Prefatory Note: Enjoy this one from the archives this week, friends. Your humble humorist is currently attempting to navigate a professional software “update” that makes me want to pull my remaining hair out of my head.—CLS

It’s summer in Tennessee. That means the weather goes from barely tolerable at 7 AM to “Satan’s Front Porch” by 10. When the air outside is so muggy it feels like you’re breathing in chicken soup you really appreciate what makes this weather bearable: central air and iced tea.

Summer means the kids go from crazy busy schedules involving school to crazy busy schedules involving summer camps. My son has two field trips a week, for example. This means his special camp shirts need to be clean for those days. It also means he needs to actually locate those shirts as needed which is apparently a Herculean task for a nine year old.

One idea I had to ameliorate this problem was purchasing additional shirts in the same or similar color. Unfortunately the day-glo puke green is a rare find of which the camp director purchased East Tennessee’s remaining stock. So I have no other option than two extra loads of laundry per week. Joy.

At least there’s no horse manure involved. Last year for part of the summer he was in an equestrian camp that taught kids the virtue of manual labor. Specifically shoveling horse shit. I don’t know how that small boy handled such a large shovel but he did. He also came home smelling like Mr. Ed’s toilet and that smell’s hard to get out of clothes after a point.

We’re all getting excited as the family’s going on vacation at the end of the month. It’s our first cruise—to Alaska no less. I’m especially excited as I’ve never done a cruise before. It seems like my ideal travel situation. Stay on a boat, see the water, have food and drinks delivered poolside…I see little to dislike about any of this.

My son’s had people filling his head at camp about what to expect and it’s wildly unrealistic. Here’s an example of a conversation we had a few short days ago:

“Daddy are we taking our swimsuits on the cruise?”
“Yes, son. Why?”
leaps into air “The stories are true! There’s pools and waterslides on the boat!”
“Um, there’s a pool for sure.”
“And there’s probably buttons you push at the top of the waterslide so when you get to the bottom someone brings you ice cream and cotton candy!”
Shakes head

My daughter’s had one request for the year we’ve been planning this trip: whale watching. So we’re doing that on her birthday. Eat it, Mattel. We need none of your Barbie claptrap. My girl wants whales, so she’s getting whales. Even if I have to Ahab one of those fuckers and pull it aboard so she can study one up close.

There’s little fathers won’t do for their kids. Within reason. I’ll spear a whale but extra ice cream after dinner is out of the question. Sugar is bad for growing children.

Dr. S and I had a discussion about whether we’ll allow the kids to try the boat’s “Kids Club” activities. Her stance is they’re allowed to try it if we stay in the hot tub outside the Kids Club area in case there’s any issues.

“But sweetie surely there won’t be an issue with the Kids Club. They’ve got to have trained people in there working with the kids.”

“Cruise ship workers are one step above carnies. Do you want your children left with glorified carnies? It’s like you’re not even their father sometimes.”

This exchange got me thinking about how on my first trip to Disney World with my parents I’d been encouraged to go on a “Pirates of the Caribbean” overnight “Treasure Excursion” with Disney cast members. I was about my son’s age at the time and refused to stay anywhere overnight than in my hotel room. My parents grumbled but acceded to my tearful requests to stay with them. Had I not protested I could’ve ended up on the back of a milk carton.

At any rate the cruise will be a nice two weeks of not dealing with anyone’s problems and turning my brain off to just enjoy the flow of life. That’s got to be something we all do from time to time just to recharge—turn off your brain, quit worrying about what happened or will happen, and enjoy the present.

So if you’ve hung with me this far I hope you take some time to recharge by staying in the present moment and not worrying about the future. Unless you have to for work or something. Then just hang in there.

We’ll see you next week, everybody!

Much has been made of Republican Senators finally finding their guts to say no to Trump’s wildest and most outrageously unlawful actions. It was put to the test in an appropriations bill to fund ICE and CBT with $70 billion for the next three years, where amendment after amendment was offered to address the myriad schemes to circumvent the Constitution and law and accomplish Trump’s wildest fantasies. The Republican Senators failed the test.

The Senate voted early Friday to fund immigration enforcement agencies for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term after a revolt by Republican senators held up the bill’s passage for weeks.

The bill passed 52-47 along party lines, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joining Democrats in opposing it. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) did not vote.

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Remember Bill Pulte? He was the nepo-baby who bought his way into Trump’s good graces to get a low-level, unsexy job as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which he then boot-strapped into a covert spy operation for Trump’s vengeance campaign by illegally accessing mortgage applications of Trump’s enemies to try to come up with crimes so they could be prosecuted. Aside from giving Trump money, there’s no surer way to endear oneself to Trump than being a cog in his vanity and vengeance machine. Pulte was more than happy to be such a cog.

And he’s now being rewarded for his faithfulness and faithlessness.

President Trump on Tuesday named Bill Pulte, who has pressed for investigations into the president’s foes, to serve as the acting director of national intelligence, giving him oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies.

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Years ago, I was interviewed by Mike Wallace for 60 Minutes. He was old by then, but he was still an animal. In the scheme of broadcast investigative journalism, there was nothing to compare to 60 Minutes, the highest rated show on CBS, airing since 1968. After Wallace retired in 2006, the newsmagazine softened. Today, it’s grown into something fat and puffy, rarely pushing as hard as it did to force the unwilling to confront their improprieties. And then there was the puff piece segment, as the Heuer stopwatch ticked to a close, to fill the dead air after the football game or golf tournament pushed it beyond its time slot.

I used to watch 60 Minutes religiously. Nowadays, I check it out first to decide whether it’s worth it, and occasionally watch one or two segments. Still, it’s disappointing when Leslie Stahl fails to follow up a non-responsive answer with the in-your-face retort. Mike Wallace never would have let that go. Continue reading →

He was rough around the edges, plain spoken and an outsider to politics. This apparently appealed to the Democratic voters in Maine, so when Graham Platner, 41, decided to run against two-time governor, Janet Mills, his campaign caught the public interest, gained momentum and ultimately forced Mills to suspend her campaign.

But Platner came with baggage of his own.

The latest furor involving Mr. Platner involves an admission that he had sent sexually explicit texts to as many as six women since he was married in 2023. His campaign previously survived uproars over a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol (he has since had it covered up) and inflammatory old Reddit posts.

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Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is all aboard the AI train.

Artificial intelligence will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of the world. It will profoundly affect the life of every man, woman and child in our country. It will bring — and is already bringing — unimaginable changes to our economy, our democracy, our emotional well-being, our environment and how we educate and raise our children. Further, there is a very real fear that as A.I. becomes smarter than humans it could eventually function independently, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

If one considers the annoyance of AI engaging in verbose responses to basic questions, mediocre creation of content or hallucination of facts the “most transformational technology in the history of the world,” then he’s got a point. But Bernie being Bernie, his concern isn’t so much about it becoming “smarter than humans,” which might not take much effort, but with a few tech titans making bank on it. Continue reading →

I love the local Memorial Day parade. I fly the flag on July 4th. I get teary-eyed at the playing of the national anthem. Much as I criticize the United States, I’m proud to be an American and thankful that of all the countries in the world, I was fortunate enough to be born here. For those reasons and more, the 250th Anniversary of the United States of America should be a day of celebration of a nation I love. And yet, much as try, I cannot find it within me, not because of my feelings about my country, but because he’s made it all about him.

AMERICA IS BACK Rally! pic.twitter.com/ZAowKERA12

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 30, 2026

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It’s hard to imagine that now-fired Attorney General Pam Bondi would have been any more forthcoming had she appeared for a deposition, under oath and recorded for public transparency. After her stunningly belligerent public testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, it was clear that she felt no compulsion to either answer questions or behave respectfully, mirroring her patron’s obsession with hurling infantile insults at her, and his, enemies.

But Oversight Committee chair, James Comer, decided not to bother with such details as sworn testimony or public transparency despite the subpoena he was pressured into issuing, opting instead to go with a private unsworn interview. After all, she was fired as AG, so what could she possibly have to offer with regard to what went wrong with the Epstein files release under her watch? Continue reading →

Ah, summer in East Tennessee is wondrous. Families pour into Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains for excursions to the National Parks, Splash Country and Dollywood. Concerts kick off in Knoxville with artists like Luke Combs selling out Neyland Stadium.

And in Pigeon Forge, shoppers comb the outlet malls for the best deals while attempting to avoid the stares of the coked-up Kangaroo Man.

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After the government’s raising the specter of prosecuting E. Jean Carroll, who is believed by some to have forced her evil vagina over Trump’s unwitting finger, for being unfamiliar with Reid Hoffman’s financial assistance in her lawsuit when she responded to a question in a deposition, atop the prosecutions, both failed and inchoate, of Tish, Jim, John, Adam, Jim (again), et al., Andrew Weissmann, who has now taken up residence in Michael Avenatti’s old dressing room at MSNBC, sees a problem.

In an administration where prosecutors can be counted on to proceed in good faith — and to follow the Justice Department’s own rules — cases like these should be vanishingly rare. Right now, however, we can’t bank on that. All these examples have at least a whiff of prosecutorial vindictiveness.

Wait, is he saying that the Department of Justice doesn’t carefully scan the answers to every question in every deposition in every case in search of potential perjury for prosecution, as if E. Jean Carroll is inexplicably special? Continue reading →