Politics 101 Circa 2026

Imam Hakim Jeffries addressing the new Congress.

In case you just woke up from a coma ten minutes ago, the Republican candidates lost many -- if not most -- if not all -- of the races in the recent election, which was held four days ago. But never fear: to catch you up, every newspaper and website explains it all ad nasueum, writing the same things. In a nutshell, I have summarized everything for you here:

President Trump sucks. Elon Musk sucks as much, maybe more. All MAGA voters suck. In fact, everyone connected to the President sucks. Democrats promise to impeach Trump and anyone who ever looked at him, sat next to him or supported him. The Republican Party is finished. The Democrats are in the driver's seat, and the Muslim Socialists, led by new Imam of the House Hakim Jeffries, are at the wheel. Oh, and don't forget -- Trump sucks, now and forever, always has and always will.

That's about it. Now you are fully up to speed and can engage in a thoughtful conversation about politics with every Democrat you meet.

Mission Accomplished!

Question: Who once tweeted, “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.”?

Answer: You might have guessed Barack Hussein Obama, or his loathsome spouse, or maybe even one of their daughters. You'd be close, but wrong. Instead it was an Obama disciple, just one of the newly-elected, anti-American victors in Tuesday's election debacle.

Now a U.S. Representative-elect for New York's 13th congressional district (Harlem and The Bronx) and a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, the writer was Darializa Avila Chevalier, also known as DAC (Oh, how cute -- just like AOC!)

Question: Who once said, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."?

Answer: Barack Hussein Obama, October 30, 2008, while campaigning for the presidency. It took a lot more than five days, but mission accomplished.

Why A "Blue Tsunami"?

I've read a lot of articles written by so-called political pundits -- and FYI it's pundits, not pundants --that the reason the Dems won big in the midterms is because of high gas prices or the Iran war or the use of force by ICE agents and some other reasonable hogwash, but we all know the real reason is that they just HATE DONALD TRUMP -- always have and always will.

They hate his wild hair, his fake tan, his daughter Invanka, his beautiful wife Melania, his gold toilets, his White House ballroom, his rough personality, his name-calling, his tweets, and whatever else you can think of. That's it. The average Democrat  -- most notably a recently-arrived Somalian who doesn't even speak our language but still voted in our election -- knows little about Trump's policies. They just hate his guts for being too rich, too smart, too powerful, and most of all, for knowing more than they do about just about everything.

Which is why simpletons like AOC, Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris, average dummies who are non-threatening, are at the top of the list of Democrat favorites. In their world, the dumber the candidate the more the public can relate to him/her. 

End of story.

Gotto Go!

The popular "Troy Jackson" Halloween mask.

Last night the Nazis, a.k.a Democrats, won the midterm elections all across America. Here in Maine it's especially poignant, with our fabulous Senator Susan Collins, the first female Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee which holds jurisdiction over all discretionary spending for the entire federal government, losing her seat to a pudgy career logger who fathered two kids with his second cousin and was recently ejected from his own Facebook group for being rude to his supporters. 

But here in Maine, that's okay. While Maine law prohibits marriages to an individual’s parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, or uncles, cousins are fine. The law initially banned first cousin marriage, but an amendment passed two years later (in 1987) allows such unions "if the would-be betrothed present a certificate of genetic counseling signed by a physician certifying their potential children have an acceptably low risk of physical deformity or cognitive impairment."

Today I'll start packing up the house, as I certainly can't stay here -- that's obvious. Florida is hot, but at least the lion's share of residents are intelligent --- and naturally Republicans.

Fat And Skinny Had A Race (Skinny Lost)

Two of the beautiful people.

One of my favorite episodes of The

Twilight Zone first aired on November 11, 1960, which would have made it my sister's 18th birthday the year I was 13. Entitled "Eye of the Beholder," the gist of it was that in an altered society, pretty people were considered to be ugly and the hideously ugly were beautiful.

This is what's going on today right here and now, in this society where we live. It's happening online, where hundreds of videos of morbidly obese women dressed in bikinis or other flesh-baring attire are posted. The women look gross and disgusting but get comments like, "You are beautiful" and "I love your body," from men and women alike.

I can only conclude that the fatter we get as a nation, the more we tell ourselves that's the way things should be. Only it isn't.

Morning Coffee In The Nuthouse

When I married a man 11 years younger than me I assumed he would still be mentally fit when I started losing my marbles, and that in fact he might help me keep some of them for a longer time. Sadly, it has not turned out that way.

This morning, having awakened at 3:45 and realized that sleep was no longer a possibility, I was in the living room reading when I heard my husband come down the stairs and enter the kitchen and start making coffee. The sound of the coffee grinder was not right. Instead of the usual low, electrical purr, it was an angry clacking sound. It grew louder, and I was surprised that Mitch felt it appropriate to keep going. However, after about one minute the clacking subsided and the grinding continued normally.

Next, Mitch started making noises like "Harrumph" and "Hmmm," which made me, sequestered two rooms away, wonder just what the heck was going on. Finally he found me and reported that the wide blue rubber band that had been wrapped around the bag of coffee beans was missing. He posited that it was the reason for the clacking sound and that it had been ground up with the beans.

I found that laughable. No way! How could the coffee grinder continue to work with a big fat rubber band in its blades? (I also mentioned that if that were truly the case he was mental and needed help.) Assuming he had simply dropped it somewhere, I began sweeping the kitchen floor. Meanwhile, a pot of coffee was brewing. Undaunted, Mitch opened the top of the coffee maker and inspected the grounds. Soon enough he found what looked like a small piece of a rubber band buried in the wet mess.

Refusing to drink the now freshly-brewed coffee, saying we could surely die if we drank ground-up latex, I thought of David O'Lenick, the other man I could have married. (My high-school beau who was my age, I wondered if he was still alive.)

To settle things, Mitch asked Claude, his A.I. companion, the following: "If I grind up a rubber band along with coffee beans in my coffee grinder, and then brew coffee with the mixture of ground beans and ground rubber band, would that be toxic?  Also, would you think that the person who did this has a mental illness?"

Claude said DO NOT DRINK IT! -- it could cause all sorts of problems, digestive and otherwise, even leading to death. As for the sanity question, Claude said if it were an accident, then no worries, but if it were part of a pattern of distressing or unusual choices, speaking with a health care professional would be a helpful next step.

 And that's what's happening in our house this morning.

Dastardly Dems Destroying Democracy

Anti-Trump protesters in Maine.

Here in Maine, the death of democracy is evident on the highways and byways of every town, where political signs have become the weapon of choice. The vandalism at the hands of the Maine Democrats is stunning in its efficacy, as each new day dawns to find more and more signs touting Republican candidates missing. All but a handful of those supporting Senator Susan Collins have been defaced, destroyed or spirited away. Ditto the signs for lesser Republican candidates, be it a member of the local school board or the Maine state senate. Interestingly, none of the signs touting Democrats for those very same offices have been tampered with. 

What can we conclude from these sophomoric shenanigans? One thing only: the party protesting that Donald Trump represents "the end of democracy" is the very same one that is actively out there killing it. To them, "free speech" means "only if you vote our way."

It's sad and depressing to witness this peevish behavior of the so-called adults who comprise the lion's share of our demographics. Constantly touting their love of democracy, they are actively destroying it. The only conclusion I can think of is that frequent consumption of lobster eventually eradicates functioning brain cells. (See photo.)

Doctor No

There's an old joke that goes like this:

"What do you call a person who graduated last in class at medical school?"

"Doctor."

I recently had a chance to meet one of those people. She seemed nice enough at our pre-surgery consultation, and so I let her go ahead and remove a spot of basal cell carcinoma, if that was what it really was. (Years ago I had lung surgery for an alleged cancer that turned out to be a bacterial infection, so pardon my skepticism.) Now in its stead I have an unsightly lump twice the size that itches and is quite annoying. 

I'm pretty sure that a better doctor, like maybe someone who was first or second or even third in class, would have done a better job, but hey -- live and learn.

Making Fun of Old People

I have a few bad habits, but the worst is surely looking at Instagram. I keep quitting it and deleting the app, only to go back again to see something my son posted. Then I stay and waste precious time looking at posts of strangers, and occasionally commenting on them. That's the absolute worst thing I do.

Recently a fat woman posted a video of herself at the beach in a bikini, saying she was glad she had lost all her "baby weight" following her pregnancy. Many comments denied that fact as it was so obvious, and I wrote -- snarkily I admit -- "But I see it." Someone, not the poster herself, texted me back,"Time for your Botox, Granny." I assumed she had clicked on my photo and concluded that I'm old. Which I am. (However, I am not a grandmother and I would never use Botox.)

Faulting someone for their age is dumb. Everyone gets old, unless they die young and don't get the chance. Yet mocking old people for how they walk or having wrinkles or being hard of hearing or any one of many signs of aging is quite popular and still "allowed" in a society where making fun of any other physical trait is strictly forbidden.

Despite my best intentions I am now 80 years old. I couldn't help it -- it just happened. And if you're very careful, it will happen to you.

Life In These United States

 I can't think of anything good about life in the United States today. But I will try.

1. There is no war going on within our borders, unless you count the ones between Democrats and Republicans and Muslims and Jews and Blacks and Whites and transgenders and straight people.

Film Review: ZODIAC

Jake Gyllenhaal and Chloe Sevigny

If you missed Zodiac when it was released in 2007, you can rent it now on one of several platforms. It's well worth the investment, both in money and time (2 hours and 37 minutes). But make sure you are clear-headed and sharp at the start, as the circuitous plot takes you down several long, complicated paths and the rapid-fire dialog is best understood with the subtitles feature turned on.

Instead of cops and robbers, think cops and reporters. Based on a still-unsolved serial crime spree that gripped California for many years, Zodiac showcases several fine actors we know today when they were mere babes. Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gyllenhaal, Dermot Mulroney and Robert Downey, Jr. look almost too young for their roles, but that might be because they -- and we -- are all so much older now.

Aside from several brutal scenes -- I had to cover my eyes and my ears -- much of the action takes place in complex conversations between two or three of the characters in various locations -- a newsroom, a dark bar, on the steps of the courthouse -- hashing out the facts of the case. San Francisco police detective David Toschi (Ruffalo) becomes frustrated by the brash intrusion of Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal), an eager cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle who becomes obsessed with finding the killer. (You will be too.)

Directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Inglorious Basterds, Panic Room) and featuring Chloe Sevigny, Anthony Edwards and John Carroll Lynch, Zodiac warrants a second viewing in order to fully grok all the plot twists and turns. Or you could just read the book, written by the real-life cartoonist, which has gotten rave reviews.