Elon Musk called it “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” which would be an accurate assessment if it wasn’t both obvious and a government program. Without the contributions of people working today, there would not be sufficient funding to pay the people on social security today. We’ve known this for decades, as anyone who remembers Al Gore’s cringey “lock box” analogy during a presidential debate.

But social security is not only wildly popular, but a program into which working Americans have paid throughout the work lives. That further reforms are needed, and maybe Gore wasn’t wrong about the “lock box,” is worthy of debate, but not even Trump is bold enough to admit that he wants to see it die. And yet, there’s Chainsaw Musk, busily doing what he does best. Continue reading →

Trump talked. And talked. And talked more. He was classic Trump, boasting about himself as “many people say.” Facts didn’t concern him. Humility was nowhere to be found. There was a hint of graciousness when he talked about the letter he received from Volodymyr Zelensky, though it might have more to do with being positioned to better serve Putin with Zelensky back in his pocket.

There was no sign of cognitive dissonance when his claims contradicted reality. He loves cops, but pardoned the January 6 cop beaters? He wants to balance the budget as he adds trillions for the national debt? His tariffs will devastate American farmers, not to mention most of America, but he loves farmers and pretends they love him? Continue reading →

Tariffs on Canada and Mexico? Eliminating offensive cybersecurity against Russia? Pausing aid to Ukraine? Indiscriminately cutting the federal workforce, closing national parks and eliminating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s ability to perform its function to predict weather, from hurricanes to droughts to tsunamis. The cost savings have been miniscule. The disruption has been traumatic. There is little to no connection to fraud, waste and abuse, but one nation, and only one, applauds our president’s initiatives.

The problem is that it will be hard, if not impossible, to undo the damage if and when the president’s supporters come to realize that the deliberate dysfunction of a nation to assuage a president’s bruised ego and appease a dictator will neither bring down the price of eggs, make America great nor improve anyone’s life. Hate the Dems and the woke all you want. This isn’t an answer. Continue reading →

You go to law school. You take a bar review course. You study your butt off. You lie in bed awake with the fear of failure. You study some more. And then comes the day of the California bar exam and…

“I’ve never had this much despair and hopelessness,” said exam taker David Drelinger, a 2023 graduate of the California-accredited Lincoln Law School in Sacramento. He said he tried to start the exam more than 30 times, with the testing platform crashing each time a proctor logged on to his computer. Continue reading →

Thomas Friedman sees no doubt that this was a setup, with wartime Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sandbagged by Trump and his dutiful puppy Vance. Whether Trump deserves enough credit to be capable of setting anyone or anything up is hard to say, even if Lindsey Graham told the president of a sovereign nation in advance of the meeting to drop to his knees and bow and scrape before Trump. This could be read to suggest that Graham was in on the set up, or that he just realizes that Trump only tolerates sniveling sycophants.

But while the cadre of the Trump-dependent spew the talking points to gaslight a nation that watched the debacle in real time that it was Zelensky being disrespectful of Trump, the rest of the world isn’t buying. Russia loved it, watching Trump suck up to Putin, but European countries, one after another, watched in dread as they came to the realization that the post-World War II structure of the world had come to an end. Continue reading →

Prefatory Note: To close out the month of February I’m pleased to share with all of you a pilot for a TV sitcom I recently wrote. It’s based off a Friday Funny post that was kind of a weird fever-dream sort of thing during the pandemic and I’m honestly not even sure if it’s on the website anymore (SHG does the post title here ring a bell? Just curious.)[Ed. Note: It’s here.].

Anyway I wanted to bring Glen the Grocery Store Greeter to the modern era and try to make him funny today. Hope you enjoy this because next week shit’s going to get weird.—CLS

COLD OPEN

INT. VOLUNTEER VALUE MART – ENTRANCE – NIGHT Continue reading →

It’s one thing to support what Trump is doing. While there’s a huge difference between reducing the federal bureaucracy and doing so competently, in a way that won’t wreak havoc and undermine the good and necessary along with the wasteful, it’s possible that some refuse to grasp the difference. And there’s a huge difference between shifting historic alliances with democracies to siding against them, denigrating them, while lavishing praise upon totalitarians. But hey, this is America and people are allowed to support whatever policies they believe to be better for the nation and themselves, no matter how simplistic and irrational they may be.

But how is it possible that these same people refuse to recognize lies when they smack you in the face? Continue reading →

The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.

Dick the Butcher, Act IV, Scene II, Henry VI, Part II. Contrary to what some wags believe, Shakespeare’s point, made through the dialogue of Dick the Butcher, was that the first thing to be done on the path to totalitarianism was to get rid of the lawyers, as they stand in the way. Like it or not, it’s what lawyers do.

During his Senate confirmation testimony, Secretary of Defense cum former Fox & Friends Weekend anchor Pete Hegseth stated that JAGoffs, as he calls them, get in the way of real warriors doing their lethal warrioring. From his perspective, it makes some sense. After all, military lawyers, Judge Advocates General, aren’t there to tell a soldier to fire at will, but to fire in accordance with the rules of engagement. Who likes rules when they really want to shoot people? Continue reading →

It’s one thing for Trump to have pardoned every defendant, no matter what Capital police officer they beat while enjoying their “tour” of the Congress or collection of souvenirs or depositing bodily excretions on desks, of the January 6th insurrection. After all, they did it for Trump, and how better to show his love of thuggery in his honor than to exercise his presidential prerogative with a big, beautiful pardon for his day of love?

But in the process, other crimes came to light having nothing to do with their being very fine people, and they were just good, old fashioned crimes of the sort that would have been used to castigate them had they been anything other than Trump’s love children. And on February 6th, the government argued that the pardons were granted for the insurrection, but not the ancillary crimes committed. Continue reading →

The janitor at Health and Human Services:

• Swept floor
• Mopped floor
• Cleaned bathroom
• Changed empty toilet paper roll
• Emptied waste baskets

The lab tech at the FBI:

• Cleaned slides
• Changed chemical in test tube
• Prepared slide
• Observe slide
• Filled out report on slide

Continue reading →