Yes, Virginia, There Is a Joe Shlabotnik

Several old "Peanuts" cartoons have been appearing on social media.  A "Peanuts" strip like this one alerted someone on Instagram to the name of one Joe Shlabotnik, who was Charlie Brown's favorite baseball player.

Now, Joe Shlabotnik, it must be understood, was the worst baseball player of all time.  He was constantly getting sent to the minor leagues and was prone to pop up when he tried to hit a home run.  He briefly managed a minor-league team but was fired after one game for calling a squeeze play when there are no men on base - and no, it wasn't a women's baseball league.  When Charlie Brown, his dog Snoopy, and Linus Van Pelt went to a sports banquet at the end of 1969, they bought tickets and got seats at Joe Shlabotnik's table.  As it turned out, Shlabotnik was the only missing athlete.  He didn't show up because he had marked on his calendar the wrong date, the wrong city and the wrong event. 

Anyway, someone on Instagram asked if Joe Shlabotnik is a real baseball player.  Here's what I replied:

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Joe Shlabotnik. He exists as long as failure and ineptitude exist, and you know that they abound to give life its pitfalls and pratfalls. Joe Shlabotnik is everywhere. He is the 1962 Mets. He is the 1964 Phillies. He is the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers. He is the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He is the United States men’s national soccer team in almost any year. He is the United States men’s national field hockey team in every year. As long as there are losers in sports or in anything else, Joe Shlabotnik will always exist."

And I'd like to expand on that.  Joe Shlabotnik is me.  Joe Shlabotnik is you.  I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.  We are all Joe Shlabotnik.  We lose a few, probably more than we win.  And we Americans are and always will be Joe Shlabotnik.  Our President is Joe Shlabotnik  He's turned his supporters and the American elite into Joe Shlabotnik.  Joe Shlabotnik is our health care system.  Joe Shlabotnik is our transportation system.  Joe Shlabotnik is our popular culture.  Everyone in America is Joe Shlabotnik.  No Joe Shlabotnik?  That would be like saying there is no Virginia.  Or no West Virginia.  Joe Shlabotnik, like violence, is as American as cherry pie.  

Joe Shlabotnik is a true American hero. I come here to bury, not praise, Joe Shlabotnik.    

Ein Führer

Donald Trump is nothing like Adolf Hitler.  No, of course not.  Just because he appointed white nationalists to government positions, just because he ordered the United States' withdrawal from various treaties and global organizations, just because he's set up a secret police, just because he's persecuting racial and ethnic minorities, just because he's set up concentration camps in inhospitable locales, just because he's enabled his secret police to assassinate anyone who shows and disrespect to them, just because his regime has put out posters celebrating the American worker that look like this . . .

. . . just because the Department of Homeland Security is promoting white-nationalist propaganda, just because Trump has suggested canceling the 2026 midterms, just because he's tried to remake the landscape of Washington with oversized monumental structures, just because he's threatened to use the nation's military machine to take control of places like Greenland and Canada without a shot being fired, just because he's sent forces to the once-demilitarized state of Minnesota . . . oh no, nothing like Hitler, right?

But of course, we must remember the significant differences between the two dictators that make it clear that it's unfair to compare Trump to Hitler.  Like I said, Hitler was a decorated war veteran who loved dogs.  And . . .  

. . . say what you will, Hitler had better taste in music. 

Music Video Of the Week - January 16, 2026

"Show Me the Way" by Peter Frampton  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.) 

Fed Up

There have been many cracks in the wall of Fortress Trump, but this crack is serious.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell learned, along with the rest of us, that he is under investigation from the Injustice Department for cost overruns in the renovation of the Federal Reserve building.  He could have quietly hired a lawyer, but instead he took to the video camera and declared that Trump and Pam Bondi were after him as an act of retribution for refusing to set interest rates at Trump's desired levels.  Powell added that what Trump and Bondi are doing is interfering with the independence of the Fed.

Trump is clearly having Powell, whose term as Federal Reserve chairman ends in May, prosecuted to send a signal and a warning to Powell's successor.  Powell spoke out in bold, declarative sentences against what is happening in order to control the narrative and to make it clear that he is wrongfully accused of malfeasance.  He's right - cost overruns happen all the time.  This is a shot across the bow of the Trump regime, and while there may be more shorts across that bow before the not-so-good ship Trump is bombarded and sunk, this is an important step toward that moment.

By the way, if cost overruns of federal buildings constitute a federal offense, how come no one's after Trump for his White House ballroom addition? 

Neil Diamond - Moods (1972)

There's an old saying in show business that when you put on a show, you have a hell of an opening, coast for awhile, and have a hell of a close.  Moods, Neil Diamond's eighth album and final LP before leaving Uni Records for Columbia, seems to have been concocted on that premise.  It opens with "Song Sung Blue," an introspective expression of how a song develops and evolves, and it closes with "Morningside," an achingly beautiful elegy of an old carpenter's death whose handcrafted table is a legacy bequeathed to his ungrateful children.  Much of everything in between, however, is Neil coasting.

Moods is crafted like a song cycle, and it shows a great deal of care and ambition with some beautiful orchestral arrangements and intricate acoustic guitar riffs, but too many of the songs are burdened by simplistic lyrics and asinine subject matter.  Tunes like "Porcupine Pie," which imagines a dinner of the roadkill main course complemented by vanilla soup (a double scoop, please, and don't forget the chicken ripple ice cream!), and "Gitchy Goomy," a bit of nonsense Neil wrote for his then two-year-old son with aimless words that don't make sense but are meant to sound fun (but only do sound fun if you're a two-year-old), don't even have memorable melodies.  (And there's nothing really cute about the Native American name for Lake Superior.)  Diamond's attempts at soul and gospel are equally inept; "High Rolling Man" and "Walk On Water" don't benefit from the choirs backing Diamond's lead vocals, as the words to both ditties are thinner than the paper they were written on. Ain't it right?  I said, ain't it right? Ain't it right?  (And the less said about his bilingual "Canta Libre," the better.)

Geez, what does it say about an LP whose best cuts include a pair of brief instrumentals, "Theme" and "Prelude in E Major," the latter being the lead-in into the aforementioned "Morningside?"  It's easy to understand, after listening to Moods, while everyone thought Clive Davis was crazy to spend $4 million to bring Diamond over to Columbia.

There are two standouts in the middle of this LP.   "Captain Sunshine" takes advantage of the neo-classical music around which Moods is centered to create a dreamy ballad worthy of comparison to Rodriguez's "Sugar Man," and the much-maligned "Play Me" - forever cursed to be identified as the song about the songs she sang to him and "brang" to him - is actually a charming number that looks at the yin-yang of human relationships through the metaphor of composing music.  The music itself is an irresistible repetitive acoustic guitar riff (provided by session man Richard Bennett) supporting a beautiful string section.  If Diamond had changed the words or the verb tenses and maybe hadn't sweetened the sound so much, "Play Me" would rank as one of his greatest achievements.  Because even though Neil Diamond got and may still get derision for inventing a new past-tense word that no Delta bluesman would be given a hard time for (critics would have celebrated a blues lyric like "She done brung me a song" as profound), he's even had fans come up to him and say they wish he'd worked more on the song's words.

While Moods has its defenders, the best evidence of Neil Diamond as a pop singer-songwriter with classical flourishes can be found elsewhere.  In fact, it can be found on his follow-up album, his Columbia debut - the eponymously titled soundtrack for the movie Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which was successful as the movie itself was not, vindicating Davis' then record-setting $4 million deal with Diamond.  And despite some fine moments, Moods is still a weed in Neil Diamond's underrated and impressive career.  Bob Dylan had Self-Portrait, Elton John had Blue Moves, Neil Young had Everybody's Rockin' . . . every garden grows one.                   

(This is my last review for awhile, as there's too much going on in the world right now for me to bother with record reviews.  I just hope we're not at war with Denmark by the time you read this.)  

The Last Walz

Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, had been planning to run for a third term to his office.  This week, bowing to political realities, he announced that he would not run for re-election.

Minnesota has become embroiled in a series of scandals involving fraud schemes over federal money given to state-administered social services programs, most notably  a nonprofit group that claimed to be providing meals to children during the pandemic.  Other state-run social services have been affected, the most recent example being social-services fraud occurring at day care centers and health care companies run by Americans of Somali (or Somalian) origin, which right-wingers have used to discredit the entire Somali-American population, which mostly lives in Minnesota.  Walz is under too much pressure to get to the bottom of all this even as Republicans in Congress plan to get to the bottom of all this even more, even as Walz has defended his Somali-American constituents from being painted with a broad brush by the right for racist reasons.

Walz made the announcement that he would step down at the end of his term on January 6 - one day before Renee Nicole Good was murdered by ICE in Minneapolis, so now he has to deal with that as well.  He thinks he could have won a third term - maybe he could have - but he has decided that he can't do his duties as governor of Minnesota and run for another term at the same time.

Walz owes his national reputation to having been selected as Kamala Harris's vice presidential running mate, but it turned out that he was a few spaces down the list.  He got the job by default for having called Trump and Vance "weird" and for his avuncular image . . . and he did geographically balance the ticket.  But he did not come from a state that was seriously in play - Minnesota has been reliably Democratic in presidential elections since 1976 - and Harris passed over more logical choices for reasons that boiled down to political incorrectness.  Harris thought that Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, was likely toxic due to his support for Israel and his own Jewish heritage, and she thought that Pete Buttigieg, her first choice, would not be accepted in an office a heartbeat away from the Presidency because of his sexual orientation.  Walz turned out to be a first-rate second-rate man, and his Minnesota niceness reassured no one in his debate with Vance.  His biggest asset - calling MAGA weird - was toned down, and Walz toned down his "weird" rhetoric unwillingly; Democratic consultants - the only Democrats who made out better after the 2024 election than before, thanks to the high fees they command - told him to cut it out.  Walz even lacked the grit of the most famous Minnesotan to occupy the Vice Presidency, Hubert Humphrey.     

I think it's safe to say that, come January 2027, when Walz's term expires, both he and Harris will be political hasbeens.  Anyone who still has a Harris-Walz campaign button in mint condition is likely to own a real collector's item, because such buttons are bound to be rare.  But they won't be worth anything despite their limited quantity.  The only reason there'll be so few of them is too many former Harris supporters will have long since thrown out their Harris-Walz campaign buttons out of bitter disappointment. 

Music Video Of the Week - January 9, 2026

"I Am a Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Murder In Minneapolis

 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minneapolis caused trouble in a neighborhood in the city's southern side near Powderhorn Park when they went through the the neighborhood looking for illegal migrants and causing  a traffic jam on the street.  Renee Nicole Good (above), a 37-year-old woman, sat in her SUV and waved by the officers, who were trying to get their car out of the snow.  As one officer approached her and told her to get out of the car while another told her to get out of the area, and, unsure of what to do, Ms. Good chose to drive away as quickly as possible.  An ICE officer quickly fired his weapon thrice into her face, killing her almost instantly.  The Vice President of the United States and the Secretary of Homeland Security both praised the ICE officers - the ICE officers - for handling their situation professionally against a domestic terrorist (!) who tried to run over one of the officers.

No.  This was murder.  There is no evidence that Ms. Good was engaged in a protest against the ICE officers, even though others in the neighborhood apparently were.  All evidence points to Ms. Good being no more than an innocent bystander who happened to be there at the wrong time.  She did nothing to provoke any of the officers.  The officer claimed that she ran over his foot; the video taken of the incident showed that she did nothing of the sort. If the officers thought Ms. Good was a threat, they could have easily gotten the license plate number of her SUV as she was driving away. Firing at a departing vehicle is not proper procedure in any circumstance for any law enforcement officer.  ICE shot Ms. Good, a poet, a singer and a mother of three, to make an example of her to anyone who even thinks of protesting the presence of ICE anywhere in America.

ICE murdered Renee Good.  Pure and simple.  ICE should be defunded.  And the so-called President who expanded the agency should be forced out of office. 😡

Buzz Off

The Volkswagen ID. Buzz is no more in North America.  At least for now.  

Volkswagen has announced that the electric retrograde minivan will not be available in the 2026 model year, though it could return for 2027 or later.

The most obvious reason for the cancellation of the ID. Buzz is the tariff Trump placed on products form the European Union, of course, but there was another thing that doomed the Buzz's fate - the price.  Excluding taxes, title fees, destination charges, dealer charges, and all that rot, an ID. Buzz had a base price of $60,000.  In 1968, the year the second-generation VW Transporter vans debuted in the United States, sixty grand in today's dollars was $6,442 - and the price of a Volkswagen passenger van in 1968 was about $2,500.  In other words, a van like the ID. Buzz would have cost in 1968 twice and half again what the then-new VW Bus cost.  The electric motor is no doubt the reason for the hefty price of the Buzz, but other factors like the dollar being worth less than the euro and the higher wages for German autoworkers also have to be considered.  Not to mention Trump's tariffs.

Now consider this:  Volkswagen was betting its future on electric vehicles, and the United States was part of that gambit.  The plan to turn Americans on to electric VWs (remember the "Voltswagen" name change joke?)  was doomed from the start.  The ID.3 was the same size and style as the Golf, so then-Volkswagen of America CEO Scott Keogh, recognizing the Golf's lack of popularity here, refused to bring it over.  The ID.4 crossover's performance in the ten-day sales report has been incredibly meh.  The ID.7 sedan was coming here . . . until it wasn't.  And Trump, who hates any EV that's not a Tesla, canceled the federal EV tax credit in the meantime.  Now this.  Meanwhile, as I've already noted, Keogh is running the Scout electric-SUV brand, and before one Scout has even been available for the automotive press to review, the brand announced that its vehicles will be hybrids instead.

So, if you live in the New World, you can have any electric Volkswagen you want, so long as it's the ID.4.  The gasoline-powered lineup for Volkswagen in North America, meanwhile, is wanting - just five models (unless I'm supposed to count the Golf twice because the Golf GTI and the Golf R, the only Golf variants offered here, are counted as separate models).  Three of them are SUVs, and only one non-SUV, the Jetta, is priced for the people as a people's car should be.  And the current Jetta is in its eighth model year.   As for the next Golf, the ninth-generation model will be electric, which means it's all but certain that we won't get it in any form, but VW currently has plans to start producing the current Golf in Mexico, which suggests that the base eighth-generation car could finally be available in North America at last.  But VW's current cash crunch, coupled with Trump's saber rattling against Mexico, means that this is all wishful thinking at best.  And it's a safe bet that if the Golf doesn't survive on this continent in any form, the Jetta will disappear as well.  That will be it.  That will really be it.  Even if Volkswagen stays in this market, it will basically be just another SUV-only brand like . . . Buick.

Buick.

I'm holding on to my sixth-generation Golf until I can't drive it anymore - when it's no longer operable or when I'm too old to drive and someone needs to take away my car keys (if they can find them), whichever comes first.

We Just Conquered Venezuela

I think Trump may have just started World War III.

Trump's invasion of Venezuela doesn't make sense on the surface.  He made it clear that it was about oil.  In fact, there's no strategic advantage to an American occupation of Venezuela.  But there's no economic advantage to taking control of their oil either. at least not in the foreseeable future, because there's a global supply of oil clearly bigger than the demand, and the demand may lessen as industrialized countries other than the United States pursue renewable energy.  But when you realize that Venezuela is just the first step in imposing an American sphere of influence on the entire Western Hemisphere, even as American oil companies can go in and take over the petroleum infrastructure, then it begins to make perfect sense.  Manifest destiny.

It also puts us on Trump's agenda.  American domination of the Western Hemisphere is what he wants to talk about - not about Jeffrey Epstein, not about health care, not about a runaway Supreme Court . . . and so we're going to discuss Venezuela instead.  Trump is already looking at hoping to expand into Canada and still trying to figure out how to acquire Greenland for all of the various resources they have, and Greenland has rare-earth minerals in abundance, more than any place outside China . . ..  We won't need them, because Trump has more or less made it impossible to sell electric vehicles in this country, but other countries will.

Progressive commentators insist that Trump has turned his back on his own followers, the forgotten men and women of the industrial heartland who wanted him to focus on Americans first and that they will, in turn, turn their back on Trump.  Not so fast.  Many of Trump's supporters are comfortable and well-employed and well-fed (though Steve Bannon isn't well-groomed or well-bathed), and they're all in on this escapade.  They'll immediately point out that Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan dictator, was despised not just by the Venezuelan people but by the whole world - not unlike Trump - and no one is shedding tears for his arrest and extradition.  Like, how can you argue with that?  You can't.  And Trump himself will quickly point out, if he hasn't already, that Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism and cocaine importation, and that means one more drug runner out of business.  Such an argument would have more resonance coming from a President who did not pardon the drug-running former Honduran president for sending enough tons of cocaine to the States to kill as many "gringos" as possible.

And who will be running Venezuela in the time it takes for the Venezuelan people to establish a new government on their own?

These guys.

Gee, what could go wrong?

I suppose I could send the White House a strongly worded letter about this, but who do you think I am, Charles Ellis Schumer????

Americans don't want any more foreign invasions or nation-building.  I don't have much hope, however, for those who go out to protest this invasion.  Yes, it's about oil.  At least Trump, dishonest as he usually is, is honest enough to admit it.  But, as with the war in Iraq twenty years ago, if you are against wars for oil, don't show up at a demonstration in a large SUV unless it runs on electricity.    If you do have a gasoline-powered SUV with a "War Is Not the Answer" bumper sticker on it, I propose that you either remove the bumper sticker or convert your vehicle to run on biodiesel. 

Byrds (1973)

An eight-year period is a blink of an eye in the big scheme of things.  Yet a lot can happen in eight years.  It's the time it takes to go from being a pre-med college freshman to graduating from medical school and being ready to begin a hospital residency.  It's the lifespan of a two-term U.S. Presidency.  And in rock and roll, an eight-year period is an eternity.  Times change, the music changes, and those who last eight years are far removed from where they were eight years earlier - sometimes for the worse.  And that's where the reunion album of the original Byrds comes in.

When the Byrds debuted in 1965, their sound was a sprightly Southern California blend of British Invasion rock and roll with the lyrics of Bob Dylan and other folk legends, as well as some inspired original songs.  By 1973, when the Byrds had broken up with Roger McGuinn as the last original member of the band, and with his former original bandmates between projects, the quintet, having had their disagreements, buried the hatchet, reunited, and recorded an album that, quite frankly, showed how eight years had changed the dynamic between them - and not in a positive way.

The original Byrds were no longer the young folkies enthralled by the Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night and newly converted to rock and roll when McGuinn, David Crosby, and Gene Clark first got together, recruiting Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke soon after.  They were seasoned veterans who had no hope of recapturing the magic that made them so wonderful in the first place.  They had all become more traveled in their experiences, be it McGuinn keeping the Byrds going, Crosby joining forces with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, or Hillman forming the Flying Burrito Brothers with fellow Byrds alumnus Gram Parsons and later joining forces with Stephen Stills in Manassas.  The chemistry that brought them together was gone, and it shows here in the listless playing, the mediocre originals, and the poorly arranged covers.  

To be fair, the Byrds did not try to regain their original sound but instead aimed for a new sound based on their own varied experiences since leaving the band for other endeavors or, in the case of McGuinn, redefining the Byrds after the others had left.  The wealth of diversity in the music from these experiences - especially Hillman's tutelage with Stephen Stills - should have been, on paper at least, the basis for an incredible listen.  Instead, the sound that resulted on Byrds was more diffuse than diverse.

Highlights - I use that word loosely, with some irony -  include the dull and lackluster country ballad "Sweet Mary," which McGuinn wrote with occasional Dylan collaborator Jacques Levy, Crosby's unwieldy "Long Live the King," about the uneasy heads that wear crowns (yet another one of Crosby's political diatribes not good enough for a CSN album), and also Hillman's original song "Things Will Be Better," a lightweight pop ditty apparently about Chris resuming his solo career.  Even Hillman admitted that the song wasn't one of his best, a song he deemed unworthy for a solo album, but McGuinn's "Born to Rock and Roll" makes Hillman's song sound like "Like a Rolling Stone" by comparison.  Only Gene Clark's "Changing Heart" is at the Byrds' high standard.

The covers are even more embarrassing, especially when Crosby sings them, such as a clunky, blues-based remake of Joni Mitchell's "For Free" that sounds like the band was half asleep when they recorded it.  Crosby even had the Byrds remake his own "Laughing," a highly philosophical song that was originally done - and arranged much more imaginatively and intriguingly - on his debut solo album two years earlier.  Here Crosby tries to recast it as a heavy raga-rock number when it had worked so well as a wistful ballad on his solo record - and with Jerry Garcia guesting on guitar.  Alas, Garcia was nowhere to be found as a guest artist on this LP, and he could have been useful in sparking interest in the Byrds' Neil Young covers - for example, they try to re-imagine "Cowgirl In the Sand" as a bluegrass ballad (wrong!) with a false ending.

Still, Byrds has a certain charm about it.  Some of the playing is occasionally inspired, such as most of Hillman's mandolin lines, and McGuinn's guitar still sparkles intermittently.  But the overall sound lacks cohesion, and David Crosby, who produced this album, wasn't able to communicate with his bandmates in order to add substance to their style; he reportedly tried to be what Italian-Americans would call "da bigga da boss."  Crosby isn't even good at getting anything out of himself, never mind the others.  Even his solo work, which had its occasional flaws, offered more heart and depth that what Crosby can produce or compel others to create on this record.

It goes without saying that I'd rather hear a Byrds reunion album a dozen times than hear a Duran Duran reunion album even once, but there's more to musical quality than arranging songs for instruments you don't need a computer science degree to play.  There was far better country rock being produced by other artists in 1973, which is why this album was a flop in the first place.  Byrds exists mainly as an argument against band reunions, though few have heeded its warning. And while there may be those who defend the Byrds for at least striving for a new, fresh sound that was still as seasoned as that hypothetical 26-year-old medical school graduate who began pre-med studies when their cover of "Mr. Tambourine Man" was first released, consider this.  In his 1988 autobiography "Long Time Gone," David Crosby and his editor Carl Gottlieb provided an ostensibly complete account of every record Crosby had ever performed on or produced up to that point, but one record was left unmentioned.  Guess which record.

More Of This and That

The Democrats are expected to do very well in not spectacularly well in the midterm elections this year, but it will be more likely due to Trump's own ineptitude than anything the Democrats are doing right.  As long as the Democrats keep stepping on each other's toes (and their own), a Democratic victory in November won't mean that the Democrats will have won.  It will only mean that the Republicans will have lost.

As I type, Americans will have either seen their health insurance costs double or their policies slip away completely because the Republicans allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire after enough Senate Democrats agreed to reopen the government for the promise of a vote on  Affordable Care Act subsidies that never happened.  Washington insiders claim that the Democrats won the fight over the subsidies by allowing the government shutdown to happen, but the only folks who are buying that argument are . . . other Washington insiders.

As for the redistricting fight . . . let's just say the Democrats lucked out, dudes.  They seemingly blew it when Texas Democratic legislators returned to Austin from Chicago to give the Republicans a quorum to redistrict the state and create five new Republican U.S. House districts, but thanks to Gavin Newsom (above) and California voters, Republicans got outplayed and lost their net advantage from the redrawing of the Texas maps.  Then Trump tried to have more GOP-friendly districts in Ohio and Indiana only to meet with fierce resistance from . . . Republicans.  Especially in Indiana.  Hoosiers (whom Trump acolytes from outside the state have referred to as "Indianians") don't like being told what to do by outsiders.  It's that stubborn Indiana independence that had long made Hoosier Republicans logical running mates for Republican presidential nominees, from Schuyler Colfax to Mike Pence (though their collective record has been mixed at best) and also produced one of the few memorable Democratic Vice Presidents, Thomas Marshall, whose wit and humor made his role as a liaison between the Wilson administration and Congress more interesting than it would have been (you know that quote "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar"? him).  

But California and Newsom notwithstanding, Democrats have benefited more from Republican mistakes than their own aptitude.  They're going to have to do better than how they've been doing unless they want to win Congress by default.

(As this blog post was "going to press," I heard that Trump invaded Venezuela and took custody of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.  I'll address that story as soon as I absorb it sufficiently.)   

Music Video Of the Week - January 2, 2026

"One More Cup of Coffee" by Bob Dylan  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Nothing To See Here, Folks

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has conducted an autopsy on the 2024 presidential campaign (thus, it simultaneously conducted an autopsy on Kamala Harris' political career) to see what went wrong, aside from everything.  The report is now completed and awaiting review.

Except for one thing: DNC chair Ken Martin (below) won't release it to the public.

Martin is trying to rebuild the Democratic Party after it lost a great deal of credibility with voters in 2024 and he should be doing the opposite of what Trump does by calling for full transparency in how to run things.  Yet, Martin, the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, won't share with anyone his committee's findings on why Harris lost in 2024. 

Maybe he's afraid to admit to anyone that, yes, perhaps it was a mistake to nominate a black woman with a Jewish husband to run for President.  More likely, he found a damning defect in the party's messaging that might offend a key demographic in the party's coalition - say, that the party shouldn't have campaigned so much on the rights of non-heterosexuals when more people wanted to hear about the economy.  And short of this report being leaked, we'll never know just what the main finding was.  But it takes a lot of gall to lead a party demanding the release of the Epstein files (which I support) for the sake of transparency while keeping the DNC 2024 autopsy report under wraps. 

As for Martin's tenure on running the Democratic National Committee and thus, by extension, the Democratic Party, I can't evaluate how well he's been doing his job, because I frankly can't find any evidence that he's doing anything.  He's not out there answering Trump's lies, and he's given candidates for office minimal, almost token support.  Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia owe their gubernatorial election victories to themselves and to their talented campaign teams, not Martin, and I think I can safely assume that Martin and the DNC gave no genuine support to Zohran Mamdani in his New York City mayoral campaign.  Releasing the autopsy report on the presidential election that broke America is one of the many things, in fact, that Martin has not done.

Once again, Martin O'Malley, Maryland's sixty-first governor, has been vindicated for his warnings despite the fact that no one seems to care.  (Wait - did I just type "seems to"?)  O'Malley had been calling for a hands-on approach to down-ballot elections ever since he was in his first gubernatorial term in Maryland, warning the DNC back in 2009 - 2009! - that the Republicans were already doing the groundwork necessary to gain more power in state legislatures, as well as win congressional seats and governorships, with the knowledge that those who control the state legislatures control congressional redistricting. O'Malley's advice went unheeded, and in 2010 the Republicans won up and down the ballot all over the country.  Then-DNC chair Tim Kaine was deposed, but his successor was Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, whose role in screwing up the 2016 presidential campaign you already know about.

Anyway, O'Malley ran for DNC chair in early 2025 after quitting his job as Social Security Administration commissioner (before Trump could fire him), and he'd already shown what it takes to win elections for every available office, given his Win Back Your State (WBYS) political action committee's success in helping to flip fourteen state legislative chambers to the Democrats in 2018 . . . success that the mainstream press and even The Nation declined to acknowledge.  Given all that - and given that Democrats likely confuse WBYS with an AM radio station in a little Illinois town southwest of Peoria with those same call letters - O'Malley finished a distant third in a three-person field (sound familiar?) in his bid for DNC chair, mainly because no one knew who he was (sound familiar?).

Times may change, but one thing remains constant - no matter how many times Martin O'Malley shows how hip he is to the Democratic Party's troubles, all Democrats hear coming from him is a faint buzzing.  And rather than listen to what he has to say, the Democrats would rather try a different guy to run their party because he has a more impressive CV in party operations.

Martin ran the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party for fourteen years beginning in 2011 and has a record of success in Minnesota, having gotten the state party out of debt and won numerous elections.  When you realize that Minnesota hasn't elected a Republican U.S. Senator since 2006, hasn't elected a Republican governor since 2006, and hasn't been carried by a Republican presidential candidate since 1972, though, it's hard not to think that, at the time of his elevation to DNC chair, Martin was already coasting. 

2025 and All That

The best way to understand how I and my fellow Trump-haters feel about the current condition of These States is to compare where we are now to where we could have been now.  Not that where we could have been would have necessarily been all that much better.  But it would undoubtedly have been better just the same.

To make that comparison, I can't go back to a year ago this time, because this time last year, Trump was already President-elect.  I have to go back to fourteen months ago this time, which, by pure coincidence, was Halloween.  On October 31, 2024, five days before what will likely be the last American presidential election with more than one candidate, Kamala Harris had at least a 50 percent chance of winning the Presidency.  In the event that Harris won, I expected nothing more from a Harris administration than what President Biden had delivered, which was okay enough.  Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but knowing everything Trump was going to do if he won - because he told us - I was happy to vote for Harris.  I did.  I voted early.  And I knew what her victory would have meant.  It would have meant the election of the first woman - not just the first black woman, the first woman, period - to be elected President of the United States, which have been an even greater and more gigantic leap for America than Barack Obama's election to the Presidency in 2008.  It would have been proof that, despite its shortcomings, America really was for everyone.  While President Biden nudged the United States into a more progressive direction, it was still just a nudge, and I was under no illusion that a Harris administration wouldn't accelerate the move toward a more progressive future, I knew that she was preferable to Trump.  And she would shatter multiple glass ceilings - for women, for women of color, for interracial couples, for interfaith couples.  We were on the cusp of embracing true diversity, equity, and inclusion.

All of that hope for at least such a step forward - and, as far as I'm concerned, the soul of America - died the day Trump won and Harris was forced into early retirement from public life.  Instead of an era of diversity, equity and inclusion, we've entered a period where all three have been eliminated from the body politic.  Instead of nice things like sustainable energy, bullet trains for Amtrak, paid maternity leave, or support for unions - all things the Biden administration was at least taking baby steps toward - we've gotten more tax breaks for the wealthy and programs and amenities slashed to the point where anyone affected is out of luck.   Instead of prosperous, healthy citizens, we've become serfs living on borrowed time and borrowed money who should consider ourselves fortunate if we can afford medical bills or get a vaccine without paying out of pocket - and even vaccines not covered by insurance may be unavailable soon.  

Granted, the four years under President Biden weren't exactly a new Era of Good Feelings (and even the original Era of Good Feelings under President James Monroe two hundred years and change ago had a recession caused by a bank panic).  But even a Harris administration providing minimal improvements would have been preferable to a time in which good things go bad and bad things get worse.

And then there is that new birth of freedom we let slip between our fingers.

This is the cover of the New Yorker that was planned for the November 18, 2024 edition of the magazine in the event of a Harris victory in the presidential election.  Created by Kadir Nelson, it shows Harris dressed in a coat showing images of all of the people throughout history involved in the advancement of civil rights in the U.S. that led step by step to the ultimate culmination of the fruits of their labors - a black woman as the leader of the nation.  Needless to say, a different cover ran - one showing Trump as an ominous storm cloud.  Although the November 18, 2024 edition of the New Yorker came out ahead of the actual date, it was the perfect coincidence that that was the date that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealed on the air their supplicant visit to Mar-a-Lago.  So much for freedom of the press.  

The United States, because of voters who discounted the danger Trump posed to the nation and the world because they either didn't want a black woman running the show or thought that Trump could really bring back prosperity (not that he would have if he could have), has slipped into darkness and despair faster than at any time in its history.  Even Germany took more time in 1933 to move from a democratic republic to a National Socialist state.  One week before the election of 2024, Harris represented a renewal of possibility for the United States.  Seven weeks into this administration, I decided that America was finished as a country.  

And that is when I became a secessionist.  That is when I began my efforts to promote the breakup of the United States into separate countries.  

The surprise was that it took that long.  

The United States has been on the wrong track for forty-five years.  There were times when I saw a modicum of hope for a better and happier future - the first Clinton budget and the push for health care reform after the fall of the Soviet Union, the way Americans came together after 9/11, the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency, the start of the Biden Presidency . . ..  No more.  I no longer have any hope in any positive trend that only turns out to be fleeting.  I've had it with with getting my hopes up only to see America go back to being America.  I no longer live for an era of national renewal.  And on November 5, 2024, the United States didn't go back to its previous incantation as a nation of belligerent ignoramuses.  It flat-out died.  For my home state or any other state where decency and intelligence are still showing pulses to remain in the Union is anathema to me.  I believe one of these states should withdraw from the Union and hopefully start the process of arranging a peaceful separation.

I want out.  I want a divorce.

I'm not going to wish anyone a happy new year.  No one in the fifty states that make up the Union is going to be happy until the United States of America ceases to exist once and for all.  And not only will we former Americans be happy, so will the rest of the world. 

Swum and Sunk

One of the most galling things about the outcome of the 2024 presidential election - a topic I will return to with much more vigor and vitriol tomorrow - is that, given that the United States about to co-host the World Cup with Canada and Mexico, celebrate a quarter millennium of nationhood, and host the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, we could have had Kamala Harris, a woman of Jamaican and South Asian descent with a husband of Eastern European Jewish origin, presiding over all of this from the White House - a White House with an intact East Wing - and demonstrating that the United States had truly become an international nation.  Instead we put a xenophobic, provincial, undereducated real estate developer from Queens back in charge.  And Trump not only knows he has the World Cup, the semiquincentennial celebration, and the Olympics happening under his reign of error, he brags about it.

Instead of a Jamaican-American President, we got once again a President from Jamaica Estates.

Because he's in like Flynn - Michael Flynn - with FIFA, the World Cup games in These States will go on as planned, at least with the teams that don't lose any members to Immigration and Custom Enforcement custody.  The semiquincentennial, however, is likely to be a disaster, because I already see less promotion, interest, or hype around it than that which surrounded the bicentennial fifty years ago.  CBS - now being denigrated by the Ellison family and Bari Weiss - can't even be bothered to air "semiquincentennial minutes."  And then there is the unpleasant subject of the Olympics.

Back in early September, I wrote about how I sent a letter to newly installed International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry (above) urging her to have the 2028 Olympics moved out of Los Angeles and out of the U.S. entirely.  At first I wasn't going to write Chief LA28 Athletic Officer Janet Evans make my case for the same because I had no postal address . . . until I found one.  And thus I went ahead and wrote both swimming legends, addressing them in their current capacities,  and subsequently waited for replies.

It's been nearly four months, and I haven't heard from either of them.

I'm not going to write them again.  I've had enough trying to convince the powers that be - and my Olympic heartthrob - of the need to stop the Los Angeles Olympics from happening under MAGA.  Even if Kirsty Coventry wanted to move the Games to another country - say, her own, Zimbabwe - she's need the support of the full committee membership and is unlikely to get it.  And Janet Evans?  She's just the athletic officer, she's not involved in location-related logistics.  These two women must get so much correspondence as it is, my letters probably never reached them . . . and even if they did, they probably had no time to read them themselves.  Besides, Janet Evans has a son who's a high school senior now, and she's probably helping him choose a college to attend (University of Southern California, no doubt), with no time to read a letter from little ol' me. 

It is what it is, and it ain't what it ain't.  All we can do right now is hope Trump and his entire administration are removed from power (consult Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution for more on that) before July 2028 (and hopefully before July 2026!).  I'm not going to get my knickers in a knot over Kirsty Coventry's failure to acknowledge my letter.  As for Janet Evans, I could never, ever be upset with the dear woman. 😊 

I am, however, upset with her 1996 Olympics swimming teammate Amy Van Dyken, who recently said she went back to church because she was inspired by what a wonderful guy Charlie Kirk was in the wake of his assassination.   

I don't want to talk about it . . ..

Anyway, the 2028 Olympics might not go on as planned.  Given Chinese saber-rattling against Taiwan, Iranian saber-rattling against everyone (but especially Israel), and the war between Russia and Ukraine grinding on, and given Trump's cavalier attitude toward all of this, we're likely to have a third world war anyway.

This, That, and a Whole Lot Less

The worst thing about 2025 coming to an end is the knowledge that 2026 will be worse.  But not as bad as 2027.

As 2025 lurches to a close, I ought to tend to some unfinished business . . ..

First, the inevitable update on two folks named James - a woman named by her father and a man named by his mother.  Letitia James and James Comey were both indicted by the Injustice Department as part of Donald Trump's retribution campaign, but both cases were dismissed in court.  The details of their indictments are moot, so I won't bother with them here.   John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, is still under indictment on eighteen counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, and as much as liberals would love to see Bolton go to the slammer (liberals are against the chair), he's clearly being indicted for all the wrong reasons. 

Meanwhile, Jennifer Welch (above), co-host of IHIP, the I've Had It Podcast, seems to have had a change of heart about Roman Catholics.  She recently told fellow podcaster Tara Palmeri that she actually admires Catholics for their devotion to their faith and their constant study of their faith and the Gospels, adding that if she were believer of God, which she is not, she could never be a Catholic not because of a patriarchal priesthood but because of all of the constant study involved.  She also says that Catholics are nice people who, unlike evangelicals in her home state of Oklahoma, don't try to convert anyone so aggressively.  So, I guess that means I ought to go back to listening to her and Angie Sullivan's podcast.

I write this blog post, meanwhile, with the knowledge that Brigitte Bardot just died at the age of 91.  Social media has gotten to the point that you don't even need to check news sites online or television news programs to find out that someone has died.  When Facebook friends who don't know each other from Adam and Eve simultaneously post pictures of a French actress and sex symbol who hasn't been culturally relevant since Renault stopped making the Dauphine, you can put two and two together.  No, those were not pictures of Claudia Schiffer.  The death of the woman her fans famously called B.B. fellows the death of another European movie star and glamour icon known as C.C., Italian actress Claudia Cardinale.  (Note: For those who have started following my blog just recently, no, my girl cat Claudia is not named for either Claudia Cardinale or Claudia Schiffer.)  I hope both of them are remembered for their earlier films, and hopefully not the spaghetti western they did together in the early seventies.  (I saw about five minutes of that movie; that was all I could take.  Both actresses were celebrated as icons, but you'd never have known it from this particular movie.)  

I was never incredibly enamored with Bardot or Cardinale, but their respective passings this year is still a bitter reminder that the era of European cinema and culture that they represented died long before they did.  And going into 2026, it makes me fear for the health and well-being of France's Catherine Deneuve, 82, and Italy's Sophia Loren, 91.  The European Union ought to seriously consider some protective measures for both actresses - put fences around them, maybe, declare them Continental treasures, perhaps get UNESCO to grant them World Heritage status - just so we can at least keep them around a little longer. 

Kiss's "Phantom" Menace

At this point I would like to return to the unpleasant subject of Kiss one last time before the ball drops in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday night, if only to drive the point home once and for all that honoring them at the Kennedy Center (now the Trump-Kennedy Center?) was a waste of everyone's time (including that of Cheap Trick), as well as respond to the inevitable complaint that Sylvester Stallone was the only actor to receive a Kennedy Center honor this year (unless you count Michael Crawford, who starred in How I Won the War, still a criminally underrated movie).  The guys in Kiss are also actors (which warrants another aside in parentheses . . . that was it!).  Kiss, it seems, made a movie together.  Some context:

The year 1978 was a bonanza year for the record business.  It was more profitable that year than at any year before in its history thanks to two soundtracks of pop movies produced by Robert Stigwood, the Rolling Stones' Some Girls, and a slew of Donna Summer releases.  What did Kiss do at this time? They put out those laughable solo albums and a greatest-hits compilation that offered a more contemporary remake of their song "Strutter" as a bonus track.  But it was not like Kiss had completely stayed out of the spotlight in 1978 as a single (allegedly) functioning unit, for it was in 1978 that Kiss made their first (and only) feature movie, Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. Anthony Zerbe starred as the phantom opposite the Mehron face paint of Kiss, with their wearers in supporting role.

The movie sort of went like this: A Dr. Doom-like mad inventor is out to . . . take over the world? Well, I'm not sure, but I know it was some sort of (Professor) nefarious or (Dr.) sinister scheme. He works from his lair under the Magic Mountain amusement park in California, the movie having been set there because Coney Island, in Kiss's hometown, was too disco-roller-skate/Studio 54/salsa at the time for Kiss's whitebread Middle American audience.

Anyway, the Fantastic Four are needed to stop the phantom mad inventor, but they're not available, as they find the plot ridiculous, so Kiss, who have their own superpowers embedded in talismans, battle the phantom and his Kiss doppelganger robots . . .

 
WHAT??????????????????

 

. . . to try to stop them from . . . doing whatever it is they do.

An example of this movie's dialogue:   When the Gene Simmons doppelganger robot wrecks havoc in the amusement park and the police think the real Simmons is the culprit, the following exchange occurs between Ace Frehley and Peter Criss: "Maybe it was Gene's twin brother!"  "No, Gene's brother was an only child!"

That don't even make good nonsense.

Why did Kiss do this movie? Maybe they wanted to make their own equivalent of the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night. Maybe Gene Simmons, a Dave Clark Five fan, wanted Kiss to make their own equivalent of Catch Us If You Can. Maybe they wanted to make their own equivalent of the Monkees' Head  but forgot to drop acid before filming. Maybe they were misled into thinking that Martin Scorsese would direct it. Maybe they decided to go the Elvis Presley route by making movies instead of touring. Maybe they wanted to one-up Alice Cooper, who had starred opposite a horribly aged Mae West in Sextette.  Maybe they saw that Hanna-Barbera was the production company and thought they'd be contributing songs to an animated movie like The Man Called Flintstone. Maybe they saw the 1970 Bee Gees movie Cucumber Castle and thought they could do something even cheesier. Maybe Simmons was jealous of the Kansas City R&B group Bloodstone, whose 1975 movie Train Ride to Hollywood featured Roberta Collins and Phyllis Davis, and Simmons hoped they could be in Kiss's movie so he could shag at least one of them.  Maybe doing a movie was in their contract with Casablanca Records.  Maybe Paul Stanley bet Casablanca boss Neil Bogart $100,000 that he couldn't get Kiss a movie deal and lost the bet.

I could make such conjectures all day (and would if I had more bandwidth), but even the Medved brothers couldn't explain all of the silliness in this movie, which was apparently made when Gene Simmons had an apparent illness that made him talk like a robot with an echo effect. The producers promised a movie that would be a cross between A Hard Day's Night and Star Wars, but anyone who's ever eaten an oatmeal raisin cookie will tell you that two things that are great on their own can be terrible when blended together (although vanilla cola is excellent). Unlike A Hard Day's Night and Star Wars, however, Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park was not theatrically released in the United States. It was instead aired on NBC on Saturday, October 28, 1978, for people who had nothing better to do on a Saturday night than watch something on TV other than "The Love Boat."  Alas, that includes me.  I was a week or so away from my thirteenth birthday, the folks were out and I was home by myself, and . . . well, it was something to do, wasn't it?

Airing it was the idea of NBC CEO Fred Silverman, who at roughly the same time also put a sitcom starring McLean Stevenson on the air in the wake of a CBS McLean Stevenson sitcom that failed (like Stevenson's NBC sitcom eventually did).  Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park was just sort of crap that ABC and CBS wouldn't even consider airing on their own stations - and this was at a time when ABC aired sports competitions in which the athletes were stars of then-current TV shows, and CBS aired the infamous "The Star Wars Holiday Special."  On NBC, at a time when its programming sucked beyond recognition, it was one of the highlights of  Silverman's leadership.  (Aside: In 1981, Fred Silverman was fired as the head of NBC and Grant Tinker succeeded him.  Tinker's first directive order, rumor has it, was this - no more Kiss movies. And his second directive order was - no more McLean Stevenson sitcoms. 😄)

Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (it makes sense that the title referred to Kiss in the singular person, since the group had become a singularly monolithic money-making entity) featured one "new" song - "Rip and Destroy," a call by the fake Kiss doppelgangers performing a Kiss concert at the amusement park to tear down the park for . . . well, I don't remember, probably to turn it into a nature preserve or something. Or maybe it was a call to stop another McLean Stevenson sitcom.  😄

 "Rip and Destroy" was only a "new" song in the sense that the lyrics were new. The melody was from their earlier song "Hotter Than Hell."

Needless to say, all four members of the original Kiss lineup would go on to disavow the movie, which serves as a cautionary flick for future bands to watch before agreeing to making a movie, and Paul Stanley can't even remember how the movie ended, even though he was integral to the final scene.  But - well, give them credit for trying something new, as they clearly hoped to make a rock and roll movie that harkened back to the days when rock and roll bands played themselves in broad comedic rock movies, like the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, and even Herman's Hermits had done,  but the rise of documentaries and concert films in the aftermath of psychedelia and the advent of more "serious" and musicianly bands in the late sixties and the early seventies had pretty much rendered that sort of rock film antiquated.  (The best and most successful rock movie of 1978 was the Band's The Last Waltz, a Martin Scorsese documentary of their final concert in San Francisco in 1976.)  Besides, how could anyone take Kiss's movie seriously when it got outclassed by another pop caper comedy which premiered that same month (October 1978) in the theaters?  Starring Donny and Marie Osmond?

Goin' Coconuts was better received by the critics and by the public.  Not well-received - just better received.

Maybe they should have cast McLean Stevenson instead of Herbert Edelman. 😁

Note: When Paul Stanley sang the line "Break it down and seal your fate!" when Kiss performed "Rip and Destroy" in their movie, I thought he was singing, "You got to see yo' face!"  Ah, Dada. 😄

America Hates Itself and It Wants To Die

The Trump regime's efforts to flood the zone worked.  They're committing more crimes against humanity than I can keep up with, and I have to squeeze different stories into a single post, as i have to do here.  There are also some stories I don't have time, room, or patience to talk about here at all.

For today . . ..  First of all, the ACA is DOA.  The Republican majorities happily left Washington for the Christmas break without extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that allow the law to work and allow people to, well, get health insurance.  The subsidies expire this coming Wednesday, and come Thursday, January 1, and so people with no health insurance will not be able to get the care the need, while those who do have insurance will pay much higher premiums.  Which group to I fall in?  What's my situation?  Never you mind!  Suffice to say that the Republican health care policy first proposed in 2009 - don't get sick, and if you do, die quickly - is very much back in force, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is certainly paying more attention to the latter half of said policy.

And once again, I am forced to return to the unpleasant subject of Bari Weiss . . . 

Just two hours before "60 Minutes" was to air this past Sunday, Weiss pulled a Sharyn Alfonsi story about the CECOT prison in El Salvador and the abuse migrants arrested in the United States suffered at that facility, a story that had been heavily promoted in advance, and substituted twin savant classical musicians - one of those feel-good stories "60 Minutes" always likes to do not as the main course but as the dessert that comes after the main course - in its stead.  Alfonsi defended the CECOT story, saying it had been fully vetted, but Weiss stood firm, saying it was biased against the administration and adding that the administration's top aide on immigration had the right to respond.  

That would be Stephen Miller.

Stephen . . . Miller. 

Yeah.  You know how "60 Minutes" correspondents always ask the government to explain its side of an unpleasantly and inconveniently true story and the government denies to respond?  Because what Weiss was apparently suggesting is that if the government declines your request for a comment to your story, than you must . . . kill the story. 

It would be nice if the government could offer its side of the story, but sometimes, as with the case of CECOT, where migrants are tortured simply for being migrants, sometimes, as CBS legend Edward R. Murrow once said, there is no side of the story.

Weiss killed this story because she not only knows that Trump would object to it being broadcast, she knows that David Ellison, who runs CBS, and his dad Larry Ellison, who owns CBS, would object to its airing because Trump would object - which would kill, in turn, the Ellisons' efforts to buy Warner Bros./Discovery.  But because Weiss has no experience in news, she somehow allowed the story to be aired in Canada, and it appeared on politically liberal YouTube channels for as long as YouTube would allow it.  

Awk-ward!

Hey, Bari, you wanted CBS News to simply "do the fucking news," right?  Well, Sharyn Alfonsi did her fucking job and, you fucking scrapped her story before it was to air.  What happened to pursuing the fucking news?  We want to hear the fucking truth!  And hear it out loud!  As Kiss once sang, "I want to hear it loud, I want to hear it fucking loud!!" 

Oh, what?  What?  That's not how that Kiss song from the early eighties goes?  No F-bombs in that song?  Oh, sorry. 

Well, so much for my Star Child photobomb . . . 😝 

I already stopped watching "60 Minutes" when Norah O'Donnell interviewed Trump and let him get away with everything.  I have even less desire to watch it now. 

Christmas Music Video Of the Week - December 26, 2025

"Winter Wonderland" by Anne Murray  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve Blahs

It may be beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but, to me at least, it doesn't feel like it.

This is only my second Christmas without my mother, and for some reason it feels less merry than my first one.  Perhaps that's to be expected with Donald Trump having returned to power and trashed everything.  But there have been other reasons.  A few weeks ago, the side-view mirror on my car get damaged and, because it's illegal to drive with even one damaged side-view mirror, I had to stay home during the annual Christmas historic-house tour that Essex County, New Jersey has every first weekend of December.  I had to miss some big local tree lightings, too.  I've also gotten bored with hearing the same Christmas songs over and over again on the radio (played every year by the same iHeart station - yuck!), and I was unable to go anywhere for holiday enjoyment in mid=December because of a previously scheduled colonoscopy.

The biggest void is no one to exchange gifts with.  I put up my tree like I did last year, and after having done such an abominable job decorating it last year, I was pleased this year when it came out better.  But the cats still keep messing it up. though I wouldn't trade my little fur babies for anything. 

It hasn't been a total washout.  This past Sunday, I went into New York to see model-turned-jazz singer Pat Cleveland, my previous interaction with whom you may remember, perform a set of songs, and she turned out to be a delightful performer as well as a fine singer.  I only knew about her show because her husband, whom I'm connected to on social media (it's complicated, don't ask me to explain it) invited me, and I was happy to go.  It cost me a pretty penny to get there and back as well as for the who itself, but it was worth it.  

I still have some sadness, though, if only because of where we Americans are as a sorry excuse for a nation.  Fourteen months ago this time, I expected to be celebrating Christmas 2025 with a woman who looks a lot like Pat Cleveland running the country and embodying a new birth of freedom; instead, I have given up on These States and I am openly advocating secession and disunion.  But the lack of someone to exchange presents with is still depressing enough.  It's a shame not to have someone to receive a gift from.  It's even more of a shame not to have someone to give a gift to.

Tough, but true.

Secession: Take Two

In May of this year, I wrote a sample ordinance of secession of the 2025 New Jersey legislative calendar that gave the reasons for seceding from the United States in response to Donald Trump's numerous crimes.  Sadly, the number of crimes he's committed since then has grown exponentially.  I stepped back from my advocacy from secession while I waited to see the outcome of the gubernatorial election in New Jersey.  Now, as we prepare to enter a new year - a year in which New Jersey will have a new governor, Rebecca Michelle Sherrill, and a year in which Trump could try to illegally invalidate enough of the midterm congressional elections to keep the Republicans in control of Congress - I have written a slightly revised version of my original sample secession ordinance from May.

* 

STATE OF NEW JERSEY CALENDAR YEAR 2026 

ORDINANCE OF SECESSION 

To dissolve the Union between the State of New Jersey and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of The United States of America." 

WHEREAS, the United States of America on the fifth day of November, in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and twenty-four, had elected a multiple-charged and multiple-convicted felon (henceforth to be referred to as "The Leader"), to return to the office of President of the United States, in violation of Section 3 of the fourteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States that prohibits those who have participated in or directed insurrection or rebellion against the Government of the United States from holding public office of the United States; and  

WHEREAS, The Leader, upon taking anew the office of President of the United States, has unilaterally withdrawn from international agreements and organizations, has illegally eviscerated the bureaucratic institutions of said Government in violation of oversight and authority of the Congress of the United States and of the Constitution of United States; and 

WHEREAS, the Federal Government, per orders from The Leader, has used illegally acquired power to deport migrants, has committed crimes against humanity in foreign locales, and has adversely amended rules and regulations in various bureaucracies by executive fiat and without proper procedure, and

WHEREAS, many of the States that have entered into Union under the compact entitled "the Constitution of United States of America" have been adversely affected and injured by such violations of The Leader, which the Congress of the United States has refused to counteract per its Constitutional authority; and 

WHEREAS, the State of New Jersey, having entered into this compact on the eighteenth day of December in the year of our Lord One thousand Seven hundred and eighty-seven upon her own free will, and now is forced to bear witness to efforts by The Leader to breach said compact with intent to cause adversity to States whose Electors did not cast their ballots for him in the Election for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency of the United States having just transpired in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and twenty-four, and 

WHEREAS, it is the responsibility of the Government of the State of New Jersey to remedy adverse and most likely illegal actions of The Leader that go largely unchallenged at the Federal level of Government; 

 NOW THEREFORE BE IT ORDAINED, by the Governor, the Assembly, and the Senate of the State of New Jersey and the People of the State of New Jersey, that the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the eighteenth day of December in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven hundred and eighty seven, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the Legislature of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and 

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED, that ratifications of Treaties and entrances into Agreements with various Nations under the Constitution of the United States of America, will remain in force between the State of New Jersey and said Nations, and that ratifications of Treaties and entrances into Agreements under said Constitution illegally invalidated by The Leader, a point of reason for repealing ratification of said Constitution and subsequent amendments, will also remain in force between the State of New Jersey and said Nations, and 

BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED, that the union now subsisting between New Jersey and other States, under the name of "The United States of America," is hereby dissolved.

*

Ladies and gentlemen . . . The UNION is DISSOLVED!

Illegal and Disgusting

The title is a phrase from comments Donald Trump made about how he filed against the federal government as a private citizen during the Biden interregnum for . . . well, I don't know what he sued for, but never mind, "illegal" and "disgusting" are perfect adjectives for what Trump has done in the past 72 hours.

First, Trump's "Justice" Department "released" the Epstein files this past Friday as the law was supposed to require it to do, but it only released two percent of what is on file but redacted 90 percent of what was released.  So most of it looked like this:

But some material incriminating Trump managed to leak out because Pam Blondie somehow overlooked it, and though it was removed from the "Justice" Department's Web site.  But intuitive anti-Trump groups took screenshots of it anyway.

You probably didn't notice any of that, however, because Trump made a big deal out of this:

John F. Kennedy, unlike his wife, may have found Pablo Casals' music boring, and he may have preferred Dr. No to Jules and Jim, but he appreciated the performing arts enough to advocate for their promotion and their celebration.  Unlike John F. Kennedy, Trump places great importance on  entertainment value more than on artistic value, which is why he gave arts honors to some of the least deserving entertainers in the country, and his idea of an enjoyable show is professional wrestling or a UFC fight, which is planned to take place on the White House lawn sometime in the new year.   

Too bad the ballroom won't be ready by then.  That would be the perfect place to put it.

Once again . . . it's time for the United States to break up into separate countries.  I support the dissolution of the Union.  I am a secessionist. 

Madonna - GHV2 (2001)

Second verse.  Same as the first.  Her second greatest-hits product is not worse than her previous one - and the pose she strikes on the cover has her (dyed) hair obscuring her face enough so that it doesn't repulse us - but, considering how atrocious her first greatest-hits compilation was, there was really no way that her nineties output could be any worse.

(Those are my record reviews for 2025.  See you in 2026.)