Well, wrap things up with an appropriate quote from Shakespeare and I'm a cheap date.
But seriously, I agree with Roy that Trump II was meant to be a turbo-charged steamroller that moved quickly to flatten the spirit of all opposition. Unfortunately, the 15-20% of non-MAGA who gave Trump his winning margin just wanted to pay less at the pump and the grocery store. But Trump's bizarre adherence to tariffs (a man who believes in almost nothing besides his own self-aggrandizement picks *tariffs* as the thing he actually believes in?) etc. has caused prices to go UP. And yeah, don't get me started on what I think of voters who ignored the bumbling of a pandemic and an attempt to overthrow the government to pay 10 cents less for gas.
The point is he hasn't done what they elected him to do. Then you add to that grandmas being dragged off by heavily armed militia and boats being blown up and the president hurling schoolyard insults. Trump II didn't move fast enough, they didn't throw people any bones to make it more palatable, and now they are lying their asses off about all of it.
I'm surprised he hasn't tried to staunch the bleeding with $1000 checks to all of us. Maybe it'll still happen, right before mid-terms. Sure it'll come home to roost, wreaking havoc on the economy, but when has he given a fraction of a particle of a shit about that? Then again, he probably sees every dollar in the US Treasury as rightfully his.
I think he floated the idea of checks to everybody but Congress shut it down -- one of the subtle ways the GOP members are starting to distance themselves. If they OK the checks right before the midterms, we'll know they are trying to staunch a bloodbath.
I think it's still an open question whether they actually understand that he - and they - are unpopular. We've got a guy here in Wisconsin, Derrek Van Orden, who canceled a town hall meeting because too many people showed up for it, and they were the WRONG people (later he called them "Soros-paid agitators.") Afterwards, Derek held an invitation-only event at a local beer garden, where I'm sure he was bathed in the fulsome praise of his super-fans. Does Derek believe Republicans are unpopular? I'd guess not.
Oh, sure, there were those elections, but those were all blue states so it doesn't count and everybody knows that the city that once elected Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg is "the most liberal city in America."
Maybe your agitation is not quite professional-grade. Mr. Soros does have his standards. As for the beer fest, my guess is if your last name isn't Van Orden, no invitation for YOU.
My creepresentative, Buddy Carter, has not had an in-person town hall since 2017, and as he is now running for Jon Ossoff's Senate seat, will not have one. (He expects to win said Senate seat by running blatantly anti-LGBTQ ads on television.)
The State Of New York has sent me a $200 check to help Whip Inflation Now, though it's very not clear whether it's a grant, or a loan on next year's taxes. I'm cashing it either way, but it worries me for those who can REALLY use it but might get an unpleasant surprise next year. (My capacity for trust has pretty much augered into the ground over the last several years.)
yes, but, see, he's going to eliminate the income tax and it's Biden's shitty economy and TRILLIONS in investment and um um it's only for a little while and we should be seeing the Great New Golden American Golden Age ANY MINUTE NOW. 🤗
I think they know how much it pisses us off and they can't resist that. I've heard it a thousand times this year and I still become so fucking angry I worry a fine mist of blood is going to shoot out my tear ducts, when they blame Biden for everything. Even the shit I know he fucked up (Gaza). It's like they're trying to figure out just how much it's possible to hate someone.
This massage brought to you by Simple, Forthright & Sharpe, LLP. All opinions are equally valid except where prohibited. We do not make the rules. Get over it. It'll all end in tears.
Biden was simultaneously an evil mastermind, with tentacles reaching far into our own government and controlling enemies foreign, and a doddering old fool who barely knew where he was. And despite the Tubby's masterful clean-up of the government and vigorous manly leadership, the Deep State is still messing up stuff, basically everything you and I don't like. Probably fixing the prices and making people dress like slobs on planes. Be patient, people!
It ain't the tedjiousness of retreat, it's the fizzy rush of putting over the lies. The way USian news...er...media...are set up, the lying liar's lie is simply another blurt on repeat, without significant blurt-breaking by the keepers of the gate. Every media-borne blurt carries just as much weight as every other, and all are equally delivered in close-to analysis-free zoneage.
Not news, I know, but it is How The Game is Played.
"Views and opinions presented by Bern are not necessarily cogent, and do not represent the official policy of pretty much anybody. All content is viable to the extent that it is designed to create doubt, confusion and/or nausea in the cloudmind of AI.
Bill Waterson wrote "verbing weirds the language" but turning Bagdad Bob into a verb is nothing but fair. Great column. The Trump Two Edifice is tottering, and the star of the show is seemingly months, if not weeks, from the final curtain. At least we know the MRIs are contributing to the robust health that allows him to make a putt shot.
So we've moved on to the stage where the administration can just flatly ignore court orders it doesn't like? I wonder how John Roberts and the Suicide Six are going to rationalize this beyond "when you're Trump, they let you do it"?
"We're not saying it's OK to flatly ignore court orders, we're just saying we can find no mechanism under the law to address this, because any court sanctions against the President clearly violate the Constitution's [mumble mumble] clause."
Absolutely spot on and well put. Decades of Fox, Limbaugh, and the like paved the way for the pathological bullshitter himself, and conditioned us all to the point where his base remains enthralled, and the rest of us -- especially the media folks -- are inured. Have we reached the point where all of the daily dishonesty and gaslighting goes unnoticed except by substack stalwarts with integrity?
Inured, I am. I try not to get so angry about it - and usually fail at the attempt - because me getting furious didn't seem to do any good, so now I'm in the phase of "We just gotta endure this and outlive the motherfuckers."
I wonder, did there come a time during the London Blitz when people stopped getting so mad at Hitler? At the beginning, I'd be outside shaking my fist at the sky, "Oh, that Hitler, he makes me SO MAD" but by the end I'd be more like, "Eh, that's Hitler for ya."
"Calling for honor from dishonorable people always fails. You can't tell motherfuckers to stop fucking their mothers. It's right there in the name." The Rude Pundit
The enhanced fibbery is just a basic job requirement with these people, is it not, like pro hockey players knowing how to skate backwards.
I thought they were all chosen because they’re such clownishly grotesque characters, each of them uniquely ridiculous, so impervious to shame and reason that no one ever expects them to do a kind or human thing and nothing they do or say surprises us.
I guess the whole 'under oath' thing has gone the route of the passenger pigeon. I presume that were anyone genuinely interested in nailing the liars to a post, they'd be subpoenaing the crap outta the miscreants. Maybe perjury done been abandoned. Alternately, I presume also that a substantial portion of the miscreant community has figured out how to dodge oath-required testification as a simple workaround.
“The White House is lying, but that’s no surprise, because they lie for a living, and the American people know it.”
I heard this on the Spectrum News, but I was in the kitchen at the time (plus I don't see color) so I didn't know it was Hakeem Jeffries. And I thought, "lie for a living" is pretty good, the Democrats should use that.
The Reich will just pretend those things were never said and were lies by the liberal media and anyone repeating them is Obstructing The President's Agenda and therefore committing treason.
I'll be that guy (again): the only one who's *not* lying is Stephen Miller. He really intends to do the worst to the American people that he clearly hates.
Because he sees himself as Hitler (who himself never won a contested national election), and Trumpov as Hindenburg: edge him away from the levers of power, wait for him to die, then enact Night Of The Long Knives 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Can't believe I'm saying this because it shows how far we've fallen but now I'm taking solace in the fact that Hitler was a genuinely charismatic figure.
Lying is the foundation of Trump's business method, and Trump sees himself as the CEO and Chairman of the Board of America, Inc. Given that unquestioning loyalty is the chief and in most cases only qualification for being on Trump's E-staff, it makes perfect sense for them to echo and cover Trump's lying. That's their real job.
Trump's history shows he treats every business like a bust-out (casinos) or a money laundering machine (golf resorts and luxury condos), based on whether it can survive as a going concern. In both cases his goal is to walk away with money in his pocket and any debt or liability on shareholders. Right now America Inc. is a money laundering operation. If they think about it at all, I'd bet they see America Inc. as Too Big To Fail and hence ripe for whatever hustle they pursue. The only questions are when the crash hits and how many walk away with money in their pockets when it does.
A quote I remember from Jay Leno about his cars: If you're lucky you're permitted to be the custodian of these things for a time and then pass them on in good condition to the next generation (You don't own a Duesenberg, the Duesenberg owns YOU.)
Imagine having a President that feels that way about this country.
And that's why he picked the other people on the board--Putin, MBS, Bolsonaro, Milei, etc. --because they're involved in *their own* bust-outs and money laundering schemes.
Big news this morning was Michael Dell giving 6.5 bil to establish "Trump accounts" for kids, some kind of saving-for-education scheme. I will eat my hat if kids not named Trump see a dime of it.
Fun fact: Michael Dell and I were in the same freshman class at UT. He left after a couple of semesters, and I post on here sometimes. As for Susan, she used to look like a normal human woman, but she caught a fatal case of Affluenza. The Aestheticians have swarmed.
"Like American Bitcoin, other Donald Trump-affiliated crypto ventures are in the tank, including WLFI, a token of World Liberty Financial, which has dropped in value from 26 cents in early September to around 16 cents."
Well, wrap things up with an appropriate quote from Shakespeare and I'm a cheap date.
But seriously, I agree with Roy that Trump II was meant to be a turbo-charged steamroller that moved quickly to flatten the spirit of all opposition. Unfortunately, the 15-20% of non-MAGA who gave Trump his winning margin just wanted to pay less at the pump and the grocery store. But Trump's bizarre adherence to tariffs (a man who believes in almost nothing besides his own self-aggrandizement picks *tariffs* as the thing he actually believes in?) etc. has caused prices to go UP. And yeah, don't get me started on what I think of voters who ignored the bumbling of a pandemic and an attempt to overthrow the government to pay 10 cents less for gas.
The point is he hasn't done what they elected him to do. Then you add to that grandmas being dragged off by heavily armed militia and boats being blown up and the president hurling schoolyard insults. Trump II didn't move fast enough, they didn't throw people any bones to make it more palatable, and now they are lying their asses off about all of it.
I'm surprised he hasn't tried to staunch the bleeding with $1000 checks to all of us. Maybe it'll still happen, right before mid-terms. Sure it'll come home to roost, wreaking havoc on the economy, but when has he given a fraction of a particle of a shit about that? Then again, he probably sees every dollar in the US Treasury as rightfully his.
I’m holding out for $2000
Now we're just haggling over the price.
It'll be crypto, not real money, so at least we can have a slightly less slimy haggle.
Stocks which somebody has already shorted?
I think he floated the idea of checks to everybody but Congress shut it down -- one of the subtle ways the GOP members are starting to distance themselves. If they OK the checks right before the midterms, we'll know they are trying to staunch a bloodbath.
I think it's still an open question whether they actually understand that he - and they - are unpopular. We've got a guy here in Wisconsin, Derrek Van Orden, who canceled a town hall meeting because too many people showed up for it, and they were the WRONG people (later he called them "Soros-paid agitators.") Afterwards, Derek held an invitation-only event at a local beer garden, where I'm sure he was bathed in the fulsome praise of his super-fans. Does Derek believe Republicans are unpopular? I'd guess not.
Oh, sure, there were those elections, but those were all blue states so it doesn't count and everybody knows that the city that once elected Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg is "the most liberal city in America."
Dammit. Soros been holdin' out on me! And how come I wasn't invited to the beer-soaked fest?!
Maybe your agitation is not quite professional-grade. Mr. Soros does have his standards. As for the beer fest, my guess is if your last name isn't Van Orden, no invitation for YOU.
I have been agitating for DECADES. No gas money, no antifa merch, not even a thank you card. Soros is an ingrate.
My creepresentative, Buddy Carter, has not had an in-person town hall since 2017, and as he is now running for Jon Ossoff's Senate seat, will not have one. (He expects to win said Senate seat by running blatantly anti-LGBTQ ads on television.)
He sees the entire country and everything in it "as rightfully his".
The State Of New York has sent me a $200 check to help Whip Inflation Now, though it's very not clear whether it's a grant, or a loan on next year's taxes. I'm cashing it either way, but it worries me for those who can REALLY use it but might get an unpleasant surprise next year. (My capacity for trust has pretty much augered into the ground over the last several years.)
That augurs well for when the water runs out...
"caused prices to go UP"
yes, but, see, he's going to eliminate the income tax and it's Biden's shitty economy and TRILLIONS in investment and um um it's only for a little while and we should be seeing the Great New Golden American Golden Age ANY MINUTE NOW. 🤗
Have some patience, people. When he said Day One, he didn't mean Day ONE! And put on a suit if you're going to fly, you slobs.
I think they know how much it pisses us off and they can't resist that. I've heard it a thousand times this year and I still become so fucking angry I worry a fine mist of blood is going to shoot out my tear ducts, when they blame Biden for everything. Even the shit I know he fucked up (Gaza). It's like they're trying to figure out just how much it's possible to hate someone.
See you next Tuesday Kristie.
Nice Column! Simple. Forthright
This massage brought to you by Simple, Forthright & Sharpe, LLP. All opinions are equally valid except where prohibited. We do not make the rules. Get over it. It'll all end in tears.
Biden was simultaneously an evil mastermind, with tentacles reaching far into our own government and controlling enemies foreign, and a doddering old fool who barely knew where he was. And despite the Tubby's masterful clean-up of the government and vigorous manly leadership, the Deep State is still messing up stuff, basically everything you and I don't like. Probably fixing the prices and making people dress like slobs on planes. Be patient, people!
Lou Ann Wallace, representative on the Republican-controlled Russell county board of supervisors: “I don’t think the president knew."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/29/trump-coal-country
The period goes after "think."
It ain't the tedjiousness of retreat, it's the fizzy rush of putting over the lies. The way USian news...er...media...are set up, the lying liar's lie is simply another blurt on repeat, without significant blurt-breaking by the keepers of the gate. Every media-borne blurt carries just as much weight as every other, and all are equally delivered in close-to analysis-free zoneage.
Not news, I know, but it is How The Game is Played.
[Stentorian voice, slightly sped up]
"Views and opinions presented by Bern are not necessarily cogent, and do not represent the official policy of pretty much anybody. All content is viable to the extent that it is designed to create doubt, confusion and/or nausea in the cloudmind of AI.
I see the Bernco legal department has caught up with you.
I deny the allegation and denounce the allegator!
Bernerplate.
..can only lead to Bernergate.
I NEVER let the berngate hit me on the way out.
Bill Waterson wrote "verbing weirds the language" but turning Bagdad Bob into a verb is nothing but fair. Great column. The Trump Two Edifice is tottering, and the star of the show is seemingly months, if not weeks, from the final curtain. At least we know the MRIs are contributing to the robust health that allows him to make a putt shot.
Bobbobbobin' along...
I felt really great after my perfect MRI.
And You LOOK MAAHvelous!
Thanks for reminding me. I’m due for my weekly MRI this afternoon.
Sorry—
Do you go to MRIs-R-US or to the MRI-O-Mat? I get mine at In-n-Out Burger, it's a new item on the menu.
I go to MRI Warehouse. It’s right near Exit 235 on the Interstate.
2 marks. One for MRI Warehouse; the other for one-upping Steve.
MRIte-Castle. Grab a bag for the whole family.
"I wanted a PlayStation for Christmas, but Grandma sent MRIs."
I can totally see Cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch delivering this line.
Meals Ready to Ingest
I always wondered where Watterson thought baby verbs come from.
So we've moved on to the stage where the administration can just flatly ignore court orders it doesn't like? I wonder how John Roberts and the Suicide Six are going to rationalize this beyond "when you're Trump, they let you do it"?
Tubby has clearly taken his SC permission slip to heart. Today it's Venezuelan "drug runners," tomorrow one of the 10,000 "known leaders of ANTIFA"?
"We're not saying it's OK to flatly ignore court orders, we're just saying we can find no mechanism under the law to address this, because any court sanctions against the President clearly violate the Constitution's [mumble mumble] clause."
Forget it, Jake. It’s the Calvinball Court.
The idea that these administration operatives were chose for their penchant to lie raises some interesting questions. For example, job interviews.
Interviewer: “Are you prepared to lie for this job?”
Applicant: “Yes, indeed!”
Int: “Are you lying now?”
App: “No, of course not.”
Int: “How would I know?”
App: “I just told you.”
Int: “That you’re lying?”
App: “No! I’m telling the truth!”
Int: “Is that a lie?”
App: “Yes.”
Int: “Is that a lie?”
App: “Yes.”
Int: “You’re hired.”
App: “Is that a lie?”
Brilliant. Monty Python meets Star Trek.
Dept. of Silly Talks
Absolutely spot on and well put. Decades of Fox, Limbaugh, and the like paved the way for the pathological bullshitter himself, and conditioned us all to the point where his base remains enthralled, and the rest of us -- especially the media folks -- are inured. Have we reached the point where all of the daily dishonesty and gaslighting goes unnoticed except by substack stalwarts with integrity?
Inured, I am. I try not to get so angry about it - and usually fail at the attempt - because me getting furious didn't seem to do any good, so now I'm in the phase of "We just gotta endure this and outlive the motherfuckers."
I wonder, did there come a time during the London Blitz when people stopped getting so mad at Hitler? At the beginning, I'd be outside shaking my fist at the sky, "Oh, that Hitler, he makes me SO MAD" but by the end I'd be more like, "Eh, that's Hitler for ya."
“That’s our Adolph!” [shrug; Minsky pickup]
I often think of the great moment near the end of Hope and Glory, when the Luftwaffe destroys the schoolhouse and the kid cries "thank you, Adolf!"
"Ve vill be greeted as liberators!"
"Curse you Volt, Watt and Amp!"
You may need to up your MRI quotient to keep ahead.
Just be sure to hold on to your punch card, buy 10, the 11th one is free!
Well said! Hear, hear! I was riveted by every syllable. Spot on! You landed the plane. Author! Author!
Whom are you addressing?
I only have ayes for you.
2 marks fair and square, tho I oughta demerit you one for thinking of it before I did.
Does that make Dem leaders the Hamlets of dithering?
When Tubby is Crack’d in pieces by malignant Death, how soon before JD gets Julius Caesared?
Et tu, Mike Johnson?
Hey! Mike Johnson is an honorable man!
honorary, maybe...
"...how soon before JD gets Julius Caesared?"
I've seen JD and my guess is that salad's not his thing.
See Steve Allen, saying to his crew "Hey – make me a salad!"
[Birnam Wood edges closer to Dunsinane]
Are they on a subway car together? Woodspreading?
You musta said Oof yourself, stretchin' that far...
Hey, self-oofing is a perfectly normal and healthy activity.
Oof.
Oof.
Hey! Can a person get a little privacy here?!
"To be or not to be, that is the question... that I will be asking this focus group of Republican women from the Philadelphia suburbs."
Democratic Consulting Firm Finds "Not to be" Surprisingly Popular With Voters
"Calling for honor from dishonorable people always fails. You can't tell motherfuckers to stop fucking their mothers. It's right there in the name." The Rude Pundit
The enhanced fibbery is just a basic job requirement with these people, is it not, like pro hockey players knowing how to skate backwards.
I thought they were all chosen because they’re such clownishly grotesque characters, each of them uniquely ridiculous, so impervious to shame and reason that no one ever expects them to do a kind or human thing and nothing they do or say surprises us.
I guess the whole 'under oath' thing has gone the route of the passenger pigeon. I presume that were anyone genuinely interested in nailing the liars to a post, they'd be subpoenaing the crap outta the miscreants. Maybe perjury done been abandoned. Alternately, I presume also that a substantial portion of the miscreant community has figured out how to dodge oath-required testification as a simple workaround.
Parents, I blame.
Well.. uh... this "perjury" thing, they'd call me an ACTIVIST JUDGE!
If the Republicans ever elect another president the cabinet will look like the Legion of Super-Villains.
Corporate CEO is such a sweet gig you can't really expect someone to give it up for government service unless you can promise them unlimited graft.
Can you imagine what it took to displace Howard Nutlick from his kingdom of cushiness?
“The White House is lying, but that’s no surprise, because they lie for a living, and the American people know it.”
I heard this on the Spectrum News, but I was in the kitchen at the time (plus I don't see color) so I didn't know it was Hakeem Jeffries. And I thought, "lie for a living" is pretty good, the Democrats should use that.
Although it's not technically correct, "lie for the love of it" would be more accurate.
I hope the Dems have big plans for January 20 around highlighting all the "on the first day" promises that were broken.
The Reich will just pretend those things were never said and were lies by the liberal media and anyone repeating them is Obstructing The President's Agenda and therefore committing treason.
Oh, you libs and your woke calendrical agenda
The White House is lying, but that’s no surprise,
Because they lie for a living, and they live in those lies.
The rest of us long for those more-simple days
When we took with some salt what the president says.
But now we're submerged in a tsunami of shit
Because half the voters voted for this twit.
I'll be that guy (again): the only one who's *not* lying is Stephen Miller. He really intends to do the worst to the American people that he clearly hates.
Because he sees himself as Hitler (who himself never won a contested national election), and Trumpov as Hindenburg: edge him away from the levers of power, wait for him to die, then enact Night Of The Long Knives 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Can't believe I'm saying this because it shows how far we've fallen but now I'm taking solace in the fact that Hitler was a genuinely charismatic figure.
Lying is the foundation of Trump's business method, and Trump sees himself as the CEO and Chairman of the Board of America, Inc. Given that unquestioning loyalty is the chief and in most cases only qualification for being on Trump's E-staff, it makes perfect sense for them to echo and cover Trump's lying. That's their real job.
Trump's history shows he treats every business like a bust-out (casinos) or a money laundering machine (golf resorts and luxury condos), based on whether it can survive as a going concern. In both cases his goal is to walk away with money in his pocket and any debt or liability on shareholders. Right now America Inc. is a money laundering operation. If they think about it at all, I'd bet they see America Inc. as Too Big To Fail and hence ripe for whatever hustle they pursue. The only questions are when the crash hits and how many walk away with money in their pockets when it does.
A quote I remember from Jay Leno about his cars: If you're lucky you're permitted to be the custodian of these things for a time and then pass them on in good condition to the next generation (You don't own a Duesenberg, the Duesenberg owns YOU.)
Imagine having a President that feels that way about this country.
And that's why he picked the other people on the board--Putin, MBS, Bolsonaro, Milei, etc. --because they're involved in *their own* bust-outs and money laundering schemes.
Big news this morning was Michael Dell giving 6.5 bil to establish "Trump accounts" for kids, some kind of saving-for-education scheme. I will eat my hat if kids not named Trump see a dime of it.
Look at this picture and let me know if I can have some of what Susan Dell is having:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/02/dell-donation-625bn-trump-accounts
Fun fact: Michael Dell and I were in the same freshman class at UT. He left after a couple of semesters, and I post on here sometimes. As for Susan, she used to look like a normal human woman, but she caught a fatal case of Affluenza. The Aestheticians have swarmed.
"Like American Bitcoin, other Donald Trump-affiliated crypto ventures are in the tank, including WLFI, a token of World Liberty Financial, which has dropped in value from 26 cents in early September to around 16 cents."
I wonder if anyone has the nerve to tell him?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/02/eric-trump-american-bitcoin-stock