What an embarrassment: Trump's cabinet kisses ass

It is hard to believe that adult men would fawn over Trump.  Trump loves it, of course, but I don’t see how these grown-ass men can live with themselves.  The Times devoted two full pages to detailing the sucking up that occurred at the the last cabinet meeting earlier in the week.  Here are three sickening examples:

“You have saved the country.”  Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary

“You’re the only leader in the planet that can bring two sides together.”  

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State

“He is willing to take a bullet for all of you.”  Lee Zeldin, E.P.A. administrator

Are all young people this dumb?

“Both parties are the same.  They both have the same level of corruption.  They both take lobbying money.  It’s different lobbying, but the same corruption.”

–Max Cook, 24, college student in San Diego

“I don’t care which party I’m voting for as long as they’re representing people instead of corporations.”

–Tai Vetrone, 18, Waltham, Mass.

“The parties have gone pretty wide on the spectrum of left and right while most people are in the middle and agree with points on both sides.  I really don’t think I have a political home.”

–Patrick Tehonica, 25, construction worker in upstate New York

Wow.  As a member of the Democratic Party I will admit to a lot of mistakes in the party, but my party is not actively involved in trying to subvert the Constitutional order in this country.  Goodness gracious.  Do these people even know what is going on?  Did they hear about ICE?  Do they know about the corruption?  Do they understand who is standing with the tech bros, the AI data centers, the destruction of the environment, the end of alliances, the dismantling of research into diseases, and on and on.  My God!  This is nuts.  

Gripen jets for Ukraine

Gripen jets are made by the Saab Company in Sweden.  The jets are comparable to F-16s, but are easier to service and can take off and land on highways.  Like the F-16, the Gripen jet is a supersonic aircraft, but it is easier to load with missiles than an F-16.  By the time this deal is over, 150 of the Swedish jets will be in the Ukrainian armed forces.

Where is the U.S. in all this?  Probably giving more aid to Netanyahu, starving Cubans, trying to work out a deal to open the straits of Hormuz, and sucking up to Putin.  It is so good to see Sweden stepping up.

See Pranav Baskar, “Sweden to Send Fighter Jets to Ukraine” New York Times, (May 29, 2026), p. A10.

MPGA

Last night while driving through Weissport I saw a guy in his 20s wearing a sweatshirt that said “Make Pedophilia Great Again.”  

Christian Bartulovich nominated for the PA 122nd House District

The current representative in the 122nd House District is Republican Doyle Heffley.  This spring the Democrats in Carbon County (the county covered by the district) did not produce a candidate who had the requisite 300 petition signatures.  Six years ago Heffley sent a mailer to Democrats asking them to write his name in.  Over 300 did, resulting in Heffley running in both parties, just like elections in the old Soviet Union.  

This year anger at Heffley’s support for data center construction boiled over in Penn Forest Township and other areas of the county.  One data center has already been approved, and three more are planned.  Residents of Penn Forest approached one of their Supervisors, Christian Bartulovich, and asked him to run a write-in campaign on the Democratic side.  (Bartulovich is a registered Republican.)  

In one of the most amazing campaigns I have witnessed, a group of fairly novice volunteers put a campaign together in about 20 days, including mailers, signs, social media ads, and volunteers to stand at the polls.  Heffley got wind of the effort, of course, and sent out THREE separate mailers to Dems asking them to write in his name.  He is one of those Republicans who call the Democratic Party the “Democrat Party,” and he did that in his mailers–not a particularly smart move.  

In any case Mr. Bartulovich had more write-ins on the Democratic side than Heffley.  He will be the Democratic candidate in November.  Bartlovich also received hundreds of write-ins on the Republican side, indicating that Heffley has irritated quite a few Republicans as well.

I have met Mr. Bartulovich.  He is intelligent and listens to constituents.  That’s so different from our current situation.

What's the Matter with Texas?

In 2004 Thomas Frank wrote a book entitled “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”  His thesis was that people in Kansas were voting against their own self-interests by voting Republican.  Frank missed the point that for many people, their ideological beliefs take precedence over their economic or social interests.  I, for example, might find it in my self-interest to vote Republican.  I’m old, not an immigrant, no kids in school, fairly set financially–would it be in my self-interest, very narrowly defined–to vote Republican?  Well, don’t hold your breath.  Ain’t gonna happen.  My self-interest is connected to a different set of values.  

What I do not understand is the Republican voters of Texas who elected Ken Paxton as their candidate for the U.S. Senate in a landslide.  On what grounds–ideological, economic self-interest, love of country–would a Texas Republican prefer a crooked and dipshit politician over a reasonably decent conservative, and yet they did.  Are they blindly following Trump, and if so, why?

Something not quite right down there in Texas.

Did we win, again?

Usually when I wake up I turn on the news to see what terrible things happened overnight, and, according to Trump, we had an agreement with Iran.  Iran will open the Hormuz Strait, the UK will disarm the mines in a 1000 foot-wide corridor, and Iran won’t build nuclear weapons, although it was not clear if Israel was on board.

Then later in the day I heard the U.S. forces may resume bombing.  

And Trump is going in for a medical checkup?  Did I hear that right?

And Sen. Andy Kim (NJ) was pepper sprayed outside a detention center?

I can’t wait until tomorrow.