In case you hadn't noticed, the Founding Fathers didn't write the 14th Amendment. And you are scared that BABIES are going to take over the country?
I wonder how many people nowadays actually know on what day Washington was born? The "official" US holiday designation is "Washington's Birthday." When future historians try to reconstruct history from the fragments left behind by trumpism, they will be puzzled: Was he born on the 17th? or the 19th? Or the 16th?
Major trump statue should clearly be used to try to plug whatever oil spills result from Drill Baby Drill.
I do hope the schools that got the Dear Colleague letter realize that they cannot consider "white" as a criteria for anything. That is, last heard, a race. So if a Black is hired over a white, the school can just say that they couldn't give a preference to the White because of, y'know, race. Also, if the chess club consists of only white kids, it must be banned. Not to mention any celebration of St. Patrick's Day.
US Attorney appointments must have the advice and consent of the Senate. Eddie's hearings should be humdingers.
Palin, gone and forgotten but still full of herself. How is she supporting herself? With an Alaska state pension? I love how these maga anti-government politicians will blissfully take those pensions and benefits, especially now that they are doing nothing more than showing up on Fox and various right wing podcasts.
Thanks for stuffing all the bad news irritants into one report that I can print out, wad up, bite hard, and kick down the stairs.
You delivered the goods again---and the opening quote is one of a kind (except Churchill had more than a few of these). Where is our Churchill to summon the troops, inspire the people, and lead a country through dark clouds, near destruction, and final victory??????? More Churchill, less "Napoleon"!
God bless Jamie Raskin! Lardass belongs in a dungeon.
A very deep, dark dungeon.
Tom, I know these good ole FARM people. And I don't mean in that abstract, sociological "I've studied the heartland" way that coastal writers love to pretend makes them experts. I mean I share DNA with them. They're the ones whose Christmas cards I pretend get lost in the mail, the ones whose proudest possession is a framed photo of them beaming next to Mike Pence—you remember him, the former VP who discovered that "Hang Mike Pence" wasn't just a catchy campaign slogan. These are my people, and right now they're in a scene playing out in one of those depressing midwestern diners where they serve coffee that tastes like it was filtered through a gym sock and toast that's always just a touch too burned. There's a man—and it's always a man—sitting at the counter in his pristine MAGA hat (purchased, no doubt, at full retail despite all his complaints about inflation). He's having what I can only describe as an existential crisis over his eggs over easy.
You see, it's finally dawning on him that maybe, just maybe, hitching his wagon to a star that turned out to be a black hole wasn't the smartest move. The realization is spreading across his face like the margarine spreading across his mediocre biscuit—slowly, unevenly, and with diminishing returns.
This is the kind of mistake that makes marrying the wrong person look like a minor faux pas. It's beyond "I thought I could pull off bangs at forty" territory (though I've been there, and let me tell you, that's not pretty either). This is more in the realm of "I thought that raw fish from the Shell station would make a nice midnight snack" combined with "Maybe this Nigerian prince really does need my help."
And the truly delicious part? Fox News can't spin this one away. Not with all the hair spray in Roger Ailes' old supply closet. The crowd that's been gleefully "owning the libs" while waving flags of failed rebellions is about to learn a lesson that the rest of us mastered somewhere around kindergarten: Actions, as it turns out, have consequences. Who knew?
Well, actually, we all knew. Even my cousin Darleen knew, deep down, though she'd rather die than admit it at the Sunday potluck where that Pence photo holds pride of place between the sweet tea dispenser and her famous "Make Casseroles Great Again" green bean creation. Every single person who's ever read a book that wasn't ghost-written by a reality TV star knew. But try telling that to someone who thinks "doing their own research" means watching YouTube videos in their car while parked outside a Cracker Barrel.
The irony is thicker than the gravy on that man's biscuit, and about as hard to swallow. But unlike that gravy, this situation isn't going to get any better as it cools off.
They voted for him? You reap what you sow.
Yeah, I came from them, too. Figured out by age 10 I didn't have to stay forever and was gone 4 days after HS graduation, to return a total 40 days in the next 30 years. The dumbasses I was in school with were morons then and have gone downhill from there since.
I stuck it out for two years at junior college, juggling classes and a job so I could eventually afford a real university—somewhere far, far away. I knew, even then, that I could never live there again. It wasn’t just the place; it was the people. I had nothing in common with them. They talked about things that didn’t interest me, cared about things that baffled me, and seemed perfectly content to stay put forever. I, on the other hand, was already halfway out the door.
Love your take on our world today. At least the cretins have generated some creativity that I hadn’t noticed before. As Greg Olear noted in his Last Sunday Pages, art is what the artist does, and sometimes, doesn’t do. Can’t wait to see what comes next, or doesn’t…
Same
You pretty much nailed what’s going on. If we ever get to a position where this maladministration can be legally ousted (which doesn’t look likely now,) they should impeach Trump, Vance and the whole cabinet!
Your methods are too kind, I fear.
Thanks TC for doing such a great job keeping us informed. Also sane and sometimes even laughing. 2 additional pieces of news of the good variety—Glenn Kirschner will be joining Substack. His announcement and future plans are on his YouTube channel. Also Joyce Vance will do a zoom interview with Stacey Abrams on Wednesday night. The link to sign up is at the end of her latest column. These three people have a world of experience as lawyers and are outstanding explainers of the law. The more truth tellers we listen to, the better off we are. Justice matters. Truth matters. Honesty matters. 🤮🤡🎃💩🤮
Great stuff (as usual TC)!!! Keep the focus on this herd of jackals. Please keep the names of the “Senators” who have foisted this mess upon us. If McConnell wasn’t wimped out by certain pressures (instead of DOING WHAT HE WAS ELECTED TO DO) none of this crap would be happening!! Can we make a National Sissy Board with all their names on it??? I hope someone does. 🙏
If the Supreme Court rule in favor of the orange felon won’t they be putting themselves out of a job? Along with the spineless blobs that support him in Congress? No need for the judiciary or the legislature in a dictatorship, just a group of oligarchs and sycophants that may or may not fall from a 10th floor window.
At least one thing isn't happening, I called my Congresswoman and for the first time got an answering machine.
It's a holiday...
I still couldn’t get to mine.Mailboxes were “ full” with no ability to leave a message.
Thanks Tom. Edifying and
entertaining. Not My
President Day.
I wonder if the average person realizes what is going on? It's less than a month and the price of everything keeps going up. It's going to blow up soon. Maxed out credit cards, people losing their jobs, the list goes on. Elon (and to a lesser extent Theil, Vance's guru) are rummaging through the government like bargain hunters at an estate sale. This is Grover Norquist's 12-year-old wet dream come true. (Makes me wish I had a time machine to go back to 1972 and pay some high school girl to give the 68-year-old virgin a blow job) Trump is a front, an Osato to Elon's Blofeld ("You Only Live Twice"). If there's no money to pay to pay the banks and credit card companies, then what?
My son-in-law heard a person at the next table today comment that Biden had already ruined the economy....while they were eating in a restaurant! I said you should have ask the person where they heard that...and he said he didn't want to cause a problem in the restaurant. Then on the NBC evening news I heard Stephen Miller comment on FOX that our personal information at the treasury had not been compromised....LOL I wonder how many people believed him????? I sure didn't! He has creeped me out since the first time I saw him! Grrrrrr!
I knew the Palin MAGAt bitch would whine, next will be McCarthy. Both should be tarred and feathered. They really are Nazis of the first order. And proud of their evil. Just wonder if Vlad is Nazi-like in any way besides killing off his opponents and screwing smaller countries. I guess gulags can sub as concentration camps…
Regarding Jamie Raskin's appearance on Face the Nation yesterday, I watched that interview - and was heartened by it.
And I've been saying for some time now that if the Dems win back both houses of Congress, I fully expect a third impeachment. And yes, I fully expect third time will be a charm.
All that assumes other currently unimaginable cataclysmic changes don't occur within the basic structure of the US Government and/or the Constitution.
I hope you are right!
Dear Dilbert: In case you hadn't noticed, the Founding Fathers didn't write the 14th Amendment. And you are scared that BABIES are going to take over the country?
I wonder how many people nowadays actually know on what day Washington was born? The "official" US holiday designation is "Washington's Birthday." When future historians try to reconstruct history from the fragments left behind by trumpism, they will be puzzled: Was he born on the 17th? or the 19th? Or the 16th?
Major trump statue should clearly be used to try to plug whatever oil spills result from Drill Baby Drill.
I do hope the schools that got the Dear Colleague letter realize that they cannot consider "white" as a criteria for anything. That is, last heard, a race. So if a Black is hired over a white, the school can just say that they couldn't give a preference to the White because of, y'know, race. Also, if the chess club consists of only white kids, it must be banned. Not to mention any celebration of St. Patrick's Day.
US Attorney appointments must have the advice and consent of the Senate. Eddie's hearings should be humdingers.
Palin, gone and forgotten but still full of herself. How is she supporting herself? With an Alaska state pension? I love how these maga anti-government politicians will blissfully take those pensions and benefits, especially now that they are doing nothing more than showing up on Fox and various right wing podcasts.
Thanks for stuffing all the bad news irritants into one report that I can print out, wad up, bite hard, and kick down the stairs.
You delivered the goods again---and the opening quote is one of a kind (except Churchill had more than a few of these). Where is our Churchill to summon the troops, inspire the people, and lead a country through dark clouds, near destruction, and final victory??????? More Churchill, less "Napoleon"!
Thank you, TC you tell it like it is! Hugs