Robot Jazz

  The last few posts of mine have been pretty bleak, I admit.  It is hard not to descend into despondency when you learn that your nation is no longer one of the good guys; that 49.8% of the population knowingly voted for the worst people possible because they thought it would line their pockets (what I have come to refer to as the Bondi Defense ).   But I have also come to realize something else: that an old Catholic admonition is correct when it warns that to despair is to sin because there is  always hope,  and hope does not disappoint.  The Trump regime, along with its allies of the moment, has proven to be a glass cannon.  Sure, they can lash out with the awesome power of the state, but such firepower is short-lived.  When met with sustained resistance, the cannon begins to crack and, ultimately, shatter. 😊😊😊😊😊 There have been many such cracks as of late, but perhaps the most noticeable has been the administration's abject defeat in...

  It's been too many years for me to recall - and I am too lazy to check my dusty texts - but I believe it was Plato who wrote that to live under the capricious whims of a madman was the closest one could come to being in hell. (Or maybe it was a Reddit thread quoting Plato. Who knows anymore?) Why? Because a madman, being mad, does not govern by rationality but by passing fancy and impulse. One day, he declares the sky to be blue; the next, it is green. One day vanilla is the best flavor of ice cream, the next it is chocolate. Of course, the issues will be more serious than that (or will they?), and so will be the consequences. To live under a mad regime is so dangerous because having the wrong opinion can land one in a gulag. But what is the wrong opinion when right and wrong exist in a state of quantum flux, one determined not by truth and falsehood but by lunacy? This observation has been bouncing around my head ever since Premier Trump and New York City mayor-elect Zohran...

Readers of this blog—again, to all eight of you, a hearty “Thanks!”—are used to me beginning with a running tally of how many days President Trump has worked to cover up the Epstein files. Which is to say: every day of his second term. Today, I offer no such blurb. This dispatch is all about the day’s news: congressional Republicans and the Trump White House are actively conspiring to scuttle a House floor vote that would force the full release of the FBI’s Epstein files. Headline: Top GOP and White House allies working behind the scenes to prevent Epstein vote on House floor Top congressional Republicans and White House allies are working behind the scenes to prevent a politically charged floor vote to release the government’s Jeffrey Epstein case files next month, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions. The intensifying effort to halt that floor vote comes as Reps. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, declared on Wednesday t...