No Good Deeds

Posted on June 6, 2026 by 34orion

I was watching Mr. Deeds Goes to Town the other day.

Please don’t confuse it with Adam Sandler’s Mr. Deeds (2002), which is a perfectly enjoyable film in its own right, but isn’t in the same league as the original. And let’s draw a curtain over the dreadful 1969 television series starring Monty Markham.

I’m talking about Frank Capra’s 1936 classic, starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck.

I chose it because I needed something to ease my reentry into the United States—a vision of America I still recognized. An America of decency, optimism, and common sense. Not the version currently being narrated by a news cycle trapped in a death spiral and relentlessly cultivated by the Potentate of Perpetual Prevarication.

If you have never seen the movie, you can find it on Prime. Here is a brief synopsis: Longfellow Deeds, played to perfection by Gary Cooper, is a small-town tuba player and greeting-card poet who unexpectedly inherits a fortune and moves to New York City. There, he finds himself surrounded by opportunists, social climbers, and cynical reporters eager to exploit his naïveté. As Deeds struggles to navigate wealth, power, and public scrutiny, he ultimately proves that common sense, kindness, and integrity can be more powerful than money or status.

Yes, Virginia, in this vision of America, driven through the lens of the Great Depression, common sense, integrity, and kindness defeat wealth and power. A concept not really embraced in our current reality, where celebrities are famous for being famous, influencers are famous for being influencers, and actual accomplishment is often treated like an unfortunate character flaw.

Gary Cooper was famous for making decency look effortless. As Irving Berlin put it, everyone was “trying hard to look like Gary Cooper (super duper).”

Ninety years later, America could use a few more people trying. (Tom Hanks, keep up the good work. At the moment you’re carrying an alarming percentage of the nation’s decency portfolio.)

One of the lines in the movie that really sent me down a rabbit hole about how different our current reality is from that depicted in the film is when Deeds is told that he has inherited $20 million and is now “one of the richest men in America.”

By our standards, that is not a lot of money. Today it is roughly a single-week Mega Millions jackpot or about three hours of volatility in Elon Musk’s net worth.

John D. Rockefeller, whose fortune at the time was approximately $1.5 billion, controlled wealth equal to roughly 1.5% of America’s GDP.

The richest man in America, let alone the world, is Elon Musk. And he makes John D. look like a piker, with a fortune of over $800 billion, or roughly 3% of GDP. Not being a socialist, I can still say that is a scary amount of money and economic power for a single person to control.

But there is a bigger difference between the richest man in America then and now. By the time John D. died in 1937, he had given away nearly one-third of his total wealth to charities that supported education, medicine, science, and public health.

Elon Musk, by any standard, has given far less of his fortune. To date, the value of his charitable donations is generously estimated at $7 billion, or less than one percent of his fortune. But the actual number is much less because, in many cases, he has donated Tesla stock that he retains control of. In actual cash, he has given approximately $620 million or less than .1% of his net worth.

What a guy. He is making Scrooge McDuck look like Andrew Carnegie and Mother Teresa rolled into one.

What Elon Musk gives to charity is up to him. I don’t think we should force him to give a dime of his fortune to charity. But I think it is illustrative of what he is actually paying in income tax. His donation of stock to foundations allows him to eliminate capital gains taxes. Private donations lower that bill even more.

In other words, he no longer needs to give money to charity because he can avoid taxes by giving the appearance of a donation while still building his own personal fortune. Not something the average citizen can do.

What it means, in technicolor, is that the wealthiest Americans—those who have used the most of our resources—are asking those of us in the middle class not only to finance the running of our government, but also their extravagant and self-indulgent lifestyles.

Clearly, there is something wrong with our tax code. We are in this together, and we all need to pay our fair share.

Longfellow Deeds would have. John D. Rockefeller did.

So what is the solution? Let me throw out a couple of ideas and see if they stick.

Minimum Tax: Regardless of your deductions, you must pay a minimum tax on your income. You can use as many fancy, rich-person tax dodges as you like (I’m looking in your direction, Baron von Bluster), but eventually you must write at least one check to the government that doesn’t bounce off a Cayman Islands shell company.

The problem with this method is that the wealthy can afford to be paid in stocks and other instruments that don’t strictly count as income. They can then borrow against those assets and use the cash to finance increasingly ambitious monuments to themselves, whether those monuments take the form of gold statues, vanity space projects, or social-media platforms purchased at prices normally associated with small nations.

Progressive Tax with No Deductions: Our current tax code is riddled with carve-outs that favor the wealthy. A Republican construct based on the canard known as “trickle-down economics,” which, according to its creator, was utter bullshit but sounded good to the Republican base.

Get rid of all deductions. You pay a graduated percentage of your income based on prosperity, period. This has the added benefit of simplifying tax returns and eliminating a large percentage of IRS bureaucracy.

Wealth Tax: If your net worth is more than $10 million, you pay 5% of your net worth in taxes. A tax like this would raise approximately $3 trillion a year. This would completely eliminate the current annual deficit and contribute $1.5 trillion to debt reduction.

The main criticism of this plan is that it would cause wealthy individuals to flee the country, a threat that is issued with such regularity that one would think private jets are idling continuously on runways awaiting the signal.

While I am tempted to say, “See ya,” a simple way of preventing this would be to add a clause stating that if you spend more than 30 days per year in the United States, you will be taxed as a citizen.

Frank Capra’s America was hardly perfect, but it possessed a radical notion that now seems almost revolutionary: the rich owed something to the society that made them rich. Longfellow Deeds understood it instinctively. Rockefeller eventually learned it. Today’s billionaire class often appears convinced that society owes them a thank-you note for paying taxes at all. Perhaps that is why a black-and-white movie from 1936 feels more modern than the headlines of 2026.

One world celebrated decency and regarded greed with suspicion. The other celebrates greed and regards decency as a branding strategy.

Given the choice, I’ll take Mandrake Falls every time.

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The Department of His Justice

Posted on June 2, 2026 by 34orion

This week the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the woman who beat the Grifter-in-Chief twice in a court of law.

Let’s be precise about what that means. A jury of his peers — Americans, presumably some of whom voted for him (juries drawn from the entire Southern District of NY which includes counties that are deep red) — found that this man sexually abused her. Another jury, in separate proceedings, awarded her $83 million in damages for the defamation she suffered when he opened his mouth, as he always does, to make himself the victim.  His high-priced legal cavalry charged the hill and lost. Appeals went nowhere. He is 0-4. The courts, functioning as designed, said: guilty.

Now prosecutors are examining whether Carroll committed perjury when, in a 2022 deposition, she said no one else was paying her legal fees — a question that arose after it was revealed a nonprofit connected to billionaire Reid Hoffman had covered some of her costs. (The irony here is the Abuser-in-Chief’s legal bills were handled by donors, not him.) But that’s his excuse and he is sticking to it. This is the fig leaf. The Emperor of Mar-a-Lago doesn’t need a good reason — he just needs a reason, any reason, a reason thin enough to fit under a courtroom door to muddy the water, and keep him from taking responsibility for his own despicable behavior.

The Carroll probe joins Donnie’s “Revenge of the Turd Tour” that includes multiple attempts to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Comey was indicted on charges of making a false statement to Congress and obstruction. A judge eventually dismissed those cases, scolding the Justice Department for a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” and potential prosecutorial misconduct. Letitia James, who had the audacity to sue the Debt-Ridden Don and win, was indicted, re-investigated, dismissed, and indicted again. Two federal grand juries and a federal judge threw out the charges, yet the department reportedly pressed on.

Grand juries, to be clear, indict ham sandwiches. When even a grand jury looks at your case and says no, you have not merely lost — you have achieved something special. You have assembled a prosecution so bereft of merit that citizens, average citizens dragged in off the street, looked at it and said: we won’t put our names on this.

This is about the oldest impulse in the authoritarian playbook: using the machinery of the state to punish your enemies, reward your loyalists, and remind everyone else what happens when they get in your way. Where the attorney general’s job title should technically read: Personal Counsel to the Grievance.

Calling it a “revenge tour,” undersells the structural problem. Revenge is personal. What’s happening here is institutional. The Justice Department — an agency founded on the radical notion that no person is above the law — has been converted, in the span of a few months, into a billing department for scores that needed settling. Carroll. Comey. James. Others in the queue. The Southern Poverty Law Center. Democratic lawmakers. The list has the rhythm of a grudge list, not a docket.

And lest we focus only on what the Justice Department is doing to his enemies, let’s spare a moment for what it’s doing for his friends. Earlier this month, the department announced a $1.776 billion fund — drawn directly from public coffers — to compensate Trump loyalists deemed victims of “weaponization.” The money flows through a commission appointed by his own attorney general, with recipient names and payout amounts deliberately hidden from public view. No specific recipients named yet, but the intended audience is obvious: the January 6th rioters, most of whom the Pardoner-in-Chief had already sprung on day one. Capitol Police officers who were beaten during the assault have filed suit. The Treasury Department’s own top lawyer resigned in protest. The lawsuit that generated this windfall — a $10 billion action filed by Trump against his own IRS — was filed months past the statute of limitations and described by the IRS’s own lawyers as one that should have been tossed immediately.

To recap: prosecute the woman who beat him in court, cut checks to the mob that stormed the Capitol for him. Punishment for enemies, payday for loyalists. The two-tiered justice system, now with a budget line.

This is how banana republics are created. Not dramatic. Not cinematic. Just: a bureaucracy pointed at enemies instead of criminals.

The Tangerine Tyrant has done us the unintentional favor of clarifying something important. Our republic was founded on the concept that those we elect were men of good will and strong character. Our founders did not anticipate us electing a convicted felon who thinks morals are a type of mushroom. He has taught us rules don’t protect us. Laws do.

For decades, the independence of the Justice Department from direct presidential control rested on norms, traditions, and a gentleman’s agreement that presidents would behave like presidents and not like mob bosses with nuclear codes. The Norm-Shredder taught us that norms are tissue paper. He taught us that a determined bad actor can do extraordinary damage before anyone finds a statute to stop him.

We need laws. Not rules.  Here are a few places to start:

Prohibit direct presidential communication with DOJ prosecutors on specific cases. Right now, nothing formally stops a president from calling his attorney general and saying “I want that woman investigated.” There is a memo. There are norms. Memos are not laws. Norms are for people who respect them. A statute criminalizing direct presidential interference in specific prosecutorial decisions would do what the memo cannot: create consequences.

Require Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorneys to sign off on any investigation of a political opponent, former adversary, or litigation counterparty of the president. The cases against Carroll, Comey, and James all originated in circumstances where the subjects had direct, documented legal or political conflict with the man in the Oval Office. That conflict of interest should trigger mandatory independent review before a single subpoena gets issued.

Create an office of Special Prosecutor with independent standing to challenge retaliatory prosecutions in federal court. Right now, the accused must mount that defense themselves, at enormous personal and financial cost. The Grifter-in-Chief is betting that the process is the punishment — that even failed prosecutions drain the targets of money, time, and dignity. An independent watchdog with the power to intervene early changes that calculus.

Mandate disclosure when the president or his staff communicates with DOJ about an ongoing matter. Sunlight is still the best disinfectant. If the Acting Attorney General gets a call from the West Wing about E. Jean Carroll, America should know about it — not in a leak, but in a filing.

None of this is complicated. None of it is radical. All of it is, compared to what we’ve tolerated, embarrassingly overdue.

The courts have been doing their job — throwing out indictments, scolding prosecutors, upholding jury verdicts. But the courts are downstream and increasingly MAGA stacked. By the time a case reaches them, the damage is done. Carroll is 82 years old and being dragged back into the legal system by the man a jury found had assaulted her. Letitia James has been indicted twice for what amounts to the crime of doing her job well. Comey spent a year as a criminal defendant before a judge ended it.

What protects the next Carroll? The next Comey? Us?

Not rules. Not norms. Not the good intentions of whoever happens to be sitting in the big chair.

Laws. Passed by Congress, signed into statute, enforceable in court. The only things that hold when the man at the top decides the rules don’t apply to him.

As Maya Angelou warned “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

My codicil to her advice would be: “And then do something about it.”

Posted in Humor / satire, personal essay, Politics and Society, Social Media, Trump Opposition | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Six Years Ago, Today

Posted on June 2, 2026 by 34orion

Six years ago today I returned to the United States after being marooned in Brazil because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was a hell of a trip. A cab from Rio to São Paulo. A masked plane ride from São Paulo to Houston and then Houston to Newark. Every cough sounded like a death sentence audition. Every surface felt radioactive. But underneath the fear was relief — relief that I was going home to a country that was still recognizable. A place where I spoke the language, trusted the doctors, and believed the adults were at least pretending to be in charge.

I remember the applause when the plane landed and the tears running down my cheeks.

I remember my much, much younger sister showing up masked at my doorstep with a care package like a suburban pandemic resistance fighter.

I remember Rosie first ignoring me out of principle and then exploding into hysterical dog joy five minutes later.

I remember how good it felt to come home. America still felt like home then.

Today, I am once again leaving Brazil to return to the United States.

Like six years ago, I am sad to leave because Elaine is staying here. But this time, going back no longer carries the same sense of comfort or safety. To be blunt, America now feels less like a country and more like a second level reality show where the winner in the octagon doesn’t win the nuclear codes and a drone contract.

The country I loved has become a spray-tanned tribute band version of itself — louder, meaner, greedier, and somehow deeply impressed with its own mediocrity. We are governed by a man whose relationship with truth resembles Tommy Flannagan, Jon Lovitz character on SNL.

We used to admire people who worked hard, raised families, built communities, and quietly carried the country on their backs. Now we idolize hedge fund sociopaths, crypto grifters, and billionaires who cosplay as populists while flying private jets to explain why school lunches are the real fiscal problem.

We used to believe in science. Bell Labs. NASA. The Mayo Clinic. Real institutions staffed by people who actually read books voluntarily. Now public health policy gets workshopped somewhere between a podcast ad for beef liver supplements and a YouTube comment section written entirely in capital letters.

We used to believe in due process and the rule of law — not prosecuting people because they bruised the ego of an overripe authoritarian who thinks the Constitution is a loyalty pledge written specifically for him. The Attorney General was supposed to serve the country, not function as the President’s personal crisis-management intern.

We once understood that war was a last resort. Something entered into soberly and reluctantly. Not because an aging narcissist wanted better poll numbers, cable news applause, or the geopolitical equivalent of jangling keys in front of voters.

We used to aspire to be the shining city on the hill.

Now half the country seems content being the comments section underneath it.

So yes, I may cry when I land tomorrow. But not out of gratitude for returning home.

I will cry for the country we lost somewhere between the lies, the algorithms, the worship of wealth, and the collective decision to hand the car keys to the loudest idiot in the parking lot.

Posted in covid, Humor / satire, institutional poverty, opinion, personal essay, Politics and Society, Social Media, Trump cuts | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Term Limits or Pitchforks

Posted on May 24, 2026 by 34orion

Jon Stewart once described Chuck Schumer as a “human flat tire.”

Seth Meyers described Mike Johnson as “the human embodiment of a forwarded church email.”

An internet wit described John Thune as “having the energy of a man explaining ethanol subsidies at a Marriott bar.”

Earlier this year, just before Whosit’s State of the Union address, Hakeem Jeffries urged Democrats to give him the silent treatment. Stephen Colbert responded:

“For Democrats who did attend, Hakeem Jeffries urged members not to make a scene, an approach he dubbed ‘silent defiance,’ which I believe is a bold rebrand of doing jack squat.”

Great jokes, I guess. But like a lot of humor, they point to something darker: the current leadership of both parties has failed us in nearly every possible way.

Not convinced? Okay. To refresh your memory, here is an abbreviated list of the things Congress has failed to do:

• Stop the ill-advised, poorly planned, badly executed war with Iran. Yes. That is their job. Congress has voted on the War Powers Act four times. And it has failed four times. That is a failure of leadership — not to mention backbone and several other vital body parts — in the face of a despot-wannabe president whose philosophy seems to be: shoot, aim, fire.

• Prevent Don the Destructor from tearing down part of the White House so he could build a $1 billion vulgarian ballroom — one he claimed political donations would fund (aka bribes), but now apparently being paid for by taxpayers.

• Hold the DOJ and the president accountable for failing to release the Epstein files as required by statute, then botching the release they did manage.

• Congress holds the purse strings, not the guy currently farting behind the Resolute Desk. Yet they allowed CheetoMan and his sidekick Muskboy to decimate the EPA, NASA, USAID, Veterans Affairs, and other agencies without reason, planning, or shame. This has led to more pollution, endless waits for veterans seeking treatment, and Musk becoming even richer, but also to between 500,000 and 1,000,000 deaths from starvation and disease. Oxfam estimates that by 2030, a child under five will die every 40 seconds as a direct result of these cuts — the first increase in under-five child mortality this century.

• Allow the baby-in-chief to run the executive branch without adult supervision. He has fired twenty-one inspectors general and replaced only eight. Those replacements have not exactly pledged to be stewards of the public trust so much as interns for the royal court.

• Fail to push back when the midnight tweeter used imaginary crises to overturn treaties approved by Congress.

Congress is supposed to be a coequal branch of government, not a retirement community with subpoena power. But under the current leadership it has become as useful as fact-checkers at a conspiracy convention.

Still not convinced?

Think of all the bills they have passed to help average Americans.

I’ll wait.

You probably will too.

Because other than the bill with the naming convention apparently created by a six-year-old who thinks gold filigree is the answer to every design problem, this Congress seems capable only of naming post offices and forwarding strongly worded fundraising emails.

And let’s not pretend no one is noticing. We all are. 90% of voters disapprove of the job Congress is doing. And those of us who are supposedly wiser because we have more wrinkles are the ones who disapprove most.

• 18–34: 12% approve
• 35–54: 12% approve
• 55+: 7% approve

By the way, and for shits and giggles, this is regardless of party.

• Republicans: 20% approve — down catastrophically from 63% in March 2025
• Independents: 11% approve — essentially flat and low all year
• Democrats: 3% approve — nearly matching the all-time record low of 2%

At this point, you may be thinking what every good boss I’ve ever had has said to me when I kindly and tactfully explained the problem with their latest, greatest, most innovative idea.

“Great Paul. You have identified the problem. Now what is the solution.”

Oh, now you want a solution? How dare you!

Okay. Let me try.

First, each party should pass a resolution that no one in a leadership role should be older than retirement age. This is not ageism. Well, maybe a little. But the world is changing too fast for people who still print MapQuest directions.

I mean really, to paraphrase Stephen Colbert, “Do we really want the republic run by the cast of Cocoon and the management team from a regional casino buffet?” Or give the board of The Villages subpoena power?

In an ideal world, the ballot box would constantly renew those serving us in Washington. Sadly, the Citizens United decision changed all that. The ruling held that government cannot restrict independent political spending by corporations, unions, and nonprofits because such spending is protected under the First Amendment as free speech.

We can debate later whether corporations should have the same free speech rights as humans, but money pouring into campaigns has tripled since then. Most of that money comes from corporations and billionaires who think democracy is a concierge service.

It means Congress no longer works for the people who elected them. Those people can’t afford the table minimum. They are too busy funding campaigns to care much about we the people. Without a constitutional amendment, we cannot fix campaign finance.

What we can do is limit entrenched power, increase accountability, and encourage citizen legislators by limiting members of Congress and the Senate to 12 years in office through a bipartisan bill. Not perfect, but still more realistic than expecting Congress to suddenly rediscover shame.

And can you imagine a member of Congress trying to explain to constituents why this is a bad idea? Would love to be there for that example of double talk. I assume it would involve a flag pin, three lobbyists, and someone explaining why twelve years is not enough time to get things done. Hey dude, haven’t you heard it’s a gig economy.

Yes, Naomi, this will certainly be challenged in the courts. In America, every good idea eventually is. But I believe it is likely to be upheld because strict constructionists Thomas and Scalia both authored opinions suggesting such a law would be constitutional.

Term limits are no longer a political reform. They are a defibrillator for a patient who has already written its own eulogy. Congress, in its current form, is not a coequal branch of government — it is a green room for lobbyists, a billionaire donor-funded daycare for the professionally shameless, and a monument to the proposition that mediocrity, if sufficiently funded, is eternal.

The Founders gave us a republic. We gave it back. We traded it, in fact, for a system so thoroughly marinated in corporate money and cowardice that it can no longer tell the difference between representing constituents and billing them. So yes, term limits. Or pitchforks. History, as it turns out, is not particularly picky.

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VE Day: The Thread We Lost

Posted on May 9, 2026 by 34orion

Eighty-one years ago, this week the Second World War ended in Europe.

Four major powers — the United States, Soviet Union, France and the United Kingdom — along with troops from Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Denmark and Brazil put troops in the field to fight Nazi Germany. They came together because they understood that one-party dictatorship, state terror, suppression of free speech, and aggressive nationalism were not just bad for the world — they were incompatible with the ideals that made them free people.

They were committed. They sacrificed their youth so that, to paraphrase Lincoln, their nations might live. Or as Churchill put it: “If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”

That cost was enormous:

  • Soviet Union                  11,000,000
  • Yugoslavia                      300,000
  • United States                185,000
  • United Kingdom           265,000
  • France                              210,000
  • Poland                              240,000
  • Canada                            45,000
  • Australia/NZ                  30,000
  • Italy                                    30,000
  • Greece                             20,000
  • Brazil                                 1,000

But it was not just the warriors who paid the ultimate price for this war. Nearly fifty million civilians died during the war.

Numbers this large are hard to comprehend. Consider this: if the entire population of the United Kingdom were to vanish today, that would still fall short of the total lives lost in World War II.

Their sacrifice was not in vain. It created a better world.

It created NATO. An organization that has kept Europe from fighting each other for over 80 years. The greatest sustained peace on that continent since the dark ages.

It ended colonialism. At the end of 1945 there were only 50 countries. Today there are over 193 nations within the UN. I am not saying that American democracy led the way. But our example of country that used to be a colony now being the most powerful nation on the planet did not hurt.

It created the greatest economic boom in the history of mankind. It ended the Great Depression. It retooled the United States and the world through the Marshall Plan. The GI Bill created the largest and most powerful middle class in the history of the world. It built institutions — the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the World Bank, and GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) — that established free and fair trade so that nations would become economically interdependent, and interdependence would reduce the appetite for war. Harming one nation would harm them all.

I am ashamed to say that eighty-one years later, the United States has lost the thread — not only on why we fought World War II, but on the institutions and alliances that have kept the peace ever since.

Let’s start with the statement the White House released on VE Day. It was not about the sacrifices made by all of the Allies. It was about how great the United States was, to the exclusion of others’ sacrifice. Perhaps its most ominous line is this: “Their feat reminds us that the freedoms we cherish were paid for by sacrifice and must be resolutely defended both inside and outside the country.” 

Who are we fighting inside our country?

I believe the only people those soldiers would recognize as the enemy today — the ones who fit the definition they fought and died to defeat — are the people currently controlling our government.

Let’s boil it down.

We fought WW2 to overthrow a one-party dictatorship that concentrated power in the hands of a few at the expense of everyone else. How is that different from the state-mandated gerrymandering that has already been enacted in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, Florida, and Ohio — and is now being actively pursued in Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Georgia? These states are not even pretending otherwise. The stated goal is to keep the House and preserve Trump’s grip on power. You can’t quite call it a dictatorship yet — but it isn’t what “Willy and Joe” fought for. (If you don’t know Willy and Joe, they were the battle-worn GI characters in Bill Mauldin’s legendary WWII cartoons — the best portrait of the ordinary American soldier ever drawn.)

But gerrymandering is just the mechanism. The deeper assault is on speech itself. In WW2 we recognized the suppression of free speech as an existential threat to freedom — the thing that had to be stopped before everything else fell. The current administration has threatened Kimmel, The View, Colbert, Comcast, CBS, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Pulitzer Board for the crime of speaking their minds. Has anyone gone to jail? Not yet. But when companies and individuals are frightened into silence, the jail is the fear itself. Free speech doesn’t require a prison cell to die.

And then there is the matter of what the state does to its own people. Our soldiers fought and died in WW2 because they understood that state-sponsored terrorism against citizens was wrong. Sending people to concentration camps was wrong. Discriminating against people because of their race, creed or color was wrong. Today our government practices all of those things. It explicitly or implicitly declares the country has one religion: Christianity. ICE terrorizes, brutalizes and murders citizens with impunity and anonymity. MAGA serves as a street-fighting force in precisely the same way the SA served Hitler’s rise — doing the dirty work the state prefers not to put in writing.

Which brings us to expansion. Hitler’s aggressive nationalism found its ultimate expression in his Lebensraum — “living space” — the doctrine that Germany had a natural right to seize the territory of lesser peoples. It was the justification for invading Czechoslovakia and Poland. There is no meaningful difference between that logic and this administration’s use of military force in Venezuela, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, and Ecuador — or its openly stated desire to take Greenland, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and Canada by whatever means necessary. (I have left Iran off this list because the nuclear argument is at least worth debating separately — though I will note: if it truly was about nukes, why did he tear up the Iran Nuclear Deal the moment he took office?)

Here is my point.

We celebrate VE Day to honor a victory over fascism. The men and women who made that victory possible — who gave everything Lincoln called the last full measure of devotion — did not do it so that eighty-one years later we would debate whether what is happening here at home meets the technical definition. They did it so we would know it when we saw it. And so we would have the courage to say so.

Here at home.

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Meet John Doe

Posted on May 3, 2026 by 34orion

 I was searching for comfort on my streaming services the other day.

You all know what kind of a week it has been.

  • The former director of the FBI being indicted by the Justice Department because he posted a picture of seashells on the beach that “whomjamacallit” didn’t like.
  • Frat Boy Pete raspberried Congress, which attempted to get him to answer serious questions about our national security, the war in Iran, and his use of the Bible as a prop.
  • The Supreme Court ruled that it was okay for states to gerrymander districts to disenfranchise people of color because prejudice doesn’t exist anymore.
  • One of whosits’ nominees for the federal bench couldn’t/wouldn’t/didn’t answer whether a president could run for a third term. Whether he is a dolt or just a toady is unclear, but either should disqualify him, though it probably won’t.
  • The King of England gave a master class on what American democracy is all about. The King of England. The guy we fought against to create our country, lecturing us on why we fought two wars against his five-times-great-grandfather. Let that sink in.

You get the point. And while we are at the point-making part of this ditty, you may have noticed that I have decided not to mention the guy who can’t speak in full sentences and whose tie is too long by name, because he puts his name on everything. Why should I contribute to his terminal narcissism? For that matter, the mention of his name has become a triggered response that leads to anxiety, nausea, along with a whiff of despair. Who needs to do that to himself?

———

Where was I? Yeah. I was looking for solace from my streaming services because, after I took the anti-doomscrolling pledge three weeks ago:

I hereby pledge:

To stop scrolling like breaking news personally depends on me.

To recognize that “just one more headline” is the internet’s second-oldest lie.

To treat outrage as junk food—fine in small doses, nauseating in bulk.

To remember I am not on the editorial board of the apocalypse.

To remember a stranger’s bad opinion is not my emergency.

And to occasionally look up and verify that the world is, in fact, in 3D.

One of the only places that I can find peace from the emotional sciatica caused by this administration and the deplorables who continue to act like everything is copacetic is in movies and television.

Here is the problem. There is just too much of it. I subscribe to Netflix, Paramount, Peacock, Apple TV, HBO Max, and Disney. That is between 25,000–30,000 different shows and movies for me to choose from. Instead of being distracted from the rampant toxic masculinity and incompetence (redundant?) of the Red Tie League, I was doomscrolling movie and television titles. It almost caused me to relapse. At least doomscrolling had some satisfaction, but a quick call to my sponsor, Ron Swanson, put me straight again. He suggested that I imagine social media didn’t exist and choose a movie that I had enjoyed in the past and watch that. It would be like getting reacquainted with an old friend.

It made me recall what it was like to grow up in NYC when there were only six channels, and they had to fill major portions of their programming with classic movies from the thirties and forties. It made me nostalgic for programming—someone with a better sense of cinema than me picking what I was going to watch. (Okay, the Three Stooges are not strictly “cinema,” but the physical humor was top drawer.) No stress. Just enjoyment. Just what I wanted right now.

I made a mistake. I typed “Classic Movies” into the search bar of Netflix. It seems my definition of “classic” is somewhat different than theirs. My idea of a classic movie is a black-and-white film from the ’30s or ’40s with actors like Gable, Stanwyck, Stewart, Bogart, or Bacall. The Netflix bot thought I meant movies from the eighties and nineties like Smokey and the Bandit and Kindergarten Cop. I thought, “How can these be classic movies?” Then I realized that the movies I watched on New York television in the sixties and seventies were thirty to forty years old. And so were the movies Netflix was suggesting I watch.

It made me feel ancient. Thanks, Netflix. See if I renew my subscription.

———

Enter Frank Capra

I decided I needed a more directed approach. Directed. Director. Who was my favorite director from that era? That was simple: Frank Capra. His movies all shared a common theme—an ordinary, decent man, slightly naïve and stubbornly principled, gets chewed up by a corrupt system that mistakes his decency for weakness until the moment it doesn’t. His movies were about goodness and how it was more durable than cynicism.

After sixty-six consecutive weeks of watching the most indecent man ever to occupy the White House, I need a Capra infusion. But which one should I choose? It’s a Wonderful Life is a Christmas movie. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is great, but I’d want to watch it back-to-back with Adam Sandler’s remake, and I didn’t have the time. It Happened One Night—Colbert and Gable—it doesn’t get better than that.

But then it hit me. Meet John Doe would be the perfect movie to lift me out of my sixty-six-week funk and perhaps give me hope for the next one hundred forty-two.

———

The Plot (Stay With Me)

A fired reporter, Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck), fabricates a letter from a fictional “John Doe”—an everyman who threatens to jump off City Hall on Christmas Eve to protest society’s indifference to the common man. To keep the story alive, she and her editor hire a down-and-out drifter, Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), to play the role.

The hoax unexpectedly ignites a genuine grassroots movement—ordinary Americans form “John Doe Clubs” across the country, rallying around the message of neighborly decency and democratic ideals. But the movement gets hijacked by D.B. Norton, a wealthy, fascist-leaning media mogul who funded the whole operation and plans to ride the John Doe wave to political power.

When Willoughby realizes he’s been a puppet for a proto-fascist machine, he tries to expose Norton—and is destroyed for it. The film ends on an ambiguous note of fragile hope: the “real” John Does, ordinary people, pull him back from the ledge.

———

Sound Familiar?

“Dumbasadoor” in the White House is D.B. Norton—the wealthy publisher who bankrolls a populist movement, genuinely believes he’s the people’s champion, and is completely blind to the fact that he’s the thing the movement was supposed to be fighting. Norton doesn’t think he’s the villain. That’s what makes him dangerous. And that is what makes “whozit” dangerous too. Well, that and the fact that he has dementia, is blatantly corrupt, and has the IQ of a garden snail.

The only thing that bothered me about the movie was the ending. The corrupt publisher walks away clean. The system that produced him is untouched. A man almost died, and nothing changed except that one man chose to live.

We can’t let our movie have that ending.

Our John Doe Clubs need to fight for real change in Washington that “shitforbrains” has revealed. We need to fight for tax reform where the rich and uber-wealthy pay a minimum tax on their income. We need a constitutional campaign amendment that reforms campaign finance laws so that our representatives consider people, not corporations, first. We need to hold social media responsible for what they publish like any other form of media.

We need to ensure that our government returns to being by and for the people…

And Hollywood, would you please get busy and make a remake of this movie—but this time, give it a more satisfying ending.

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Posted on April 26, 2026 by 34orion
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The Absolut Worst

Posted on April 25, 2026 by 34orion

Many years ago, when magazines were an important part of the media scene and did not carry the prefix “legacy,” I used to sell advertising for Rolling Stone.

I knew then—and looking back on it now—it was an incredible job. Rolling Stone was at the intellectual center of popular culture. As Jann Wenner, the founder and editor-in-chief, wrote in the first issue:

“You’re probably wondering what we are trying to do. It’s hard to say: sort of a magazine and sort of a newspaper. The trade papers have become so inaccurate and irrelevant, and the fan magazines are an anachronism. Rolling Stone is not just about music, but also about the things and attitudes that the music embraces.”

That gave the magazine a very large and colorful palette with which to paint the world. Writers such as Ben Fong-Torres, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Cameron Crowe, Joe Eszterhas, P. J. O’Rourke, David Marsh, Joe Klein, and William Greider, to name just a few. The work of artists such as Annie Leibovitz, Ralph Steadman, Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts, Albert Watson, and Mark Seliger. Their stories on Manson, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, Altamont, the Jonestown massacre, and AIDS were journalistic firsts.

Rolling Stone was the voice and conscience of a generation. It was what you read if you wanted to be “in the know.”

My job at the magazine was pretty plum. I was the “Beverage Alcohol Manager,” which I used to describe sardonically as “having to drink booze and listen to rock and roll…oh damn.” It was actually a bit more than that. I had to convince booze company executives (picture ad men, only tipsier) that they should run advertising in a magazine about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It seems like a natural combination now, but back then—when people actually wore suits to the office—it was not.

The first brand I got to bring into Rolling Stone was Absolut Vodka. At the time, it was just another vodka looking to build its brand. But it was about to embark on one of the most legendary advertising campaigns in marketing history, built on one of the simplest ideas: turn the bottle into a cultural icon by commissioning artists, designers, and cultural figures to reimagine it in ways that fused the product with wit, geography, and celebrity. In other words, a perfect fit for Rolling Stone.

The campaign, which made the Absolut bottle one of the most recognizable shapes in advertising history, was largely shaped by TBWA and Michel Roux, who owned the rights to Absolut in the United States. Part of the brilliance of the campaign was that it inspired people to come up with their own Absolut ads. TBWA and Carillon leaned into this by inviting publications, once a year, to pitch new ideas for campaigns to run in their pages. Having one of your ideas accepted by Absolut was huge—not only because your concept would be seen by millions, but because it translated into large advertising budgets that could make or break your year, if not your career.

At Rolling Stone, we began prepping for these meetings months in advance. The legendary publisher Dana Fields would call me and folks from the marketing and art departments into her office, and we would brainstorm ideas until we had three or four that hit the high mark needed to be embraced by Absolut. With so much on the line, the meetings at Carillon were always tense—not only because so much rode on the outcome, but because let’s just say, things were different then and people behaved in ways that are no longer acceptable.

I don’t recall which campaigns we sold Absolut. I’m sure we sold a few. But I do remember the relationships those meetings created. Decades later, I still consider Dana Fields a friend. Richard Lewis, who ran Absolut at TBWA and literally wrote The Absolut Book, is also a good friend—and someone I had lunch with earlier this week.

It is always fun to get caught up with Richard. He is the perfect combination of smart, goofy, sarcasm, and wit. Our lunches are never long enough, leave me smiling, and on occasion even (gasp) thinking.

Our lunch on Wednesday was no exception. We spent a good part of the conversation talking about “the situation, the situation we are in…” It left me pondering on the commute home: if I were at Rolling Stone today and had to pitch a campaign to Absolut that was of the times, what would I pitch…

As I don’t have an in-house marketing or art team, I decided to enlist ChatGPT to help me create these images. Yes, I know the world is going to go to hell due to our use of AI. But considering what I hope to accomplish, I beg for your forgiveness.

Absolut Patel

The very first thing I thought about was low-hanging fruit. Kash Patel and his over-fondness for alcohol and good times, as documented in The Atlantic. I described to Chatty what I wanted, and after a few iterations, it produced this…

It was funny. Well, it made me laugh. But it lacked what most of the Absolut campaigns had: simplicity. Just the image of the bottle, its circumstance, and a headline telling the rest of the story.

For the life of me, I could not figure out how to simplify the Patel image, so I decided to move on.

Absolut RFK Jr.

More low-hanging fruit. RFK Jr. He was, to the joy of most, not having a great week in Congress, and there were some places we could go. But I didn’t want to belittle his sobriety, so I made the Absolut bottle home to his pet brain worm.

Perhaps a little mean—but you do reap what you sow.

Absolut Tariffs

Then I struggled a bit. I wanted to do something on other cabinet members who are equally incompetent, self-destructive, and parodiable. Despite it being a target-rich environment, I couldn’t land on something that was both true to the Absolut campaign’s parameters and funny.

So I switched gears.

Something Richard had mentioned during lunch: TBWA had pitched “Absolut Washington”—a bottle wrapped in red tape—for years before it got approved.

So I stole the idea.

More tragicomic than funny.

Absolut Resistance

Not people. Ideas.

What could Absolut say that was positive and uplifting while still maintaining a point of view?

This is what ensued.

Absolut Trump

What bothered me—and what wouldn’t leave me—is that if I were pitching this to Absolut from Rolling Stone, we couldn’t leave Trump out of the mix. Too rich a target.

It took two runs and a few conversations to land on this.

Absolut Deplorable

But you can’t talk about Trump without MAGA. They empower him.

Which reminded me of something Hillary Clinton said.

Her words were prophetic.

Absolut Worst

I thought I was done. Ready for show and tell.

But as sometimes happens, inspiration struck while I was writing this piece. (Yes, I know… phrasing.)

Regardless—this one felt inevitable.

Because without any doubt…

He is the worst.

It has been an Absolut pleasure writing this.

That said—this is satire.

The images and concepts presented are intended as parody and political commentary, not as statements of fact or endorsements. Any resemblance to real brands, people, or events is used deliberately for expressive and critical purposes.

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America, We’ve Been Punk’d

Posted on April 18, 2026 by 34orion

It has been a tough week, after weeks of tough weeks, so I decided to call my friend Kilroy to see if he was up to a serious Olive Therapy session. We met at the River Grill. Not a fancy place but an establishment that is generous with the pour and famous for bartenders who don’t engage in small talk.

After two Chopin Martinis, six blue cheese stuffed olives and forty-five minutes of listening to me list the indignities perpetrated by the Trump administration this week, he turned to me and with a wicked grin said in mildly slurred speech “What if this is a very elaborate episode of ‘Punk’d.’ Imagine this…

“Karoline Leavitt stands at the podium and in her best “‘Bride of Chucky”’ manner introduces Ashton Kutcher. He steps up to the podium and after tapping the microphone says, with a large shit-eating grin, “‘America, you have been Punk’d.”’

“With the complete support of this administration, who felt the country was not taking our FAFO policies with the correct sense of humor they are all intended, we launched an elaborate series of practical jokes in the hopes of “‘Making America Laugh Again.”’ Or MALA.”

“While we don’t have time to go into all the practical jokes that this administration has played on the American people during its term in office, I would like to mention just a couple of recent “‘Punk’d”’ moments that seem to have caught the public’s attention. We believe how they were received by the press and how they have been vilified on social media proves President Trump’s allegation that immigrants, the radical left, Democrats and non-MAGA women have destroyed our national sense of humor.” 

At this point, Karoline Leavitt steps back up to the podium and says “Excuse me, Ashton, but the Jokester in Chief has just texted me. It says: ‘We used to live in a country where we could tell jokes about Jews being cheap, Polacks being dim-witted, Irish as hopeless drunks, Blacks as lazy and immigrants eating neighbors’ pets. Most people thought these jokes were hilarious. It allowed people to feel good about themselves at the expense of others. These people can’t take a joke anymore. Really, not smart people. Like radical Democrats and women. We need to bring those days back to make America laugh again regardless of how many people are insulted or made to feel less than. These people, they can’t take a joke anymore. Very sad. Very weak. Let’s Make America Laugh Again.’”

The reporters begin shouting questions to the Bride of Chucky. “What about the jokes about marrying men old enough to be your father? Are those still funny?” Karoline shoots the reporter a glance, inadvertently giving the world a glimpse of the character she was modeled after, and turns the podium back over to Ashton Kutcher.

“Thanks Tiffany, I mean Karoline. The President was insistent that we start off the MALA campaign with a bang, and he strongly suggested we begin it with a meme of him as a divine healer. He thought it would be so off brand that, in his words, “‘people will go crazy over it.”’ We suggested a number of Christian artists to him but he was insistent that we call his buddy Sam Altman at ChatGPT and have them create an illustration directed by Paula White-Caine because ‘between her three divorces and the Senate investigations into her finances’ she really gets me.

“When we saw the finished image we all thought it was hilarious. No one would take it seriously. How could they? We would let it build for a couple of days and then hold a press conference announcing “‘America, you just got punk’d.’”

Kutcher paused. “Unfortunately, this particular joke went over just about as well as when Zach Braff beat up a kid. Which is surprising because I thought you, the press, would get the joke.”

“Ashton, Peter Doocy, Fox News. Was it your idea or the President’s to claim that he thought the image was of him being a doctor? I thought that was hilarious.”

“That was the President being a brilliant ad-libber.”

“I thought so. It had his wit smeared all over it.”

“Ashton, Megyn Smelly, Influencer News Network, first-time questioner and a big fan of your work. I mean making Justin Timberlake cry. Classic. Did you work with the Vatican to have the Pope issue the statement about ‘the Prince of Peace is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs’? It seemed so perfect for the President and gave him a real opportunity to express his hysterical remarks about the Pope.”

“No. No. If you’ll excuse the pun, it was just divine intervention. By the way, let’s give props where props are due — JD Vance’s suggestion that he knew more about Catholic religious teaching than the Pope…wow. It was gold.”

Ashton waits while the White House Press Corps, now balanced with MAGA bloggers and influencers, murmur positively about JD Vance’s keen sense of religious humor. When it quiets down he adds “Which is a perfect segue into our next prank. With the President’s ‘huge’ success of our first prank of the week we decided to continue on with our religious theme and prank the god of war, I mean Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. The Prankster in Chief thought he would make a perfect victim not only because he has the sense of humor of a frat boy doing keg stands but because he often cites Bible quotes when he is considering carpet bombing schools and civilian infrastructure.”

Kash Patel — a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino’s vibe of nonlinear retribution and “rules don’t apply to me” — suggested we send GI Bro an email from one of his commanders that pretends to be a Bible verse, but is actually the made-up verse from Pulp Fiction. Kash, who is no stranger to bro humor, thought it would work in two ways. If the chief Crusader read it and realized it was a made-up quote he would know he had been pranked and we could all laugh about it at the next cabinet meeting. Our laughter might even wake Dozing Don. But wouldn’t it be fucking hilarious if he read it in front of his non-mandatory/mandatory worship services at the Pentagon.

Well, we all know what happened. I mean, classic Punk’d. It’s only sad that there were no cameras around when Hegseth caught up with Kash. Let’s just say that the banter and physical humor were no worse, in the opinion of Markwayne Mullin, than many of his MMA fights.

Ashton asked “We have time for a few questions. You over there in pink Lululemon.”

“Thank you, Morgana from Facebook. Will the secretary get his next prayer service reading from Reservoir Dogs or go straight to Kill Bill?”

“You will have to ask War Dawg about that directly. But after this Punk’d we are going to be laying off him for a couple of days.”

The bartender returned with two fresh martinis and a side of blue cheese olives as a nutritional supplement. I took a sip and turned to Kilroy and said, “So what your saying is we are being Punk’d and the Jester Chief is off in some bunker surrounded by a battery of screens aughing so hard he soils his Depends.”

He smiled and said, “That about it.”

“But if that is the case, they why aren’t we laughing. Shouldn’t we be laughing?”

Kilroy took a big gulp of his Martini and says “Ever notice he people getting punk’d never laugh.”

“Well there is that.”

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When The Wolves Howl

Posted on April 4, 2026 by 34orion

Tell me if you have heard this old Russian parable.

A wedding party sets out by sleigh on a cold winter’s night, with singing, the jingle of sleigh bells, and perhaps a little more vodka than was entirely prudent. The group is full of hope for the newlyweds, and the groom and bride have eyes only for each other and for what lies ahead.

They all knew wolves were bad that winter, so when the first howl came, they were not too alarmed. Their bellies were full and their brains too soaked in vodka for a single wolf’s cry to deter them from their fun.

But the first howl was soon met by others, echoing with quickening repetition. Awoo. Awooo. The wolves were forming a pack. There was no moon, but the starlight shone clearly on the snow. Soon the passengers in the sleigh could see a cluster of black wolves trailing behind them. Others dashed in and out of the trees lining the road.

The wolves were like apparitions—there one moment and gone the next. But there were hundreds of them. The gaiety of the party disappeared in an instant. A black drove came up over the hill behind the wedding party—the wolves ran like streaks of shadow, no bigger than dogs, but there were hundreds of them.

Something happened to the last sleigh. Perhaps the driver had too much to drink, but the horses left the road, hit a rut, and the sledge overturned, tossing its passengers into the snow. The wolves were quickly upon them. The cries of anguish sobered everyone instantly.

The drivers, now standing, began to whip their horses. Perhaps a little extra speed would allow them to outdistance the wolves. But with extra speed came greater risk, and another sledge overturned. The screams of the horses were even worse than those of the people as the wolves fell upon them. Nothing seemed to check the wolves. The bride and groom clung to each other, their vision of an unlimited future and long life darkened by the reality of survival.

The lead driver, a man named Eugeny, reached the crest of a hill. Looking behind him, he could see only two sledges where once there had been three—and behind them, a roiling pack of wolves in relentless pursuit. The groom screamed at the sight of the sledge carrying his parents and sisters. He sprang up as if to jump, but his wife shrieked and held him back. She covered his ears so he would not hear the screams of his family as the wolves set upon them.

They were within a few miles of their village and safety. The only other remaining sledge was not far behind, but its lead horse was flagging. Beside a frozen pond, three big gray wolves came abreast of the horses and took them down. Again screams shattered the winter night.

Now the only sleigh left was driven by Eugeny, carrying the newlyweds. The wolves were gaining on them. He turned to the groom and yelled at him to throw the bride off the sleigh, hoping she would distract the wolves long enough for Eugeny and the groom to make it back to the village. The groom refused, so Eugeny threw them both off the sledge, screaming, “You loser—I could have saved you.”

He drove on into the village to the sound of bells pealing from the monastery.

I don’t know where I originally heard this story. Apparently, there are a lot of variations in literature from Russian folk stories to Willa Cather. But it is exactly what I thought about on Thursday morning when news broke that his fecklessness had fired Pam Bondi.

I thought “He is throwing her to the wolves.”

Don’t get me wrong. I think Pam Bondi gives vile a bad name. But she has been a loyal attack dog for Donald Trump. She turned the Department of Justice from the paragon of fairness in criminal investigations into a Trump sump of investigations into his political enemies.  She gleefully brought her burn-book to congress so she could insult Congressmen and Senators instead of answering questions as is required to do by statute. She protected the felon from full release of the Epstein files even after Congress passed a law requiring her to release them. And to add insult to injury protected Trump’s wealthy friends by redacting their names and surreptitiously leaving in the names of their victims to intimidate and embarrass them.

To paraphrase, Amy Poehler, this is a woman whose permanent tan is from Donald Trump’s rectoplasm.

So why do I care about Pam Bondi. I don’t. What struck me in that moment is throwing people to the wolves is his signature move as much as Pele’s bicycle kick or Michael Jordan’s fadeaway jumper.

Think about it.

He went from thinking Kristi Noem was doing a fantastic job in February, to firing her in March. Why? Not because he thought any differently of her job performance. But because the wolves in congress and the press were gaining ground on him.

James Mattis was the greatest secretary of defense of all time until Trump’s policies backfired during the Syria withdrawal, and the wolves were nipping at Trump’s heels. Mark Esper was brilliant until criticism of the use of military force during protests made the wolves howl and he was gone. I could cite many more examples, Kirstjen Nielsen at DHS, Jeff Sessions at Justice but the pattern is very clear.

When the wolves start forming a pack Trump throws even his most devoted acolytes off the sled to keep the wolves from taking him down.

You can’t argue with the strategy. Sad to say it works. Criticism of DHS and ICE’s gestapo tactics will be tamped down to give the former MMA fighter, plumber and poster boy for anger management classes time to re-evaluate and reassess their tactics. This despite the fact that the man setting the policy has not changed. Calls for the Justice Department to comply with production of the Epstein Files, questions about the legality of criminal prosecutions against Laetitia James, James Comey and others, clamor to release Jack Smith’s report will all fade into the background as the search for a new AG progresses.

That is the bad news.

The glimmer of hope comes from the end of the Russian parable. Instead of being greeted as the man who survived the wolf attack, Eugeny was reviled. His own mother spit on him and said she would never look at him again. He was forced to leave his village. But he could not escape the story. Everywhere he went people knew the story and when they found out it was he who threw the bride and the groom to their death he was run out of town on a rail. He died alone and as abject lesson of cowardice and dishonor.

We can only hope that Donald Trump’s fate is the same if not worse than Eugeny.

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