Bullies used to physically hound the weaker kids on the school playground. They still do, but now they use technology.

But every once in a while back then, they encountered “push back” from an underestimated victim who returned their “Indian burn” or their “wedgie” with one of equal or greater intensity.

Always accompanied by the retort: “See how that feels?”

A retort that was always unnecessary because if they didn’t darned well know, they wouldn’t have done it in the first place.

Well, now, maybe they know how it feels to have megabucks thrown at a corporation in order to achieve a desired political effect.

The only Texas billionaire that contributes to promote Democratic issues, one David Bonderman, owns TPG Capital, and that company runs The TPG Tech Adjacencies.

Stay with me.

The TPG Tech Adjacencies owns 30% of the satellite dish TV communications company called DirecTV. And last year, DirecTV “deplatformed” the Newsmax TV channel, having previously canceled the distribution of the OANN signal. Both are “go to” information sites for MAGA Republicans.

Now what are “Texans, South Carolinians, Utahns and Arkansasans” going to do to get their preferred news?

The bullies’…er…Republicans’ angst is chronicled here in a letter sent by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, among others.

Never mind that Ted Cruz gets paid (or excuse me, his Truth and Courage PAC gets paid) megabucks to spew lies disguised as truth over iHeartMedia, another major telecommunications network.

How does it feel, Ted?

Cruz is running for re-election this year. Texans will find him there on their ballots right under the choices for President and Vice-President. His only real opponent is the current congressman from Texas CD-32, Colin Allred. Allred’s campaign website is here.

It’s time to deplatform Ted Cruz.

I know nothing about shipbuilding. And I know next to nothing about Congressman Ronny Jackson (R TX-13), other than his pill passing penchant on Air Force One, and his appetite for dog penis (see below).

Aesop

But I do know Aesop.

Aesop, famous for his fables, once said, “A man is known by the company he keeps.” I believe that this is a time-tested maxim and haved lived by its evidential truth.

So how in the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks does Austal USA LLC, an Australian shipbuilding company that has just pleaded guilty to fraud and obstruction in a federal defense deal, know about “The Candyman” to the extent that they sent him $2500 in American money?

I don’t really need any answers. Just the question will suffice.

[Hat tip to Alfredo at the Dairy Queen]

Issuing advice from a recent experience, ultra conservative humorist (an oxymoron if there ever was one), Ann Coulter, gave Don Von wise counsel yesterday. Advice that she, herself might have benefitted from last week: “STFU.”

That’s not something you say to a child-like 78 year old convicted criminal with a catastrophic case of Napoleonic delusions, but it needed to be said.

[STFU, FYI, is millenialspeak for shut your frickin’ piehole]

She should know. When Gov. Tim Walz was issuing his Vice Presidential nomination acceptance speech a week ago his son, Gus, erupted with tears of joy and pride on national TV.

To this, Coulter snarked “Talk about weird…” on “X”.

The backlash was immediate. Despite the report that Walz’s son has issues beyond being a boy of just 17 years (which is issue enough), the remark was justifiably panned as cruel and insensitive. Tommy Vietor, formerly a staffer with the Obama administration, put it succinctly: “I can see why a child loving their parents would feel foreign to you.”

This must have been  inspirational to Coulter, who, upon learning that “45” wanted the mics on all the time at next month’s Presidential Debate, joined the pile-on that TFG’s paid campaign staffers were engaged in to keep the microphone of one debater muted while the other was speaking.

As previously agreed upon between the campaigns.

The reason this came up at all is that the Harris campaign changed their tune when they proposed an open mic format for the coming debate, obviously adopting the famous admonition by former TFG campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to “Let Trump be Trump.”

That sentiment has shifted now that there has emerged a paradigm shift, where a sex-crazed convicted fraudster is now pitted against a former prosecutor with a silver tongue and a cool head.

“Indeed,” Harris staffers seem to be saying, “Leave Von Shitzenpantz untethered.” Why work hard to discredit the bumbling and demented old geezer when he is so adept at doing it himself?

So maybe she learned the lesson a bit late (and I highly doubt it will ever be totally embraced), but at least Ann Coulter has been able to put a hard-learned lesson to good use.

And we can only hope that her sage counsel falls on deaf ears.

LET TRUMP BE TRUMP!

It seems silly to say some of this stuff here. After all, 99 percent of you are like-minded individuals on this issue. So, consider this something you can share with people that fall beyond this group. Maybe it will help them understand.

It occurred to me that we spend a lot of time talking about Donald Trump and people on the right have rightfully said they think we are obsessed. All that being said, I thought I should take a step back and explain why that is. That obsession isn’t really about him. I think everyone has that kind of guy in their life. He is a little racist (or maybe a lot), a little sexist, and you can never quite trust the stories he tells. Maybe you run into him at Thanksgiving, work functions, or church functions. He is the guy you politely nod to and try to find some polite way to get out of the conversation. Failure to do so will subject you to countless grievances ranging from toilets, to windmills, and then sharks.

On that level, Trump is fairly harmless. I would have no problem with him spinning yarns about helicopter crashes, shark vs. battery debates, or injecting bleach to fight a deadly disease. He is an idiot. We encounter idiots every day. Some of them are our friends or family. We endure them because they are our friends or family. We endure them because they have positive qualities too.

So, the obsession over Trump is clearly not about Trump himself but about the collective reaction to him. Everyone has that weird uncle, cousin, or coworker. We tolerate them because we have to. Yet, no one gave them any real authority because we all know what we are dealing with. This is not what has happened in this case.

Trump is a mirror. The reflection you see says more about you than him. I’d say about 60 percent of the country sees a buffoon that somehow stumbled into a huge inheritance and a lifetime of debauchery. The United Negro College Fund used to say that a mind was a terrible thing to waste. The 60 percent see brain rot. When ignorance is not challenged it becomes entrenched and metastasizes. That fact alone is not remarkable. It describes millions of Americans.

The obsession over Trump is what has happened to the 40 percent. When they see the reflection they see themselves. They see the same petty grievances. They see the same prejudices. When they hear the insults and pot shots they become emboldened. Finally, someone is saying the things they longed they could say. Finally, someone is “telling it like it is.”

Trump is a mirror for the world. Either they see the ugliest version of themselves or they see the ugliest version of the people around them. In both cases we are all made worse. If we are repulsed then we treat followers with derision. We become less tolerant because we have to.

Those that see themselves in the reflection see the very worst parts of themselves. Their inner asshole is unleashed on the world. Yet, a superior and sanctimonious asshole is still an asshole. So, no matter where you look all you see are assholes. Our worlds become siloed with like-minded curmudgeons that see the world the same way we do.

When someone wants to be a leader it is incumbent on him or her to make us better. We are all fallible and flawed. Collectively we can be more than that. Collectively we should be more than that. Unfortunately we are now less. We are less because a lot of us have given the drunk uncle a platform and responsibility. This isn’t on the drunk uncle. It is on those that gave him the platform.

With the not-so-surprising news that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has “suspended” his campaign for POTUS and thrown his support to Donald Von Shitzenpantz (who says he doesn’t really need any more voters, thank you), I am reminded of the man’s choice of fine cuisine.

RFK, Jr. is a self-admitted carnivore, and as we all now know, he is known to collect road kill for food and fur. He claims to have eaten all kinds of meat from all kinds of animals. That which he finds he has no time for, he apparently abandons in Central Park in New York City.

But he claims to have never partaken of the flesh of a dog. I actually had a chance to take a sample of Fido in East Asia once upon a time. I passed, but not before being told that the meat of a black dog was especially scrumptious: “Black dog – good eating.”

And while we are on the subject, this also reminds me of a story about TFG’s former White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, currently taking up space as a congressman for the 13th District of Texas. He apparently is simpatico with RFK’s penchant for exotica.

This story from two years ago describes Jackson’s encounter with a plate of “Dog Penises.” Said he during a podcast back then: “I ate a whole plate of dog penis one time. I’m not doing that again.”

It wasn’t actually the genitalia of dogs that Jackson partook of, not really. He was recalling eating a plate of Gaebul, a Korean delicacy.

Gaebul, or Urechis unicinctus, is a species of marine worm known as a spoon worm but is also known as a “penis fish” for its resemblance to, well, a dog’s penis. Like these tasty little devils.

Yummy, huh?

Any given afficionado of any of the Star Trek sagas will recognize this exotic dish as a plate of Klingon Gagh, or one of the 51 varieties of serpent worms – just not the one with feet.