America

The New Democratic Establishment’s Loser Values

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

Two things happened yesterday that are only sort of unrelated. Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico endorsed modern Nazi sympathizer Graham Platner for the Senate race in Maine. Look folks, on this, I’m not “vote blue no matter who.” This guy has Nazi tattoos, he is pals with Nazis, was a Blackwater mercenary, and posts horribly racist shit on the internet. All of his behavior screams Nazi. If we nominate this piece of human sludge, we should lose the race. Heinrich isn’t alone though. Ruben Gallego recently endorsed him too. Ro Khanna has also endorsed Mr. Nazi Tattoo. Not to be left behind, Bernard Sanders had to be involved as an endorser. In case you’re wondering, all of them but Heinrich (to my knowledge) have endorsed Bob “Crooksy” Brooks, a man who stiffed his mother-in-law for $55k, said President Obama “sucks,” stated his hate for Colin Kaepernick very loudly, and spouts off fanatical stuff about guns and religion. Kind of fits, right? We went through this before with John Fetterman, and people ignored the obvious. Fetterman was a degenerate nut-job, and now we’re going to arm an army of him in Congress, if these bros have their ways.

Now, as I said, there was a second thing that happened. Last night Muhammad “Sef” Casim lost a special election for the Prince William County Supervisor race in the Woodbridge, VA district. Dems had held it for 38 years. “Sef” was a problematic candidate, not unlike Platner. He says really racist shit. Casim was also an outright antisemite. Republican Jeannie LeCroix beat him by 6% and almost 20% wrote in another candidate. After winning a primary running as a far left nut, Casim blew a lay up race, failing to even reach 40%. Much like Mamdani, the general electorate was less impressed with his left-wing populism and looked for literally any other option but to vote for this bigot. Northern Virginia, much like New York City, is very Democratic. Once you got beyond the primary, most Democrats don’t want this kind of vile shit.

The “new” Democratic Establishment, built of consultants and operatives from the Bernie and Fetterman world, are building a Democratic establishment that will cement MAGA control of the White House for years to come. It’s a road to nowhere. Here in PA-7 they are promising jobs to young candidates and electeds who endorse them, and painting a rosy picture of a future that looks very much like a Bernie rally. It’s fools gold. Bernie Sanders lost cleanly twice when he ran for President, because he couldn’t build a coalition of people who were bought in enough to vote for him against the “boring old” establishment figures that he and Mr. Nazi Tattoo want to create. Regular, real people who live in this country don’t want this shit. Most people want to be normal. Our party does not want a revolution:

Analysis of the data suggests the Democratic coalition can be broken into three distinct blocs. Moderates—voters who identify as moderate Democrats, independents, or anti-Trump Republicans—account for 47 percent. They are demographically diverse, older on average, and the most electorally flexible—only 45 percent say they have never voted for a non-Democratic presidential candidate.

A second bloc, Progressive Liberals, make up 37 percent. They are reliably left-leaning, whiter than the other blocs, and disproportionately concentrated in suburbs and on the West Coast.

Last comes the Woke Fringe—voters who identify as democratic socialists or Communist. These add up to just 11 percent of the coalition. The Woke Fringe is the youngest of the three groups, the most conspiratorial, the most likely to report poor mental health, and—not incidentally—the most likely to spend excessive sums of time on the internet. Notably, previous quantitative and qualitative Manhattan Institute research on the GOP coalition shows that the youngest and most hyper-online Republicans also skew hardest toward ideological wackiness.

So why the hell are we listening to a bunch of lefty white guys who want to expel Jews and welcome Chairman Mao to the party? It’s somewhat the fault of donors. It’s somewhat the fault of podcasters. It’s largely the fault of “the bubble children” in DC that manage the interest groups in between their stays at the party committees. What they are building is a party that isn’t likable. They are building a party that is weird, fake, and harmful in the eyes of most Americans. They’re building a freak show. We need to reject them. A fake “working class hero” movement lead by an 80 something year old that used his campaigns to make money isn’t useful.

The Fields are Set in the Lehigh Valley

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

Well, petitions are over. We know who is on the ballot now here in the Lehigh Valley. Let’s take a look at what our options are on the ballot.

Governor and Lt. Governor

So, there’s no surprises at all. No gadfly candidates who made the ballot, no freak shows, no party dissidents. Governor Josh Shapiro is the only Democrat for Governor. State Treasurer Stacy Garrity is the only Republican. Lt. Governor Austin Davis is the only Democrat in that race too. Republicans Jason Richey (Allegheny) and John Ventre (Westmoreland) are the only Republicans. I’m voting for Shapiro and Davis. Simply put, Garrity and whichever of these folks wins are simply too dangerous to essential public needs, such as health care, public education, infrastructure, and the environment. I have my disagreements with the Governor’s judgment on several issues, but this isn’t the time to deal with those.

Congress- PA-7

Only four of the gaggle of announced candidates made it to the starting line. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is a total fraud. Carol Obando-Derstine seems like a solid person and Democrat, I’d have nothing bad to say if she got nominated in this race, and I’d vote for her in November. Ryan Crosswell is a Republican and a union buster. I’m voting for Lamont McClure. I will keep this as simple as can be. In eight years as County Executive he expanded farmland preservation, kept Gracedale County owned, didn’t cut services to the public, and didn’t raise taxes. In the aftermath of the “Big Beautiful Bullshit Bill,” we’re going to need members in Congress who understand the way cuts to Medicaid, the ACA, infrastructure spending, and all the other government programs that were cut are actually hitting us locally. Additionally, he’s been an advocate against new warehouse proliferation and for passenger rail from Amtrak. I think we have two pretty good candidates, I am just going to vote for him.

State Senate- 14th

Only two folks filed. Democratic incumbent Nick Miller and Republican Omy Juriel Maldonado. Nick has done a good job in his first term. While not making waves, he’s made his way into Democratic leadership and is delivering for the people of Valley. I don’t have a vote in this district, but I’m for Nick Miller.

16th

So only three of the four Democrats made it to the starting line. Richlandtown Mayor Wayne Codner, Pennridge School Board Member Bradley D. Merkl-Gump, and Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley. The Bucks Dems tried to herd everyone into backing Merkl-Gump, whom I’m guessing will be the best fundraiser in this race. Pinsley has the name recognition here from losing in 2022 by 9%. Codner is relatively unknown, but his profile as a veteran, a Black man, and the Mayor of a very red town is pretty impressive. I think if we’re truly trying to win this seat and nominate an authentic candidate, Codner is the strongest to me. But I think we should let them all campaign a bit and see.

18th

Senator Lisa Boscola has a challenger from both sides. My guess is that will mean she did something right to Lehigh Valley voters. Apparently losing for the State House by over 50% to Bob Freeman has not soured Taiba Sultana on the idea of this quixotic primary on the Democratic side. I don’t know who tells her this is a good idea, but she’s going to lose her home precinct in Easton in this race. If Taiba wanted to run a primary where she could get 20% and be competitive while ranting about ICE and genocide, she should have run for Congress. This is a sideshow. Republican Scott Janney is their sacrificial lamb this time, and he’ll do way better than Taiba. But he’ll lose by at least 15%. I’m for Lisa Boscola. Again, she’s delivering the things our local governments are asking for. You may wish she was more of a leftist, but be honest with yourself, then she’d lose. That’s not who lives in Northampton County.

State House- 137th

Since I live in this seat, I’ll start here. County Councilman Jeff Warren is challenging Joe Emrick. I’m voting for Jeff Warren. Simply put, Joe Emrick is not there for our schools, our seniors, our infrastructure, or our environment. He’s a no vote on legalizing recreational cannabis, thereby denying our students and seniors the tax dollars that are going across the river into Phillipsburg, NJ, from our customers. He’s an ex-teacher who really doesn’t want to solve property taxes or fund the schools, so the worst of all worlds. Simply put, he’s a road block.

131st

Milou who? Ryan’s Mommy is back, running to be the self-proclaimed most Conservative state elected in the Lehigh Valley. Meriam Sabih is running against her. Look, by default I’m for Meriam Sabih. With that said, I thought her last campaign was very energetic, practical, and impressive. She ran as a serious person with thought out policies, and that makes her better than Milou Mackenzie.

135th

Steve Samuelson is being challenged by Republican Joseph Poplawski. I know nothing about this guy, other than he will lose in the general. I’m with Steve Samuelson.

136th

Bob Freeman is being challenged by… oh, it doesn’t matter what his name is. Bob is the best legislator in our region, and at least to me, in the state. In 40 years the guy has never, not once, embarrassed us in his service. I’m with Bob Freeman.

138th

Up in the northern tier of Northampton County, Jared Bitting is challenging Ann Flood for this seat. This is really tough terrain for a Democrat, but I’m for Jared Bitting.

183rd

Zack Mako is being opposed by Deirdre Kamber. I don’t know her at all. Friends of mine say very nice things about her. I’m for her I think, but let’s see her campaign.

132nd

Mike Schlossberg is being opposed by Republican Caren Lowrey. I know nothing about her. Mike might make some poor endorsements, but Mike is a very, very good state representative. For every reason I stated that we need to re-elect the Governor, Senator Miller, and Senator Boscola, and every reason I stated we need to remove Joe Emrick, we need Mike re-elected to the House. As Whip, he is one of those ultimately responsible for moving progress forward.

134th

Pete Schweyer is being opposed by Miriam Alicia Maldonado. Again, I know nothing about her. Basically everything I wrote about Mike basically applies here too.

187th

After a two year break, Gary Day is back roaming the halls of the State Capitol aimlessly. Bless his heart. He’s being challenged by two Democrats, Rachel Guynn-Cuevas and Geoffrey Whitcomb. I know nothing about either right now.

22nd

Fresh off of her win, Ana Tiburcio is being challenged from all sides. Ce-Ce Gerlach is challenging her on the Democratic side. Bob Smith must not have lost bad enough in the special election, because him and his 200 and some votes (I think?) are back. I’m for Ce-Ce Gerlach. Look, I watched that debate. I may think Ce-Ce is further to the left than I like, but she knows the issues and she’s going to vote on the right side because those are her values, not because other legislators tell her what to think on the issue. Allentown can do better, and it should.

NOTE- I somehow left Jeanne McNeill out of here. Feel free to laugh at me, I’ve literally done work for her. She’s a great Representative and deserves another term.

Your World Last Week, 3/10

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

It’s 70+ degrees outside. Even a month ago, this was unthinkable. Then again, everything on our television right now was unthinkable a couple years ago, so keep perspective, folks.

So anyway, the news… yikes. In the biggest news in the world, Big Foot is apparently in Portage County, Ohio. While I’d like to call this crackpot shit, apparently their are footprints of a very large individual in the areas he was “seen.” In very similar news, Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas had their primary elections last Tuesday. In the premier races of the night, James Talarico won the Texas Senate Democratic Primary and John Cornyn and Ken Paxton are heading for a runoff on the Republic side. You may recall that Paxton was literally indicted for securities fraud and investigated for abuse of office, but hey, that seems like Senate material for me. Meanwhile, human shitstain Congressman Tony Gonzales has withdrawn from his re-election after finishing first with 43%, but failing to avoid the runoff. You might re-call that Gonzales had an affair with aide Regina Santos-Aviles and she ended up committing suicide by lighting herself on fire. It’s amazing that 43% of the people voted for him. Of course, Gonzales was the “moderate” in this race, as his opponent, Brandon Herrera, wants you to know that he is the proud owner of a 1939 edition of Mein Kampf. Meanwhile in North Carolina longtime dictator President of the North Carolina Senate, Phil Berger, is trailing his primary by 23 votes for re-election.

Moving from the profoundly stupid to the merely dumb, Taylor Lorenz, someone that younger people apparently made into a famous culture reporter, is in fact a moron, and has no idea who is paying her. In New York City, some Hamas-loving, loser children tried throwing an explosive device at protestors they disagreed with and got arrested after it failed to blow up. First off, these kids are too useless to even get terrorism right. Second, it turns out they had very wealthy refugee parents here in Pennsylvania. The Democratic National Committee is basically broke, which may be good news for Democrats. New polling suggests that Democratic voters think the Democratic Party is insane, which is completely true. Donald Trump has appointed Erika Kirk to the Air Force Academy Advisory Board, because… idk. The National Cancer Institute hasn’t made a single grant this fiscal year. For real. And there’s this guy, Professor Jiang over in China, who thinks Jewish people created Islam, or at least says that. He also thinks 20% of white American girls in their 20’s are on OnlyFans. He has 2,000,000 YouTube followers. The internet really was a mistake.

The World Baseball Classic is underway, and there are no shocks so far. The United States, Japan, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico are all good at baseball. Kyle Schwarber and Aaron Judge can hit a baseball very far. Paul Skenes is good at pitching. The biggest surprise of the tournament is Cal Raleigh stiffing Randy Arozarena when he tried to shake his hand (they’re teammates on Seattle) and Arozarena ripping him after the game. I’m with Arozarena here. In other sports news, it’s conference tournament time in NCAA Basketball. For my money, I’m taking Michigan (Big Ten), Duke (ACC), UCONN (Big East), Florida (SEC) and Texas Tech (Big 12) to win the major men’s conferences. Some of the women’s tournaments are already done, but if you’re filling out your bracket, you can pick UCONN and South Carolina to win almost any game they play. Closer to home here in Pennsylvania, Penn State won yet another Big Ten Wrestling title this past weekend and their media starter has like 1.5 losses on the season, so they should win another national title. In closing, sad news, the “Exciting Whites” broke up in Philadelphia, as Reed Blankenship has moved on. This is life as an NFL fan. Your team wins, your players start getting paid the real money to go elsewhere.

Is there other news? Oh yes, war with Iran. American and Israeli bombers killed the Ayatollah and many other leading religious radicals in the country. What has commenced is essentially a regional war of damn near everyone in the region against Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and some rebels in Yemen. Of course, this is making weird bedfellows, as Pakistan has pledged to defend Saudi Arabia, who is on the same side as the United States and Israel, even though Pakistan is fighting Afghanistan right now, and just a few years ago Americans entered Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden. Even more telling- Trump doesn’t seem to have any plan for who will now take over in Iran, assuming we can even topple the IRGC that are still in place. Remember all that talk in 2024 that a vote for Kamala would lead to war? Oh yes, the good ole’ days.

Thoughts on Texas and the First Big Primary Night

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Well thank God that is over…

Before I go all in depth about a primary that I’ve been imploring people to ignore for months (I really can’t see a Democrat winning the Texas Senate race unless everything goes right), let’s take a look at the big picture on the night. For the most part, last night’s primaries were largely inconclusive as to whether or not we’re in an anti-establishment, insurgency election year. Talarico appears to have defeated Crockett in a race where both sides claimed to be something different and new. Christian Menefee, a brand new incumbent Congressman, leads long time incumbent Al Green in Texas 18, but who knows how much we should attribute this to any one specific thing (Green is a lightning rod in many ways). Julie Johnson trails in her Dallas area Texas 33 seat, but she trails former Congressman and Senate nominee Colin Allred, and like Texas 18, it’s most likely heading to a runoff. Embattled Texas 28 incumbent Henry Cuellar smacked his opposition by 15% and avoided a runoff. Over in North Carolina 4, Valerie Foushee leads by about a thousand votes as I write this, or just about 1% against Durham County Commissioner and leftist darling, Nida Allam. There was a ton of spending here, and the late money favored Allam. So yes, there were some very competitive primaries tonight, and some incumbents are going to lose, but not all of them, and some of them are essentially losing to other incumbents. Let’s call it basically what it is, an inconclusive round.

The Republicans had a much more insurgent election, which is remarkable after a decade of the most insurgent movement in modern political history. John Cornyn was very nearly the Senate Majority Leader like 15 months ago and today he’s heading towards a runoff against a guy who almost got impeached and sent to jail (Ken Paxton), and may not even ultimately hold much of a lead when the count is done. In Texas 23, Tony Gonzales “survived” the scandal for having an affair with a staffer who lit herself on fire then, but will go to a runoff. Dan Crenshaw got crushed in Texas 2. In North Carolina, the Senate President Phil Berger is apparently losing his primary by 2 votes. Despite the best efforts of nearly every significant Republican in America to bend over backwards for Donald Trump, the GOP’s cultural purge continues. I’m not even sure what the policy beef is at this point, nor do I think it matters. Republican voters don’t like the people doing Trump’s bidding, even as they like Trump and replace them with harder line candidates.

Now with all of that said, we can have dessert. Obviously the most important Senate nomination of the night was Roy Cooper in North Carolina, the best Democratic challenge candidate for Senate in the country this year. Texas had all the passion though. Now look, I don’t see either of them as winning, but it fired people up. There was a perception of Talarico as the progressive left’s candidate and Crockett as the “establishment” left’s candidate. This is kind of news to people actually important in both wings, but we digress. Crockett’s strategy was simply to double down on the last decade of Democratic strategy, leaning into the base vote hard and confronting Trump’s GOP on all fronts, especially culturally. Even so, many establishment folks privately didn’t see how it would work here. Talarico seems to want to be less culturally abrasive and try to persuade more moderate Republicans and Evangelicals with progressive Christianity style. I’ve said for a while I don’t think either will work, and this is a battle over whether it’s better to lose by 7% or 9%. While I generally do side with candidates like Crockett, I think that Talarico’s strategy has a slightly better (think 0% vs. 5%) chance of victory. I don’t think you can “turnout” your way through a rough electorate, in either a red area or bad year, and I definitely don’t think you can do that in Texas where you’re losing as many Latino votes as you’re winning. Talarico essentially won in any part of the state that doesn’t have a sizable Black population, and his campaign’s work on Latino voters clearly did pay off. Ultimately I don’t think the House Oversight Committee is a great place to launch any statewide campaign unless you’re in a very blue or red state, and Crockett was quite good at her job on that committee- which is probably the wrong skillset for a Democrat to win statewide in Texas. Again, I don’t think it will matter, so I stayed out of this fight largely. My guess is the somewhat bitter tone of this primary will make it hard for Talarico to turn out Black voters in November, but I also think he’ll lose for more reasons than that.

In the one set of bad news from the night, super douchebag and former Yankees First Baseman Mark Teixeira won the GOP nomination in Texas 21 and will probably win big now. I wasn’t a fan as a ballplayer and I’m not a fan now.

A Grown Up Assessment of Iran and Trump’s Foreign Policy

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Multiple things can be true at once. Ayatollah Khamenei was an awful person and leader who terrorized and killed his own people, and the world and Iran are better off with him dead and gone. The United States entering another war of choice in the Middle East is a terrible idea (assuming we actually do). Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu probably have no plan for what they would do if they achieved regime change in Iraq, and maybe that’s better than if they do. Congress should vote on whether we go to war or not, but Congress is an impotent institution. Actual Iranians seem somewhere between bewildered and happy.

For the second time this year the United States has taken out a ruthless, disgusting, brutal dictator who is awful to his own people. No one should miss Maduro or Khamenei. For that matter, let me lump Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into this too, since he died in the strikes. None of these are good people. Whether we arrest them and remove them from office or kill them in an air strike, honestly, I don’t lose sleep over them. Khamenei has killed tens of thousands of Iranians this year. Read that again if you need. Maduro deteriorated Venezuela to the point of having pirates sailing around off their coast in the Caribbean. Sure, I think Donald Trump is an idiot, but I can’t sit here and honestly say it’s a bad thing that we removed these people. Actual Venezuelans and Persians seem fine with it, the anger almost all seems to be from white leftists. I really don’t care what they think of these events.

Is there any plan here though? When we removed Maduro, we allowed his butcher of a Vice-President to take over as the President there in exchange for access to oil. Will we end up just allowing a new Ayatollah to take power in Iran, or some other puppet strong man, in exchange for oil? My guess is yes, and that definitely defeats whatever good purpose these actions had. Reza Pahlavi seems like the most logical short term answer to who should lead Iran right now, and frankly giving the former Shah’s kid power seems like just our latest blunder in that region. About the only thing worse would be a full scale invasion and having to occupy the country and run it ourselves. It seems that the “Trump Doctrine” at this point is Bush’s “Axis of Evil” on steroids, where we go into every hot spot we’re unhappy with in the world and decapitate their leadership and let them figure it out after.

Trump ran his 2024 campaign talking about how he’d bring peace. He lied. He spent the first six months of his Presidency dismantling the federal government by force, simply shutting down whole agencies and departments that were created by laws, on his own word. He is actively trying to reshape the world now using American power. It is not entirely clear what the end result of his plans will be. He has not meaningfully tried to back down Russian aggression in Ukraine, or Chinese designs on Taiwan. It’s not clear that he’s willing to try and push countries who could potentially do major harm to America. In Iran though, it is probably his most aggressive move yet. Regime change there would do great harm to Russia. He has already drawn the Saudis into his coalition with Israel there. Toppling the Iranian regime could go a long way to defunding Hezbollah and Hamas. Toppling Iran isn’t super easy though. It could require an actual war that costs money and lives. There’s the potential that this is the new Afghanistan.

If I’m being honest here, I don’t really have a problem with taking down a terrorist, murderous regime. I just don’t trust the two guys in charge of this. Netanyahu’s decision to drag out his war in Gaza has not been good for anyone, so why would he handle this better? Trump is just maniacal and will do anything he can to try and get his face on Mount Rushmore and out of the Epstein Files at this point. Neither of these guys gives me any confidence. The fact that they have highly competent and funded militaries means they can succeed in a short term attack where they just approve the plans put forward by Generals and Admirals. I don’t really think either has a vision or plan that we should all be excited about.

Patriotism, Hockey, and Democrats

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I have to admit something that will definitely get me canceled in Democratic circles- I find Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.” In fact, I find gratuitous acts of patriotism to be fun. I was celebrating outside of the White House the night Osama Bin Laden was killed with thousands of other young Americans. I was cheering for both Alysa Liu and the Men’s Hockey team at the Olympics. In fact, I generally support America on almost everything. This does not mean I don’t know or care about Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears, Japanese Internment camps, slavery, or any of the other atrocities committed by our nation. It does not mean I wasn’t a protestor during the Iraq War. Far from. In fact, I see no problem with blasting “Free Bird” and acknowledging our problems, even in the era of Trump.

In our currently “black and white” era of politics, there are folks who think picking sides is an absolute. You’re either team AOC or team Vance, period. This extends to the point of an Olympic hockey team, because a.) a majority of them are either conservative or politically disengaged, and b.) they’re white men. Yeah, Kash Patel is a weirdo, and yeah, Trump’s joke about the women’s team was piss poor, but if that’s what you took away from the Olympic Hockey Final, or if you were arguing about Alyssa Liu’s (liberal) politics against people that wanted to re-cast her as simply an anti-communist crusader (she’s both liberal and a tremendous symbol against communism), you kind of missed the point. We don’t watch sports to get political commentary. I think many of us are well aware that the athletes playing on the television have political views like the rest of us, they’re people. You can’t possibly watch what’s going on with ICE in America and *not* have an opinion on it of some kind. The point is that yes, it actually doesn’t matter when I’m watching a hockey game. People are not wired to functionally live in a constant war with their fellow citizens like this. It’s weird. Most people think it’s weird. Trying to force it turns off way, way more people than it attracts.

I get that many people on the American left-of-center side are worried that this will be our final President and that our current state is permanent, and so they think the only choice is to fight on every battlefield, all day, everyday. I do not share that sentiment. I believe Trump will lose the House of Representatives in November and his Presidency will practically end. I do believe we will elect a new President in 2028, regardless of who it is. I don’t think a bunch of hockey players visiting the White House after they win a Gold Medal threatens that. I’m sorry, I think this is a fight and argument that generally makes the left look a lot less appealing to unradicalized normies who actually will decide who that new President is. So I think this was stupid.

Btw, I wrote this in the time it took me to listen to “Free Bird,” “American Girl,” and “American Idiot.” Not bad.

I Didn’t Need to Watch the State of the Union to Know What It Is.

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I’m pretty happy I didn’t watch Trump’s State of the Union last night, unlike many of you who read this blog. From what I gather, he gave the longest speech in history, for the second straight year. Yeah, no thanks. Honestly, listening to this guy ramble for hours about how wonderful he is and how great things are is bad for your mental health. You lose brain cells and you might even be tempted to respond to him. There is no point to that. You are persuading no one by arguing about him. You are also not debating a normal politician. If job growth is tepid at best, he’ll tell you he created a billion jobs. Facts and figures don’t matter. For the most part you’re not debating any sort of actual policy. He talks about immigration for instance, and his chaos in the streets policies to deport illegal people here are less effective than Clinton and Obama simply taking people out of prisons who were arrested for crimes and were here illegally. The guy finds a way to even do things that people want in the dumbest way possible, and there’s no point acting like he’s anything but an ignoramus. The people voted for him, and they’ve got him for four years, if they still want to watch, go on ahead. My guess is the ratings were piss poor.

I also don’t watch for all the other theatrics that go on in the room. Honestly, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and the Congress are three loathsome institutions at this point, filled with strange people and strange ideas that aren’t doing much good for the public. I don’t need to watch Democratic members who did go yell at the President so they can get their 20 seconds on TV and raise money off of it by text message later. While Trump may be the center piece of decline in that room, let’s not pretend the rest of the room are not complicit in their own ways for reducing our country to a carnival side show. Congress has become successively worse over the last 30 years at doing anything beyond basic appropriations bills to fund stuff they want to do, and even then they often times fail to do it on time and end up shutting down the government. Our current Congress is among the least productive in the history of man kind, a symbol of failure in Western society that deserves scorn from all angles. Even when someone proposes something broadly popular and supported from all sides, you’re lucky if you can get it a vote, let alone pass it through both houses. And the court? They created our current mess. We won’t waste more words on them.

So how is our country doing? Health care, housing, and food all cost too much, and they are all things that are essential to our survival as human beings. We’re actively rolling back protections for our air, water, soil, and food, poisoning the Earth we live on in the name of what? I don’t know, let’s just say profits. Our government is dysfunctional. Our economy is not meeting the public’s needs. Our people are fighting on social media over nonsense. Yeah, we’re doing great. The state of our union is “stronger than ever.” This is just what Americans died in wars for, right?

We’re a shitshow. And if you watched it, that was on display. Me? I had nothing to do last night, but I was too busy for that.

Your World Last Week, 2/24

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Have you dug out of the snow yet? I guess that depends where you are. In a rare snow event, you’re better off in Mt. Pocono after this weekend than you are in Cape May. New Jersey got a blizzard. Here in the Lehigh Valley, the storm underperformed. Go figure.

The Olympics are now over. Pop quiz, let’s see people find Milan and Cortina on a map now. Last week I listed the Gold Medalists through that point, so today let me finish the U.S. Medalists list. Mikaela Shiffrin won Gold in the women’s slalom event. Elana Meyers Taylor won Gold in the women’s monobob bobsled event. In the two-woman bobsled, Lailie Armbruster Humphries and Jasmine Jones won the Bronze. Armbruster Humphries added a Bronze in the women’s monobob event. Ben Ogden and Gus Schumacher won the Silver in the men’s cross-country skiing team sprint. Alyssa Liu won the Gold in the women’s figure skating event. The freestyle skiing mixed aerials team of Connor Curran, Kaila Kuhn, and Christopher Lillis won the Gold. Alex Ferreira won the gold in the men’s halfpipe event. Mac Forehand won the Silver in the men’s freestyle big air event. Corrine Stoddard won a Bronze in the 1500m short track skating race. Jake Canter won a Bronze in the men’s snowboard slopestyle event. Jordan Stolz won a Silver in the 1500m men’s speed skating race. The team of Ethan Cepuran, Casey Dawson, Emery Lehman, Conor McDermott-Mostowy, and Jordan Stolz won Silver in the men’s team pursuit speed skating race. Mia Manganello won a Bronze in the women’s mass start race in speed skating. Oh, and of course the women and men’s hockey teams won Gold, too. Free Bird, bitches. The complete list is here.

So tonight is the President’s State of the Union address. I will not be watching, antique road show/random NBA game/The Weather Channel is on then. We will probably bomb Iran within days, as our government is saying they could have the capability of building a nuclear bomb within a week. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is causing chaos and panic in the Mexican state of Jalisco after their leader “El Mencho” was killed apparently by the Mexican government, but American officials tried to take some sort of credit as well and so they’re threatening Americans there. France is telling Jared Kushner’s daddy to stay in his playpen, taking away the Ambassador to France’s ability to talk directly to government ministers on the behalf of the United States after he stiffed them on a meeting. Shocking that Charles Kushner isn’t a good Ambassador, since he got the job for being rich and related to the President. Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales is making a strong play for biggest piece of shit in the world this week, as we get more and more details of his affair with a staffer that worked for him that lead her to light herself literally on fire to commit suicide. One thing’s for sure, Washington, D.C. is always there to make us proud of our nation. Oh, and the DNC thinks Kamala Harris lost for not siding with Hamas. This message seems like a sure way to lose elections for the rest of our lives. In better news, Baseball is back. Not like real, good baseball, but there are players being paid to play in Florida and Arizona right now for real teams. The World Baseball Classic is coming up too. I can’t wait until the 2028 Summer Olympics, when we get a baseball tournament, in-season, with the best of the United States, Japan, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Canada, Venezuela, South Korea, Australia, Puerto Rico, and Mexico, to name a few. Duke beat Michigan, Arizona beat Houston, and UCONN dog walked Villanova in college basketball. The NHL is getting ready to come back from it’s break. Tyler Reddick won the second NASCAR race of the year, to go along with his Daytona win, and Michael Jordan again gave the first interview after his driver won. Back to uplifting news, Savannah Guthrie’s mom is still missing, but FBI Director Kash Patel got to make his wish and celebrate with the U.S. Hockey team at the Olympics. Oh, and the President’s tariffs were thrown out by the Supreme Court, so he just made up a new legal argument for them and raised them. The government also has no real plan to return the money.

The world is awesome. The World is fine. Have a great week.