Author's Log

275 Reasons Donald Trump Should Not Be President

2026-03-08T21:25:00.001-04:00

1. The acting head of NASA told them not to "let safety be the enemy of progress".

2. They blew up a boat full of alleged drug smugglers, who may have actually been trafficking refugees. Either way this is a violation of international law.

3. He was convicted of sexual assault in a civil trial.

4. He was convicted of felony fraud.

5. He is clearly suffering from dementia.

6. He renamed the DoD to the Department of War.

7. He threatened Chicago with war.

8. His vice president, when someone told him the boat attack was a crime, said he "didn't give a shit what you call it".

9. RFK Jr. is a vaccine conspiracist openly destroying the Department of Health.

10. He threatened Belgium with tariffs if they don't give him the Nobel Peace Prize.

11. He bombed Iran with no Congressional approval.

12. He is abetting genocide in Palestine.

13. Expelled Russian dissidents back to Russia for Putin.

14. Pedophile.

15. Friends with child trafficking pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

16. Covering up that relationship.

17. Profiling people by skin color to deport them.

18. Trying to end billions in foreign aid.

19. Completely corrupted the Supreme Court.

20. We have Senators saying openly “What is an American?” Schmitt asked. "It is a white person. America is a white homeland that organically binds together white people of the past, present and future."

21. Threatened via spokesperson to send the military to every Democrat controlled city.

22. Posted that every vaccine is poison.

23. "Suicidal empathy"

24. Freaked out at protestors at a restaurant.

25. Republicans calling for Democratic leaders to be arrested and the party banned immediately after Charlie Kirk's death.

26. We now have Brian Kilmeade calling for involuntary euthanasia on the homeless.

27. The guy who killed Charlie Kirk was a groyper but the GOP is pretending he was a leftie.

28. He claimed 300 million people died from drugs last year (2024).

29. He killed another boatload of Venezuelans illegally.

30. JD Vance talking about putting on the armor of God and going after the "movement" that led to Charlie Kirk's death.

31. Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy: "Focused anger, righteous anger directed for a just cause, is one of the most important agents of change in human history. And we are going to channel all of the anger that we have to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks. It is a vast domestic terror movement. And with God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have to the DOJ, DHS, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks. It will happen and we will do it in Charlie's name."

32. Threatened to come after reporter Jon Karl to his face.

33. Threatened Australia after being questioned by an Australian reporter.

34. Pam Bondi threatening to go after people with hate speech laws.

35. We are now being investigated for human rights violations by South Korea.

36. Got Jimmy Kimmel taken off the air for making fun of him.

37. Banning Australian news from press conferences.

38. Firing a US attorney for resisting bringing charges against Letitia James for mortgage fraud because he couldn't find any evidence.

39. Declaring the press isn't allowed to criticize him.

40. ICE tear gassing protesters and trying to run them over.

41. Trump illegally charging $100K fees for H1-B visas.

42. Killed a THIRD ship of alleged drug runners illegally.

43. Shut down an investigation into Tom Homan accepting $50,000 in bribes.

44. Stephen Miller telling an admiral we can just kill boats of migrants in violation of international law.

45. Sep 22 2025: "Today, the president of the United States of America said that the country's current pediatric vaccine schedule was "too much liquid... going into that baby" and then issued a decree announcing that anti-fascism is terrorism"

46. Blamed autism on vaccines and Tylenol.

47. Designated Antifa as a terrorist organization.

48. Told our allies at the UN that their countries are going to hell.

49. Kash Patel saying they are going to chase down left-wing groups like the terrorists they are.

50. ICE detained a loved school superintendent for no goddamn reason.

51. The Supreme Court letting Trump withholding $4B in foreign aid for no reason.

52. The Daily Caller is now openly calling for blood in the streets.

53. Asking the Supreme Court to end birthright citizenship.

54. Sending the military to Portland to help against "antifa".

55. Revoked the visa of Colombia's president because he said in Spanish "That's why from here, from New York I ask all the soldiers of the army of the United States not to point their guns at people. Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity."

56. Instructed all federal agencies to message their employees blaming the shutdown on Democrats.

57. Threatening to lay off massive amounts of federal employees during the shutdown.

58. Lied that he ended 7 wars.

59. Lied that DC was the country's most dangerous city.

60. Lies that Portland is burning down.

61. Lied that the Congo sent prisoners to the US.

62. Lied that the US had 300,000 drug deaths last year.

63. Had Mike Johnson keep the House in recess to prevent a vote on releasing the Epstein files.

64. Talks about "straightening out" San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles and a "war from within".

65. Pete Hegseth said no more rules of engagement.

66. Pete Hegseth told generals "you kill and break things for a living".

67. Pete Hegseth told generals they're overhauling the IG process and ending EO policies.

68. Pete Hegseth complaining about diversity and that "males and females are the same thing".

69. Posted an AI video with the Dem speaker in a sombrero that ends by calling Democrats "woke pieces of shit".

70. Telling government employees to set their out of office messages to blame Democrats for the shutdown while furloughed.

71. Vice President JD Vance lying that illegal immigrants are filling up ERs for free.

72. Calling Democrats "the party of hate, evil and Satan".

73. Posted an AI video of Russ Vought as the Grim Reaper coming for Congressional Democrats. Meanwhile Russ is threatening mass layoffs during the shutdown.

74. Up to 4 Venezuelan boat crews murdered now.

75. ICE gassed bystanders and arrested a sitting Alderman in Chicago.

76. Planning to mint a $1 coin with his face on it in violation of standing law.

77. Pam Bondi taking $25K to make an investigation into Trump University disappear, hiring on as Trump's lawyer, AG and head of DOJ, and then getting offended when her integrity is questioned.

78. Pam Bondi refusing to answer if the Epstein files contain pictures of Trump with naked underage girls.

79. Speaker Johnson still refusing to seat the new Democrat Congresswoman.

80. The bombed out ruins of Portland don't exist.

81. Stated he "took away the free speech" wrt flag burning.

82. Called for the arrest of the mayor and governor of Chicago.

83. Consistently calls only black people "low IQ".

84. An ICE agent told an American citizen "Do something about it, bitch" and then shot her seven times while being recorded.

85. A Republican poll worker bought Dominion Voting and says he'll push for paper ballots.

86. Using the government shutdown to target Democratic programs.

87. Using the shutdown to lay off CDC employees.

88. Wasted 94 million pounds of food aid.

89. Lied about hand to hand combat between troops and child gangsters in DC

90. Young Republicans posting racist Nazi shit in private chat (some of them are Republican staffers, 30-40 years old)

91. GOP staffer with a swastika on his desk

92. Now giving $40B to Argentina for no reason

93. Government now shut down for 3 weeks

94. JD Vance telling people to get over the Nazi thing

95. The president told a Central American dictator to build five more massive slave labor camps to hold US citizens.

96. Commuted sentence of George Santos

97. Admin routinely violates the Hatch Act

98. Posted an AI video of himself dumping shit on protestors from a jet while wearing a crown

99. RFK Jr removing human subjects protections (aka bringing back Tuskegee experiments).

100. Tearing down the White House for his shitty ballroom.

101. Demanding $230 million from the Justice Dept be paid to him for investigating his crimes.

102. ICE is stockpiling chemical weapons and guided warhead missiles.

103. Agreed to submit ballroom plans for review after tearing down the East Wing of the White House.

104. The ENTIRE East Wing, now. And the cost is rising.

105. Supreme Court hearing a case to overturn gay marriage.

106. Trump openly says he's just going to keep killing alleged drug smugglers.

107. Steve Bannon openly saying Trump will win a third term in 2028. (This is illegal.)

108. Accepting $130M to pay the military (probably a lie).

109. "The land is concerned, because I told them, that’s gonna be next,” Trump rambled. “You know the land is gonna be next? And we may go to the Senate, we may go to the Congress and tell them about it, but I can’t imagine they’d have any problem with it."

110. Won't rule out a third term.

111. Four weeks of shutdown, House still in recess.

112. Designing the ballroom with AI.

113. Levied tariffs on Canada over a recording of Ronald Reagan speaking against tariffs.

114. Purged ICE leadership to install even worse people from Border Patrol.

115. Fired everyone who would independently review his ballroom or other construction projects.

116. Murdered another four ships of Venezuelans without cause.

117. Still ignoring the Hatch Act.

118. Refusing to fund SNAP because fuck you.

119. Cutting off funds to hospitals that treat trans patients.

120. Lying about ICE detaining 170 American citizens.

121. Restarting nuclear testing for the first time in 30+ years.

122. Holding up SNAP after two court orders to release emergency funds through willful ignorance.

123. Auschwitz parade float in Pennsylvania.

124. Appealing to the Supreme Court for a stay so he doesn't have to fund SNAP after a lower court ordered him to.

125. Froze up when a man collapsed during an interview and just stood there staring at nothing.

126. Demanded states undo attempts to cover SNAP.

127. Took a disguised $100M payment from Russia.

128. Mentioned repeatedly in Epstein files.

129. Gave Ghislaine Maxwell a sweetheart prison move she shouldn't have qualified for.

130. JD Vance claiming 30 million immigrants (which don't exist) are the reason for high housing costs.

131. DHS attacking a judge for ordering detainees released.

132. Gathered House members into the Situation Room to pressure them into voting against releasing the Epstein files.

133. Military personnel having to ask lawyers of their orders are legal.

134. Orders coming down saying that everything is legal and the military is immune from prosecution.

135. Ordered DOJ to open an Epstein investigation into Bill Clinton Larry Summers etc after the investigation was already completed probably to block further release of files.

136. Doesn't know what he got an MRI done for.

137. DHS beating up and arresting faith leaders and the calling them violent rioters and imbecilic morons.

138. DHS middle-of-the-night apartment building raid where children were dragged outside naked & zip-tied in the street while black & Latino residents were *sorted by race* and piled into separate vans while their apartments were ransacked & robbed resulted in 0 arrests.

139. Let the American flag fall to the ground at the White House.

140. When asked about the Epstein files snapped "Quiet piggy" at a woman reporter.

141. Invited the Saudi prince who murdered Jamal Kashoggi to the White House, then scolded a reporter who brought it up and insulted the murdered man's memory, suggesting he brought it on himself.

142. Threatened another reporter with the FCC for an Epstein question. Same event.

143. Partially dismantled the DOE.

144. Intervened in an investigation of Andrew Tate.

145. Endorsed death threats against members of Congress who reminded the military they don't have to obey unlawful orders.

146. "Seditious behavior, punishable by DEATH!"

147. Was apparently going to jailbreak and grant asylum to former president Bolsanaro.

148. Got two National Guard shot keeping them in DC illegally.

149. Likely to hand Taiwan to China.

150. Pete Hegseth ordering JSOC to murder two boat strike survivors. Which JSOC did.

151. Canceling everything Joe Biden did via autopen over some nonsense conspiracy theory.

152. Pete Hegseth complaining the murders are fake news and everyone killed was a terrorist.

153. Trump threatening land war against Venezuela.

154. Trump declaring a no-fly zone over Venezuela.

155. Pardoned a former Honduran president who was serving decades for drug smuggling.

156. CDC director is in favor of selling organs.

157. Kristi Noem and Megyn Kelly going full Cruelty Barbie.

158. Open Nazi running for office in the GOP

159. House GOP refusing to hear from Jack Smith on his investigation into Donald Trump's election interference

160. Attempting to deport naturalized citizens

161. FDA draft proposals for vaccines that would eliminate annual flu shots

162. Falling asleep in televised meetings on camera

163. Racist rants against Somali immigrants, Ilhan Omar

164. "It’s a hellhole right now. And those Somalians should be out of here. They've destroyed our country. And all they do is complain, complain, complain. You have her. She’s always talking about the Constitution provides me with – go back to your own country and figure out your constitution. ... What the Somalian people have done to Minnesota is not even believable. It’s not even believable. And a lot of it starts with the governor. A lot of it starts with Barack HUSSEIN Obama, because that’s when people started coming in... They want to kiss our country good night."

165. Supreme Court Republicans upheld a Trump-ordered racial gerrymander in Texas 6-3.

166. Going off on a rant about the 2020 election at a tree lighting ceremony.

167. Dropped a national security strategy that insults our European allies for having too many minorities.

168. Removing rape protections for trans and gay prisoners.

169. Removing two holidays celebrating black people from the holidays where entrance to national parks is free. And adding his birthday.

170. Had FIFA invent a peace prize for him.

171. Slapped his own name on the Institute of Peace.

172. RFK Jr weakening vaccine protections for infants.

173. Deadnaming a trans admiral.

174. ICE raiding naturalization ceremonies.

175. Blackmailing states into following bigoted policies with federal rescue funds.

176. Neo-Nazis marching in Arkansas.

177. Elon Musk arguing to ban Somalian Americans from voting

178. ICE ignoring citizen's IDs

179. Govt didn't even have a deportation order for Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

180. Proposal Demanding five years of social media history, biometrics, and DNA of tourists entering the US.

181. Threatening a governor of his own party that he'd withhold federal funds if they didn't gerrymander the state in his favor.

182. Cut off federal funding to Catholic charities in Texas.

183. Recognized a Native tribe (only one) for payola.

184. Claims he won California in 2024. (He didn't.)

185. ICE pepper sprayed a one year old.

186. Republicans blowing off a massive increase in health insurance premiums.

187. Blaming Rob Reiner's death on Trump Derangement Syndrome.

188. "A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!"

189. And then he doubled down and blamed Reiner for "the Russia hoax".

190. Trump on Brown University after a mass shooting: You would really have to ask the school about that because this was a school problem. They had their own guards, their own police, their own everything but you would have to ask that question to the school and not to the FBI.

191. Trying to try Senator Mark Kelly for reminding the troops they don't have to follow illegal orders.

192. Sued the BBC for $10B.

193. Withholding billions in electric vehicle charging funds from states.

194. Set up a blockade around Venezuela, which is an act of war.

195. "Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us. The illegitimate Maduro Regime is using Oil from these stolen Oil Fields to finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping. For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.

196. Therefore, today, I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela. The Illegal Aliens and Criminals that the Maduro Regime has sent into the United States during the weak and inept Biden Administration, are being returned to Venezuela at a rapid pace. America will not allow Criminals, Terrorists, or other Countries, to rob, threaten, or harm our Nation and, likewise, will not allow a Hostile Regime to take our Oil, Land, or any other Assets, all of which must be returned to the United States, IMMEDIATELY. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA"

197. Working to dismantle a leading climate research lab, National Center for Atmospheric Research.

198. Reportedly put an insulting plaque under Barack Obama's presidential portrait. (Not 100% sure on this one.)

199. When his FCC chair was reminded the FCC website says it is an independent agency, the website was immediately updated to remove that statement.

200. Issuing an invalid pardon for state crimes.

201. Retaliating against the governor of Colorado for refusing to recognize the bad pardon.

202. Needs a pardon for various state crimes.

203. Classifying fentanyl as a WMD to justify invading Venezuela.

204. Upping denaturalization of citizens.

205. Trump on Venezuela: "Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had -- they took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn't watching. But they're not gonna do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. They threw our companies out. And we want it back."

206. Mick Foley refuses to work with WWE until Trump is out of office.

207. Renamed the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center.

208. Instructing the FBI to issue bounties on trans activists.

209. Issuing executive action to end gender affirming care for kids and threatening hospital funding to do it.

210. Taking credit for housing pay to the military and calling it a "warrior bonus".

211. Convicted a judge of obstruction after ICE raided a courthouse.

212. "Among the nominees just confirmed is Leo Brent Bozell III, a far-right activist and critic of the fight to end apartheid, who Collins just approved to be the United States AMBASSADOR TO SOUTH AFRICA."

213. ICE now arresting American-born citizens and claiming their birth certificates and other documents are false.

214. Violated the deadline to release the Epstein files and redacted powerful people who might be embarrassed, not just victims.

215. RFK Jr. moving to end CDC recommendations for ALL vaccines.

216. Inserted faked photos of Bill Clinton into the Epstein files release.

217. CISA acting director suspended six people after he failed a polygraph.

218. ICE agents breaking into a woman's bathroom to check papers.

219. Bari Weiss spiking a 60 Minutes broadcast on CECOT to avoid angering the administration.

220. Naming 25 new battleships after himself and calling it the Golden Fleet.

221. Denying visas over social media posts.

222. Made a hash of Santa tracking calls.

223. Kash Patel lied under oath.

224. Spent Christmas bragging about his accomplishments, including a military strike against alleged ISIS in Nigeria, wished Merry Christmas to the dead terrorists and the radical left.

225. Wealthy people are paying for presidential pardons.

226. "To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God" - Paula White, Trump's spiritual advisor.

227. Not sure if Trump bombed Venezuela week of Christmas.

228. "Much of the Minnesota Fraud, up to 90%, is caused by people that came into our Country, illegally, from Somalia. “Congresswoman” Omar, an ungrateful loser who only complains and never contributes, is one of the many scammers. Did she really marry her brother? Lowlifes like this can only be a liability to our Country’s greatness. Send them back from where they came, Somalia, perhaps the worst, and most corrupt, country on earth. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!"

229. "Tim Waltz of Minnesota is a Crooked Governor!!!"

230. "God Bless Tina Peters, who is now, for two years out of nine, sitting in a Colorado Maximum Security Prison, at the age of 73, and sick, for the "crime" of trying to stop the massive voter fraud that goes on in her State ( where people are leaving in record numbers!). Hard to wish her a Happy New Year, but to the Scumbag Governor, and the disgusting "Republican" (RINO!) DA, who did this to her (nothing happens to the Dems and their phony Mail In Ballot System that makes it impossible for a Republican to win an otherwise very winnable State!), I wish them only the worst. May they rot in Hell. FREE TINA PETTERS!"

231. Froze childcare payments to a bunch of states, possibly ALL states.

232. President Donald Trump on Tuesday vetoed HR 504, federal legislation intended to provide flood protection to Osceola Camp, a Miccosukee residential area in the Everglades. In his veto letter, the president blamed the tribe for having “actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected.”

233. Disposing of NASA archival material.

234. Bombed the capital of Venezuela to capture its president and try him on drug charges, without Congressional authorization or notice or declaring war. Breaks the UN Charter and is clearly illegal.

235. Now saying the US will "run Venezuela".

236. Trump in a single gaggle on Air Force One threatened:

- a second strike against Venezuela

- Cuba

- Mexico

- Colombia

- Iran

- Greenland (which in turn would be an attack on the EU and Denmark)

237. Deploying 2000 federal agents to Minnesota after forcing Tim Walz out of his reelection campaign.

238. TAPPER: Can you rule out the US is going to take Greenland by force?

MILLER: Greenland should be part of the US. By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? The US is the power of NATO

T: So force is on the table?

M: Nobody is gonna fight the US militarily over future of Greenland

239. Dissolved the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

240. Garnishing students' wages to repay their student loan debt.

241. Posted a whitewashing of the January 6 insurrection to blame it on Democrats.

242. Freezing childcare funds to five blue states.

243. EPA looking to restrict it's ability to make new air pollution rules.

244. ICE shot a legal observer dead in Minneapolis. Government labeled her a domestic terrorist.

245. Briefed Congress that Venezuela oil money will be going to offshore accounts.

246. Signed an executive order suspending U.S. support for 66 organizations, agencies and commissions, including UN ones.

247. Dr. Oz threatened to pull Medicaid support from Minnesota.

248. Rep. Randy Fine: "It's time for Americans to say 'enough,' and if you get in the way of the government repelling a foreign invasion, you're gonna end up just like that lady did yesterday."

249. Calling the War Powers Act fake.

250. Says he'd be honored to accept the Nobel Peace Prize from the Venezuelan opposition leader who actually won it.

251. Releasing insider stock information early.

252. "I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we're at it, Highly "Inaccurate," Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election. We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED. WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections. Remember, the States are merely an "agent" for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.

They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do. With their HORRIBLE Radical Left policies, like Open Borders, Men Playing in Women's Sports, Transgender and "WOKE" for everyone, and so much more, Democrats are virtually Unelectable without using this completely disproven Mail-In SCAM. ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS. I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS. THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX, USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!!! REMEMBER, WITHOUT FAIR AND HONEST ELECTIONS, AND STRONG AND POWERFUL BORDERS, YOU DON'T HAVE EVEN A SEMBLANCE OF A COUNTRY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA"

253. ICE kept a Maryland citizen locked up for 25 days even with her birth certificate.

254. US vetoes most Ethiopian athletes for the World Crosscountry Championships in Florida by denying their visas. Ethiopia will be unable to record a team result in either the U20 men’s or U20 women’s races, ending its 44-year medal streak.

255. Drawing up plans to invade Greenland which his senior generals think are insane and illegal.

256. The sign on Kristi Noem's podium reads "One of ours, all of yours." The reader will recall that this was a fascist rallying cry in the Spanish Civil War. What it means is that one of "our" people is worth all of "your" people.

257. Prosecuting the chair of the Fed.

258. Posted that he's Acting President of Venezuela.

259. EPA will stop considering lives saved when setting air pollution rules - just cost to businesses.

260. Q: The premier of Greenland said today, 'We prefer to stay with Denmark.'

TRUMP: Who said that?

Q: The premier of Greenland

TRUMP: Well, that's their problem. I disagree with him. I don't know who he is. Don't know anything about him. But that's gonna be a big problem for him.

261. Told a Ford worker "Fuck you" and flipped him off after he yelled "Pedophile protector"

262. ICE firing flashbang grenades at protestors in Minneapolis.

263. Unverified: Apparently ICE goons in multi-car caravans are circling Spanish immersion preschools in the city taunting and photographing the parents and neighbors who are patrolling the school perimeter to keep kids safe.

264. ICE imprisoning Native Americans in a old concentration camp for Native Americans.

265. GOP stalled a bill to keep Trump from escalating in Venezuela.

266. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado says she presented Trump her Nobel Peace Prize to recognize his commitment to her country.

267. We have subsidized Denmark, and all of the Countries of the European Union, and others, for many years by not charging them Tariffs, or any other forms of remuneration. Now, after Centuries, it is time for Denmark to give back - World Peace is at stake! China and Russia want Greenland, and there is not a thing that Denmark can do about it. They currently have two dogsleds as protection, one added recently. Only the United States of America, under PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, can play in this game, and very successfully, at that! Nobody will touch this sacred piece of Land, especially since the National Security of the United States, and the World at large, is at stake. On top of everything else, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Finland have journeyed to Greenland, for purposes unknown. This is a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet. These Countries, who are playing this very dangerous game, have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable.

Therefore, it is imperative that, in order to protect Global Peace and Security, strong measures be taken so that this potentially perilous situation end quickly, and without question. Starting on February 1st, 2026, all of the above mentioned Countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Finland), will be charged a 10% Tariff on any and all goods sent to the United States of America. On June 1st, 2026, the Tariff will be increased to 25%. This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland. The United States has been trying to do this transaction for over 150 years. Many Presidents have tried, and for good reason, but Denmark has always refused.

Now, because of The Golden Dome, and Modern Day Weapons Systems, both Offensive and Defensive, the need to ACQUIRE is especially important.

Hundreds of Billions of Dollars are currently being spent on Security Programs having to do with "The Dome," including for the possible protection of Canada, and this very brilliant, but highly complex system can only work at its maximum potential and efficiency, because of angles, metes, and bounds, if this Land is included in it. The United States of America is immediately open to negotiation with Denmark and/or any of these Countries that have put so much at risk, despite all that we have done for them, including maximum protection, over so many decades. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

268. ICE arresting furries for dancing.

269. Trying to extort $1B each from nations to stay in the "Gang of Peace" whatever that is.

270. Has France sending troops to defend Greenland.

271. Official letter of madness:

Dear Ambassador:

President Trump has asked that the following message, shared with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, be forwarded to your [named head of government/state]

"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.

Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a "right of ownership" anyway? There are no written documents, it's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President

DJT"

272. Kremlin agrees that Trump will go down in history if he annexes Greenland.

273. Stephen Miller claiming local and state police in Minnesota have been ordered to "stand down and surrender".

274. DOJ shut down FBI investigation into the ICE murderer.

275. Prosecuting House rep LaMonica McIver for visiting an ICE detention center.

Last updated January 19, 2026

I Can't Take Any More Historical Events

2024-07-21T19:56:00.004-04:00

And I can't take another four years of being horrified by some new offense from President Trump every week.

Since the last time I posted (warning you all), Donald Trump got shot at, J.D. Vance became his running mate, Joe Biden caught COVID, and now today Joe Biden has dropped out of the race and endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris to take over.

deep breath

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay. Okay okay okay okay okay. OKAY.

First thing first: this is not the nail in the coffin that guarantees Trump's victory. Political parties run their own nomination process, for the most part, and Joe Biden was still the presumptive nominee, not the official nominee. Which means it is not against the law to replace him. Which will not stop the GOP from mounting legal challenges across all 50 states to kick the new nominee off enough ballots to secure victory. With a slate of judges and a Supreme Court that are all in Trump's pocket.

We will also have a drumbeat of the GOP saying Biden must resign his office immediately. To that I say: good fucking luck. If Biden has any guts he'll forgive every student loan he can and use every executive action possible to benefit the country. The Supreme Court says it is all okay, after all.

Second: there will be a DNC convention. Someone, probably Kamala Harris, will take over as the nominee and run for President. It is possible, as Aaron Sorkin calls for Mitt Romney to be the nominee and Joe Manchin considers rejoining the party to contest for the slot, that the convention will deteriorate into a complete shitshow.

Hopefully... hopefully not.

Even if Kamala Harris isn't the strongest pick (and I would ask which Democrat is actually better), she's the natural choice in the minds of the country, being the current Vice President and Biden's chosen running mate. Not picking her would be questionable at best, especially with no clear replacement waiting in the wings.

The convention could, conceivably, knife her in the back even as she takes the nomination, It would not be the first time (ref. Jimmy Carter). Again... hopefully not.

This is what I would ask:

Whoever the nominee is, the focus of this election needs to be voting against Donald Trump.

I have given my reasons. Trump has not gotten better. We can handle four years of a poor Democratic presidency (and there's no evidence right now it would be poor). We can't handle another four years of Trump.

Vote Blue 2024

-Dave

If we kick Joe Biden out of the race we will all be damned.

2024-07-10T19:20:00.002-04:00

July 10th, 2024, under a severe thunderstorm warning:

I wrote recently about how Donald Trump is a monster and a fascist who cannot be allowed to take office again.

Now we've got this shit floating around:

To sum up, Joe Biden got up on a debate stage and was low energy and not on point. At the same time Donald Trump was ranting about the hordes of immigrants coming to conquer America and lying his ass off. And since then the press has ignored the fact that Donald Trump is an evil, delusional narcissist and instead focused on pressuring Joe Biden out of the race.

I repeat, the press is trying to force the goddamn sitting President of the United States to drop out of his race for re-election, while Donald Trump has shown up 69 times on the court documents about Epstein's pedophile playplace.

And because Democrats are a loose coalition of diverse opinions that rarely agree about anything, it seems to be fucking working.

Let me spell out the basic problems with this idea, from the position of a man cursed with an interest in politics after he woke up in his dorm room to news of a terrorist attack on September 11th, 2001:

1. The primary season is basically over and Joe Biden has been nominated as the Democratic Party's candidate already. In same cases he won the nomination in states he did not campaign in, on a write-in vote.

2. There is not a recognized mechanism for a party dropping their chosen nominee at this point in the race. Because of that, Republicans will use every dirty trick in their book to skewer anyone who could conceivably replace Biden on the ticket and keep them off the ballot in key states.

3. Republicans control the Supreme Court 6-3, so anything they do to kick a new candidate off the ballot will be upheld.

4. The only well-known potential replacement for Biden is Kamala Harris, his VP. If she replaces him then she will be accused of some nebulous cover-up of Biden's infirmity (which again, doesn't actually seem to fucking exist).

5. Joe Biden is the sitting President of the United States, and has been carrying out that duty for nearly four years now without any indication that he is mentally unfit for office.

6. And as a reminder, no one is calling for his opponent to drop out even though he's been convicted of 34 felonies and held liable for sexual assault and faces credible accusations of raping children and supports dictators over US allies and already fucked up a pandemic.

And yet! Multiple goddamn Democratic Senators and Representatives are saying Biden should step down! Not a lot, but you'd be hard pressed to tell when the press is slotting them in between quotes from Rob Reiner, Stephen King and George Clooney also attacking Biden! And then you've got Ezra Klein on a podcast saying there are Democrats who have told him "Hey, Trump won't be so bad!"

LIE BACK AND THINK OF NAZI GERMANY I GUESS

(Why am I writing this? I shouldn't be writing this. It's destroying my sanity and isn't good for my reputation in any sense... but I've donated and I'm going to vote in November, what else is left to me?)

Joe Biden was already tarred by backing Israel in their current horror show. He went into this election being less than perfect. But you have to be sick in the fucking head to call yourself a Democrat and think Trump winning is an acceptable outcome, or to think you can force sitting President off the ticket and replace him less than four months out from the election.

If Biden were genuinely ill - I mean victim of a stroke, God forbid - I could understand the instinct. This isn't that. This is sharks seeing a slip and going into a feeding frenzy on behalf of a fucking nightmare who promises nothing but more blood.

We Must All Oppose Tyranny

2024-07-04T12:18:00.000-04:00

Today is Independence Day. It commemorates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and the founding of the United States of America.

Per the National Archives, after listing the grievances the former colonies held against King George III, the Declaration states:

"A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

This year, 248 years after the Declaration, we the citizens of the United States will choose to continue having a President or elect a Tyrant.

Donald Trump is manifestly unfit for office. He is a convicted felon on 34 counts. Two more federal cases against him are ongoing. He has been found liable for sexual assault, and accused of multiple rapes and other disgusting acts. He is currently being sued for child rape. He possesses an absurd amount of financial conflicts of interest, and massive debts that make it simple for any foreign power to bribe him.

Far more importantly, he has already served a term in office and proven himself disastrous for the country. He packed the Supreme Court and federal benches with right-wing ideological judges clearly unfit for their positions. He ignored a pandemic and then actively spoke out against basic protective measures like masking and vaccinations, leading to a death toll of hundreds of thousands. His foreign policy involved withdrawing from numerous long-standing international agreements, covering everything from mutual defense, nuclear limitations and climate action, weakening America's influence worldwide and increasing the influence of dictatorial governments in our place. And his administration ended with a mob descending on the Capitol under a delusion that the election Trump lost had somehow been stolen from him, a view Trump has repeatedly encouraged, and attempting to overturn the election. Trump remains on trial for his role in those events.

This year, 248 years after our country was founded, we the citizens of the United States will choose remaining a Democracy or becoming a Dictatorship.

Trump is running on a platform of unapologetic fascism. He repeatedly called for violence against protesters, reporters, and immigrants during his first term, and has been vowing revenge on his political enemies since his felony convictions. He is campaigning on a platform of mass deportations, potentially deploying the National Guard or the military to execute them, and continuing the cruel detention camps of his first term. Most of the people coming to the border are asylum seekers, but Trump denigrates them as animals. His campaign is also talking openly about pulling back support for NATO and throwing Ukraine to Russia.

Many things Trump wants to do would in theory face resistance, or are in fact illegal. But this week the Supreme Court ruled that the President is immune from prosecution for "official acts", and provided a very broad range for that immunity. At the same time, Trump's supporters are pushing Project 2025, an agenda for Trump's first days in office that includes:

- Loyalty (to Trump) tests for government employees, mass firing of government employees under Schedule F and retraining along Christian conservative values

- Ending gay marriage and protections against discrimination for gay people

- Classifying transgender people as "predatory" and a threat to children

- Classifying transgender literature as pornography and registering educators and librarians as sex offenders for distributing it

- Reversing protections and reforms covering diversity, affirmative action, and accessibility

- Redirecting education funds away from public schools to private Christian schools

- Cut the Department of Education entirely

- Reverse Biden's student loan forgiveness and crack down on loan enforcement

- Criminalize asylum seekers and immigrants, round them up in mass camps, and execute mass deportations to countries in active conflict

- Reverse deterrence-only policy for missile and space defense

- Defund foreign aid groups not aligned with Christian values

- Reverse policies and defund programs aimed at protecting the environment

- Use the military to enforce domestic border security

- Remove federal funding for public broadcasting (too left-leaning) and make them pay regulatory fees

- Remove safety rules for food, animals, and large-scale farming

And so on and so forth. The point of all this, and the terrifying thing about it, is that Project 2025 involves mass replacement of long-standing, non-partisan government officials with Trump loyalists at every level of government. At the same time, the intent is to carry this out solely through Trump's authority as President, an authority that a Supreme Court packed with Trump loyalists is ready to rubber-stamp, having already proclaimed that Trump cannot be held criminally liable for any of these actions, no matter how many of them (i.e. the use of military force against civilians) are clearly illegal.

This year, 248 years after the birth of the United States of America, we its people must choose to support Liberty and reject Tyranny.

Every election is important! Every election is important. Every election is important and this one is very important.

Donald Trump is a monster. He is a fascist. He is a malignant narcissist on a revenge trip who spent his first term "joking" about being President for Life. He is not fit to deal with the challenges America is facing today or in the next four years. He has no interest or actively opposes dealing with the long term problems our children will face as the planet cooks.

What he is prepared to do, is to create a country that is no longer a democracy in any functional sense. A country where policy is dictated in favor of loyalists to the Republican party and against everyone else. Where all the money goes to the already-wealthy and everyone else gets bled dry. And most importantly, Trump's postured to end any ability for the public to peacefully vote against, speak out against, or resist these policies.

We are already far too close to falling into a failed democracy. Our two main political parties are so divided that Congress needs a supermajority to take any substantial legislative action. Executive actions are subject to court challenges that are ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, currently 6-3 in favor of the Republican Party with all of its members appointed for life. On top of that, the Electoral College heavily favors the Republican Party, so elections already need a heavy wave in favor of Democrats to give them a better than even chance of winning. A Republican win in 2024 will tilt the field even more heavily in their favor.

We need to vote against this, and then we need to do more. Biden winning the election is necessary but not sufficient. We need to vote in a Democratic Congress, both the House and the Senate. And then we need to vote in Democrats at local elections. Sheriffs. School board members. Governors. Local legislatures and judges.

And then we need to do more. The Democratic Party has already downplayed the threats we face for too many years. We need to write letters to our officials and demand pro-democracy reforms. We need to demand an end to the Electoral College. We need to demand an expansion of the Supreme Court back to a fair body. We need to demand climate action, police reform, immigration reform. We need to demand that the wealthy pay fair taxes, support unions, oppose mega corporations. If our officials won't listen, we need to vote in primary elections and make our desires known.

What we cannot do is hand the Republican Party more power. The two party system isn't bad when it operates in a fair democracy and representatives fairly represent their constituents. That isn't what the Republican Party wants. They do not view Democrats as legitimate. They do not view opposition to the Party as legitimate. They want one-party rule, and they have been increasingly open that they're willing to use violence to get it.

The Republican Party as it stands now cannot be permitted to control the government. Certainly not under Trump, who has made himself the focus of a fascist cult of personality.

This year, we can make it clear that another Trump presidency is not acceptable or tolerable to the American people. We must make that clear, because the alternative is four years of a government that does not and will not respect our democracy or the values our country was built on.

David Earle

July 4^th, 2024

On Writing With AI

2024-03-07T19:04:00.005-05:00

This post was written without AI, beyond maybe Google autocorrect.

Doing this stream of consciousness. Need to answer the question: Why do people want to write with AI, is that evil, and is it ever justified?

Start with the "why". Go back to my own experiences. Experience one:

I'm a published author of multiple works under CURSED PEN NAMES REDACTED, but the one thing I take credit for is The Assassin's Dilemma, a Warhammer Fantasy short story in the Death & Dishonour collection.

I do not plagiarize and I have never used AI, but if you happen to read that story and you're familiar with the old Warhammer fiction you might notice that I was heavily aping William King's style. Not ripping passages out or anything, just trying to channel the cowardly viciousness of the Skaven he wrote so well over multiple Gotrek & Felix books. This is something that's generally considered accepted practice while you're learning - Stephen King calls it out in On Writing, to name one example.

Does this somehow make it acceptable to train an AI on the books of an author you like and use it for your own work? To my mind, no. In a legal sense, probably "fuck, no". Mimicking an author's style as a starting author is about gaining insights, like "Terry Pratchett doesn't spend a lot of time on character description and averages one joke per sentence". Having an AI play word scramble might provide some insights, but it's more likely to create non-actionable data analysis fodder like "Nathaniel Hawthorne frequently uses the word 'is'" (I have no idea if this is true).

Okay, author self has ruled out AI. Moving to experience two. Brace for tangent:

I'm currently building a top-down role playing video game based on Hansel & Gretel. (Everyone starts somewhere.) I am currently using RPG Maker MV. RPG Maker is a game engine where most of the features you need to build an RPG are baked in, including tile maps, character sprites, items, switches, rooms, enemies, combat mechanics, etc.

I originally started the game in GameMaker Studio. GameMaker has a lot of pre-built features for games, but they are non-specific, which means you need to build a lot of them yourself (see: everything I listed that RPG Maker has above). I got to the point where I had a game where a character could move between rooms using grid-based movement and have a second character follow them around, which is *pretty good* but I had a long way to go.

Because this Hansel & Gretel game is me proving a point to myself and not my dream project, I elected to use RPG Maker instead and cut out a lot of the engine work I'd have to do to get things going with GameMaker. I am very conscious that when want to make a different style of game, I am going to have to abandon RPG Maker for something else, but it provides the tools I need for now.

Which brings me back to the topic: RPG Maker is a tool to make games that ships with a bunch of pre-built assets for you to use. And you can use these assets and the tool as-is. But but BUT, the truth is that a game made with stock RPG Maker assets is going to be dismissed by most people because all those included tools and assets are pretty bland. The RPG Maker games that succeed are the ones that take the engine, replace all the stock assets, and bend the hell out of the defaults to create something unique, some new gaming experience.

So one might argue: what if I prompt an AI to generate a book, based on my own ideas and characters, and then edit the hell out of it until it's something unique, a new reading experience?

Hm.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Well. First, this doesn't solve the problem of AI being trained on content that the authors didn't consent to offer up for that purpose. That's one of the sticking points of the whole practice. But let's argue that someone creates an AI that's trained on public domain content *only*.

The next problem is that writers are lazy stumblebums. (Or: I am a lazy stumblebum, and I am generalizing my inferiority complex to an entire profession.) If you're already using AI to write the first draft of your novel, what exactly is stopping you from leaving in great chunks of purely AI-generated content? I mean, it's not impossible that the AI came up with a really great sentence you wish you'd thought of. Who would know, right? (Probably everyone.)

And that hints at the last problem, which is: writing is a learned, practiced skill. Using an AI to generate great swathes of text you revise does not teach you how to structure a story. It does not teach you how to write believable, sympathetic, hateable, hilarious characters. It does not teach you how to make people laugh, cry, shout, or just put the book down for a second and stare into space.

An inexperienced writer using an AI to write their book is going to create garbage at worst (which to be fair is true with or without the AI), but at best it's going to be work that's like an RPG Maker game made with just the default assets. It will lack evidence of craft.

An experienced writer using an AI to write their book... may write a good book. A great one? I don't know. I doubt it. But to my mind, any AI available now will just be a distracting addition to the writer's existing process.

I'm going to call Joanna Penn out a bit now just because she's the first author who tried to sell me on using AI in my writing through her mailing list. (I unsubscribed.)

Her basic process for writing a short story as described on her website was: 1. write a basic story, 2. use a tool to expand on sensory descriptions and flesh out events, 3. incorporate the text into her story after heavy editing, 4. run the story through an online editor software, 5. run the story through a human editor, 6. use an AI to generate a book cover and 7. brainstorm a title.

In line with my thoughts: 1 and 5 are obviously fine. 7 I don't really mind, it's like using a random word generator or a jar of word magnets for inspiration. (Disclaimer: I may use anagram generators for vampire names in some yet-to-be-published works.) And 4 seems reasonable given that it's suggestions on how to modify existing text, rather than writing it in full.

But 2 and 3 run smack into the problems I see with trying to edit an AI's text - it's not yours, and the temptation is to leave more and more of it in, without learning what's good about it and what isn't. And 6, the book cover, is the poster child for content-stealing AI.

I do get the temptation to delegate descriptive text to an AI. I'm shit at it myself. But it's a compromise. You can argue it's the same compromise a one-man-band game developer makes when they buy an asset pack or a sound library. Maybe that's a fair argument. But until AI can clean up its ethics issues, I don't think it's one that will win me over.

Dave Does Dev: Introduction

2023-11-11T22:21:00.000-05:00

Welcome welcome welcome, thank you for coming to my humble blog. My name is David Earle and for the past few years this place has been... kind of deserted!

sounds of wind rushing past, a screen door flapping

But prior to that this was a place I talked about my creative endeavors, sometimes politics, media, etc. I'd like to revive that and, for right now, the plan is to focus on my next big project:

Developing A Video Game

Well, specifically:

Developing Three Video Games

Or, to be more exact:

Developing Two Small Video Games And A Proof Of Concept For What Could Be A Full Video Game Sometime Far In The Future

If this sounds ambitious to you: you're right! Any software development project you care to name is a months-long effort, and video games are more involved than most. You've got to create features, develop scripts for any plot or dialogue, create or buy game assets like art, sounds, fonts, etc., and then playtest, tune and revise whatever you end up making to ensure that it's actually, you know, fun!

If you'll permit me the comparison, trying to create a game has a lot in common with trying to write a novel. You have to plan out a structure for the final product, you have to show amazing scenes and lovable/hateable characters, and you have to make sure the person taking it all in enjoys themselves to the very end. Also, there's a lot of revision and trying to figure out why things don't work!

The main difference is that creating a game is a multidisciplinary effort (programming/art/sound) right from the get-go, whereas a novel is mostly a solo act - at least until you get to trying to publish the thing and have to deal with editors, marketing, cover art, etc. and remember that books require a team of people with different skills just as much as video games. So it's not really a difference so much as a shift in weight.

But just like Amazon and other sites have opened up the world of self-publishing, indie game development is more accessible than it ever has been. Storefronts like Steam reward big commercial products, but indies still have a leg in, and even smaller less commercial projects can find a place on itch.io. Which also happens to be one of several great resources for free or low-cost art assets to help an indie game dev create their dream project.

Maybe even a hobbyist like me.

Some background: I went to college at Washington College in Chestertown, MD to take part in their Creative Writing program, which was and remains great. But I did consider that I'd need a way to make a living wage if writing didn't work out, so I took a wide selection of classes my freshman year. One of those classes was an introductory Java class, which included an assignment to draw a snowman using Java's built in graphics functionality.

From that moment I was hooked. I'd always loved video games; the idea of creating one was irresistible. I ended up majoring in Computer Science, pushed my teachers for a 3D graphics class, and did my thesis on matrix math, submitting a little First Person Shooter demo as my final project.

And then... I didn't do much. Which is to say I published a short story, and a non-fiction article under a pen name. Tried some self-publishing under a different pen name. I got a job in IT and stuck with it. I got married, got a dog and a house, had two great kids, even went to Disney World a few times.

And for game development? I'd read a book on the subject, try the exercises. Then I'd pick up a different book, try those exercises out. And so on, until I had a very heavy stack of books and the realization that I was just going through exercises without trying to create anything on my own.

It was that multidisciplinary weighting, in part. I had no idea how to create my own graphics, or get my own sounds together. And at the time game engines weren't as well-developed as they are now, so I kept trying to roll my own and falling into a trap of writing code for hours without anything to show for it. And most of that code was copied out of a book. So I set aside my ambition for nearly two decades.

But recently, something - random chance, fate, the little butterflies of time and space - started dropping breadcrumbs in my path.

I think it started with this video by Super Eyepatch Wolf, on a game called Fear & Hunger. It's very NSFW (think Berserk but grosser), but it piqued my interest.

Around the same time RPG Maker, a game engine I've poked at and left alone repeatedly over the years, had another sale on Steam. And somehow the fact that Fear & Hunger was made in that engine entered my consciousness.

If you've seen an RPG Maker game you'll know the engine trends to very Japanese RPG stock art and gameplay, but somehow it had been used to make this chaotic hellscape of a game. I had to know how. So I got a copy of the game, found a decompiler for it, and opened it up in RPG Maker to see what made it tick.

After that I started going through the tutorials for RPG Maker. I learned about tile maps, events, characters. Picked it all up in a week. And then I wanted to do something for myself. Just a small project, nothing ambitious - but as I said at the start, even a small project is pretty ambitious.

So here and now, I write my goals, and sign them with my name:

1. I will make a 2D RPG retelling the story of Hansel and Gretel - a project that could very easily be done with the stock assets and features of RPG Maker.

2. I will make a Pokemon clone proof of concept - mostly for something my son can enjoy. This has also been done in RPG Maker but is substantially more involved as a project, and would require implementing features the base engine doesn't have.

3. I will create a 2D turn-based strategy game in the style of the Shining Force Sega Genesis series. To start with, just two battles, but with an eye to something more - maybe.

David Earle, 11 November 2023

And so it will be done. But whether it will be done in RPG Maker... that's a whole different question, and one for another post.

-Dave

Modern Civics

2023-05-27T11:36:00.001-04:00

Well hello there! Would you like to know how the United States works? I knew you would!

Okay, so, if you live in the United States you are what they call a citizen. (The United States of America is called a country.) As a citizen you pay a subscription fee, called taxes, that is based on how much money you made in the past year. In return for your subscription you get benefits such as well-maintained roads, clean air, a functional legal system, and a chance to vote periodically for the country's leadership.

(If you are not a documented citizen, you may be here on a trial period (refugee). If you do not pay taxes you are either a pirate (criminal) or a VIP on a complementary membership (wealthy). Oddly enough the people on the trial period are considered the most problematic by half the country's leadership.)

Now, you may notice that the roads are not very well maintained and the air is kind of smelly and overheated. That's because for the past forty years (at least), around half of the country's leadership (the same ones against trial periods) have insisted on a subscription plan where the majority of the country pays at the highest tier, but the people with the most money get complementary memberships. And despite the accountants pointing out this doesn't work and isn't good business (governance), this faction insists on sticking with it and lowering subscription fees.

Why are they doing this? Well part of it is they tend to have the most money, and so do their friends. But also, they want the country to get in enough trouble that they can convince the subscribers (citizens) to vote them into total control. Once that happens they can change the subscriber rules so the subscribers don't get to vote at all, and chance their benefits to what they think citizens should have (rights based on being white, male and wealthy), and all the members who disagree with them can be removed from the service (deported/arrested/executed).

Does it seem like they should be allowed to do this? That's right, it doesn't! But we let them because a lot of subscribers get told by marketing (the press) that this is a good thing for them and a bad thing for people they don't like. And the people who aren't trying to get the country in trouble, don't want to admit to the subscribers that a good part of the leadership wants to tear the service down - it's bad P.R.

So why is this important? Well, a while back the leadership passed a rule that if the country built up a certain amount of debt, they would stop paying their bills. There wasn't an actual requirement to do this, but leadership thought it was a good idea and assumed everyone would stick to it.

Anyway, next week we might hit that limit, and the anti-trial period faction would be very happy if the country stopped paying its bills so they can blame the CEO (President) and have him voted out. So they're forcing the rest of leadership to agree to a bunch of changes that will also hurt the country, but not as obviously.

So what can you do? Not much! The main thing is to vote against the people trying to wreck the service, but that system is heavily weighted in their favor so it's not easy. You also need to vote for people who are trying to fix the service, but again, that's an uphill battle. Still, try your best!

Resident Evil 4, Microtransactions, and Paying for Cheat Codes

2023-04-10T19:00:00.000-04:00

Fair warning, this post is not on-brand, I'm working through my feelings on a video game so just bear with me.

Anyway. Resident Evil 4 Remake! Played it. Finished it, on standard difficulty, once. Great game. I've been playing Resident Evil games since the series began and haven't missed a mainline game yet (if you don't count Code: Veronica), and this one is up to standards.

Normally after beating a Resident Evil game I would, per tradition, unlock the Rocket Launcher with infinite ammo and go on a vengeful spree through the game, destroying my fear of the various monstrous enemies by blowing them into pixelated chunks. Capcom has, as of last week, decided to make that a question of moral difficulty so now I'm blogging instead.

Background: the infinite Rocket Launcher typically unlocks after beating the game with a sufficiently high rank, usually S, which used to mean doing a speed run. Resident Evil 2 Remake tweaked that a bit by requiring a speed run on Hardcore difficulty, and then Resident Evil 3 Remake and Resident Evil 8 introduced bonus stores where you could unlock and purchase the weapon after doing some challenges.

So far, so good, except RE2Remake also provided an option to just buy the infinite Rocket Launcher for five bucks. This flew under the radar because the option took about a year to come out and by that point no one really noticed.

Fast forward to now, and RE4Remake, which has more weapon upgrades but has added microtransactions to the mix, in the form of "exclusive tickets" you can buy for $3 a pop in real money. These let you unlock high-end weapon upgrades that you'd otherwise have to do multiple playthroughs of the game to earn.

Is the infinite Rocket Launcher locked behind this? Oddly enough, no, you can't use a ticket to get that, probably because it would break the game's hardest difficulty in half. But, you can get a Handcannon (Magnum) with infinite ammo using the tickets, which has kind of the same effect. And that's something you can't do by just grinding out in-game money, at least if you want to go for the trophy tied to beating the hardest difficulty with infinite ammo on your side.

In short (too late), Capcom is charging three bucks for what used to be a cheat code.

Is this a good thing? No. I miss cheat codes. Bring them back.

Is this evil then? Also no, at least not in comparison to some of the truly predatory microtransactions out there. At most I think you can spend $10-$25 on these tickets. And the game is single-player so it's not a thing where you're paying to beat other people.

Am I going to buy these things?

...Maybe?

I confess, I prefer to cheat my way through games whenever possible. I am time-limited for gaming, but I do like to see as much of the games I like as I can, and I like unlocking the trophies. So if $3 saves me a couple of hours of grinding I consider that worth it. (And this is why I need to avoid anything with pay to win mechanics.)

With that said: Capcom's been getting more and more willing to load up microtransactions in their big franchises, and this is the first time where they've done it in a way that the game may have suffered for it. The weapon unlocks in RE4Remake are weird and grindy in a way that's not been the case in most any previous game. They aren't quite at the point where I think open greed influenced the game design... but they're close.

There's been some muted backlash over the tickets already, but not a lot. As I said, these aren't egregious next to stuff like Diablo: Immortal. But if Capcom decides to keep pushing their luck on this sort of thing going forward, it could get ugly.

Probably right in time to screw up a Resident Evil 6 remake, if one happens. Wouldn't that be funny.

-Dave

What Comes After

2022-12-31T17:42:00.001-05:00

Megatron was in Trypticon's command hub, studying the various maps that laid out the coming campaign, when Starscream returned. He left his back to the door - an unsubtle dare they both understood. Starscream didn't rise to the bait.

"Report."

"As you commanded, mighty Megatron," Starscream said, bowing ironically. "The Combaticons will be with us for the assault on Earth."

Megatron grunted acknowledgment, not taking his eyes from the maps. "I have never understood why such fractious soldiers agree to follow you."

"I make Onslaught laugh."

Now Megatron gave Starscream his attenton. "What?"

Starscream shrugged. "Oh, not the only reason I suppose... Swindle considers me a good customer, and I've certainly kept quiet about some of his more ambitious dealings. Brawl hates me, but he can't touch me, and that amuses Vortex and Blast-Off."

"So you're their jester," said Megatron.

"Perhaps. But they also recognize one of their own. We're well aligned in how much we hate you."

Megatron might have scowled. At other times he might have simply blasted Starscream into the hub's armored wall plating. This time, he just narrowed his optics.

"That is remarkably candid of you."

"I think you and I are past the point where deception's useful, you and I." Starscream grinned. "Despite the name."

"Then if I might take advantage of this mood," Megatron said, "let me ask: why follow me?"

"The Combaticons are no friends of the Autobots, or Primes," Starscream said. "They're aligned with your goals, they've just been used too many times as blunt instruments and disposable tools to ever admit it. My... reputation... makes me a useful go-between, as I'm sure you already know."

"True enough. But I was asking about you."

"Really?" Up to now Starscream's tone had been light, but now there was a bitter edge to it. "You actually have to ask?"

The Air Commander fell silent for long moments. Megatron waited.

"My reasons for following you have never changed, Megatron," Starscream said at length. "I fight with you so I can shape the new Cybertron we all seek to create."

"And yet you betray me. Constantly."

"Because I grow impatient," Starscream snapped. "Do you recall what I was when I joined your uprising? I was the Senate's chief science aide."

"An ambitious one, as I recall," Megatron said dismissively.

"Of course. The unambitious never made it to the halls of power I walked." Starscream sounded almost wistful. "My dream was to use my influence to bring about needed reforms. Of course the Senate was so gear-locked that became obviously impossible. Which is where you came in."

"Implacable problems require unstoppable force." Megatron folded his arms.

"And the Senate certainly isn't a problem anymore," said Starscream. "But this was drags on down through the millennia. And as long as it does, there's no room to better our species. My goals wither on the vine, as the Earthlings say. Forever unmet."

Megatron made a sound Starscream barely recognized. The Decepticon leader chuckled. "Your ambition is to be a politician," he said unbelievingly.

"Don't treat it like some joke," Starscream warned. "You've fought this war for ages. How often have you considered what comes after? There will be a need to rebuild Cybertron, to put the bots who are sick of fighting to some useful purpose. You'll need leaders, administrators, at all levels if you want to have a functional people to rule."

"Really," Megatron said, his voice a low growl of threat. "You think I overthrew Cybertron's labyrinthine bureaucracy of oppression just to rebuild the same system?"

"Of course not," said Starscream. "But did you think you'd be issuing edicts like some fleshling king? Or a Prime, Matrix help us?"

"So long as I remain the one with the will to see our people rise."

Starscream snorted, a burst of static. "Of course. Still, even you understand chain of command and delegation. There will be room for me to pursue my ambitions."

"Then why undermine me at every turn?" Megatron growled.

"I've said it already, Megatron. To end the war."

Starscream saw the telltale flash of Megatron's optics, the red glare of Energon flaring brighter, and his combat protocols readied. Then it faded.

"You would never surrender the Decepticons to Prime..." Megatron said slowly.

"Of course not," Starscream sneered. "But as you said, we serve at your will. If you were to perish, there would be room for negotiation. Armistice. A chance to build for a while, instead of destroy."

Megatron was silent for a time, his gaze never leaving Starscream's face. "I see," he said at last, turning back to the campaign map. "You are dismissed, Air Commander."

"That's it?" Starscream had trouble believing it. Megatron didn't reply. He considered blasting his leader in the back, just on principle, but decided it wasn't worth the beating that would follow.

As he opened the door to the command hub, Megatron spoke.

"I've considered it, you know."

Starscream turned. Megatron's habitual growl was absent, his voice softened.

"Sue for peace. Surrender myself to Prime's justice. I've thought of it more than once, down the cycles. Do you know what stops me?"

"What?"

"Because if I admit I was wrong to do what I've done, that will be it. The Autobots will rebuild what was. Maybe it will be better for a time, but the old abuses will rise again."

Megatron turned again, and the earnest expression on his face was so unexpected that Starscream had to stifle a cry.

"Keep to your treacheries, Starscream. I will never stop fighting for the cause, and I will not allow you to win... but if you do, I wish you well."

Starscream didn't know what to say. Thankfully Megatron did not wait for a response, turning back to his war. The Decepticon left him to it, his mind churning, considering fresh possibilities.

A Conversation With My Son This Morning

2022-11-23T10:48:00.002-05:00

"Dad, why can't people litter?"

"Because it hurts animals and plants and messes up the environment."

"I want to litter."

"No, we have enough litter at home."

"Why?"

"Because you two don't clean up your messes and Mommy and Daddy work too much to handle it all."

"Why?"

"Because Mommy and Daddy both need to work to make money."

"Why?"

"Because the economy is a shambles."

"Why?"

"Because people don't vote right."

"Why?"

"Because civics lessons aren't focused on."

"Why?"

"So people won't know how to vote."

"Why?"

"So bad people can stay in power."

"Why?"

"Because there's a lot of money to be made."

"Why?"

"Because people don't vote right."

"Why?"

"Because civics lessons aren't focused on."

"Why?"

"So people won't know how to vote."

"Why?"

"So bad people can stay in power."

"Why?"

"Because there's a lot of money to be made."

"Why?"

"Because people don't vote right."

"Why?"

"Because civics lessons aren't focused on."

"Why?"

"So people won't know how to vote."

"Why?"

"So bad people can stay in power."

"Why?"

"Because there's a lot of money to be made."

"Why?"

"Because people don't vote right."

"Why?!"

"Because civics lessons aren't focused on!"

"Why?!"

"So people won't know how to vote!"

cackling, daughter joins in unison "Why?!"

"So bad people can stay in power!"

"Why?!"

"Because there's a lot of money to be made!"

more cackling "Why?!"

"Because people don't vote right!"

"Why?!"

And then, mercifully, the car trip ended.

-Dave

I, David Earle, Have A Dream

2022-11-12T13:22:00.002-05:00

That one day I will publish a book with my name on the cover.

That one day I will have enough money that I can stop worrying about it.

That one day my house will be clean.

That there will come a week I can relax without guilt or consequences.

That I won't have to interrupt this blog post to go rescue my dog from a downstairs cabinet because she tried to jump up to the oven and steal my son's chicken sandwich and she got one of her nails stuck in a cabinet hinge.

That is my dream!

(The dog is fine.)

With Twitter Collapsing It Occurs To Me

2022-11-10T14:45:00.001-05:00

I don't actually need to make my blog nothing but long-form content.

If I want to post random nonsense I can do it.

Hmm.

Apropos of Nothing, My Blog

2022-04-25T19:00:00.003-04:00

This is my blog. There are many like it but this one is mine.

I have not blogged for many a year (almost three), but the writing bug is upon me again so I may resume. I am certainly not writing this in response to someone buying Twitter. Assuredly not! As this platform is at the sufferance of Google so it's not like it's better.

Anyway: if you're worried you'll miss my presence on the Interwebs at some point in the near future, the contact thingie on the right still works. Mebbe. Or you can leave a comment - I know that works because that's where the spambots live. So... yeah.

* * *

Speaking of the writing bug.

I recently watched one SuperEyepatchWolf's retrospective/celebration/memorial for Kentaro Miura, author of Berserk, recently passed. And there was a bit that ~~stuck with me~~ punched me in the throat, in the last ten minutes, where he talks about putting one's happiness before one's dreams. I won't try to summarize or quote it, watch the video it's well worth your time.

And what hit me was not an epiphany about overwork, because when it comes to writing I'm very much the opposite, writing in fits and starts over years and, very rarely, finishing the things I start.

What hit me was, after doing this for... let's go with twenty-five years, because that's a nice round number that encompasses wee Davey getting started with a six page short story in high school...

After doing this for twenty-five years, I finally got hit with the big question: Why?

Why am I doing this.

Why am I writing.

Does this make me happy.

Because if writing is my big, shining, Griffith-like dream then I've been deferring it for a lot of years so it sure seems like maybe I'm not all that keen on it after all.

But. But.

There's a world where the crossing between life and death got broken a long time ago, ruled by a tyrant in black armor whose body will never stop burning. And in that world there's a boy who just picked up a jewel that could fix the world, or break it apart.

And then there's a bar in Washington where the fair folk work a woman half to death, not knowing that inside her is a knight sharpening silver knives. Across town her brother studies magic under the tutelage of a pixie of mysterious motives. And in a hospital nearby a golem sits by her husband's bedside, comforting a man she's loved for eighty years through his last days.

And in southern Maryland, a brother and sister are wandering the woods behind their house, hoping the Antlered King can guide them to a cure for their sick mother before the Widow Queen wraps her in thick webs and devours their home.

And there's a kid with his pet cyberdemon rocketing towards fallen Earth to reclaim the world, and there's a rogue landing on a planet-sized engine with a plan to steal it, and there's a beast with flaming orange hair that used to be a human running on all fours through the grass as her flesh and muscle warp into horrifying new forms, and there's a man trying to troubleshoot a Teams call late at night as the shadows in his office building creep closer and closer, and, and...

And I don't really know how to cope with a head full of too many ideas, except to try and write them down.

So I'm going to keep trying that. And I think this year, I might try a little harder.

-Dave

What I Loved About The Rise of Skywalker... And The Other Stuff

2019-12-27T19:44:00.000-05:00

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS WHY DID YOU CLICK ON THIS LINK IF YOU DIDN"T EXPECT SPOILERS

Okay, that's done...

I really hate that going to see The Rise of Skywalker felt like a chore. The amount of negative press and online comments about it over the course of a week (I guess two weeks counting the leak time) had me bummed out about it well in advance, and I was well aware I could go see Knives Out instead.

On the other hand, my expectations were so lowered that I had a good time watching it where I maybe wouldn't have. Who's to say? And this is The Last Star Wars Movie Until The Next One, how could I possibly resist?

So here's the stuff I liked:

Paging Papa Palpatine

Much like in Revenge of the Sith, Ian McDiarmid was an absolute treat reprising his role as Emperor Palpatine. He was creepy, evil, and creepy evil in all the right ways, effortlessly subverting Kylo Ren's mastery over the First Order to reassert his rule as the absolute Lord of All Evil in the Star Wars universe. And he did all this while he was basically a dangling corpse on a stick!

The movie also retroactively clears up Palpatine's one big moment of stupidity, namely his attempt to corrupt Luke Skywalker to his side. Originally this wasn't obviously effective - Palpatine basically seemed to be goading Luke into killing him, on the basis that once he was on the Dark Side the Emperor would somehow be able to bend him to his will. Now, it's clear that Palpatine's goal was to fill Luke's heart with enough hate that he'd be able to body snatch him at the moment Luke struck him down - the same goal he has with Rey. From now on, Palpatine's only flaw will be that he's a bit too happy with the Force lightning, and honestly, wouldn't you be?

Eff Hux

Did anyone else get hype when the Senior Nazi shot this little weasel? Remember kids, Nazis eat their own as readily as anyone else, and no one is immune. Goodbye Hux, hope the door hit your ass on the way down.

The Final Order

Palpatine's private army can come off as incredibly stupid ("He built this whole thing in secret? All the Star Destroyers have planet-killer guns?"), but I honestly loved it because it's exactly the sort of insane evil secretive thing Palpatine's been known for through the Clone Wars and two Death Stars. And the shots of all those ships floating in a nightmare void outside of normal space were, well, chilling. It's a shame they ended up being a bit of wasted potential (we'll get to that).

The other cool thing was that we finally got to see the Sith front and center in a main Star Wars film. The Sith have always been one of the coolest things about the Expanded Universe, old and new - a cult of evil fallen Jedi and wizards out to overthrow and supplant the established order. The Rise of Skywalker is the first film that makes the Sith as a force beyond just Palpatine feel like the nightmarish horror they should be, and it was great to see.

Ben Solo

Make that Ben freaking Solo. Once Kylo Ren throws off the Dark Side he starts doing what comes naturally, and it turns out Han Solo's son actually inherited a lot of his father's charm, roguish fighting style and intermittently bad luck. (Ow.) Adam Driver absolutely nailed the transition and even though it was brief (we'll get to that) it was a lot of fun to see Ben come out to play.

And Then There's The Rest

With those pluses acknowledged, I've got to admit The Rise of Skywalker is not the best movie in the Star Wars series and is probably the worst of the current trilogy, although that doesn't make it the worst Star Wars movie either (which is a subjective thing and some might disagree). There are and will continue to be many takes on what's wrong with the film - that's Star Wars fandom - but as far as what stood out to me:

The pacing is completely shot, jumping from scene to scene like the editor was high on meth. They packed a million things into this film and focused on none of it, which is fine for Disney and the EU going forward but makes watching the movie feel like a roller coaster ride, and not in a good way.
It's hard to argue J.J. Abrams didn't just toss The Last Jedi in the trash entirely when he came on for the third movie. Rose is a wasted character, Poe has to relearn the lesson he spent all of TLJ learning (except not as well), Finn's reduced to chasing after Rey the whole film and is maybe Force sensitive for no good reason, Rey's back to being a child of destiny to the film's detriment, Snoke loses what little character he had - the fans of TLJ are pissed for a reason, is what I'm saying.
Poe Dameron's character does another complete swerve in this movie for no good reason. This has been a problem for Poe, period, but on the third movie it sticks out really badly and doesn't add anything to him.
We didn't need Jon Favreau's scene. At all.
How do you completely miss a second transport ship?
The stakes of the combat never seemed high, except for stopping Palpatine. Everything else came off as a distraction, which is bad when you're fighting a full-blown apocalyptic army.

And then there's the death of Ben Solo, which came out of nowhere, served no Goddamn purpose and seems like it was done just because the production was over time and over budget and couldn't figure out how to get Ben off Escargot and said "fuck it". And as far as I'm concerned he's not dead, Leia or the Force just snatched him away to give him a chance at redemption without getting shot or thrown into a dark hole by the Resistance, because FFS what else do you do with Kylo Ren at this point? But even if Ben's irredeemable (and that's a whole separate post I'm not going to write), he's a character who still deserved a chance to shine in the EU. The choice to just wave a hand and end that was horrible, and fans of Reylo are quite justifiably furious. I fully expect Ben to return in the books at some point soon, although whether his story will continue forward is an open question, and I'm not optimistic. But it absolutely should.

So, yeah. Flawed film, I've seen worse, there were certainly some good bits, and it certainly brought things to an ending. Not a final one, though.

Bring back Ben Solo.

State of the Union, October 2016

2018-10-08T10:43:00.003-04:00

We are currently governed by a Congress where the party in power won a bare majority in the House by 1.1% of the popular vote, and lost the popular vote in the Senate. The President lost the popular vote, and may have been involved in foreign efforts to influence the election in his favor. That's ignoring the party's ongoing campaign of voter suppression in key states.

This party, which came to power without a popular mandate, has now installed a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court, including 4 Justices appointed by a President who lost the popular vote and 2 with credible allegations of sexual harassment or assault against them.

The open cruelty of this party has been on display since January 2017, as they've pursued a policy of non-violent ethnic cleansing that has sundered families, and seen asylum seekers and their children indefinitely detained in tent camps. They've insisted that massive cuts need to be made to programs that support the poor, even as they force through massive cuts to taxes for the rich. They've insisted on destroying the Affordable Care Act without any meaningful plan to replace it.

The party has openly worked to sabotage the proper functioning of our government at every turn. They have insulted our allies and sought the support of our enemies, even as those same enemies commit crimes with impunity, confident no response is coming from the United States. They have allowed the President and his cronies to openly flout ethics laws and profit massively from their positions, without lifting a finger to investigate.

And most recently, they listed to a survivor of sexual assault, denigrated her, ignored her, ignored anyone who would speak in support of her, ignored any evidence that backed her up, and made yet another naked grab for power. Brett Kavanaugh will be on the Supreme Court tomorrow. Dr. Blasey Ford remains in hiding.

And now, this weekend, we are seeing a report that describes a climate crisis that could hit us as soon as 2040. The report describes worsening food shortages, increased wildfires, massive coral die-off, and a rise in temperatures of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit worldwide. Steps could have been taken to avoid this decades ago. They weren't. Steps need to be taken immediately to prevent this now. They won't be. We are trapped under absolute minority rule by a party that still insists that climate change is a hoax, and will do anything necessary to prevent meaningful action against the coming crisis.

Our children - my children - will grow up in the hell we leave behind.

So as this party goes on the news and bemoans the lack of civility in our politics - as they complain they can't go to dinner without being harassed, as they attempt to paint the opposition as somehow radical and dangerous: remember that this party has been working for decades to destroy our government, our balance of powers, and our ability to simply live on our own planet.

Remember that, and fucking vote.

The Doom Coming To Trumpland

2018-08-05T23:11:00.000-04:00

So shit happened today, as it does every day since the election of 2016. But this shit may be significant. It may mark the End Times in Trumpland, the time when the red moon plunges from the sky and the ground trembles with the fearful shaking of the dreaming MAGAts. A rent has been torn in the throne of the Fool's Gold God, and the tweeting of a thousand thousand pundits drowns the air as the blue-winged flock takes flight...

Fuck. Sorry. Let me begin again.

(Black Library, would you like a haunted house story?)

Today Donald Trump tweeted this:

In essence: Donald Trump admitted the meeting his son had with a Russian attorney during the campaign was to get dirt on his opponent, Hillary Clinton; claimed the whole thing was legal and went nowhere; and denies knowing anything about it.

Take a moment to let the idiocy of denying knowing about a "totally legal" meeting sink in. Took me all day. Good? Okay, let's move on.

Donald Trump is admitting that his son met with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer with close ties to the Russian government, to get information on Hillary Clinton. This is, to my knowledge, the first time he's acknowledged that, although it's been known for months that the original stated purpose of the meeting was false. (Said purpose being to discuss adoption in Russia, a story apparently concocted personally by Donald Trump on behalf of his son.)

This alone is problematic, since it's illegal for a campaign to accept "anything of value" from a foreign national. The Trumps claim nothing of value came from this meeting, which might be believable except for a few things:

1. the Democratic National Committee's servers were hacked,

2. those servers contained damaging material in email that was subsequently released to the public, influencing the election,

3. those servers also contained election analytics data, which was not released to the public, but which the Trump campaign appears to have acted on during the election,

4. Donald Trump has subsequently done everything feasible to end any investigation into these points, and

5. Donald Trump has lied to the American people around 4,500 times just since he took office.

So it's possible Trump's tweet is an admission that his campaign was seeking information of value from a foreign national. Collusion is not a technical crime, but that is collusion. It is also a crime, if anything of value was provided.

And Trumpland continues to shake, because what sparked Trump's admission were rumors that he was concerned his son, Donald Jr., is in legal jeopardy. Because Donald Trump Jr. testified to Congress, under oath, that his father had no knowledge of this meeting. Which, to be clear, took place in Trump Tower, which Donald Trump was in at the time.

So the statement was already hard to believe, but now it appears that Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, is ready to state that Donald Trump was aware of the meeting in advance and approved it. Which means Donald Trump Jr. may have lied under oath to Congress. Which is a felony. That also means Donald Trump was fully aware his campaign was reaching out to a foreign national for information of value.

And now the doom becomes clear: Trump may have committed a felony during his campaign by colluding with a Russian national.* If so, his defense hinges of denying any knowledge of it. But that defense hinges on 1. Michael Cohen not having any evidence to the contrary, and 2. every other party with knowledge of the meeting backing Trump.

One of those parties is Trump Jr., but he may have committed a felony of his own in lying to Congress, if Trump did have knowledge of the meeting. And so the Trumps find themselves under a pile of horrors:

1. If Trump Jr. is found to have lied under oath, he faces felony charges.

2. If Trump Jr. is prosecuted, Trump can pardon him - but accepting the pardon means Trump Jr. must admit guilt, which means he has to state affirmatively that his father had advance knowledge of the meeting in Trump Tower.

Which puts Donald Trump in the position of potentially having to convince his own son to go to prison for a felony in order to save his own skin.

And this is one of the better scenarios Trump is facing. If Michael Cohen produces evidence, or evidence is obtained elsewhere, that Trump knew about the meeting, he ends up in significantly greater legal jeopardy, and his son still faces prosecution for lying plus whatever charges Trump gets hit with.

This is not necessarily the end game for Trump, mind. He's unlikely to be prosecuted in office, and a compliant GOP Congress might be willing to accept a President who's committed felony election fraud. But it might be less likely to let that same President pardon his son for the same crime.

*I'm ignoring the potential felony payoffs of multiple sex workers. And the potential host of felonies laundering Russian money. And the potential violations of the emoluments clause. And the child rape accusation. And the spousal rape accusation. Just like the Republican Party.

Image courtesy of BoingBoing.

On Andrew McCabe

2018-03-17T15:00:00.004-04:00

So, Andrew McCabe.

As best I can work out from the news, Andrew McCabe authorized the release of some information about the investigation into Hillary Clinton during the election. This was, apparently, something he had authority to do. He then reportedly showed "lack of candor" during the subsequent investigation by the Inspector General, which was what led to his firing yesterday.

The firing might have been justified, it might not have been. It's impossible to say without seeing the IG's report, which hasn't been released.

What can be said is that Donald Trump has had a hard-on for McCabe for months now, 1. because McCabe corroborated James Comey's damaging statements on Donald Trump in the obstruction investigation in front of the House Intel Committee, and 2. because Trump apparently believes McCabe is a pro-Clinton plant, due to his wife running for office as a Democrat.

What can also be said is that Andrew McCabe was fired for lack of honesty, by an Attorney General who perjured himself in front of Congress, under the apparent direction of a President who lies to the American people on average four times a day. He has been denied his pension while Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI while he was part of the Trump administration, continues to draw his.

McCabe's firing came on the same day that House Democrats revealed letters from a whistleblower alleging an effort by Trump administration officials to purge the State Department of career employees out of fear that they were secret Obama loyalists.

And it has been followed by statements from Trump which just about confirm that McCabe's firing was retaliation for his statements supporting Comey's testimony.

And that has been followed by Trump's lawyer, on behalf of the White House (until it wasn't), calling for an end to Robert Mueller's probe into Russian collusion, obstruction of justice, and God knows what other crimes.

Regardless of whether McCabe deserved to be fired fast enough to deny a 21 year FBI veteran his pension, after what by all accounts were years of distinguished service, is almost beside the point when the sitting President is so grossly, obviously attacking a witness in a case that puts that same President in legal jeopardy.

Donald Trump is unfit for office. And I hope yesterday's naked cruelty is part of what finally brings him down.

Below: Andrew McCabe's statement on his firing.

After Ragnarok (Spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok)

2018-02-27T09:57:00.000-05:00

Hela awoke in pain.

The right side of her body was in agony, every nerve and muscle screaming in torment. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to sit up. That simple movement nearly caused her to lose consciousness, but she was Hela, and her will was strong.

She looked down, and a hiss escaped her teeth at what she saw. The half of her had been burned to the bone, and what was left of her flesh and muscle looked like cooked meat. She raised her right arm, forcing near-skeletal fingers to flex and form a closed fist. Satisfied, she called a sword and used it to prop herself up onto her feet.

She looked around for the first time, taking stock of her surroundings. The landscape was blasted and filled with a sulfurous reek. A poor showing for Asgard, she thought.

She remembered Surtur driving his blade down, the last attempt to dodge the enormous flaming sword as it bit home. Obviously less than successful, but that was of no consequence. She lived, and she was Hela, and she stood on Asgardian soil. That would be enough.

Hela closed her eyes and drew upon Asgard's power, willing herself whole again.

Her eyes flew open when nothing happened.

This was not Asgard!

She sought around herself, and now the landscape became clearer. A blasted wasteland, yes, and a very familiar one.

She was back. Back in the hell that Allfather Odin had banished her to, so many millennia ago.

She reached out instinctively, her senses questing for the weak point that she had found, that had granted her her freedom, her kingdom, her empire, everything that was rightfully hers... and found nothing.

Was she too weak? Or was that door simply gone, as if it had never been? Impossible to tell.

Hela raged. She screamed, cursing all the gods, her family most of all. She struck the ground, splintered sword after sword. And when she had nothing left she fell to her knees.

All of her rage was futile. Nothing she did had the slightest effect.

Of course not.

She was Hela, but she did not live.

And this was no Valhalla.

For the first time in her long existence, Hela suffered a single tear to fall from her eye.

Behind her, something chuffed.

Hela turned her head and felt a hot breath on her healthy skin as Fenris Wolf licked her face. She reached up and stroked the great wolf's muzzle, joy and astonishment lightening the weight of her despair. It looked at her with its old eyes, the glint of the Eternal Flame no longer present.

She rose to her feet again, and looked behind Fenris. Ranks of soldiers stood there, soldiers she recognized. The Einharjar of her youth, the warriors who had pledged to her above all others and followed her in defiance of the Allfather. They were dead, as she was dead, but their swords were sharp and their armor was strong.

As one, they put their fists to their breasts, and bowed to her.

Hela stood in the reeking waste and she smiled.

This was no Valhalla.

But perhaps it could be better.

Excuse Me While I Rage The Fuck Out

2018-02-10T12:01:00.001-05:00

I'm angry this morning, ladies and gentlemen, and I'm angry because after two of his White House staff were forced to resign their positions for beating their wives, Donald Trump, who is President of the United States, posted this:

Ignore Assange's bullshit please.

If you don't know why I'm pissed let me recap real quick:

- Donald Trump's first wife testified under oath that he raped her.

- Donald Trump has been accused of sexual assault by over a dozen women.

- Multiple witnesses confirm Donald Trump made a habit of walking in on underage girls in their changing rooms when he ran beauty pageants.

- A woman sued Donald Trump for raping her at the age of 13. And this lawsuit was brought during Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

It's bad enough that Donald Trump is taking the side of men who abused their wives, one of which there is photographic evidence of. But for this festering orange shitgibbon to complain about due process and ruined careers after he's not only avoided any culpability for his own crimes, but managed to get elected to the highest office in the land, makes me so Goddamn mad that I don't have the words to process it.

And to anyone who voted for him: don't pretend you didn't know. Everyone knew this fucker is a sexual predator. And you decided you were okay with that as long as he got rid of the immigrants and pissed off the Democrats. So fuck you.

Stopgap

2018-01-17T12:26:00.001-05:00

Read the news this morning, gotta blog.

So a government shutdown is pending. No one wants it. Republicans know they'll get blamed for it, regardless of their bluster, and Democrats just generally don't like shutting the government down.

Maybe Trump wants it, but who can trust what he says?

So there's a deal the Republican leadership has in place to kick the can down the road again for a month. The deal includes funding the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for 6 years, and delays some taxes in ACA that aren't particularly popular.

Now normally this would not be a terrible deal. It cuts taxes for awhile and funds a key, popular program past the point where Trump can possibly fuck it up. But we do not live in normal times.

There are a lot of Republican factions that hate the deal. Defense hawks are adamant that Congress can't keep the military on continuing resolution (CR) spending (read: month to month) and are opposed to any short-term deal. The Freedom Caucus is demanding more tax cuts and are being dicks as usual. So there's a fair chance that Paul Ryan might not be able to pass a bill without Democratic support.

On the Democrat side, there's a lot of pressure to address DREAMers in a spending bill. Right now, they have a lot of leverage to get that done, but that might not be the case in February. And it's tricky for them to oppose a CR that funds CHIP.

So the first hurdle is if the House Republicans can pass the CR on their own. If they can't, it's not clear Pelosi will be able to hold her caucus to oppose it - it'll probably depend on the margin Ryan needs to push it through.

Either way, Democrats will have to help pass the CR through the Senate with 9 votes. And there are enough Democrats in red states to make shutting the government down over DREAMers a dicey proposition.

And Trump could blow the whole thing up, of course.

So, my take:

Most likely the CR will pass with both sides declaring a small win and lambasting the other for playing politics. CHIP is a big sweetener.

But, that assumes Ryan can get his team together. House Republican politics are ugly and averse to compromise, and Ryan knows he'll get shitcanned out of the Speaker slot in short order if he starts going to the minority for help. If he doesn't, I give 50/50 odds Pelosi refuses to bail him out without significant payment, and Ryan definitely won't go that route.

If the CR makes it to the Senate, I have no doubt it will pass. And if it goes to Trump's desk for signature I don't doubt he'll sign it; or if he doesn't, the Democrats might vote to override him out of sheer pique.

All of this of course overlooks the fact nothing being debated here should be controversial in a sane and rational society. But we've got what we've got. God knows what February (or the debt ceiling!) will bring.

Frank Drowns In His Own Blood

2017-09-27T23:12:00.002-04:00

This synopsis is a coping method for oral surgery I have coming up at the end of the week, also an excuse for Danny DeVito or a willing impersonator to swallow more fake blood than is probably good for them. It is available for sale to anyone who wants to produce something with it. Very reasonable rates, not even Green Man rates. Just use the contact form and keep it short because that #$!@ing form screws up everything.

IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA

Paddy's Pub
8:01 a.m.
On a Tuesday

The Gang is back on their bullshit when Frank enters and immediately starts taking shots. Under questioning he explains that he's got to go to the dentist and he needs to get good and wasted first. Charlie warns Frank away from dentistry in general, claiming it's all a scam and that dentists murder their patients. Mac reminds him about the time Charlie started pulling his own teeth out "like Goddam popcorn kernels" but Charlie's adamant, and the Tooth Fairy gave him five bucks a pop. Dennis wants to explore that but Charlie blows him off to tell Frank not to go to the dentist. Frank admonishes him, it's a routine cleaning, what could go wrong?

TITLE CARD: Frank Drowns In His Own Blood

Later, in the pub. Frank is gone. Sweet Dee enters the bar excitedly and shows the Gang an open audition for models for a dental advertisement. Dennis wonders how a giant bird with no teeth can make the audition. Mac reminds Dee that she's a crackhead and her teeth have to be terrible, which Dee and Dennis both take offense to. Mac stands by his argument and opines that his "superior dentition" would make him the perfect candidate.

Dentist's office. Frank's getting examined by a hot dentist because of course he found one. He hits on her, she hooks the shit out of his gums, notices that he still has his wisdom teeth. "Of course I kept them, they're mine. I should give them to some little shit in Somalia?" The dentist lets that pass but informs Frank that all four of the teeth are cracked and impacted. He's gonna need surgery.

A pharmacy. Dee and Dennis are looking for whitening products and anything else to make their teeth look good, to put Mac in his place. They bullshit over the various options and ask the pharmacist what they should use. The pharmacist, who has no time for them at all, recommends a bleach rinse. Dee tells her to piss off but Dennis tells her to reconsider, saying that if a respected chemist is recommending it it might have merit.

Charlie's apartment. Frank comes in ready to bunk in for the night and tells Charlie about his surgery tomorrow. Charlie freaks out and begs Frank not to do it, he'll die! But Frank blows him off and hits the shitter. Charlie whispers to himself "I won't let you die Dad. Frank."

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Charlie's apartment the next morning. Frank wakes up spewing blood all over the bed and freaks out thinking he's dying. Charlie wakes up and explains that he did Frank a favor by yanking his teeth out in the middle of the night. Frank goes off between spit tanks, especially when Charlie shows him the teeth. They're not even close to the right ones.

Dee's apartment. Dee's getting ready to try the bleach rinse idea. Dennis hypes her up for it. Dee slugs the bleach and immediately spews it out cursing. Dennis laughs, saying he knew it wouldn't work but he wanted to see if Dee would do it. Dee chews him out. Dennis suggests a great way he knows to improve their dental hygiene, because it makes their teeth feel all tingly and leaves them grinning tightly: crack. Dee's on board.

Outside Charlie's apartment. Mac pulls up in his car wearing ridiculous dental headgear. Charlie asks for a ride to the hospital as Frank continues spitting up blood, which is why they can't get a cab. Mac's not cool with the idea and asks why they can't call an ambulance. Charlie explains they won't come out anymore because Frank called too many times for rat bites. Mac forces Frank to lay his shirt on the seat before he gets in.

The audition office. Dennis and Dee are loaded on crack and wearing crazed fixed grins. They try to sell themselves as new talent but the guy running things explains that he's looking for people to get dental X-rays for a class. After a beat Dennis and Dee ask how much it pays - $50 a head. Dennis and Dee declare that's beneath them and storm out, haranguing the poor guy for lying.

The hospital. Dennis and Dee are walking out, admitting that it did seem odd the audition was being held in a hospital. Frank staggers into the shot and falls to the floor, screaming that he's drowning in his own blood. The Gang regards him in the spreading pool of blood - nobody wants to touch him and they're in a hospital, right? Might as well bail, he'll be fine. Dennis, Dee and Mac exit, Dee asks what the hell Mac is wearing. Charlie lingers while Frank begs for help. "Yeah Frank you know I'm gonna go find someone to pick you up I'll be right back" and Charlie leaves to put Frank's teeth down for the Tooth Fairy.

ROLL CREDITS

Potomac Dream

2017-06-01T23:55:00.001-04:00

I've dreamed of the future since elementary school. For the record, it's a useless talent. When your days tend to blur together, dreaming of the future normally amounts to a faint sense of déjà vu when real life catches up to the dream. (This is not uncommon.)

Dreams are fleeting things, experiences that fade in the light of the morning sun. But a recent dream rather seared itself onto my consciousness.

I sat next to a bridge in Washington, D.C. on the edge of the Potomac. The ground was green with grass. A podium was set up with the river behind it, early in the morning. It's Inauguration Day.

I sat in the second row of a children's choir. I was full-grown so I have no idea why. Richard Nixon was sitting next to me. I knew it was 2017 and Nixon looked as old as he would have been if he'd lived this long.

The Rock got up to speak, and went on a rant about the evils of Obamacare. (Is Dwayne Johnson a conservative? Has he spoken on the ACA? I have no idea.) I saw Paul Ryan standing in the background. His eyes were a pure black, save for yellow pinprick pupils.

The Rock finished speaking and Nixon stood up to accept the Presidency. He turned to me then, and shook his head before he walked to the podium. He spoke for a bit, stated that he was resigning effective immediately, and walked away. Then I woke up filled with a certainty that Donald Trump would not finish out his term.

I'm not a skilled oneiromancer and, let's face it, this is all probably conjecture based on a bad Chipotle dinner. But this was a couple months before the Rock started joking about politics, and I don't trust Paul Ryan one bit. There's some new bit of nastiness coming from that man, mark my words.

But the main thing is it was a hopeful dream, in its way, and hope is a precious thing. Maybe it'll amount of nothing. But maybe, just this once, the tide will end up sweeping the big monster away before it can do too much damage.

On The Firing of James Comey

2017-05-09T23:41:00.000-04:00

Current mood: Makoto Niijima

I didn't plan to resurrect this blog for a political post, but I need a place to go over the last 48 hours in long form so I can get all the madness straight in my head.

Yesterday President Trump started his day by demanding Congress ask Sally Yates, under oath, how classified information was leaked to the press after she discussed it with White House counsel (sic). He did this with both his personal and official POTUS Twitter accounts, after reported attempts by his staff to pressure the Senate to cancel her appearance before a judiciary subcommittee. Trump’s tweets alone could be considered tampering with a federal witness testifying against him.

Sally Yates did testify and confirmed that she warned the Trump administration that Michael Flynn, who was Trump’s national security adviser, was lying to them about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador and that he could be vulnerable to blackmail by the Russian government. In short, he was compromised.

A report by NBC News the same day revealed that President Obama had also personally warned Donald Trump not to hire Michael Flynn. President Obama had previously fired Flynn from his post as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Former DNI James Clapper also testified before the Senate on Monday, and stated he was unaware of the FBI’a investigation into contacts between Donald Trump and the Russian government during the 2016 election. His prior statement that there was no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russian government was rendered invalid. Despite that, President Trump repeatedly asserted Monday that Clapper testified again that there was no evidence of collusion. This was a lie.

Republicans on the subcommittee did not concern themselves with the fact that the Trump administration was directly warned that Flynn was compromised and refused to fire him for two weeks, and only after this fact was revealed to the press. Instead they questioned Ms. Yates on the leaks that led to Michael Flynn being fired, and her refusal to defend Trump’s travel ban as acting Attorney General, for which she was removed from her post. Ms. Yates acquitted herself well.

That was Monday. Today, Tuesday, President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who was in charge of the Trump-Russia investigation.

He did so on the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had previously recused himself from the Trump-Russia investigation because of his own ties to the Trump campaign and conversations with the Russian Ambassador. Today he recommended firing the man leading the Trump-Russia investigation, an act that has almost no precedent in American history. (The last FBI director to be fired was fired for multiple ethics violations, and was the first FBI Director to be fired in U.S. history.)

President Trump claims Comey was fired* because of his aggressive handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails, an action he previously claimed was being "soft" on Clinton and which he had previously praised Comey for.

What it actually looks like is that President Trump, after attempting to quash Ms. Yates’s testimony, is firing Director Comey to replace him with a surrogate who will end the Trump-Russia investigation. This amid breaking reports that grand jury subpoenas have been issued regarding Michael Flynn's business records, and with Director Comey scheduled to testify in a closed session of Congress on Thursday.

This sort of thing has happened before.

Trump's actions today are a blatantly impeachable offense, the latest in a long list of offenses against decency, honesty, and reason by the Trump administration. This is an unacceptable abuse of the President’s power, and it must end.

I will be calling my Senators and my Congressman tomorrow morning to request the following:

1. That they demand an independent commission to investigate President Trump's ties to Russia.

2. That they refuse to confirm any nominee to replace Director Comey who will not pledge to recuse themselves from the Trump-Russia investigation and appoint an independent investigator to complete it.

3. That they demand the immediate resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions for violating his recusal and interfering with the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign.

4. That they draw up articles of impeachment against President Trump for interfering in an ongoing investigation into his own campaign.

I strongly encourage all those reading this to do the same, and to continue to pressure Congress to act until we no longer have an Administration that abuses its power at every turn for its own benefit. As much as this was ever a question of party, President Trump has pushed us beyond that point today. He must be held to account.

This is going to get worse before it gets better. But we have to keep working to make sure that it does get better.

One day, if we don't weaken.

*Fox News reports Comey resigned, which he obviously did not. Thank you Fox News.

GOP Pigs At The Trough

2017-01-02T21:18:00.003-05:00

Tonight Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R, VA) introduced an amendment to the House rules package that moves the Office of Congressional Ethics under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee. That means:

1. The Office of Congressional Ethics, now the Office of Congressional Complaint Review, is no longer a bipartisan, independent office. It is under GOP control.

2. The Office can no longer investigate anonymous tips against lawmakers.

3. The Office can no longer disclose any of its findings to the public or other government entities.

The Republican conference passed the amendment 119 to 74. It will be voted on by the full House tomorrow as part of the Rules package. It will pass.

It's not even the first day of this Congress, Trump is not even in office, and the GOP are already acting like pigs at a trough. If you agree this is a problem, give Rep. Goodlatte a call at (202) 225-5431, and maybe call Speaker Ryan at (202) 225-3031 and your own Representative, and let them know how you feel.

The Insanity of Donald Trump's 500 Businesses

2016-12-13T23:37:00.003-05:00

I read some horrifying information today about just how bad Donald Trump's conflicts of interest are. You're welcome to take a look yourself: here's a Twitter thread on Trump's business organization, and here's a Newsweek article on his conflicts of interest.

To sum up:

Donald Trump does not run a company. Donald Trump runs about 500 companies, all set up as either sole proprietorships or closely held partnerships. This means that all of them go on his personal tax return, not a business tax return. This lets him take advantage of massive tax breaks, and explains why his son claims his tax return runs to 10,000 pages.

Additionally, most of those businesses carry massive loads of debt from different banks. So he cannot afford to disentangle himself from his businesses. Even if the banks allowed him to sell, he can't afford the tax payments that would result. So no matter what he says, Donald Trump will never be able to divest himself of his businesses, and the conflicts of interest involved will remain a problem.

To date, those conflicts include:

Being $364M in debt to Deutsche Bank, which is currently fighting a $14B settlement being leveraged by the Justice Department for securities fraud in 2008.

Trump Tower, currently being built in the Philippines, which the Trump children stand to make millions of dollars from during Trump's presidency. That assumes the good graces of Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, who has since rising to power massacred 4,500 Filipinos using vigilante death squads.

A Trump complex in Turkey, which was built in partnership with the local Dogan group and is providing Trump's children with, again, millions of dollars. President Erdogan of Turkey recently detained a senior executive of the group, sending its stock price plummeting, and has since Trump's election strenuously called for the extradition from the U.S. of Fethullah Gülen, a 77-year-old Muslim spiritual leader who has lived in Pennsylvania’s Poconos region for many years and was accused by Erdogan of inspiring the recent Turkish coup attempt. It's hard not to imagine a quid pro quo arrangement to trade Gülen for the Dogan group's welfare. In other words, blackmail of a U.S. President.

Roll on 2017. Either Congress impeaches Trump on his first day in office or we're all fucked.