My Regan Hangover: Four Hurricanes, forty-six years, and a political headache that never quite went away.

Posted on October 31, 2026 by 34orion

On the night of November 4, 1980, I got very drunk.

I don’t normally drink much. In fact, I can count on the fingers of both hands and the toes of one foot the number of times I’ve been drunk. But that night, I was more spectacularly intoxicated than I had ever been before—or have been since.

There were two major reasons for my inebriation and one minor one.

The minor reason was that I was vacationing in Key West, Florida, with my best friend, Rich. Key West was a Jimmy Buffett-approved party town, a place where sobriety was generally regarded as an eccentric hobby. People came to play, and at our age, playing was practically a full-time profession. Which explains why the evening began with some Afghan weed we’d brought along.

We were ready to go before we were ready to go.

The first major contributor to my intoxication was my inexperience with a particularly treacherous tropical libation: the Hurricane. For anyone unfamiliar with this instrument of neural destruction, here’s what goes into one:

THE HURRICANE | ONE DRINK

•  2 oz light rum

•  2 oz dark rum

•  2 oz passion fruit juice or purée

•  1 oz fresh orange juice

•  ½ oz fresh lime juice

•  ½ oz grenadine

•  ½ oz simple syrup (optional, for extra sweetness)

•  Ice

•  Orange slice and maraschino cherry, for garnish

HOW TO MAKE IT

1.  Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.

2.  Add both rums, the fruit juices, grenadine, and optional syrup.

3.  Shake vigorously for 10–15 seconds.

4.  Strain into a large Hurricane glass filled with crushed ice.

5.  Garnish with an orange slice and a maraschino cherry.

Here’s the problem: Hurricanes taste great. Drinking them is easier than virtue on Duval Street after midnight. And they pack a wallop. Four ounces of rum in a single drink will get you where you want to go at warp speed.

Which, if I’m being honest, was exactly where I wanted to go.

No, I hadn’t discovered that my girlfriend was cheating on me. I hadn’t lost my job or failed at some grand personal quest.

Ronald Reagan had just been elected president.

Don’t get me wrong. I knew Jimmy Carter’s presidency had been battered by failure. The economy was mired in stagflation, with inflation averaging roughly 13 percent that year. Americans were being held hostage in Iran, the rescue attempt had ended in disaster, the energy crisis had worn everyone down, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had made an already grim picture worse. Bad news seemed to be working overtime.

Still, Carter had been dealt a lousy hand. And I believed he was a good man who put God and country first.

And how many times in our lives have we voted for an imperfect candidate because we thought the alternative was far worse?

For the record, I didn’t think Reagan was a bad guy. He was amiable, funny, and good-looking in a retro, old-Hollywood sort of way. And he could deliver a speech better than most. He could make a sales pitch sound like a benediction, which is useful when the customer neglects to read the fine print.

But I thought he was selling snake oil. Supply-side economics sounded to me like trickle-down economics with a better marketing department—the same old idea in a freshly pressed suit, designed to convince working-class Americans that cutting taxes for the rich was their patriotic duty. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to be skeptical. Just over a year later, Reagan’s own budget director, David Stockman, described the Kemp–Roth tax proposal as a “Trojan horse” for lowering the top income-tax rate.

What I feared—and what prompted the first two of my four Hurricanes that night—was a country where working people and the poor would be squeezed while the wealthy accumulated more money and more influence over the government. The promise was that prosperity would eventually trickle down. “Eventually” has always been a marvelous word for people who already have theirs.

Not to brag—much—but I was spot on.  Consider the numbers. From 1978 to 2025, U.S. productivity increased 86 percent, while typical worker compensation rose just 28 percent and CEO compensation at the 350 largest U.S. companies soared 1,316 percent.

Ah, the American Dream style middle class and poor people need not apply.

Did I know that Reagan’s shining city on a hill would, in my view, give way to an oligarchy in which billionaires spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to shape elections and policy—and drown out the voices of ordinary Americans? No. But then again, I never dreamed I’d carry a computer in my pocket or live in Rio de Janeiro.

The reason for my other two Hurricanes was Reagan’s embrace of the Religious Right and its so-called family values. I knew enough history to be wary when politicians made religion part of the machinery of government. It rarely ended well for people whose beliefs differed from those of the majority.

Phyllis Schlafly’s campaigns against the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights, and her insistence on traditional roles for women, combined with Jerry Falwell’s opposition to gay rights, feminism, and secularism in public life, rubbed me the wrong way. I hear echoes of those ideas today in what I regard as the growing influence of white Christian nationalism. What still gets me is the contradiction: some of the loudest people invoking Christianity in politics seem to treat empathy and kindness as optional electives.

By the end of that epic drunk, I was lying on the hood of our rented red Chrysler LeBaron, smoking a Marlboro and bitching to my ride-or-die, Rich, about the horrors I believed this election would bring upon the country. I’ll never forget his response.

“Paul, it’s going to be a helluva party, but the hangover is going to be a bitch.”

There’s a small possibility he was talking about that particular evening. I prefer to think he was predicting the future.

For me, the election of 1980 was the Republican Party’s original sin. Reagan didn’t invent America’s darker instincts; he gave some of them a winning coalition. The tax-cutting faithful got their supply-side gospel, the Religious Right got a seat at the political table, and the wealthy got a government increasingly willing to confuse their interests with the national interest.

A marriage of convenience, performed in front of the flag, with the bill sent to everyone else.

Forty-six years later, I see the offspring of that bargain in a MAGA-dominated party increasingly comfortable with grift, devoted to protecting wealth, and hostile to queer Americans, immigrants, and religious freedom for anyone outside its preferred pews. The party that promised less government has become remarkably enthusiastic about putting it in bedrooms, classrooms, libraries, and houses of worship. Apparently the problem was never big government. It was who got to use it.

Forty-six years ago, I got drunk because I feared for the future of my country. This Tuesday, November 3, I hope to get drunk again—this time for its salvation. Only now it’ll be caipirinhas, not Hurricanes. Hey, we all have to evolve.

Vote blue.

Also Go Green:

If you’ve enjoyed this little excursion through my memories, politics, and questionable drinking habits, you might enjoy my new novel, The Green Flash. It’s a story about friendship, love, loss, and the people who never quite leave us. Unlike American politics, it features characters you might actually want to spend time with. Available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle. Click here to buy The Green Flash. You’ll be supporting an independent author, which is considerably more rewarding than supporting a billionaire. At least this one says thank you.

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A Stranger in a Wonderful Land

Posted on October 27, 2026 by 34orion

I promise you this Substack is not about Vivek Ramuswanky and his despicable campaign ad.

It is not about the vice president of the United States giving that ad his seal of approval, even though it features Amy Acton’s estranged mother attacking her daughter, whose stepfather was indicted by a grand jury for allegedly raping her when she was 12. A mother who chose her pedophile husband over her children.

Nor is it about the Orange in Chief—the adjudicated rapist and protector of the most infamous pedophile—telling Ramaswamy to keep running the ad.

I could have written about the Republicans who spoke out against the vile ad. Nancy Mace, for example. But they have so sullied their brand with their blind support for the Abuser in Chief that I can’t bring myself to do it.

Instead, I want to tell you about another election, one taking place far from the United States but carrying uncomfortable echoes of our own politics, with consequences that will reach well beyond its borders.

Tomorrow, Sunday, October 25, Brazil goes to the polls for a presidential runoff between incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. The family name should sound familiar. So, unfortunately, will some of the politics.

Before we get into it, a disclaimer: I am watching all of this through a gringo’s eyes. I am not an expert in Brazilian politics. That would be my wife, who consumes more news than most AI bots and has the distinct advantage of being smarter than any of them.

Let me begin with how Brazil’s electoral system differs from ours and, dare I say it, how some of those differences make it better.

First, Brazilians vote on Sunday, a day many workers have off. The idea is to give people a chance to cast a ballot without sacrificing a day’s wages. It makes sense. The purpose of democracy, after all, is to give everyone a voice, not merely those who can afford to take Tuesday off.

Also, Brazil does not elect a president who wins less than half the valid vote. If no candidate clears 50%, as happened in the first round this year, the top two face each other in a runoff. It means the winner needs an actual majority rather than benefiting from a fractured field. Better for legitimacy. Better for governance. A surprisingly uncomplicated concept.

Third, Brazil counts votes remarkably quickly using its electronic voting system. In the first round, results emerged within hours of the polls closing. Now, Mike Lindell, before you get your pillow in a twist, the system includes digital signatures, printed polling-place tally reports and multiple layers of auditing. It turns out that speed and safeguards can coexist. Who knew?

Finally, voting is mandatory for most literate Brazilians between 18 and 70. If you miss an election without an accepted justification, the fine can be as little as R$3.51—less than a dollar. Hardly enough to send anyone into bankruptcy. But leave your electoral status unresolved and the bureaucracy can make life uncomfortable: passport applications, certain public jobs and enrollment renewals can all become problems. Brazil has managed to turn civic duty into something more consequential than a slogan on a bumper sticker.

Nearly 80% of registered Brazilians voted in the first round this year, compared with about 64% of eligible Americans in the 2024 presidential election. Those figures use somewhat different voter populations, but the contrast is striking. I can make a reasonable argument for the American approach, in which candidates must motivate people to vote. Still, a democracy in which more people participate seems preferable to one that leaves so many voices unheard. Even when some of those voices insist on voting for people I wouldn’t trust to pick up Rosie’s poop.

Which brings us to the two men on tomorrow’s ballot. This is where the similarities with American politics become less an echo than a tribute band.

Flávio Bolsonaro is the candidate, but his father, Jair, is the brand. Jair was once dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics.” Both men built political identities on grievance, cultural warfare, contempt for inconvenient institutions and the conviction that losing an election is something that happens only when somebody cheats. Jair took that last belief far enough to earn a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup after his 2022 defeat. Family values apparently include an unusually expansive definition of peaceful transitions of power.

Flávio presents himself as a more disciplined version of his father. Beside a man who treated the presidency like an argument with civilization, that may be true. But the son has accumulated his own baggage. Prosecutors accused him in the so-called rachadinha affair, involving alleged kickbacks from staff salaries. The case was shelved after courts invalidated key evidence, without a trial resolving the accusations. Not a conviction. It is also not the kind of episode one generally highlights in a campaign biography. More recently, he has faced an investigation into funding for a film about his father that was actually an illegal campaign donation; he denies wrongdoing…of course he does.

Flávio proposes spending cuts, deregulation and renewed privatizations, and draws support from big business and agribusiness. Wealthy investors could be forgiven for feeling especially well represented. But when a politician promises to rescue ordinary people by loosening the rules governing powerful interests, it is worth asking who gets rescued first. My guess is the people with lobbyists, not bus passes.

Then there is Lula. At 80, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is not a fresh face, unless you define fresh as somebody who has been in national politics since most of us still owned rotary telephones.

But Lula seems to view the presidency as something larger than a domestic culture war. He wants Brazil to have a larger voice in world affairs: in the United Nations, through BRICS, across the Global South, and in negotiations with powers that have occasionally mistaken Latin America for an annex. He wants Brazil trading with the United States, China and everybody else without having to ask any of them for permission. A country of Brazil’s size and resources should not be treated as a supplier of raw materials with a flag attached.

The Petulant Orange provides perhaps the clearest contrast. When Washington hit Brazilian exports with new tariffs, Lula objected, sat down with Trump at the White House, and kept negotiations going without pretending Brazil was available for purchase. He has said he prefers a deal to a trade war but will retaliate if necessary. In other words, diplomacy without kneepads.

The Bolsonaro boys have chosen a different strategy. Kneepads. Eduardo went to Washington seeking U.S. sanctions against Brazilian judges involved in his father’s prosecution—and claimed credit for tariffs that landed on Brazilian exporters. Flávio later made his own Oval Office visit, Eduardo in tow, where Dad’s legal troubles were among the topics. Perhaps this passes for patriotism in the family: inviting a foreign president to punish your own country until your father gets what he wants.

Lula may not get everything he wants from Trump, but at least he seems to remember whom he’s supposed to represent. The Bolsonaros appear to believe Brazilian sovereignty ends at the Mar-a-Lago coat check.

The Amazon is not a vacant lot awaiting a developer with a bulldozer. Under Lula, deforestation has fallen dramatically, reaching its lowest annual level since satellite records began in 1988. He argues that Brazil’s forests, water and strategic minerals should benefit Brazilians and remain under Brazilian control. His support for oil exploration complicates the environmental halo, as it should. Protecting nature while looking for more petroleum is a contradiction, not a magic trick. Still, there is a difference between wrestling with that contradiction and pretending climate change is a rumor started by people who dislike cattle.

Education may be the clearest measure of his ambition. Lula has backed more full-time schooling, financial support to keep lower-income teenagers enrolled, and an expansion of federal technical and vocational campuses. He signed a new ten-year national education plan this year. He wants Brazil to export ideas, engineering and technology rather than just commodities. Apparently, developing the next generation is also a form of economic development. Someone should notify the consultants.

To me, it is a simple choice. The Bolsonaros, like Trump, want to exploit Brazil for their own political and financial gain. Under them, Brazil would not be for Brazil but for the United States and corporate interests. Lula’s vision is of Brazil as a global leader, where the state works to benefit all its citizens, not just the wealthy and powerful. Where education, not ignorance, is Brazil’s guiding star.

I am a stranger in a wonderful land. I don’t pretend to know everything about Brazilian politics. But I know enough to believe that if Brazil wants a destiny of its own choosing, Lula offers the better path forward. The world has enough Trump imitators. Brazil doesn’t need one with Portuguese subtitles.

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Uncle Sam-ba

Posted on October 27, 2026 by 34orion

I’ve said it before.

I am a stranger in a wonderful land. I don’t pretend to know everything about Brazil, its politics, or its election laws. But I’ve been coming here for almost 15 years, and I’m married to a woman who is not only far smarter than I am but also reads everything and talks to some of the smartest people in the country. It’s an arrangement that has done wonders for my education and very little for my ego.

So I’ve learned a few things by listening, observing, and practicing auditory osmosis.

Watching Sunday’s Brazilian election was terrific. We Americans are so accustomed to our own electoral circus that watching another democracy do its job was fascinating, fun, and, frankly, joyful. Then again, my wife’s candidate won, which added considerably to the joy around our house.

Here are a few things Brazil got right—and a few things the United States might consider borrowing before we invent another 400-page plan to study the problem.

First, voters must identify themselves with an official photo ID, and Brazil maintains a national voter registry. That isn’t quite the same as requiring one universal national ID card, but it does mean the system knows who is eligible to vote. We can debate the merits of a national identification system in America—or, for that matter, whether IDs are needed to vote. But what Brazil has done is marry identification to an actual, functioning voting process.

Then there’s electronic voting. Brazilians cast their ballots on electronic machines, and the totals arrive fast. Within a few hours of the polls closing, the country knew who had won. No weeklong television vigil. No counties counting until the next lunar cycle. Which is nice, especially for those of us who like to go to bed early. Don’t hate me because I need my beauty sleep. At my age, it’s more of a capital-improvement project.

Brazil also has the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, or Superior Electoral Court. Seven judges oversee the national election system and resolve electoral disputes quickly. That’s right, sports fans: a court specifically devoted to elections. Compare that with our system, where electoral litigation can move at the speed of a sloth on a coffee break. Yes, I know. An ironic metaphor.

And Brazil has no Electoral College. To become president, a candidate has to win a majority of valid votes, with a runoff if nobody does so in the first round. Imagine that: the person who gets the most votes—and clears 50 percent—wins. Somewhere in America, a constitutional scholar just dropped his powdered wig.

Here’s another idea worth stealing: Brazil holds national elections on Sundays. Voting is compulsory for most literate adults ages 18 through 70, with exceptions and a way to justify an absence. And public transportation was made available free of charge for voters in this election. We, meanwhile, hold federal elections on a Tuesday—not even a federal holiday—and expect people to fit democracy between a staff meeting, a doctor’s appointment, and picking up the dry cleaning. Then we express deep concern about turnout.

Am I suggesting compulsory voting? I’m on the fence about that. Candidates and parties should motivate people to vote. And we Yankees don’t like to be told we have to do anything. What we do love is an excuse not to vote: too busy, too tired, too much traffic, lousy weather, lousy candidates, and, of course, the ever-popular ‘my vote won’t matter.’ We spend months complaining about government and then treat the chance to change it like an invitation to help somebody move. Maybe there is something to be said for making people pay a price for not exercising their franchise. At least we’d find out how much an excuse is worth.

Of course, even a system that works cannot protect itself entirely from politicians who don’t like the answer.

On Sunday night, Flávio Bolsonaro claimed the election was illegitimate and demanded that it be annulled. His complaint centered on transportation problems, heavy rain, and a two-hour extension for polling places that were still open. Here’s the delicious part: both campaigns had asked for more voting time to address access problems. The judge ruled on Lula’s petition, so Bolsonaro’s feelings got hurt—even though the outcome was the very one he had requested. He got what he wanted and complained anyway. In the Bolsonaro household, apparently even getting your way is grounds for a recount.

Lula won by more than 4.4 million votes. Flávio can seek legal review; that’s what courts are for. But announcing that an election was stolen is not the same thing as proving it. Brazil has already demonstrated that there can be a price for turning an unsupported accusation into a lawsuit. In 2022, after Jair Bolsonaro lost, the Electoral Court fined his Liberal Party nearly 23 million reais for a bad-faith challenge to the voting machines. It turns out that shouting ‘fraud’ is free; trying to pass it off as evidence is expensive when your proof is hot air.

The theme of Flávio’s campaign was ‘Vote for me because I’m just like Dad.’ Turns out he wasn’t lying about that—an unexpected breakthrough in the family’s relationship with the truth. After losing in 2022, Jair Bolsonaro flew to Florida rather than remain for Lula’s inauguration and the peaceful transfer of power. Apparently, in the Bolsonaro family, a concession speech is something you deliver from the departure lounge.

Now Flávio’s whereabouts have become a story of their own. There are reports that he may have crossed into Argentina after his defeat, although authorities have not confirmed that he left Brazil. What is confirmed is that he missed the deadline to surrender his passports, and federal police canceled them. For a family that prides itself on standing and fighting, there does seem to be an unusual interest in frequent-flyer miles. Perhaps ‘stand and fight’ is just what they call priority boarding.

For the record, don’t even think about it, Junior.

Back to the point. Think about what financial consequences for baseless election litigation might do in the United States. Demented Don can file claims, throw around conspiracy theories, and keep the grievance industry humming. But attach a serious price tag to frivolous claims, and the Great Pumpkin might suddenly discover a touching reverence for judicial restraint. He loves a good lie, but he loves his money more. Even Tommy Flanagan, Jon Lovitz’s pathological liar, would have to admire the performance. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Finally, this election reminded us that experts, polls, and betting markets can all be wrong. When I checked Kalshi, the prediction market had Bolsonaro favored by roughly 85 to 15. That’s not a poll, but it was a remarkably confident forecast for a man who lost. Prediction markets are wonderful at explaining the future—right up until the future happens.

Here at home, people are already talking about a blue tsunami next Tuesday. Lovely. But predictions don’t vote. Markets don’t vote. Pundits, despite the noise, still get only one ballot apiece.

We do.

So don’t sit at home admiring the forecast. Vote. Get your friends to vote. Check on your neighbors. Help someone get to the polls. Democracy is not a spectator sport, and it certainly isn’t a betting market. It’s a responsibility that belongs to the people who bother to show up.

Brazil showed us how to count the votes, accept the arithmetic, and keep the country moving—even when a losing politician would rather argue with the calculator.

Next Tuesday, let’s give America something worth counting.

Let’s teach America how to samba again.

One last shameless plug: I also wrote a novel, The Green Flash. It’s about friendship, love, loss, and the people who never quite leave us. Unlike this essay, it contains considerably fewer politicians. If you’ve enjoyed reading me for free, please buy a copy.

Buy The Green Flash on Amazon: https://bit.ly/4i9H8vr

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Well, I Went and Wrote Another Novel.

Posted on October 21, 2026 by 34orion

Apparently, I didn’t learn my lesson the first time.

In 2021, I published my first novel, Tomahawk and Crown. It was an interesting experience. I discovered that writing a book is difficult, publishing one is even more difficult, and convincing people to buy one requires a degree of shameless self-promotion for which even I was inadequately prepared.

Of course, I decided to do it again.

On October 21, my second novel, The Green Flash, will be published.

This officially makes me a repeat offender who like others in their category didn’t learn their lessons the first time around.

The Green Flash will be available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions, giving complete strangers yet another opportunity to criticize my work. A privilege my friends and family have enjoyed for decades.

The book is about friendship, loss, love, regret, and the peculiar business of growing older in a world that seems increasingly determined to make the experience unpleasant.

It’s also about the pandemic and the time it gave us to confront our “ghosts.”

Much of the story takes place in Hawaii, where the protagonist travels carrying the ashes of people he loved and a considerable amount of emotional baggage. The airlines, mercifully, don’t charge extra for the latter.

There are moments of humor. There are moments of sadness. There are a few observations about human behavior that probably won’t earn me any new friends. And there is, I hope, something worth saying about the people who shape our lives and never really leave us, even after they’ve gone.

If you are wondering about the title and why the story is not about an alternative universe super hero it refers to a rare optical phenomenon that occurs just as the sun disappears below the horizon. For an instant, under the right conditions, a flash of green appears.

It’s real. Look it up.

Different cultures and storytelling traditions have attached their own meanings to the green flash. In some maritime folklore, it’s a sign of good fortune. In literature and legend, it’s been associated with love, revelation, and the fleeting moment when the ordinary world brushes up against something mysterious. Jules Verne even built a novel around the notion that witnessing it could reveal the truth of one’s heart.

Personally, I like the idea that something extraordinary can happen at the precise moment something else disappears. That endings aren’t necessarily endings. Sometimes they’re just the briefest glimpse of something we don’t yet understand.

Writing this book took longer than I care to admit. There were revisions, rewrites, second thoughts, third thoughts, and the occasional suspicion that I might have been better off taking up Tai Chi. At least with Tai Chi makes you seem graceful.

But here we are.

I didn’t write The Green Flash because I believed the world was desperately awaiting another novel by a man of a certain age with opinions about practically everything. The market for that particular product is already oversupplied. A quick doomscroll on Facebook, YouTube or your podcast app would show you that.

I wrote it because it was a story I wanted to tell, people I wanted to remember, and things I wanted to understand. Somewhere along the way, it became a novel.

And now I’m asking you to buy it.

I recognize the audacity of that request. Particularly since you’ve been kind enough to read my Substack for free, and now I’m proposing to charge you $17.99 for a paperback or $26.99 for a hardcover. There’s also a Kindle edition for those who prefer their literature without the inconvenience of paper.

Apparently, I’ve discovered capitalism rather late in life.

If you do buy it, thank you. If you read it, an even bigger thank you. If you enjoy it, please tell your friends. If you don’t, I’d appreciate your exercising the sort of discretion normally reserved for discussing a friend’s unfortunate second marriage.

And if you feel inclined to leave an Amazon review, I won’t object.

But beneath all the jokes, there is something I want to say.

This book means a great deal to me.

It’s about the people who come into our lives and change them, sometimes for the better, occasionally for the worse, but almost always in ways we don’t fully appreciate until they’re gone. It’s about the conversations we wish we’d had, the things we wish we’d said, and the peculiar way memory can make someone who’s been gone for years feel as though they’ve just stepped out of the room.

And it’s about discovering that grief and gratitude are not opposites. More often than not, they’re traveling companions.

I hope some of that comes through in the pages.

I hope you’ll give it a read.

And to everyone who encouraged me to finish the damn thing, thank you.

You have no idea what you’ve unleashed.

THE GREEN FLASH

A novel by Paul D. Rothkopf

Publication Date: October 21, 2026

Available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/4i9H8vr

  • Paperback: $17.99
  • Hardcover: $26.99
  • Kindle: Available digitally

If you buy it, read it, and like it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It makes an enormous difference to independent authors.

And if you made it this far, thank you for paying attention to my nattering’s.

Paul Rothkopf

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Debatable

Posted on October 17, 2026 by 34orion
An illustrated scene depicting Senator Susan Collins dressed regally, seated on a throne surrounded by bags labeled 'ROAD SALT', while addressing a crowd with a speech bubble saying, 'Let them eat rock salt.' The crowd appears frustrated, holding signs like 'GROCERY BILL' and 'MAINE'.

The news this week has not been the kind that allows for a good night’s sleep.

Elon Musk and the Great Pumpkin in the White House each denied responsibility for restrictions on the satellite services Ukraine relies on for its national defense. Each pointed at the other while Putin, one imagines, laughed like a Bond villain. All that was missing was the white cat.

Crude oil prices surged as two ships sank and others came under attack near the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the supposed Ukraine–Russia energy truce appeared to have all the substance of another one of Dementia Don’s hallucinations.

And in an episode that might impress his dictator friends, federal agents searched a sitting congresswoman’s home. California was given 48 hours to respond to a thumb drive supposedly containing the names of ineligible voters. Side note: A similar thumb drive provided to Pennsylvania contained 18,000 names; according to the review, not one was an illegal voter. All in service of a voter-fraud theory that has been disproved so many times it would be funny if it weren’t so pathetically sad.

I was desperate for a reason to laugh. Not because any of this is funny, but humor is my way of deflecting the sting of reality. Unexpectedly, I found it in this week’s political debates. Jon Stewart ought to have a field day on Monday. Meanwhile, some of my literary heroes—Mencken, Twain, Vonnegut, and P. J. O’Rourke—might have enjoyed themselves, too.

“It’s very important that you guys are able to hear from both of us tonight.”

On paper, that sounds like a nine-year-old complaining that his friends won’t stop talking.

The speaker was Dan Schwartz, the Democratic candidate for Maryland’s 1st Congressional District, debating Republican incumbent Andy Harris on October 13.

Harris had been asked about rising diesel prices and the Trump administration’s decision to ease sanctions on Russian diesel. He began explaining that the real culprit was Democratic environmental regulations.

The audience laughed. Not a polite chuckle, either. The sort of laughter that escapes when an explanation collides head-on with common sense.

Harris was not amused. Apparently, laughter required permission. He scolded the audience, invoked his First Amendment rights, and informed a woman that she was rude. Twice.

Schwartz, meanwhile, calmly reminded everyone that they needed to hear both candidates. Harris then assured the moderator that his own supporters weren’t interrupting anybody.

There was something wonderfully theatrical about a congressman invoking the First Amendment while lecturing his constituents for laughing at him.

To be fair, audiences should let candidates finish their answers. But the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, not freedom from ridicule.

Across the country this past week, candidates for Congress, the Senate, and governorships gathered beneath unforgiving television lights to explain the inexplicable, defend the indefensible, and occasionally stumble into something genuinely funny.

Not necessarily jokes. Something better. Irony.

Consider Alaska.

During Thursday’s Senate debate, Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan noticed that his Democratic opponent, Mary Peltola, was consulting notes while answering questions. This apparently struck him as suspicious.

Sullivan asked whether the candidates had been given the questions in advance. The moderators assured him they had not. Peltola had a two-word explanation: “Just prepared.”

There is something deliciously American about a politician treating preparation as probable cause. In MAGA-world, apparently, you shoot first, gather the facts later, and regard the person who brought notes as a possible criminal mastermind.

Call me peculiar, but implying that your opponent cheated because she came prepared is a strange argument to make in what is, after all, a job interview.

In Maine, Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson had debated Republican incumbent Susan Collins over tariffs earlier this month.

Collins highlighted her success in getting Canadian road salt removed from the tariff list. Fair enough. Road salt matters in a Maine winter.

Jackson was unimpressed.

“We can’t eat road salt.”

True. It is useful on an icy road, less so between two slices of bread.

Then there was Massachusetts, where Senator Ed Markey debated Republican John Deaton, who emphasized his independence from party orthodoxy despite running on the Republican ticket.

Markey compared the arrangement to being a “carnivorous vegetarian.”

Somewhere, a MAGA political consultant is charging six figures to explain how that’s perfectly consistent.

Massachusetts, however, was hardly alone in its descent into political vaudeville. In Georgia, a gubernatorial debate managed to proceed without one of the gubernatorial candidates. In Arkansas, one candidate expressed relief at being physically situated between his opponents. And in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul discovered that her opponent had managed to secure the support of at least two Democrats. Democracy, it seems, was having a particularly entertaining week.

Georgia was the most literal. Republican Rick Jackson declined to attend the Atlanta Press Club debate, leaving Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms beside an empty podium. It was the rare political contest in which one side was represented by office furniture, with no discernible loss of substance.

Then the moderator announced: “Mayor Bottoms, you may now ask a question to your opponent, represented by the empty podium.” She was allowed 30 seconds to ask it and another 30 to rebut the answer she imagined her absent opponent might have given.

I would have liked to hear the podium’s position on health care. Or education. As far as we know, it was the only participant that night to make no claims it couldn’t substantiate.

In Arkansas, Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Libertarian Colt Shelby traded barbs about agriculture. Democrat Fred Love, stationed between them, offered a candid assessment: “I’m glad I’m between these two.” It was like being seated between feuding relatives at Thanksgiving, except nobody could pretend they needed to check on the turkey.

In New York, Republican Bruce Blakeman invoked New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Hochul replied: “Who Donald Trump actually thinks is a great mayor.” So much for guilt by association.

And in Illinois, Republican Darren Bailey discussed the prospect of the Chicago Bears moving to Indiana with Governor J. B. Pritzker. Bailey sounded quite certain the team was leaving. “It’s like you’re wishing for it,” Pritzker interjected. Rooting for a football team to leave your state is a curious strategy when you’re asking to govern it.

In all four states, the humor came from the same place: a politician’s grand story colliding with the inconvenient facts of the moment. Sometimes it was two endorsements. Sometimes an NFL franchise. And sometimes a lectern with a more disciplined communications strategy than the candidate who should have been standing behind it.

None of these remarks will reduce the national debt, lower grocery prices, end a war, improve the quality of congressional legislation, or help me sleep at night.

But a good laugh can expose a contradiction faster than a 40-page policy paper, three charts, and a panel of cable-news hosts shouting over one another.

I suspect Mencken, Twain, and Vonnegut would have enjoyed these exchanges. Nobody appreciated a puffed-up politician being deflated more than those three. They might have laughed all night. Then they’d have remembered that the people onstage are asking us to put them in charge.

We live in an age when politicians employ armies of consultants, pollsters, opposition researchers, and social-media specialists to construct the perfect message.

Yet the memorable moments come when the machinery breaks down and an actual human being says something unexpectedly simple.

Or when an audience begins laughing.

The most revealing political statements aren’t always the ones candidates rehearse for weeks. Sometimes they’re the ones that escape before anyone can stop them.

And sometimes the punchline comes from the audience.

Which brings us back to Maryland, where a congressman was offended that his constituents laughed at him, and his opponent politely asked them to listen.

Somewhere, Mencken is reaching for his notebook. Twain is lighting a cigar. And Vonnegut is shaking his head.

So it goes.

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MAGAnimity:

Posted on October 10, 2026 by 34orion

The Ninety-Dollar Bribe

Donald Trump tried to bribe me this week.

Not with a suitcase full of unmarked bills. That would have suggested a certain respect for the transaction. No, the president offered me ninety dollars. A one-time Medicare rebate, payable to some 20.8 million Americans, conveniently arriving less than a month before the midterm elections.

I was outraged, naturally. I have reached an age at which a man should be able to take offense at being purchased with his own money.

The money comes from the Medicare Improvement Fund, established by Congress to improve Medicare. The administration says that handing the money directly to beneficiaries is itself an improvement. (Tell that to the 2.6 million who lost health care under this admin.)  It is an argument with the elegance of a landlord insisting that repainting the lobby counts as fixing the elevator.

Some will object to my use of the word “bribe.” Mainly the ignorati, for whom a red hat has apparently become a substitute for critical thinking. Fair enough. Nobody has demanded a photograph of my Republican ballot in exchange for the payment. But even the ignorati ought to recognize that the timing is peculiar, and the president followed the announcement with an email to Medicare enrollees congratulating himself on his health-care achievements. It takes a practiced politician to put his name on a government benefit and then send the recipient the campaign literature.

The arithmetic is less charming. Ninety dollars multiplied by 20.8 million recipients comes to $1.872 billion. Nearly $1.9 billion in public money, extracted from a fund of a little over $2 billion. KFF says the payments will largely empty it. Should Medicare require those resources for actual improvements later, someone will have to find new money or abandon the improvements. The nation’s seniors get a check today; their children will get the invoice tomorrow.

And that is before the more immediate double whammy. The standard Medicare Part B premium is $202.90 a month, meaning my presidential benefactor has not even offered to buy half a month. KFF projects that annual premiums will rise by $79 in 2027. If that projection holds, the grand ninety-dollar gesture will leave eleven dollars after next year’s increase. Eleven dollars! Enough to purchase a heartfelt thank-you card, provided you do not insist on very fine stationery.

Yet none of this is what offended me most.

What offended me was the size of the bribe.

Ninety dollars? Really? I realize inflation has made everything more expensive, but it appears to have spared the price the White House places on an American citizen’s gratitude.

Consider what ninety dollars buys in the United States today. Four people going to the movies in New Jersey, where the average ticket is about $18.49, will spend nearly $74 merely getting through the door. That leaves sixteen dollars for popcorn and four drinks. Perhaps the children can share a straw and inhale the aroma of popcorn carried over from the next row.

Gasoline? At roughly $4.37 a gallon, filling a twenty-gallon tank consumes almost the entire presidential windfall. Drive an SUV with a twenty-five-gallon tank and the ninety dollars will not finish the job. You can either get home or celebrate your new prosperity by running the air conditioning. Choose wisely.

Then there is the electric bill. The average American household’s monthly bill is around $158. The ninety dollars won’t cover it. Meanwhile the data centers required to power our glorious AI future are helping drive demand higher, so machines can write increasingly convincing emails telling us to consume less electricity.

Ninety dollars will also buy a few bags of groceries, a mediocre dinner for two (if neither diner orders drinks and you split dessert) or a surprisingly short encounter with a plumber. The American dream is alive and well, though increasingly available only in trial-size packaging.

Normally I would not complain about free money. If somebody presses ninety dollars into my hand, I don’t lecture them on fiscal policy until after I have counted the money and put it in my pocket. But this isn’t free money. It is ours to begin with, and the president is offering to return a sliver of it as though he’d discovered a forgotten twenty in his tuxedo.

And what makes this ninety-dollar exercise in presidential generosity especially galling is how magnificently the people distributing it have been doing for themselves.

Forbes estimated Donald Trump’s personal fortune at $7 billion in September, about $2.7 billion more than when he won the 2024 election. His extended family’s combined wealth, including Jared Kushner, was estimated at roughly $10 billion in September 2025—nearly twice its pre-election level. Call that an increase of about $5 billion, give or take a yacht.

And Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick? Forbes estimated his family’s wealth at approximately $7.3 billion this September, more than double its level when he entered government. Using an early benchmark of roughly $3.5 billion, that is another $3.8 billion in estimated appreciation.

Now I know that valuations are not bank balances. Some of this wealth exists on paper; some is held in family trusts. And calling all of it illegal graft would require evidence a columnist cannot manufacture. But there are questions worth asking when fortunes swell alongside ventures in cryptocurrency and businesses whose prospects can be affected by the very government these men help run.

Add the roughly $5 billion increase in Trump’s family wealth to Lutnick’s roughly $3.8 billion. That gives us about $8.8 billion. Divide it among the 20.8 million people eligible for the Medicare payment, and each person gets approximately $423.

That is about 4.7 times the ninety-dollar presidential offering. And it would not require raiding the Medicare Improvement Fund. It would merely require our public servants, and the families around them, to part with the wealth that has accumulated while they served.

And no, before the Republican talking points arrive by overnight delivery, this isn’t socialism. It is merely suggesting that people who have profited so handsomely during their time in public service might consider financing their own generosity instead of sending the bill to the taxpayers.

I do not expect this to happen. The rich have always been eager to teach the poor the virtues of sacrifice, preferably by providing demonstrations the poor can perform themselves.

So I suppose I should be grateful. I have been offered ninety dollars, a presidential message, and a splendid demonstration of MAGAnimity. The public finances the generosity, the well-connected count their billions, and the rest of us are expected to applaud.

My vote is not for sale. But if you’re determined to insult me with an offer, at least make it enough to take the family to the movies.

And buy the popcorn.

Click here for a surprise coming attraction: https://bit.ly/4e1fRKu

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The Eighty-Year-Old President and AI

Posted on October 3, 2026 by 34orion

On Thursday night, I sat down to watch an interview with the eighty-year-old President.

It was a simple setting. Inside his official residence, the interviewer, dressed casually, sat in one chair, leaning slightly forward for the camera, while the President, also dressed casually, sat opposite him.

The interviewer was not awed by sitting in the presence of the great man. He asked pointed questions and demanded full answers when he felt the President did not respond fully or dipped too deeply into partisan politics. Remarkably, the President was not offended. He seemed to enjoy the back-and-forth and treated the reporter with respect and, occasionally, deference. He was articulate! He resisted the temptation to insult and demean. Moreover, he did not act his eighty years. He was vibrant and engaged. He spoke in full sentences and provided explanations and the reasons behind his vision for the country. Imagine that: an answer with a subject, a verb, and an actual point.

Moreover, the President seemed to want the interview to go on forever. He was enjoying himself. It seemed the only reason the interviewer ended the conversation was that he had run out of questions.

In the end, it was a tour de force by the President—one that left me impressed and, I admit, a little jealous.

Shocked? You shouldn’t be. Because if you have not figured it out by now, the President being interviewed was not Agent Orange…it was President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—Lula of Brazil. Eight months older than Dementia Don, he is a force of nature who looks and acts thirty years younger than his nearly eighty-one years. Something he attributes to daily intense workouts, his sixty-year-old wife, Janja, and a sense of purpose. (Donny, please note: playing golf from a cart while surrounded by sycophants is not a workout; it is a moving cocktail party without the cocktails.)

Lula had a lot to say:

  • “Much money in few hands is poverty; little money in many hands is wealth.”
  • He said his commitment is to ensure that the bricklayer’s son gets a diploma and every Brazilian table has plentiful food—not to bankers who profit from misery.
  • He said money in the people’s hands is investment, not spending, and that those who have money should be taxed.

Let’s be honest. It is hard to argue with any of those statements. But it seems that tax-the-poor, feed-the-rich Donny and a good part of the Republican Party would say just the opposite—and then send out a fundraising email congratulating themselves for it.

He was especially strong on education.

  • “The country has no way out if we don’t invest in education.”
  • He said Brazil had 140 federal institutes when he took office in 2003, will end this year with 802, and that he wants to reach 1,000.
  • He said workers with university degrees rose from 4.8 million in 2003 to 25.5 million, and his goal is 60 to 70 million.
  • He said the housekeeper’s daughter will go to university to become a doctor, architect, or engineer, and that people who dislike him for it will keep disliking him.
  • On technology, he wants to train thousands of young people for the digital world and said Brazil will owe nothing to anyone in AI.

Wow. A president who brags about providing a good education so people can flourish, as opposed to one who brags about the monuments and buildings he is naming for himself. Talk about refreshing. One is talking about human capital; the other seems to have developed an edifice complex. Especially considering the talk in the United States about downplaying the need for a college education and arguing that the future of employment lies with plumbers and electricians.

Let’s be clear: college is not vocational school. It expands your knowledge base and provides you with critical-thinking skills that allow you to see the world with clear eyes and plot a map for the future.

And sure, AI is going to take a lot of jobs away from the workforce, but the only way to make sure there are future jobs is through education. And a college education that enriches bankers and sends students into permanent debt is not the way to do that. Perhaps, instead of fighting wars that you can’t win and that didn’t need to be fought to begin with, we should fund higher education instead. Less willy waving, more scholarships.

Let me put it another way. If we had funded college education instead of this endless war that has caused inflation and hardship for every American, over 1 million students could have received a college degree—something that would do more to ensure our future than the macho foreign policy of Pistola Pete and Private Bonespur. Apparently, textbooks are less photogenic than missiles.

And if you think that the Mad Tariffers’ policies have helped improve the United States’ standing in Brazil, Lula begs to differ. He said the tariffs cut trade with the U.S. by 9.7%—less money for the U.S. economy—which was more than made up for by increased trade with China by 20%, Indonesia and Germany by 15%, and Vietnam by 14%. In other words: you want to play, FAFO.

When asked about Trump specifically, he said he refused to be bullied just because the U.S. has the largest army in the world. He said Brazil demands to be respected, not demeaned, and if that means looking elsewhere for partners, fine. We love having the United States as a friend. As a bully, not so much. Turns out sovereign nations have caller ID. And nobody picks up a phone to be insulted.

So why am I nattering on about this?

First, it was refreshing to listen to a President of a republic talk more about the future of his country than about how wonderful he is and why he is the greatest thing since mankind first discovered toast.

Second, we in the United States often fall under the delusion that we are the only people in the world and that citizens of other countries will automatically accept what we have to say. As a country, we need to listen more and dictate less. Otherwise, we are going to lose friends and do irreparable damage to our economy and our standing in the world.

Exceptionalism means good listening skills and empathy far more than bullying.

And A.I.

Wow. Bet you didn’t think I was going there.

I listened to this entire interview live using my AirPods 5 in live translation mode, powered by Apple Intelligence. It is an exceptionally good use of AI, especially considering my many years of failed attempts to speak and understand Portuguese. Technology: 1. My language skills: still awaiting a recount.

It confirmed something I already knew: AI is an exceptionally useful tool. In fact, these days I couldn’t do what I do without it. Most of my day, every day, is spent running a couple of small internet start-ups. Without AI for prospecting, modeling, presentations, and creative work, I could not do what I do in the time I need it done—or without a staff that would outstrip my budget before lunch.

And when I write, it helps me—a notoriously bad proofreader—check for misspelled words, punctuation errors, and grammatical no-nos. There is irony in having AI clean up a paragraph warning about AI, but I have learned to live with it.

That said, AI, if allowed to proceed unchecked and unregulated, is a gigantic, potentially world-ending catastrophe. Don’t believe me? Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind, and Elon Musk have also backed the general call for slowing the race and adding regulation to the industry. When the people building the rocket start asking where the brakes are, perhaps we should pay attention.

I mean, they should know, right? O

But who doesn’t? Yeah, that guy. The one who uses AI to portray himself as Christ, the Pope, or a superhero. Apparently, artificial intelligence can generate almost anything except self-awareness.

Why? I mean, come on. What does Donald Trump love above all other things? Money. I heard a MAGA pundit arguing the other day that we should not regulate AI because it represents 3.1% of GDP. In other words, money—especially money in the hands of the moneyed elite—is far more important than the destruction of humanity. On the bright side, the quarterly numbers should look terrific right up until the apocalypse.

Sigh.

Here is a simple truth. No industry in the history of the world has volunteered to self-regulate. They would giddily poison people’s food, cause cancer, or destroy the environment in order to enrich themselves, regardless of the cost to the world. Corporate conscience tends to arrive shortly after the subpoena.

In other words, the Trump AI accord—a pinky promise committing their companies to stronger internal safety controls, independent audits, monitoring teams, and board-level oversight—is not worth the paper it was never printed on.

Don’t believe me? Trump said—this will blow your mind—“it was morally binding.” That’s right. He invoked morals as the governing law regulating AI. Apparently, we have reached the point where “trust us” from a man who has no moral compass is being marketed as an iron-clad regulatory framework.

God help us. This movie, as currently being directed, does not end well.

31 days.

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Shoot, Ready, Aim

Posted on September 30, 2026 by 34orion
Red baseball cap featuring the text 'Shoot, Ready, Aim' in white embroidery.

There are political mistakes, and then there is Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri accusing a man of perjury because he apparently cannot tell the Atlanta Hawks from the Iowa Hawkeyes.

This would be funny if Schmitt were arguing with his brother-in-law over nachos at Buffalo Wild Wings.

He was not.

He was sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioning former Special Counsel Jack Smith under oath, armed with blown-up text messages, prosecutorial indignation and the unmistakable swagger of a man who believes he has just found the bloody glove.

(If the glove does not fit you must acquit.)

Schmitt asked Smith whether he had attended an Atlanta Hawks game on February 3, 2024.

Smith said no.

Schmitt pressed harder. He suggested Smith might want to think carefully because, according to Schmitt, he had text messages from Smith’s own team placing him at a Hawks game. The implication was considerably more serious than basketball. Schmitt appeared to be suggesting Smith had secretly been in Atlanta around the time Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was prosecuting Donald Trump. He even raised the specter of perjury.

There was only one small problem.

Jack Smith wasn’t in Atlanta.

He was in Maryland.

At a women’s college basketball game being a good girl dad.

Watching Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes play the University of Maryland.

Hawks.

Hawkeyes.

Atlanta.

College Park.

Only about 650 miles, gender and an entire level of professional basketball separate them.

Senator Amy Klobuchar finally supplied the missing piece of detective work: perhaps, she suggested, somebody had confused the Hawkeyes with the Hawks.

And just like that, the Zapruder film became a basketball schedule.

But the revealing part wasn’t merely that Schmitt was wrong. Politicians are wrong every day. If error disqualified anyone from Congress, C-SPAN would be broadcasting an empty chamber.

What made the episode so perfectly MAGA was the method.

Most of us were taught ready, aim, fire.

Check the facts. Establish the target. Then pull the trigger.

The MAGA version too often operates as fire, ready, aim.

Launch the accusation first. Call somebody a liar, a criminal, a dirtbag or a traitor. Let cable television and social media do the distribution. Then, perhaps sometime before dessert, see whether the underlying facts actually support what you just said.

In Schmitt’s case, they didn’t.

The accusation came first. The certainty came second. Verification apparently never made it out of the locker room.

That is the MAGA playbook. Begin with the desired conclusion. Find a fragment that appears to support it. Strip away whatever context proves inconvenient. Add outrage. Add certainty. Add a few capital letters.

Schmitt didn’t cautiously ask whether Smith had been in Atlanta. He constructed a dramatic confrontation around the proposition. Perjury was invoked. Sinister connections were suggested. Smith had already been publicly called a “dirtbag” by Schmitt.

That word deserves a moment.

My definition of a dirtbag is not a career public servant who answers a question under oath and turns out to be telling the truth.

My definition is someone who, hunting for an “aha” moment, accuses a principled public servant of perjury without first bothering to establish the facts.

That seems a considerably better fit.

Then came the amplification.

Conservative commentator Benny Johnson declared that Schmitt had caught Smith committing perjury. Sean Hannity also celebrated the supposed revelation. The posts were subsequently deleted after the premise fell apart.

Fire.

Ready.

Aim.

That sequence has become one of the defining habits of the MAGA information ecosystem. Begin with the desired conclusion. Find a fragment that appears to support it. Strip away whatever context proves inconvenient. Add outrage. Add certainty. Add a few capital letters.

Then launch.

If the claim survives, wonderful.

If it doesn’t, quietly delete the post and move along to the next emergency.

Conspiracy theories no longer require particularly good conspiracies. They merely require a wisp of information—a text message, a photograph, a name, the word “Hawks”—plus enough ideological enthusiasm to spin the pieces together into conspiratorial cotton candy before anybody asks whether it is worth getting your hands sticky.

Here is the thing. If you have serious allegations, bring serious evidence. It is simple:

Ready.

Aim.

Then fire.

Don’t reverse the order because the accusation is more entertaining than the truth.

On this particular question, there isn’t much ideological fog to hide behind. Jack Smith said where he was. The evidence supported him. Schmitt’s accusation was wrong because he was so excited that he couldn’t contain himself.

Hmmm. There is medication for that. Its called “reading.”

We know who the dirt bags are now. We kinda already knew. The real question is how much longer are we going to put up with the MAGA playbook and when are we going to return to decorum, decency and the rule of law.

34 days.

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Kitten Karma

Posted on September 19, 2026 by 34orion

My wife and I have a mixed marriage.

But we were older when we got married. We weren’t planning to have children, so we didn’t think it would make a difference. Love, after all, is love.

You see, my wife is a cat person. And I am a dog guy.

You might well ask: How do we make it work? Well, it helps that we maintain two households. In New Jersey, where Rosie the Australian Cobberdog rules the roost, we are a dog family. And in Brazil, where, until recently, Romeow was emperor of the domain, we are cat people. I am not going to get into the difference between cat love and dog love. If you know, you know. And if you don’t know, it doesn’t matter. But love is love wherever it comes from.

Which is why the loss of Romeow in August was such a bitter blow. He was beloved, and his absence made our home feel hollow and empty. This was particularly tough on Elaine. Since I disappear from our home in Brazil for weeks at a time, the absence of a cat accentuated not only the home’s emptiness but also her mourning for our beloved Siamese king.

That is why we planned to strike back against the emptiness of our home when I returned to Brazil by adopting not one but two kittens. Two, not only because what is cuter than one kitten? Two. But also because, when Elaine is in the United States, they would have each other for company. Our first attempt at finding a cat through shelters failed. It seems pet adoption in Brazil has been taken over by Petinistas. (Think PETA, but with a Brazilian accent.) Despite the fact that we live in a comfortably sized home, surrounded by a decent amount of property and a twelve-foot-high wall, they required us to put netting over all balconies, walls, and windows so the cats would not leap to their deaths. No exceptions. Mandated house inspections.

Using the Brazilian equivalent of ‘fuck them and the horse they rode in on,’ Elaine put out the word to the BCAU (Brazilian Cat Adoption Underground), and we were quickly rewarded with two exceptional choices.

Jenny is a mostly cream-and-pale-gray tabby with soft orange patches and a white chest and belly. We were smitten. After a moderately expensive trip to Cobasi (PetSmart with a Brazilian accent), she joined our family and quickly became Daddy’s little girl, rolling over for a belly rub whenever I entered the room and using my keyboard as an observation post.

Our next choice was more difficult. Ursula, our contact in the BCAU, let us know about a litter of Siamese-adjacent kittens that were available on the outskirts of Rio. We could pick any of them. Therein lay the problem. All three were cute enough to make the cover of Kitten Quarterly magazine, so how do you make the decision? Elaine decided that we needed another female to ensure domestic tranquility, and the decision to adopt Sasha was made.

A room was prepared for her. More equipment was purchased, and we made the twenty-mile trip to pick her up. All the way back home, she complained bitterly about her separation from her siblings and mother. It was pitiful. It was heartbreaking. And we broke down. Within hours, Ursula appeared at our door with Sushi. (Name of the cat, not a dinner order.)

It has been a very long time since I have had kittens. Richard Nixon might have been president. I am a dog guy, remember. I had forgotten how absolutely adorable, blood-pressure-reducing, serotonin inducing, amusing, and delightful kittens can be. Much better for you than a vaporous martini and an easier way to reach that calm place than all the body-twisting in yoga.

I carried that sense of peace and joy with me as I traveled back to New Jersey. Well, as far as Miami. And if I am being completely honest, it was not just the kittens making me feel karmic. I had been out of the news cycle for the past three weeks. Nothing is more calming than not having to engage with whatever effluence the effluencer-in-chief is secreting that day.

What killed the kitten karma for me was the passenger boarding the plane just in front of me. He was a white man of a certain age, proudly wearing a red baseball cap with that phrase on it and a black T-shirt with an American flag topped by a rendition of Mount Rushmore, with the great deceiver’s visage included.

My first, and you might even say best, instinct was to grab him by the shoulders and shake him while yelling, ‘Are you fucking stupid?’

‘This guy promised you no more foreign wars, and then he starts a war with Venezuela that produced nothing, changed nothing, and one with Iran over an issue that had been settled. That has now made us strategically more vulnerable and costs us $2 billion a day in a war that can never be won?’

‘He promised you that he would make America more affordable again. Yet the consumer price index is up 5.5% since his inauguration. And are you enjoying paying 50% more for gasoline? And don’t say it. It is not a little price to pay for freedom, because freedom from nukes was never what this was about. Remember, he settled that problem months before.’

‘Speaking of wars, didn’t he promise to end the war in Ukraine before he even stepped back into the Oval Office? How is that going? And didn’t he say the same thing about Gaza? Are you sensing a pattern here? No? Let me help.’

‘Didn’t he say he would tariff the world so we would finally have fair trade, and that you wouldn’t pay for it because the tariffed countries would? Turns out, surprise, surprise, the tariffs were illegal, and now the U.S. government has to pay back $165 billion, which effectively means you paid for the tariffs twice: once through increased prices on goods you bought, and now when the Treasury has to pay back the money it illegally collected.’

‘And I probably should mention that we have turned the nicest neighbor a country has ever had, Canada, against us. The vindictive and ignorant tariffs the orange genius imposed have made Canada apply to the EU for associate membership. That means, in case you are wondering, less trade for the U.S., fewer jobs for American workers, and a trading bloc that can exert more power over us, all because the pouter-in-chief had his feelings hurt. He is literally the snowflake-in-chief.’

‘You probably don’t care that Trump and his family have increased their net worth by $6 billion since January 2025, but I do. I have the wild idea that a president should be working for the good of the people, not the bottom line of his net worth.’

‘Perhaps you think it is a good idea to have a Secretary of Defense who thinks competence comes with the color of your skin and gender, as opposed to merit and skill. I don’t. I want people manning the watchtower who know what they’re doing, as opposed to toeing a political agenda and ideology. Oh, and I want a person in charge of our defense who makes decisions based on facts, not gut instincts, and has the skill set to think before he acts.’

My mind was roaring.

I could have gone on. And perhaps I was on the verge of saying something, except being on the no-fly list is not conducive to a bicontinental marriage. But luckily, the line moved, and before I knew it, I was safely ensconced in seat 17D.

But I was steamed. Forty-eight days to the election. How am I going to be able to maintain equilibrium when roughly one in three citizens still approve of his performance in office?

Then it struck me. I opened my phone to pictures of Jenny, Sasha, and Sushi. Deep breath. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Kitten karma.

I am not sure it will get me to Election Day, but it got me home.

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E Pluribus Unum

Posted on September 10, 2026 by 34orion

On Friday, September 14, 2001, President George W. Bush, dressed in a windbreaker and casual slacks, climbed onto the pile at Ground Zero. With a bullhorn in hand and his other hand on retired firefighter Bob Beckwith’s shoulder, he addressed the hundreds of volunteers who had been relentlessly sifting through rubble and debris for survivors. “I can hear you,” he said. “The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

We were angry. We were hurt. We were grieving.

He made us feel seen, heard, and understood. It didn’t heal the gaping wound. Not even close. But by acknowledging us, he was fulfilling one of the most fundamental roles of a head of state: healer-in-chief. He gave us a glimmer of hope that we would somehow make it through and that we would exact revenge on the bastards who had shattered our buildings and our world.

He didn’t blame his predecessor. He didn’t make it about himself. He didn’t turn the moment into an attack on Democrats. He was speaking to all of America, not to a single faction that likes to wear red hats and demean people because of whom they love, the god they worship, or how they identify.

After leaving the pile, he moved on to the Javits Center, where he met with family members of roughly 200 missing police officers and firefighters. He didn’t address them all at once. He didn’t invite the press. He met with them one-on-one and listened to their stories about their loved ones.

We didn’t hear what he said to those families. We never saw it. We didn’t have to. What he did spoke for itself. It helped us heal because we knew the person leading us was comforting those who needed it most.

Perhaps this is where I should point out that George W. Bush was never my guy. He was just a nepo-baby frat boy who had the great good fortune of birth. His flannel-shirt brand of supply-side economics—where a tax cut is a sacrament rather than a subtraction, and revenue forgone at the top supposedly trickles down through the strata like grace through a cathedral, arriving at last upon the head of the wage earner, who is assured that his own bill will come due in some other administration—was bullshit. And don’t even get me started on the two generational wars he launched.

But that day, he was our president, standing alongside us, and we were in it together.

For one terrible day, politics receded. He spoke to us as one country.

E pluribus unum.

Which raises the question: what would the current occupant of the bedazzled Oval Office do, given an equally horrifying set of circumstances?

We don’t need to look any further than his behavior on 9/11 for the answer.

On that day, he gave a phone interview to WWOR-TV. In it, he said he believed 25,000 to 35,000 people were dead, then quickly moved on to the news that his building at 40 Wall Street was now the tallest in lower Manhattan. It was a callous, self-serving interview. Don’t believe me? Listen for yourself: https://youtu.be/PcKlPhFIE7w

On subsequent occasions, he has claimed he sent construction workers to help with the recovery effort. The problem is that investigators have never been able to corroborate it. Richard Alles, an FDNY battalion chief who supervised operations there, said a crew of 100 Trump workers would have been operating under official supervision and “there would be a record of it.” He knew of no such crew. Others deeply involved in the construction and recovery operation likewise said they knew of no Trump-organized workforce.

Trump publicly pledged money to 9/11 relief, but investigators have found no record that he made a charitable donation in the aftermath of the attacks. Fifteen years later, while running for president, his foundation donated $100,000 to the 9/11 Museum. Yes—the Donald J. Trump Foundation, the same foundation that was later forced to dissolve in New York.

His most recent claim is that two firefighters carried him to safety when a building was in danger of collapsing. It was such an obvious lie that every major news outlet in the country was calling bullshit practically as it left his mouth.

And that isn’t even his most memorable lie about 9/11.

No. There is no credible evidence for his claim that he watched “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in Jersey City cheering on television as the World Trade Center collapsed.

None of these lies is particularly shocking, considering who we’re dealing with.

Trump lies as easily as the rest of us breathe. But the lies all serve the same purpose: to promote himself in some way, to make himself feel a little better about being the damaged person he is.

But that is not what really bothers me.

What makes my blood pressure soar, my pupils dilate, and spittle fly from my mouth when I speak is the stolen valor.

2,977 people died in the attacks that day, 2,753 of them at the World Trade Center.

403 first responders died trying to save them: 343 FDNY firefighters, 37 Port Authority police officers, and 23 NYPD officers.

Roughly 91,000 people gave up their time, their health, and pieces of their peace of mind to work at Ground Zero.

Since then:

  • More than 600 FDNY rescue and recovery workers have died of World Trade Center–related illnesses.
  • More than 12,000 FDNY members have been certified with at least one 9/11-related physical or mental condition; nearly 5,000 have had some form of cancer.
  • More than 9,000 people have died of 9/11-related causes.
  • The September 11 Victim Compensation Fund has recorded 5,892 responders, area residents, and workers who died of cancers attributed to the toxic air.
  • As of June 30, 2026, 145,275 responders and survivors were enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program. An estimated 400,000 people were exposed to toxins in and around lower Manhattan.

All of these people sacrificed because of 9/11. They didn’t do it for money or fame. They did it because something deep in their souls told them they had to.

Donald Trump, who could have given more and done more than almost anyone else in the country, gave nothing. Then he spent the next twenty-five years helping himself to their courage. It’s the only kind he’s ever had.

We shouldn’t forget his cowardice and his puddle-deep character tomorrow. Or ever.

But tomorrow isn’t about him. Tomorrow we remember those who died that day, those who gave their lives searching for survivors and then for their fellow citizens’ remains, and all those who gave up something of themselves because of that day—and are still giving it up, twenty-five years on.

A moment of silence is not enough. Sixty seconds is free, and these people gave everything. Go out of your way to be kind tomorrow. Do something for someone who can’t pay you back. That’s what they did. There is no better tribute.

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