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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Making Airport Lines Great Again

Posted on March 29, 2026 by 34orion

Or 8647 Reasons This Line Should Not Exist

Airports can be magical places. Or so I keep telling myself.

I should know. Over the course of my misspent life, I have managed to accumulate 3,300,000 miles on American Airlines. If you don’t want to do the math at home that conservatively equates to a little over  275 days on an airplane and probably the equivalent number of days in airports.

If this seems like a lot of time to you, it is. Yet I still, or at least up until recently, found airports magical. Why? Because for a guy like me, someone who was born with a profound sense of wanderlust, it is the gateway to the next adventure. Going to a new destination or a city I have visited so many times that I don’t need to ask for a map rental desk, it doesn’t matter. For me, it is all about the adventure I am about to embark on.

Don’t get me wrong. There are things about airports that make me want to stab myself in the eye with a fork. But over time you develop strategies to cope with those things. Noise cancelling headphones to help drown out the sounds of crying babies and other cantankerous and annoying noises.  You join airline clubs so that instead of being confronted with the hustle, bustle, and angst of your fellow travelers you can enjoy dulcet murmurs, warm nuts or a meal and perhaps an adult beverage.

But mostly you learn how to avoid lines. You apply and get TSA Pre-check approved. You get Clear, a concierge service to escort you through long lines. You get Global Entry, which allows you to re-enter the country with little more than a wink, nod and “welcome home.” In short, you pay a small fortune for the privilege of being treated the way air travel used to work for everyone.

I am thinking about this a lot today because in two days I am going to get on an airplane to return to the United States and transiting through one of my least favorite airports, Miami International (MIA.)  I have been stranded there one too many times, their people moving light rail is often out of order, so you are forced to walk miles (no exaggeration) to get to your gate for me to have any great fondness for the airport. But that only dims the magic, not eliminates it.

But what does take a giant steaming dump on my wanderlust this time is the current TSA situation. I mean the thing that you want to do the least at 6am, after an eight-hour overnight flight is stand in a line to re-enter the airport. But you learn to deal with that (remember pre-check). What makes it hard this time around is you know the line is going to be far longer when there is absolutely no reason for it should be.

Nearly 2/3rds of all Americans, Democrats and Republicans, feel that ICE and its tactics have gone too far in its attempt to arrest undocumented people. Whether its masked Gestapo-Esque tactics, the death of American citizens exercising their constitutional rights, their flagrant disregard of judicial orders or establishment of what can only be called concentration camps, it is an agency out of control. Which is why Congress purposely did not fund Homeland Security in its continuing funding resolution. They wanted, their constituents wanted, to see fundamental changes to ICE before they passed funding. Unfortunately, the current occupant of the Oval Office, whose ego is so big he needs to put his name on everything from the Kennedy Center to prescription plans to signing currency won’t allow him to admit that he is wrong about ICE.

In other words, Trump would rather inconvenience 2.5 million Americans everyday than admit he was wrong about ICE.

To be fair, he did say he would allow a bill to pass if it included SAFE act provision. Once again this is about his pathological ego. The SAFE is all about him losing the 2020 election. His ego won’t allow him to believe that the majority of Americans voted him out of office. So he created a myth of voter fraud. And it is a myth. 60 cases, 60 dismissals. Going back 40 years there have been 1000 cases of voter fraud reported. To put that in perspective, more people have been struck by lightning while simultaneously being audited by the IRS.

In other words, he would rather inconvenience 2.5 million Americans everyday than admit he lost the 2020 election.

You might say, especially if you are fond of corpulent men wearing who like oversized baseball caps with writing on them, have no fear. We have sent ICE officers to the airport to supplement the diminishing ranks of TSA officers. Here is the problem. Not only are the ICE officers untrained for their current duties, but they have not trained for TSA duties. Which means they’re sitting around looking butch and little else. Truly a master class in solving a staffing shortage by adding staff who can’t do the job.

In other words, Trump would rather put at risk the safety of 2.5 million Americans everyday than admit that ludicrous and breathless  campaign promises designed to stir fear and foster hatred are not good public policy.

I could go on and on but if you have been paying attention ((29) Need to Know by David Rothkopf | Substack, (29) Marissa Rothkopf-Bakes: The Secret Life of Cookies | Substack) you know all this already. So let me make this personal.

Donald Trump has taken the magic of airports from me and it pisses me off. This place that has been the start and end points of so many wonderful memories has become infected with the malignancy of MAGA and its platform of hate and despair. It makes me want to travel with my “8647” ball cap on my, wearing my Foxtrot Delta Tango Tee and wearing my “Justice for Alex and Renee” pin screaming “Attica, Attica” (dated movie reference.”

But I probably won’t. I want to make it home. Rosie needs me. However, I will be thinking it. Loudly.

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The Butterfly and The Bloviator

Posted on March 21, 2026 by 34orion

In a week where Donald Trump:

  • While sitting next to the Japanese Prime Minister, answered a question from a Japanese reporter about why the US had not informed Japan — one of its closest allies — about the plan to attack Iran by saying: “We went in very hard and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan?”
  • Used images of the “distinguished transfer” of US service members to fundraise.

Where Pete Hegseth:

  • Exploited the grief of a family whose loved one died in Iran by putting words in their mouth — claiming they urged him to “finish the job,” a quote at least one bereaved father flatly denied ever saying.
  • Declared the US was fighting religious extremism in Iran — apparently without a hint of self-awareness about his own “Deus Vult” tattoo (“God wills it,” the rallying cry of the Crusades), his monthly Pentagon worship services, his Bible-verse military videos, or his stated belief that America is a Christian nation.

When Pam Bondi and the DOJ:

  • Moved to dismiss the remaining federal charges with prejudice against two former officers — Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany — who had provided false information in the search warrant used to raid Breonna Taylor’s apartment, resulting in her death.
  • She, as the chief law enforcement officer of the US, refused to commit to honoring a subpoena on the Epstein File.
  • Had a prosecutor thrown out of court by U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi, who was castigating the office for operating illegally — after the prosecutor repeatedly ignored his direct orders to stop talking.

I could go on, but you lived through this week too — and bitching about the abuses of Trump and his cadre of calamity is a more target-rich environment than Kharg Island. For some reason this week had me particularly worked up, which is why I found myself in a lengthy DM exchange with my friend Morgan, who is far calmer about these things than me. I was hoping the bitching would have a cathartic effect — enough to let me enter the weekend with my chi intact.

After patiently wading through my DMs and aerobic thumb exercises, they responded simply, saying “Don’t worry my friend, Karma will get them in the end.” And then, quickly and probably wisely, added “GTG.”

Which left me hanging, and led to me lacing up my sneakers and heading out for a walk — because when you’re trying to exorcise the week’s demons, thumb therapy just isn’t enough.

Our neighborhood is beautiful. It sits in the shadow of Pedra da Gávea — a massive granite monolith rising 2,769 feet above sea level, whose homes do little to displace the rainforest in which it was built. It delivers on all fronts — tamarins swinging overhead, morpho butterflies the color of a swimming pool, toucans watching you from the canopy like bouncers, and everywhere orchids, heliconia, and jacaranda doing their best to remind you that the world is still beautiful despite everything.

Sadly, none of this distracted me enough to move beyond Morgan’s karma comment. Because I don’t believe in Karma.

I mean, it is a lovely idea, but to me it is no more than a lovely fairy tale that people invoke when they want to feel good about the awful things people are doing. The idea that the universe will even the score or punish people for their lack of decency does not make sense to me. First, it assumes that the universe seeks justice — and that is too great an assumption for me. Not only do we not know whether the universe seeks justice, we have no idea of its true nature. For all we know, we are just a petty amusement, and the universe delights in our misfortune. Man plans and the universe giggles hysterically. I won’t even get into the math (two trillion galaxies, averaging 100 billion stars each) and how unlikely it is that the universe would pay attention to us at any given moment, let alone settle the score.

However, I do believe that you reap what you sow — that if you offer kindness, respect, and decency to the world, it stands a good chance of being reciprocated. When you are down, suffering, or in need of a helping hand, those you have shared those gifts with will return them. Conversely, if you disrespect people, think empathy is a made-up emotion, or take whatever you want without regard to its impact on others, there is a good chance it will come back to bite you squarely on your ass. When you need a helping hand, it is far more likely it will not be offered.

And maybe, just maybe, this week was an example of that.

  • Having spent years denigrating, belittling, and reviling NATO, the Bloviator-in-Chief turned to the alliance this week to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open. NATO’s response was, diplomatically speaking, a magnificent collective raspberry.
  • When Senator Markwayne Mullin, the poster boy for anger management and toxic masculinity, appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, he had to face its chairman, Senator Rand Paul — a man he had called a snake and whose neighbor’s felonious assault on Paul he had publicly said he understood. The dressing down was epic and ended with Paul saying “I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force.” (He was saved by Fetterman, but there is little doubt he will reap what he sowed, sooner or later.)
  • The Powell Boomerang — Trump has spent months trying to get rid of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Instead of pushing him out, the DOJ’s criminal investigation could end up extending Powell’s time at the top of the central bank even after his term formally ends in May. The move could delay rate cuts, fuel Wall Street jitters, and make it harder for Trump to replace Powell with a loyalist — with Sen. Tillis vowing to block any Fed nominee until the legal questions are resolved.

The walk helped. And just as I reached home, a Blue Morpho butterfly landed on a bright yellow orchid near our gate. It was a rough week — but that butterfly was a sign of hope, and I can live with that.

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Washington Knew. (Trump, Not So Much.

Posted on March 14, 2026 by 34orion

There are a lot of myths about George Washington.

The famous “I cannot tell a lie”Cherry tree story is complete fiction. It comes from a biography published shortly after he died in which the author wanted Washington to serve as a “moral example” for young Americans. So he created the cherry tree story out of whole cloth to serve his purpose.

He didn’t have wooden teeth. His dentures were made of ivory, human and animal teeth, and metal springs. They stained easily, which probably helped give credence to the myth.

He was not America’s first president. That title belongs to John Hanson, who served as the presiding officer—president—of the country under the Articles of Confederation. Washington was the first president under our current Constitution.

Another myth is that Washington was a perfect military leader. He was not. During the Battle of Long Island he allowed the British general William Howe to outflank him, which could have ended the War of Independence before it had truly begun.

None of this is to say that George Washington was not an honorable man. He was the only slave-holding founder to free his slaves upon his death.

Nor does it deny his military brilliance. His strategy during the Revolutionary War—one he likely absorbed from Native American warfare during the French and Indian War—was brilliant. He understood that fighting the Redcoats head-to-head was a fool’s game. They were better equipped and better trained than the ragtag army the Continental Congress had assembled.

Washington realized the best way to win the war was simply not to lose it.

He understood that keeping British troops on American soil was expensive and that the King and Parliament would not tolerate the outlay forever. He also knew British soldiers were not made of stone. They had families and homes they missed. Extend the war long enough and their desire to fight would fade until our untrained, undisciplined army could defeat them—which it did at the Siege of Yorktown.

This became one of the founding strategic doctrines of the Republic.

Yet we forget it from time to time. What is it they say? “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

We should have relearned that lesson in the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese fought the same type of war George Washington did against the British, and it cost the United States nearly 60,000 American lives, over 300,000 wounded, and roughly $1.2 trillion in today’s money.

We forgot that lesson again in the War in Afghanistan—even after Vizzini warned us in The Princess Bride: “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” That was a $2.6 trillion, 175,000-lives error born of historical amnesia.

Which brings us to our current journey of historical dementia, perpetrated by a president who is no doubt psychologically altered, a secretary of defense who is more concerned about bringing on the rapture than the consequences of war, and a Congress that is vertabraically challenged. These are the men who not only forgot history but are now rediscovering it at a cost to the American taxpayer of roughly $1 billion a day.

Here is the irony: the Iranians understand history better than these men. They understand what George Washington understood—that to defeat us, all they need to do is not lose. They can be pounded by every weapon in the U.S. and Israeli arsenals and, as long as the regime is still intact when the smoke clears, they win.

Before going further, let me be clear. The Iranian government was and is a bad actor. It has sponsored terrorism against the United States, Israel, and others. It cannot be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, let alone delivery systems capable of threatening the world.

That said, we had an agreement to halt their development of nuclear weapons, and Donald Trump ripped it up. The current mess we are in large part due to his recklessness in moving away from that treaty. Was it perfect? No. Should it have been renegotiated? Maybe. Tearing up an agreement may work in real estate, where the consequences are hurt feelings and money, but not with nuclear weapons.

So this mess—largely on Trump and those who wear his Florsheim shoes.

And what has forgetting George Washington’s strategy gotten us? Oil at record levels. Inflation driven by that spike. The loss of respect from many of our allies and, of course, aid and comfort to our enemies. When you take restrictions off Russia selling its oil worldwide, you are giving them more money to pound Ukraine with Iranian-made drones.

All because Donald Trump trusts his gut more than he trusts George Washington’s lesson in history.

And folks, we are not done with the fallout from this unmitigatedly stupid unforced error.

Our allies no longer trust us. They no longer look to us for leadership. They are now trying to school us. The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said:

“My message to the United States, Israel, and Iran is simple: the world is tired of your conflicts. Diplomacy is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of wisdom. The path of war only produces destruction, hunger, refugees, and instability that affects all nations. The world needs dialogue, negotiation, and respect for international law.”

If there is any bit of good news in all of this, it is that Trump has really stepped on his own dick with this war. (Metaphorically, of course. He has famously small hands.) Nearly 60 percent of U.S. voters think this war is a bad idea. And with every day we spend a billion dollars, lose more American lives, and watch inflation tick upward, his support wanes.

Which should translate, with any luck at all, into a blue November and an impeachment January.

Which brings me back to George Washington’s strategic brilliance.

All we need to do is not lose.

Washington beat the British Empire by outlasting it. Surely the American republic can outlast one loud man who thinks history began the day he walked into a room

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