Thursday, January 01, 2026

Government By Idiots

For decades, federal judges treated the U.S. government like a special kind of litigant. Not because judges are naïve, but because the Justice Department was supposed to have one non-negotiable currency: credibility.

That currency is getting torched in real time.

A 60 Minutes investigation highlighted more than 35 cases in which federal judges said the government provided false information, including false sworn declarations “time and again,” according to NYU law professor Ryan Goodman.
Yes, I’m repeating myself; but it fits here, too.
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🧶

Is our children learning?
The video, which questioned whether there were any children at the facilities, has rocked the entire day care community in Minnesota. On Dec. 30, the Trump administration declared that it was freezing child care funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some day care centers partly in response to the claims made by the video’s creator, conservative influencer Nick Shirley.

Those funds, which help poor parents pay for child care while working, are a lifeblood for many day cares.

In his video, Shirley claimed that Somali day cares had defrauded the state by $111 million.

In response to those claims, state officials visited all 10 of the facilities featured in Shirley’s video earlier this week. The state has not yet released any details on the findings.

The Minnesota Star Tribune also visited all 10 facilities, and found children inside four of them when invited inside. Six other facilities were either closed or employees did not open their doors.

A Star Tribune review of state enforcement records and court filings shows that none of the individuals publicly identified as owners or operators of the 10 businesses have ever been charged with fraud or any other felonies. However, seven of the eight facilities with publicly available licensing records have been cited by the state for violations over the past four years, with some cited dozens of times.
The interesting thing is, the article is replete with mentions of records of violations (none of them necessarily egregious or serious), which indicates state oversight is alive and well. Which further indicates, if there was fraud to the tune of $111 million, somebody would have noticed it before now. Not to the state of Minnesota mention the question of federal oversight of the money they distribute. Whatever happened to the IG’s I assume are supposed to pay attention to things like this?

I’m not sure this “controversy” lasts as long as next Monday. I say that because the state of Minnesota has grounds to sue for the suspended federal funds (the Feds have no valid grounds to withhold them, in brief). That increases by at least every state with a Democratic AG who has lost funding with even less justification.

Watch it come crashing to a halt when the states move for summary judgements, and the DOJ has to rely on Shirley’s video and pulled-from-his-ass claim of fraud. This is post-November 2020 all over again.

Why do I get the feeling there’s a theme here? Or at least a thread of continuity….

Epilogue: to prove I’m not exaggerating.
BOMBSHELL: Federal judges say the U.S. government lied in 35+ court cases, falsified records, fake declarations, sworn statements built on fiction.

This isn’t a paperwork mistake. It’s systemic deception.

When judges and legal scholars are saying it looks intentional, the rule of law is already on life support.
For decades, federal judges treated the U.S. government like a special kind of litigant. Not because judges are naïve, but because the Justice Department was supposed to have one non-negotiable currency: credibility.

That currency is getting torched in real time.

A 60 Minutes investigation highlighted more than 35 cases in which federal judges said the government provided false information, including false sworn declarations “time and again,” according to NYU law professor Ryan Goodmane.
I like to think the infamous Kavanaugh footnote is a sign word of this has already percolated up to the highest court.

I also think it means the cases about freezing childcare support will crash and burn faster than I expected.  I’ve never seen a report like this. This is…mind-blowing. 🤯
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Saving You The Trouble Of Reading The WSJ

No, it doesn't make sense. I know a number of people on blood thinners. That’s not the way you think about it. And the danger of “thin” blood is excessive bleeding; especially internally. I know how bleeding is treated for patients on drugs for excessive coagulation. The effect of the drug can be stopped almost immediately. I don’t know if that can be done for excessive aspirin consumption, but I wouldn’t assume it. Who knew video was just another form of still photos? (Yes, he’s as credible on this as he is on blood clots (why you take blood thinners).) When I was a younger man, I gained a lot of weight by eating too much; and it wasn’t too much salad and water. I’ve lost some of that weight (not enough), by changing my diet. I never ate two hamburgers and a fried fish sandwich at one sitting, but these days a hamburger is enough for almost the entire day. Sometimes it’s too much. Younger me also didn’t think his metabolism would “slow down” with age. Present day me, now knows better. And I’m nearly 10 years younger than the President.

I say this because it’s obvious from appearances the President is obese. You don’t sustain that kind of weight except with large meals. Even with slower metabolism.

It’s a comment on the guy’s assessment of his health, if I’m not clear.
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Schadenfreude Socialism

We call those the “good old days.” I couldn’t hear the rest of what he said for the sound of so many heads exploding. Is it wrong that I enjoyed that? We’ve been trained to call that “socialism.” Except in the 1950’s we taxed at that level to do things like build the interstate highway system. I went to college in a small, East Texas town that built a hotel for the city because the city needed a hotel. Back in the ‘50’s. The town I grew up in, near that town and built on the wild capitalism of the Texas oilfield, had two banks: People’s, and Citizens. Nobody thought it sounded socialist; although it does. The frigidity of rugged individualism; the warmth of collectivism. We fool ourselves on the former, of course. There is not one rich person in this country who earned it all by her/him-self, without relying on customers, or the federal government, or investors, or all of the above. The veterans of WWII were disgusted by the Hollywood films they came home to, that made it seem like the war was won single-handedly by John Wayne. Vietnam Veterans got Rambo revenge movies. 

Besides:
  And I’ll just drop this in here. I was living in Austin the first time it was supposed to rival Silicon Valley. The term used was actually “Silicon Prairie.” (Which would be West Texas; or Waco, about 100 miles north up I-35. Austin is on the edge of the Hill Country. It ain’t on a prairie.) That was about 40 years ago. Tesla moved in outside of town. Tesla’s future rests wholly on shareholders; not so much on product. And Apple’s not relocating from Cupertino anytime soon. Austin quit waiting for a “Silicon anything” a couple of decades ago.
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10 CEO’s

Well, 7 CEO’s, the Chair of a major law firm, a major shareholder, a couple of news network Pooh-bahs unworthy of their position. I gave up honoring news people when I realized Walter Cronkite shouldn’t be the most trusted man in America, and Ben Bradlee wasn’t an American hero despite what Robert Redford made him look like. I know enough about lawyers to never expect them to act against what they think is their self-interest. CEO’s? I’m a child of the ‘60’s. I still, in my private dreams, want to “stick it to the man.” Even though all my devices are made by Apple, and I make regular purchases from Amazon.

To be honest, I’m pretty disappointed in myself, when I stop to think about it.

I know it’s fun to point out the failings of others. But what’s the point, except to be angry at someone? I’m more outraged by Bezos’ wedding and his editorial control of WaPo. Then again, the WSJ is a very good newspaper with a terrible editorial page.

Go and please the world. But pick better moral avatars than CEO’s and lawyers and network executives, or principal shareholders.
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As I Was Saying..:

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Happy New Year!

2026 is off to a great start!
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Um, Yeah….

Trump at Mar-a-Lago: "We have a lot of leaders here, great leaders like Tom Emmer. I watched him on television talking about Somalia today. He's talking about the Somalian population, and not very nicely. He was not nice. But that's okay. We need you in Minnesota. We want to take back our country."
From fraudsters? Or from non-white people? We really should connect the two.
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The Criminal Case Against Trump…

 …that never got tried (because of the election, not because of Merrick Garland. Investigations began shortly after Garland was appointed. He could hardly have started them before. And there were months of privilege fights just to get access to some evidence, evidence on cell phones, etc. It’s called “due process of law.” As Jack Smith pointed out, the case didn’t fail because of the immunity decision, either. It stopped because a majority of voters didn’t care, and elected Trump. Smith told the House committee the criminal case could still be tried.) is now going to be tried on Twitter (the very definition of a kangaroo court).

One egregiously stupid defense is that the First Amendment allowed Trump to commit fraud:

(I’ll pause in my headlong flight to point out Mike Davis is egregiously stupid:
Question: But the president’s statements that he believed the election was rife with fraud—those are statements protected by the First Amendment, correct?

Smith: Absolutely not. If they are made to target a lawful government function and are made with knowing falsity, then no, they are not. That was my point about fraud not being protected by the First Amendment.

Question: There’s a long history of candidates speaking out about what they believe is fraud or other problems with the integrity of the election process. And I think you would agree that those kinds of statements are at the core of a presidential candidate’s First Amendment rights, right?

Smith: There is no historical analog for what President Trump did in this case.
Most of the arguments on Twitter are going to rely on people being egregiously stupid, and ignoring Smith’s testimony.)

In that spirit, let this suffice:
I might agree with Mark Slackmeyer that Trump is: “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!,” just as Nixon was. And we may get no closer to trying Trump than we did Nixon (another reason to stop calling for the application of the 25th, though it doesn’t apply at all). But the would-be defense attorneys on Twitter are clowns and goobers. Jack Smith is so far ahead of them, he’s finished the race and started a new day. They are left benighted in their ignorance. Leave them there.
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WE WERE PROMISED FLYING CARS!

ICE has a $170 billion budget, and this is how they spend it.

Don’t sleep on the fact that promised future (from the ‘50’’s, but it carried over into the ‘60’s) was exclusively white in all the pictures. Pretty much in the sci-fi of the day, too. In fact, I can still only think of two Bradbury stories, ostensibly sci-fi because they include space travel or nuclear holocaust, that explicitly included (in fact, centered on), non-white people. Otherwise, default white was never not the way to default. But to rely on that, now?

The irony is, not the resurgent racism (this is still America), but this:
Reichlin-Melnick, a frequent critic of Trump's immigration policy, made the observation in response to a new report in The Washington Post that ICE plans "to spend $100 million to recruit gun-rights supporters and military enthusiasts through online influencers and a geo-targeted ad campaign, part of what the agency called a 'wartime recruitment' strategy to hire thousands of officers" — featuring ads with taglines like "Destroy The Flood" and "The Enemies Are At The Gates." [Or "We will not live like this anymore," because we were promised a clean WHITE!, and peaceful, prosperous future.” See how this works?]

"Virtually all the money for this explosion in staff evaporates on October 1, 2029, meaning the agency will likely have to fire thousands of people unless Congress steps in and gives them billions and billions of dollars more for their annual budget," wrote Reichlin-Melnick on X.

This comes amid other reports that reveal ICE is facing a number of obstacles in the recruiting process.

In particular, more than a third of prospective recruits this year failed the basic fitness test after they lied on their applications and Homeland Security officials loosened the screening process to try to increase the rate of hiring, creating an awkward situation as many of them had already been given job offers and needed to be reassigned.
If the new Congress doesn’t revisit the ICE budget before ‘29, things eventually get interesting. 

One more reason to go on living, I guess. Especially since that all-white future is no closer than it was 60 years ago. And our government is not as close to producing it as it was 60 years ago.

In the meantime, they’re gonna burn a lot of money. That’s not going to endear them to very many people.

It’s the little things that end up meaning the most.
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New Year's Day 2026



Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

3:2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

3:3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

3:4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

3:5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

3:6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;

3:7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

3:8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

3:9 What gain have the workers from their toil?

3:10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.

3:11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

3:12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live;

3:13 moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.

Psalm 8
8:1 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

8:2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.

8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

8:4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

8:5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

8:6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,

8:7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

8:8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

8:9 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

8:9 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Revelation 21:1-6a
21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

21:2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;

21:4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."

21:5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

21:6a Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Matthew 25:31-46
25:31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 

 25:32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 

 25:33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 

 25:34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, 

 25:35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 

 25:36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' 

 25:37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 

 25:38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? 

 25:39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' 

 25:40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.' 

 25:41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, 

 25:42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 

 25:43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' 

 25:44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?' 

 25:45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' 

 25:46 And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life." 



So, to start the year: apocalyptic. Seems like starting with the end. Did you realize the Greek name of last book of the New Testament is transliterated as the “Apocalypse” of John? It’s not the opposite of “Revelation,” it’s the synonym.

Once a year is about how often the Apocalypse of John appears in the lectionary. Here it is, joined by Ecclesiastes, which also appears about this often. I once used Ecclesiastes in a service, honoring a young high school graduate about to go to college. I reminded her, in the words of the Preacher, that if the making of books there is non nd, and much study is a vexation. Nobody really wants to hear the Wisdom of the Preacher. Both texts are joined here with Matthew’s parable about the sheep 🐑 and the goats 🐐, one I’ve used so often I fear I’m turning it into a cliche. It’s also apocalyptic. In Matthew’s telling, it’s the last thing that happens before sheep go off with Jesus, while the goats face the final end of their good days.

These are the lectionary selections for New Year's Day. Nothing like starting the year with doomsday, huh?

“To everything there is a season" already violates our sense of time: and what is the apocalypse, if not the end of time? “Party’s over, out of time,” and all that. We want to fantasize about the end of time, watch movies about the end of life as we know it, even read comic books relentlessly focused on life after societal death. But we don't want things to be seasonal, we want them to be occasional, and the occasion to be right now, if we need it; and later, if we don't need it right now. That’s why we like apocalyptic scenarios right now: seasons are always irrelevant, the crucial time is always right now, and the end is not really the end.  Some of that is because we’ve already really kind of broken the seasons, literally as well as figuratively. Long out of school as most of us are, our lives are still ruled by school holidays: summer, then Christmas break, then the Easter holiday, then summer again. But the seasons mean less than nothing to us. One season just means we run the A/C, the other just means we run the heat; and in between the only other variation is whether to mow, rake, or shovel. There is no rhythm to our seasons anymore, except the rhythm of shopping (Christmas, especially after Thanksgiving Day), or maybe what sports events we follow.

"To everything there is a season?” and today we take that to mean the season of our success is over, and all that comes now is the end of time. Apocalypse is the revelation of our failure; now is the winter of our discontent, but it is never made glorious summer. Winter is coming, and it’s the End of all things. John had a vision of the end of all things, but he saw a new heaven and a new earth. But not one coming as the result of human endeavors, but as a consequence of justice.Today we’ve gone Greek; Ancient Greek. Beginning and the End of the Universe is chaos, and that state of things will inevitably return. Civilization is the ordering principle, but it ultimately fails, and the rule of nature, nasty, brutish, and short, reclaims all. All of us, that is; but we are all that matters. Isaiah’s holy mountain was at least a peaceable kingdom including humankind and all of creation. Our apocalypse always wipes nature out; or at least relegates it to the background where it doesn’t matter. And our apocalypse is always a revelation of the inescapable truth of now.

That’s the Greek apocalypse: a grim inevitability that didn’t reveal any deeper truth, but was just the inevitable consequence of the state of the universe. Ecclesiastes, John of Patmos, and Matthew are describing the same inevitability, but for a very different universe. The Preacher gives us the good order of the quotidian:
I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.
John gives us the good order of the end of all things, following a truly nightmarish view of the future that rivals any zombie apocalypse or comic book scenario:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."
Complete witham assurance we can rely in it! And Matthew tells us, in apocalyptic terms, both what the consequences of how we are living will be, and the very simple thing we can do about it.

When you think about it, what more do you need to hear on the first day of a new year?

Now you’ll forgive me, I have black-eyed peas and cornbread to prepare. Lots of ways to start the year off right, some more important than others! 


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Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Elmo Is Not Worried…

A/K/A The Mouth of Sauron:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that President Donald Trump "absolutely" wants to revoke the citizenship of Somali-Americans who are convicted of fraudulently running daycare facilities in Minnesota

"It's something the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State is currently looking at right now," Leavitt told Fox News on Wednesday. "It's something this administration has already done. And we know that there are liberal activist judges across the country who will try to block and tackle this administration from pursuing justice at every turn."

"But that's not going to stop the president and his entire cabinet by acting on behalf of law-abiding, tax-paying citizens in the state of Minnesota and in states across the country who have been ripped off by people who abused our immigration system, came to our country, do not love our country or respect our values, and now have been ripping off and stealing money from law-abiding Americans," she continued. "This administration is not going to tolerate it."
Because Elmo is a WHITE African immigrant.

(And then they went to court on the fraud charges (need a predicate for a denaturalization action), and the stories all fell apart (probably won’t make it out of the grand jury and get to court), (because they’re falling apart now, duh!) and that ended the naturalization proceedings before they started. This can be understood as the same reason the FCC never tries to revoke a broadcast license. You need more to go to court on than “The POTUS is pissed.” You’d think Trump would have learned that in the last months of 2000. And then you reflect that Trump has never learned anything, ever, that he didn’t want to learn.)
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New Year's Eve 2025



Time is told by death, who doubts it? But time is always halved--for all we know, it is halved--by the eye-blink, the synapse, the immeasurable moment of the present. Time is only the past and maybe the future; the present moment, dividing and connecting them, is eternal. The time of the past is there, somewhat, but only somewhat, to be remembered and examined. We believe that the future is there too, for it keeps arriving, though we know nothing about it. But try to stop the present for your patient scrutiny, or to measure its length with your most advanced chronometer. It exists, so far as I can tell, only as a leak in time, through which, if we are quiet enough, eternity falls upon us and makes its claim. And here I am, an old man, traveling as a child among the dead.

We measure time by its deaths, yes, and by its births. For time is told also by life. As some depart, others come. The hand opened in farewell remains open in welcome. I, who once had grandparents and parents, now have children and grandchildren. Like the flowing river that is yet always present, time that is always going is always coming. And time that is told by death and birth is held and redeemed by love, which is always present. Time, then, is told by love's losses, and by the coming of love, and by love continuing in gratitude for what is lost. It is folded and enfolded and unfolded forever and ever, the love by which the dead are alive and the unborn welcomed into the womb. The great question for the old and the dying, I think, is not if they have loved and been loved enough, but if they have been grateful enough for love received and given, however much. No one who has gratitude is the onliest one. Let us pray to be grateful to the last.
--Wendell Berry, Andy Catlett: Early Travels
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Will That Investigation Start…

...with the fraud perpetrated by Nick Shirley? And promoted by the GOP? Because Trump hates black people? Does Comer really want to draw more attention to that? Or that? Or even that? Or to the xenophobia and racism that are fueling ICE and DHS, and making Trump even more unpopular? Well, okay... 🍿

Not that the feeds aren’t operating the biggest backhoe available:
Reality is catching up with them faster than they can run to get ahead of it.

🍿
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Now We REALLY Know Why Trump Appointed RFK, Jr

Birds Ghouls of a feather…. No. I don’t think Trump has changed. He’s just become ever so much more so. Old age sometimes is when that happens. It’s not mental illness. It’s Trump being Trump.

(By contrast, Joe Biden was an ass when he was younger. Some of us remember Anita Hill. Biden improved with age, and atoned for his public sins. So old age doesn’t cause you to be a monster. Trump is just becoming more clearly himself as the sands run out of the hourglass. ⌛️)
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What’s Interesting…

...is local news calling "bullshit”… ...and Reuters proving what a straight-up guy this previously unknown clown is.

All things considered, that really didn’t take that long.
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Every Minute

Okay, so that’s the fraud?

The “Y” I attend has a daycare room right off the lobby,  for parents to leave their children while the adults use the facilities. I stay away from the door just to not worry anyone. I wouldn’t THINK of wandering in for a look around, much less for an impromptu census. Nor would I want anyone else doing so if I had a child in there.

There really is a sucker dumbass born every minute.
I had to have a criminal check before I could be a substitute teacher in the local school district. The Lovely Wife had to have one just to work in the Administration building.

Who are these goobers?
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Sixth Day of Christmas 2025: The Burning Babe


 

As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,
Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
      So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”
      With this he vanish’d out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
      And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

--Robert Southwell
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Sixth Day of Christmas 2025: Triumphal March

I. TRIUMPHAL MARCH

Stone, bronze, stone, steel, stone, oakleaves, horses' heels
Over the paving.
And the flags. And the trumpets. And so many eagles.
How many? Count them. And such a press of people.
We hardly knew ourselves that day, or knew the City.
This is the way to the temple, and we so many crowding the way.
So many waiting, how many waiting? what did it matter, on such a day?
Are they coming? No, not yet. You can see some eagles.
And hear the trumpets.
Here they come. Is he coming?
The natural wakeful life of our Ego is a perceiving.
We can wait with our stools and our sausages.
What comes first? Can you see? Tell us.
It is

5,800,000 rifles and carbines,
102,000 machine guns,
28,000 trench mortars,
53,000 field and heavy guns,
I cannot tell how many projectiles, mines and fuses,
13,000 aeroplanes,
24,000 aeroplane engines,
50,000 ammunition waggons,
now 55,000 army waggons,
11,000 field kitchens,
1,150 field bakeries.
What a time that took. Will it be he now?
No,
Those are the golf club Captains, these the Scouts,
And now the societe gymnastique de Poissy
And now come the Mayor and the Liverymen.
Look
There he is now, look:
There is no interrogation in his eyes
Or in the hands, quiet over the horse's neck,
And the eyes watchful, waiting,
perceiving, indifferent.
O hidden under the dove's wing, hidden in the turtle's breast,
Under the palmtree at noon, under the running water
At the still point of the turning world.
O hidden.

Now they go up to the temple. Then the sacrifice.
Now come the virgins bearing urns, urns containing
Dust
Dust
Dust of dust, and now
Stone, bronze, stone, steel, stone, oakleaves, horses' heels
Over the paving.

That is all we could see. But how many eagles! and how many trumpets!
(And Easter Day, we didn't get to the country,
So we took young Cyril to church. And they rang a bell
And he said right out loud, crumpets .)
Don't throw away that sausage,
It'll come in handy. He's artful. Please, will you
Give us a light?
Light
Light
Et les soldats faisaient la haie? ILS LA FAISAIENT.

—T.S. Eliot 
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Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Occam’s Conspiratorial Policy Razor

Um, no:
The thing to remember is that destroying the Kennedy Center is the point of all of this. Shut down arts, shut down science, shut down academia so that radical Christianity can take over.
Shrink the conspiracy:
Trumpers have a howling void of angry insecurity where a soul should be. Unchecked power tastes like ashes in their mouth because they thought when they got it everyone would be forced to like and admire them even though they’re irredeemable assholes. But people still treat them like assholes.
Until there isn’t one:
This is the key. You can win some elections, but you can't force people to like or respect you; ironically, Trump's people want that respect from people they claim to care nothing about. They don't hate the "elites" - they envy that club, and they're mad because money and power can't buy them in.
If “The West Wing” and Trump’s Administration have taught us anything, it’s that public policy is almost always the product of personality disorders.

The Kennedy Center U.S. the elite’ elite gathering place, honoring the most admired scion of the most admired* family in America, with its own program of “honors” and rewards. How can Trump not want a piece of that doxa?
Follow the social media post.
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Where It Came From

It starts there... Meanders here... These things are all connected. Wait for it... Wait for it... There. Tied up with a bow. 🙇‍♂️ Or bow. Whatever. Worth it. Right? Can’t stop, won’t stop. That opens another can of worms I don’t want to get into here. But it’s part of the connecting thread. I mean, why not, really? Like the people who voted for Trump, thinking “criminals” were “bad people,” only to find out Trump meant “all non-white people are criminals.” These people never listen to what they are saying; only to what (they think) they mean.

None of this is exactly wheels within wheels:
Basically:
We have frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota.

You have probably read the serious allegations that the state of Minnesota has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares across Minnesota over the past decade.

Today we have taken three actions against the blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country:

1. I have activated our defend the spend system for all ACF payments. Starting today, all ACF payments across America will require a justification and a receipt or photo evidence before we send money to a state.

2. Alex Adams and I have identified the individuals in @nickshirleyy 's excellent work. I have demanded from @GovTimWalz a comprehensive audit of these centers. This includes attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations, and inspections.

3. We have launched a dedicated fraud-reporting hotline and email address at https://childcare.gov Whether you are a parent, provider, or member of the general public, we want to hear from you.

We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud. @ACFHHS

@HHSGov
They’re swatting a fly with a neutron bomb. For political purposes.
BREAKING: @MPRnews reports that Minnesota House GOP leader Lisa Demuth acknowledged the Repubican Party’s involvement in @nickshirleyy viral daycare video, saying, “We worked with Nick Shirley on this.” That matters, because the video has been widely framed as independent citizen journalism. Minnesota officials have said fraud investigations were already underway long before the video, and inspections have not backed up many of the claims made about the specific daycare centers shown.

Still, the video fueled widespread outrage and targeted scrutiny of Somali-owned childcare providers. With a top Republican now on record confirming coordination, this reframes the entire narrative. This wasn’t just a lone YouTuber uncovering something new. A political party acknowledges involvement in producing or shaping media that went viral (not organically) and helped drive public backlash.
Surprising absolutely no one. But now I know where the “fraud” is supposed to be. I also know where it came from.
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But Everything Will Be Better In Two Weeks!

Or the first quarter! Or the second! 

Or affordability is just a hoax. 🤷🏻‍♂️ 
The Emperor is never wrong. Nor responsible.  But he can do whatever his temper tantrums demand. Pretty sure there are some cranks on my NextDoor feed who will believe this.
Trump had four years to come up with a new plan and didn’t. The Republican led Congress has had 3 years and didn’t. It’s the day before millions of Americans see their healthcare skyrocket and many lose their coverage and they are going on TV saying they have been working on a plan. They are lying. The plan has always been to cut it off. The plan has always been to privatize as much as possible and let people suffer. This is the plan.
It’s certainly the plan they voted for in July.
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Also Fifth Day Of Christmas 2025: In Transit

 “[Jesus] was born in transit.”

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Fifth Day of Christmas 2025: John the Apostle, John the Mystic, and the Poet


It was John who taught us all Greek: "En archain hain ho logos: In the beginning, was the Word." Not the language, but the concept: the idea of Christ as word, as Logos, as organizing principle of creation. He meant it, in his gospel, to be a shattering of order, the presence of this ordering principle. But it was another John who led us, through words, to a shattering vision of the Nativity:

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven 8eads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she hrought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Revelation 12.

Not something often connected with the Nativity; but it is as natal as the first words of the gospel of John. The poet Ted Hughes used it to great effect for his "Minstrel's Song."


I've just had an astonishing dream as I lay in the straw.
I dreamed a star fell on to the straw beside me
And lay blazing. Then when I looked up
I saw a bull come flying through a sky of fire
And on its shoulders a huge silver woman
Holding the moon. And afterwards there came
A donkey flying through that same burning heaven
And on its shoulders a colossal man
Holding the sun. Suddenly I awoke
And saw a bull and a donkey kneeling in the straw,
and the great moving shadows of a man and a woman---
I say they were a man and a woman but
I dare not say what I think they were. I did not dare to look.
I ran out here into the freezing world
Because I dared not look. Inside that shed.

A star is coming this way along the road.
If I were not standing upright, this would be a dream.
A star the shape of a sword of fire, point-downward,
Is floating along the road. And now it rises.
It is shaking fire on to the roofs and the gardens.
And now it rises above the animal shed
Where I slept till the dream woke me. And now
The star is standing over the animal shed.

--Ted Hughes
 
A reminder that the 12 days of Christmas, for Christians, is about shattering change and the establishment of a new order; not one to come, as many seem to believe, but one that has already come, a kingdom that is already here. We do not hasten this vision by exerting our power over human life. We hasten away from this vision, when we fail to recognize it describes what has already happened.
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The End Of The (First) Year Of Magical Thinking

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When I Was A Child….

When my bachelor’s degree was barely a few months old, I was teaching Freshman English on the strength of my freshly certified knowledge, and having embarked on a course of graduate study in the same field. And I had an epiphany, which I shared with my students.

In those days of broadcast TeeVee there were things called “PSA’s” meant to justify the private use of the public airwaves. A prominent one used the tagline: “To Get A Good Job, Get A Good Education.” I had an epiphany midway through a semester (my first as a teacher, I think. This was just three years shy of 50 years ago now.), and basically told my students that advice was bullshit.

Not literally, of course. Although I did literally tell them that if they were there for a guarantee of a good job, they should save their parents the money, leave now, and get jobs they could learn to do until retirement. No one took my advice, of course. What did I know? I was a superannuated senior talking to freshman, after all. What did I know?

My father was never rich, but he was a licensed professional. He couldn’t have done that without a college degree. But he was the first person in his family, ever, to go to college. His parents lived in a house his uncle built for them. I mean literally. Built it as a carpenter, with hand tool; not power tools. With a plumber for the plumbing, an electrician for the lighting, and probably an ad hic crew if laborers for things a single carpenter couldn’t do alone. My grandfather was a used car salesman. I still remember the sign from his car lot, hanging in their garage.

My mother’s father was a farmer. He moved his family around, wound up in Dallas working municipal construction for the city, in the days when the city did those jobs themselves. He ran a ditch-digging machine, a sort of pre-backhoe. My mother did not go to college.

The other side of this is my college tuition (for a state school) was the smallest portion of my costs for 7 years (four in undergrad, three in graduate school). I regularly paid more for books, and the biggest expense was always housing. Student loans were for the destitute, who deserved the education, too. Now you do have to be rich not to rely on loans.

Add that to the message of the picture above. The rich will always find ways to perpetuate generational wealth, even when “rich” just means they can afford a bit more than you can.

So my point has two prongs. I should note that all my friends went to college. We all turned out fine. But it’s a close call that college did that. I will argue (to the death, if necessary) that it worked better when college was “affordable.” That is, compared to what it costs now. You need to be very rich , going in or going out, for a college degree to mean something now. M.D.’s are facing trouble if Trump decides to call in all student loans. Today even doctors work years to pay for their education. This drives them into low risk careers, and away from careers as OB/GYN’s, among other things. We’ve accepted that doctors are rich (mostly due to third party payers, I.e., insurance companies. Ironies abound.). But if they can’t afford college until they are near retirement age by the time they do, what hope is there for the rest of us?

My point is, that picture above is the 21st century version of that PSA I heard so many times I can’t forget it now. But it wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now. The world needs carpenters. And plumbers. And lots of people for whom a college degree is an expensive piece of paper. 

When I taught English, I taught people who couldn’t understand why they needed any liberal arts in their education. I knew why; but they wanted gilt-edged technical degrees, because that’s what we had sold them. My high school friend and college roommate studied business, because he was going to run his father’s machine shop. But he was a gifted mechanic. Not enough to be an engineer, but is “business” really a college degree? He learned enough to do a good job running the business, I heard. Did he need four years for that? Nowadays his BBA is considered useless. Now you get an MBA, or don’t even start. My brother graduated three years after I did, and got a Masters of Environmental Design so he could be an architect. The seeds of degree inflation were sown even then. I was odd only graduate program. My MA was supposed to be transitive, barely a train station stop on the way to a Ph.D. Those were for college professors. Now you can’t get a a faculty position in a community college without one.

Oh, don’t get me started on another topic. Let’s stick with this one, it’s bad enough on its own.

College degrees are now gilt-edged technical degrees. How could they not be?  You’re going to college to get rich, remember? Not to get a good education, but to get a good job. And good luck with that, because a good education doesn’t guarantee you a good job. I mentioned my educated friends. Education opened doors for them; but it didn’t make them rich, set them up in good jobs that reflected the worlds of Updike or Cheever, or made life as easy for them as Millennials and Gen Z all imagine it was for Boomers. I don’t really know anybody in my generation who reached cruising altitude after college and stayed there into retirement. That was the other myth we were sold on, and why the “generations” since think we sucked dry and didn’t leave anything for them except the rinds and peels. They were sold on it, too.

College is not the gateway into the comfortable life and the comfortable suburbs. It was never meant to be; and that’s part of the problem. That problem led to this problem: that middle class life requires a college diploma. More and more, that’s a cruel joke. We owe it to ourselves to do better.

If a liberal arts education was more widespread and more basic to a college education, we might well have thought more critically about this over the years, and thought more lucidly; about many things.

(Another irony: in late season 3 of “The West Wing,” a conspiracy theorist comes forward to demand access to Fort Knox, because the gold that’s supposed to be there…isn’t there. And he wants to prove it. Well, on behalf of two U.S.Senators. Ironies abound.)
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Monday, December 29, 2025

Ending The Year With So Much Winning!

On Christmas Day, Donald Trump amplified multiple foreign-based accounts on X that were pushing MAGA political content. With X’s new "about this account" feature, it is possible to see that many of the accounts that Trump likes to share are operating outside the United States, even though they often present themselves as based here.
Remember all those Twitter accounts that were revealed to be foreign based? Trump doesn’t. He only cares about content, not context.
One begins to see a pattern….
Reporter: China has been doing naval exercises basically to test encircling Taiwan. Can you explain to us what your knowledge is of that?

Trump: Well, I have a great relationship with XI and he hasn't told me anything about it.

Reporter: You said where there’s smoke, there’s fire. So, if you’re doing naval exercises..

Trump: They’re been doing naval exercises for 20 years
Trump don’t need no intelligence. Also, too, as well: I am not making the following up:
"Biden reappointed him, and it's too bad," the president said. "But he's an absolute fool who's building a new Federal Reserve, or he's doing a renovation of a building. Maybe he's up to $4.1 billion to do a renovation of a few very small buildings. It's the highest price in the history of construction."

We're thinking about bringing a suit against Powell for incompetence," he noted. "These are small buildings. He said four billion more, it's going to end up costing more than four billion dollars. Four billion. It's the highest price of construction."

"So we're thinking about bringing a gross incompetence, what's called gross incompetence lawsuit. It's gross incompetence against Powell," he added. "And it was his baby. And the guy's just incompetent. There's nothing you can do about it. He's just a very incompetent man. But we're going to probably bring a lawsuit against him."
From what (little) I know about the Fed, I don’t see how Trump even has standing to sue. Nor how there is even the option of a lawsuit. And it would be against the office of the Chairman (if at all), not against Jerome Powell personally. My niece’s 9 year old son understands how the world works better than Trump does. These vague and glittering allegations ("Maybe he’s up to $4.1 billion…”) won’t move the needle with the Supremes, who’ve already warned him off messing with the Fed. Firing Powell for alleged gross incompetence will just create grounds for a lawsuit challenging the firing. Grounds that will actually favor Powell’s position better than opposing “I am the unitary executive” alone would.
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