“The United States is generally a place where comedy is king. As the weekly cartoon series South Park demonstrates, by routinely putting Trump in bed with Satan, nothing is sacred in this country. Trump, like most would-be dictators, has no real sense of humor aside from making fun of other people. Can he wipe out the great scourge of comedy in America? He has many models to choose from.” (09/29/25)
“In the wake of James Comey’s indictment, Democrats like Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Eric Swalwell are issuing dark warnings with a straight face that ‘what goes around comes around’ and that anyone who cooperates with Donald Trump’s ‘vengeance prosecutions’ will face retribution when Dems are back in charge. But their threats fall on deaf ears because they started it. Democrats long ago weaponized the justice system against their political opponents. Let us count the ways.” (09/28/25)
“During North Korea’s parliamentary session last week, Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, delivered a speech expressing his clear willingness to engage in diplomacy with the United States. But under one strict precondition: the United States must stop seeking to denuclearize North Korea. … Pyongyang’s stern rejection of denuclearization is disturbing and hard to accept for Washington, but it also provides a reality check as the Trump administration seeks to engage North Korea. Trump may have fond memories of his talks with Kim Jong Un from 2018 to 2019 and may hope for a repeat. The harsh reality is that diplomacy with North Korea based on ‘denuclearization’ looks more unlikely than ever.” (09/29/25)
“On Monday, Sept. 22, the current president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, joined the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), David Petraeus, on stage for a discussion at the Concordia Annual Summit in New York City. The summit is one of the most prestigious global affairs forums in the world …. It was a surreal moment because 20 years ago, during Iraq War II, these men were enemies. Once upon a time, al-Sharaa was known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a foot soldier in Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and Petraeus was known as US Army General David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. In fact, it was a moment that revealed the extent to which the US Empire has become an inherently treasonous project.” (09/29/25)
“Billionaire private equity executive Antonio Gracias has had a busy year. In March, as part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Gracias was sent in search of supposed fraud at the Social Security Administration. A few weeks later — at a rally with his longtime friend and then-head of DOGE, Elon Musk — Gracias claimed to have found it. Echoing a right-wing conspiracy theory, Gracias said an increase in Social Security numbers assigned to noncitizens looked like a move to ‘import voters’. In fact, eligible non-citizens are routinely assigned Social Security numbers as part of the federal work authorization process, but they cannot vote. Undocumented immigrants pay billions into Social Security each year but cannot receive benefits.” (09/29/25)
“Few politicians have invested more ill-gotten resources into riling up my neighbors against some mythic Queer agenda than Donald Trump has over the last four years. He has transformed his public persona from a populist potty mouth who would much rather troll John McCain’s funeral than the Pride parade to an absurdly philanderous stadium church crowd exciter whooping up hysteria over bearded macho men playing ladybug soccer and mandatory sex change surgeries at a kindergarten near you. There is a reason for this. The first four years in the White House alone proved that Donald Trump is just another neocon-hiring missile merchant to anyone actually paying attention, so he has to invest more and more resources into making sure that you’re way too pissed off at weird people like me for you to pay attention.” (09/28/25)
“It seems like Comey’s tenure was mostly lies. So pardon me if I decline to break out even the world’s smallest violin for his current legal problems. On the other hand, it’s also true that this prosecution has nothing whatsoever to do with the alleged lie in question. It’s partly about Donald Trump’s desire to ‘get’ Comey for having proven insufficiently loyal to Donald Trump. It’s mostly about Trump’s need for distractions from his close personal relationship with the late Jeffrey Epstein.” (09/28/25)
“National Public Radio recently aired a segment on the evils of ‘Surveillance Pricing’— the practice of employing customer data and AI to tailor prices for individual consumers. The coverage, predictably, is overwhelmingly negative: an interviewee warned that it would let corporations prey on people’s vulnerabilities, as the Federal Trade Commission frets about ‘privacy, competition, and consumer protection.’ … In truth, this is simply a scary name for something we already know: dynamic pricing. Airlines, ride-share companies, hotels, and supermarkets have been doing it for years. Arguably, it has been done since time immemorial: I have little doubt that Arab traders offered ‘special’ prices for visiting Englishmen to Jumma Bazaars — and I know this because they still do, from Kuwait to Karachi. … The fact that dynamic pricing exists is a net win to all of us.” (09/26/25)
