Okay, I’m depressed.  I turned off the teevee on Monday morning and haven’t turned it back on.  I just can’t do this. I’m too old, too broken hearted, and too filled with rage to watch the horror screaming around my head. I need to learn to knit or something.

I read about the situation so I understand it (somewhat) intellectually.  But actually seeing the slaughter makes me crazy enough to believe that Trump gave secret documents to our enemies and that’s how this happened.  And then I have distant relatives in Louisiana who say we have to fight this to make Israel safe for Jesus to return.  Holy goddamn crap, y’all. Sweet Jesus doesn’t need us to slaughter babies to make something safe.  Jesus can still the waters all on his own.  Contrary to some Christian beliefs, Jesus is not Stalin.

It’s making me crazy. I’m gonna learn to knit and force you to wear whatever I make because that’s how angry I am.

As an aside, last week my son Mark filed a lawsuit again Elon Musk. You can read about it here. Mark also talks about it on the place formerly known as Twitter.  The short of it is that Elon Musk outed a really decent 22 year old kid as a neo Nazi by claiming he was at a riot in Portland.  Musk bases his identification of the kid on a bad picture taken at the riot. Mark’s client, while looking a tiny bit like the picture, was in another state at a fraternity party at the time.  But, Musk will not back down because Musk is never wrong. Mark’s client is a Jewish kid and Musk declares he’s a Nazi. The results of this for the kid have been horrific. Then Musk declares that he’s going to say what he wants to say and if that costs him money, so be it. He’s going to ruin this kid’s life just because he can afford it.

Man, I’m depressed.  So, I’ve got girlfriends coming over today and we’re gonna each bring our favorite guilty pleasure food to share for lunch and make a decision about who makes the quarter final round of sexiest man alive picked by real women who have some experience with this stuff. You’ll be happy to know that Eric Swalwell and Pedro Pascal are still in the running.

Far be it from me to point out the obvious, but there are times when our behaviors don’t have real world consequences. Maybe we leave the stove on. Maybe we forget to lock the door. Maybe someone let the dog out. It doesn’t mean the house always burns down, someone robs you blind, or the dog bites a neighbor. It just means those things are more likely.

Yet, we know these things do happen. We see too many instances on the news to completely write it off. In one breath we talk about how that person should have been more careful and then in another instance we remember that we have likely done the exact same thing.

We experienced this as a country this weekend. We heard a story about the ex-president sharing secret plans with a foreign national and some people immediately pointed out the hyperbole. It couldn’t possibly come back to bite us in the ass. That’s just something that liberals are spouting off about to scare us. There are never really real world consequences. Loose lips don’t really sink ships. That’s just a red herring.

Well, maybe not. The Israelis were under attack this weekend. I’m not going to say it. Don’t listen to me. Let’s listen to the Israelis. They know the ex-president shared their secrets with the Russians. We can connect the dots from there. Let’s dispense with something really quickly. The Russians are not our friends. They have never been our friends. They likely will never be our friends. Their interests almost never align with ours.

Again, I did not connect the dots here. The Israelis did. Trump told Russia. The Russians are closer allies with the Iranians than we certainly are. Everyone we oppose is usually somehow Russia’s friend. So, Trump’s secrets that he got from Israel somehow made it to Iran. The Iranians don’t like the Israelis, so it probably made to Hamas. Again, I repeat that I did not connect those dots. Our right-leaning allies in Israel connected those dots.

So, before we start linking a six billion dollar deal (none of which is U.S. money) to this attack let’s talk about direct consequences and not seven degrees of Kevin Bacon. We already know the intelligence community kept things from Trump. Why did they do this? Well, that episode with the Russians in the oval office is probably exhibit one. That exact exhibit one is at play here. Remember, that is not me just pissing in the wind. The Israelis believe this.

I keep repeating that on purpose. You can certainly question Biden’s policy decisions and everyone is free to do so, but there are not two rational actors in this presidential race. One is a bloviating jackass that can’t be trusted with any actionable intelligence. You’d almost expect the intelligence organizations to give him far fetched and dubious intelligence to just to see if he can embroil Russia in a misinformation campaign. Unfortunately, Putin is smarter than someone you could dupe with an Ethiopian prince scheme.

Let’s get this off to a very basic start. Maybe the guy that kept our government secrets by a toilet shouldn’t be president again. Maybe that guy should be in jail before he can share any more of our government secrets. I know many of us wanted to believe that those loose lips wouldn’t actually cause any real damage. It was a fool’s errand. Loose lips do sink ships. They just don’t sink all of them and they don’t sink them immediately.

So, Lara Trump has made herself a song. She didn’t play any instruments. She didn’t write any of the chords or come up with any of the lyrics. She had a fancy studio auto tune her, so that it sounded halfway decent. It was a step above those places in the mall that would record you singing a song for $59.95. It was essentially karaoke. It was average karaoke.

Listening to her complain about the “obvious conspiracy” that was keeping her song from getting radio play was the last straw. I’m a pretty easy going and tolerant fellow. I’ll endure your crap a lot longer than most people. I’m done. It is the total lack of self-awareness that gets me. If her name were Jane Doe it never would have gotten by that mall shop style recording. She might get 13 downloads in that scenario.

I’m not even sure what to call her complaint on the conservative talk show circuit. It is equal parts irony, hyperbole, and certainly there is some oxymoron in there somewhere. How can someone completely misunderstand that she only got it recorded in the first place because of who she is and then turn around and complain about it not getting radio play because of who she is?

Call it hypocrisy but that doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s like Donald Trump Jr. complaining about Hunter Biden and his drug problem while he is obviously hopped up on cocaine. Okay, we didn’t see any white residue on his lip, so we can’t say it was definitely cocaine. However, the blood shot eyes, manic speech patterns, and cloudy thought patterns make that one all too obvious.

Listening to all the Trump children and hangers on is an exercise in chutzpah. They are people that have never put in an honest day’s work in their life and are somehow victims of something. It is the lack of self-awareness that is breathtaking. We knew this of daddy, but listening to the entire clan is just so very exhausting.

I propose Elba. For those that don’t remember, Elba was the island the French exiled Napoleon to. This time you set up some kind of an invisible wall where no electronic messaging can penetrate. There will be no landlines. No cell service or any ability to post to social media. All of these idiots will be cut off from the outside world. They are banished for an eternity.

I’ll exclude Tiffany and Baron from this treatment. They have so far had the good sense to keep quiet and Baron is still a minor child. However, I am putting them on notice. You suffer the same fate as the rest of them if you too become tiresome. Airlift supplies to them. Send in a maintenance guy and cook and promise them Trump’s booty once they all perish. I know it sounds too humane for Trump, but I just don’t want to deal with it anymore. Let’s make this happen.

It’s gotta be true.

I didn’t get the email until 5:00 so damn, too late for me.

And wouldn’t you just know it, I got the new Pfizer vaccine last week.

As everyone likely already knows, Matt Gaetz’s power play to get Kevin McCarthy ousted as speaker worked. McCarthy is no longer speaker. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina is the temporary speaker. What powers does he have? I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head. This has literally never happened before. A speaker of the house has never been ousted during a legislative session. Congratulations Kevin, I guess you’ve made history.

Some of my friends on the left are celebrating today. I can’t celebrate. Yes, the Republican party is a mess. Yes, this throws everything they are doing into chaos. Who the heck knows what happens to all of those sham investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden? Who knows how this might impact their oversight of things like the Justice Department and FBI? I literally cannot tell you if they are able to do anything at all.

When McCarthy went through all of those ballots to become speaker we were repeatedly told that no business could take place until a speaker was elected. Now, there is no speaker. So, do we go back to that state where we are waiting for a new speaker to be elected? Can McHenry conduct business until a new speaker is elected? How long is this all going to take?

These are questions I can’t answer. They are very basic questions. I was a political science major. I taught high school government for several years. These are the things my wife and daughter ask me when they don’t know the answer. These are the things I could tell them before. I can’t now. I honestly don’t know the answer. That by itself is frightening.

It might seem at first glance that the Republican party eating itself from the inside is a good moment for people on the left. I’d remind everyone that like that nothing ever happens in isolation. A dying animal lashes out all around them before they succumb to whatever is attacking them. It might be an actual law of physics or maybe Murphy’s Law, but these things are never completely isolated to themselves.

The House is done for the week. So, we won’t have a speaker until at least Monday. That means we have frittered more than a week away when the deal McCarthy brokered gave us 45 days. So far, we are talking pure mechanics and not even anything remotely political. I don’t have answers. Beyond the political ramifications, I can’t even address the basic ones. Sure, there are people that study this. There are people that probably know more than the folks actually doing it. It’s not like I am the Grand Pubha of all things political. It’s just disjarring not to know the answers.

Of course, the political ramifications are next level in terms of anxiety. Who will be the next speaker? Will it be someone more moderate or will the Freedom Caucus somehow take the entire chamber hostage? Are we looking at a speaker like Jim Jordan? These are things no one can answer right now. Even if we could we couldn’t tell you what it would all mean for everything happening over the next year and a half. This is why I’m not celebrating this. I literally do not know what’s happening next and no one else does either. Kevin McCarthy was a lying scumbag and he did not have a discernable backbone. Yet, I can’t even begin to guess on whether the next guy (assuming it is a man and not Marjorie Taylor Greene) will be better or worse. Put the popcorn away folks. This is no time to celebrate.

Keep your eye on this one.  This is a strong case with all kinds of cubby holes, sharp right turns, and enough gall to strangle Miss Manners.  It will fascinate you as it unfolds.

And you might want to get over there as quickly as you can before it “disappears.”

You can read it all but here’s the background …

This story tells you all the gritty and the actual lawsuit is at the bottom of the story or you can click here.

Mark is answering questions on Twitter (X) right now.

UPDATE:

Starts at 1:04:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04STEVT-WUI

Sam Seder interview