Ain't That America VIII

Another week, and more scandals ... Jeffrey Epstein is dead but his story and connection to The Felon will not die ... our attack on Iran wasn't at all what The Felon said it was ... Josh Hawley flip-flopped like a dying fish on a dock ... James Comer proved himself both stupid and hypocritical in one swoop of a pen ... and Gym Jordan might have to testify to his part in a college rape scandal after nearly twenty years ... and some Good News, too ...

The Felon has been diagnosed with a “benign and common” vein condition known as chronic venous insufficiency after he noticed swelling in his legs; according to Johns Hopkins, chronic venous insufficiency occurs when veins in the legs struggle to allow blood to flow back up to the heart.

And because his veins are filled with cheese.

The team at the state Department’s Office of Casualty Assistance, which supports US diplomats and their families abroad in the event of death or severe injury, received termination notices last week as the team was repatriating the remains of a senior US official who died in a car crash in Mexico. The State Department says that such future operations will be handled by another department though staff in that department have no experience in dealing with such a solemn task.

Just dead people so who cares, right?

Remember the Great Obliteration of the three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran struck by the United States missiles last month?

One was destroyed but the two others were not as badly damaged and may have been degraded only to a point where nuclear enrichment could resume in the next several months.

He lied to us again.

In Stoopid News The Felon claimed during an Oval Office press event that he was “surprised” that Jerome Powell was appointed Fed Chair.

Funny, cuz The Felon is the one who appointed him in 2017

GOP Senator Josh “Chicken Run” Hawley has introduced legislation that would repeal the cuts to Medicaid that he helped make possible only two weeks ago.

Seriously, you cannot make this shiz up.

Florida’s Director of Emergency Management is defending the conditions at the “Alligator Alcatraz” internment facility, arguing that people sheltering from hurricanes wish they had the kind of space undocumented immigrants get at the site.

No food, few toilets, sleeping on the floor. Sounds plush.

Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, The Felon’s Regime has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people abroad who need it.

Nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food—enough to feed about 1.5 million children for a week—are set to expire and America will just burn it rather than feed children.

Well, since the children are no longer fetuses, The Regime doesn’t care about them.

Republican lawmakers have blocked a move that could have forced The Felon’s Regime to release the files on the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s death and investigation with all but one of the GOP members of the House Rules Committee voting against a Democrat amendment that would have allowed Congress to vote on whether the files should be made public or not.

He’s on the list.

GOP Representative James Comer has been leading the probe into Joe Biden’s cognitive state during his presidency, with Republicans alleging that Biden’s occasional use of an “autopen” to sign documents—a practice other presidents have done as well—proving he wasn’t fully in control or aware of what his administration was doing.

But documents show that some of the letters and subpoena notices James Comer sent out in connection with his investigation have been signed using a digital signature—not written by the congressperson himself.

Every GOP accusation is an admission and I need James Comer to have a cognitive test.

Hundreds of immigrants with no criminal charges in the United States are being held at Kristi’s Koncentration Kamp in Florida that federal officials have characterized as a place where “vicious” and “deranged psychopaths” are sent before they get deported.

It’s like being arrested for DUI and sent to Death Row.

 Trump officials have directed staff at national parks to review all items in gift shops for anti-American content that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living” or that includes “matters unrelated to the beauty, abundance or grandeur” of a natural feature in its description.

Erasing history.

Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi has fired her personal ethics adviser because she ain’t got time for ethics!

She has files to scrub.

An ideologically divided Supreme Court on July 14 allowed The Felon’s Regime to fire hundreds of workers from the Education Department and continue other efforts to dismantle the agency.

They want to keep Americans poor and stupid so any scrap they toss your way is seen as a gift and you’ll continue to fall in line.

Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, was fired from her job as a prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, according to two people who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Comey had worked in the U.S. attorney’s office for ten years and prosecuted both Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. but there's nothing to see here except ...

He’s on the list.

George Retes, a US Army veteran, arrested during an immigration raid at a Southern California marijuana farm, says he was sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray before being dragged from his car and pinned down by the ICEstapo. Retes works as a security guard at Glass House Farms in Camarillo was arrested despite him identifying himself as a US citizen.

But, you know, he’s brown and works at a farm.

Pedophile enabler, and GOP Representative Jim Jordan, was deposed last week about allegations that he failed to protect the wrestlers he once coached at Ohio State University from a sexual predator.

Jordan has been running from this story since 1994, before he got into politics, has repeatedly and publicly denied any knowledge that the team’s doctor, Richard Strauss, was preying on the athletes.

But why hide Gym??

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, AKA Pee Wee German, one of The Felon’s fascist friends went on national television and ridiculed the city of Minneapolis as a crime-ridden haven for undocumented immigrants.

But then Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty responded:

“If we wanted a white supremacist’s opinion, we’d ask. But we don’t. So we won’t.”

Poor Pee Wee.

California will partner with the Trevor Project to provide suicide prevention support to LGBTQ+ youth; the announcement comes weeks after The Felon’s Regime said it will no longer provide national suicide and crisis hotline services to LGBTQ+ youth.

Cuz, it’s just kids and LGBTQ+ ones at that killing themselves so who really cares?

Fox News host Jesse Watters acknowledged this week that his program made a mistake he lied about California Governor Gavin Newsom’s phone call with The Felon during last month’s immigration raids in Los Angeles.

Newsom filed a $787-million defamation lawsuit against Watters and Fox News and both the network and their little bitch boy Jesse apologized.

The Felon’s Little Johnson claims his boss’s approval ratings are skyrocketing saying CNN—that bastion of journalistic integrity—says The Felon is at a 90% approval rating. But, facts are facts, and Nationalist Christian, AKA Nat-C, Mike Johnson is lying …

After declining slowly, but steadily, since the beginning of July, The Felon’s approval rating started to drop more quickly. His net approval rating was -6.9 on July 10th. A week later it’s down to -8.9. And his net approval on most of the issues has also fallen:

Immigration: -3.4 —> -7.4

Economy: -12.1 —> -14.1

Trade: -14.5 —> -17.5

Inflation: -24.5 —> -24.8

And the share of Americans who strongly approve of The Felon has fallen below 27% percent for the first time in his second term; 43% of Americans strongly disapprove of the regime.

The midterms are coming and you know what to do …

The Funny Papers

Michael de Adder, Dennis Goris, JD Crowe, Lalo Alcaraz, Jack Ohman, Ruben L. Oppenheimer, Gary Huck, Jesse Duquette, Nick Anderson, Max Espinoza, Ann Telnaes, Pedro X Molina

Why Is It ...

… that talking to a new person isn’t exciting anymore because I realize I probably won’t even remember them in a week.

… that people don’t understand that my life would be less stressful if I had my own deserted island.

… that sometimes I find a random screw lying around my house and I just assume it’s from my life falling apart.

… that no one remembers that my phone is always in my hand so if you think I’m ignoring you, I am.

… that when I tell someone “I swear on my life,” they are apt to reply, “I’ve seen your life, swear on something else.”

… that I am based on a true story.

… that when I sing, “when I think about you I touch myself,” what I really mean is I am rubbing my temples because you’re giving me a f**king migraine.

… that when I say “the other day” that could mean anytime between yesterday and my birth.

… when I think of how 2025 is going for me, I think in terms of a movie … written by Stephen King, directed by Tarantino and the music by Yoko Ono.

… that I am at that age where every morning my body whispers, ‘Don’t do that again.’

I Didn't Say It ...

Rosie O'Donnell, firing back at The Felon who tried to deflect from the Epstein mess—PS he’s on the list—by saying he would revoke Rosie’s citizenship:

“hey donald – you’re rattled again? 18 years later and I still live rent-free in that collapsing brain of yours. you call me a threat to humanity –but I’m everything you fear: a loud woman a queer woman a mother who tells the truth an american who got out of the country b4 u set it ablaze you build walls –I build a life for my autistic kid in a country where decency still exists you crave loyalty –I teach my children to question power you sell fear on golf courses – I make art about surviving trauma you lie, you steal, you degrade – I nurture, I create, I persist you are everything that is wrong with america –and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it you want to revoke my citizenship? go ahead and try, king joffrey with a tangerine spray tan i’m not yours to silence i never was”

Spot on takedown of a bigoted criminal narcissist BUT … and it’s a Felon-sized butt:

F**k you Rosie. F**k you for running away and leaving the rest of us to fight for America and clean up this mess because we don’t have the money to up and move when it gets tough. We speak out about our neighbors being rounded up and taken away by ICE; about our trans brothers and sisters being erased; about erasing the history of Black Americans as if they don't matter; about stripping away healthcare for Americans, food for children, and the rights of women to make choices about their own bodies.

This whole thing smacks of protests against the Vietnam war in the 1960s and how protesters were told to love America or leave it. Their protests were love and leaving solves nothing; nothing changes.

You have the money, the influence, the social media presence, the voice to do good for America, but you ran. The rest of us stayed; we fight, we march, we speak up, we resist, while you live a cozy life in decent Ireland and "hope" America gets better. So, save your moral high ground and maybe teach your kids not to run from a fight, but to stay and help and work together and fix it.

Oh, and I see Ellen DeGeneres has come out and says she has your back; tell her to F**k Off, too.

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Cheyenne Jackson, out actor, turns 50 and reflects on his life:

“Today I’m 50. I’ve been waiting a long time to do the Molly Shannon ‘I’m 50!’-high kick, and now I can for real. 50. A number that once felt impossibly far away… now feels somehow right on time. This past year has been a reckoning. My dog died. My best friend [Broadway performer Gavin Creel]died.
Hollywood halted. Los Angeles burned. Grief has been my steady companion. ‘Hey girl, I see you’re back,’ I say to her. She lingers for a while, we dance a bit … it’s slow and flirty at first, then it morphs quickly into a WWF match. I finally push her off, then she floats along like a burnt-sugar-scented cloud. What once was sweet is now scorched. My beloved children are almost nine … How? They are growing into their own bold, beautiful selves, and they remind me every day that joy is loud, messy, and everywhere … if I stay present enough to notice. This year I stepped fully into my writing, not as a side passion,
but as another extension of my art. My tough new lit agent was worried I would suck. Turns out I don’t. He was surprised. I wasn’t—but pretended to be. It’s a little thing I like to do. Pretending, you see … it’s been a theme in my life. The fear of not being good enough always nearby, waiting in the woods like a wet creature ready to pounce and flog me before I can do it all by myself. I ache to connect. I’m working on it. My friends push through my isolation. I refocused on my sobriety. I took it for granted. Treated it like gravity. So constant, you forget it’s holding you up. Trying to let myself feel more, hide less. And yes, like so many immediate families, due to this impossible political hellscape, we’ve navigated differences. Tensions. Unsaid things. But beneath it all, I’m still holding on to hope. For healing. Or maybe some ‘Love Can Build a Bridge’-style-JUDDS sh*t to happen and make it all better. And yet, through every tear, every missed soccer goal, every broken toe (mine), every broken foot (Willow’s), is [my husband] Jason. My love. My north star. He sees me clearly, loves me ANYWAY, and reminds me (daily) that I’m not alone in any of this. So here’s to 50. Not a finish line. Not a starting line. Not a reinvention. Less performing. More being. And definitely more high kicks.”

What a great post to celebrate a milestone, with honesty, joy, and family and love and insight into where you were, where you are, and where you’re going.

Happy Birthday, sir.

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John Barrowman, out actor, on the scandal that derailed his career four years ago:

“May 3, 2021, my world shattered and everything changed for me. It makes me sad because a lot of people who have attacked me are the people that I fought for to allow them to have a voice. [People had been out to get me but] could not get me any other way but, ‘Oh, let’s get him because we’ve heard stories that he flashed and did certain stupid things on set. Now, the thing that upsets me the most is they tried to make it out that I was a sexual predator. I contemplated taking my own life a couple of times. I didn’t see a way out from it. Everything that I loved had been stripped away from me. I was badly advised in the very beginning. I should have fought. But I was told to not say anything because it was [during] the whole #MeToo thing. I’m most disappointed in the way my colleagues in the industry didn’t speak up, did not step forward and say ‘This is ridiculous. This is stupid.’ Listen, I’d never do it again. Ever. We learned from what’s happened. I was the beefcake for Dr. Who. I was not asked about doing nude scenes or taking my clothes off in original contracts. It was written. So, therefore, if you want to talk about a power dynamic, I thought if I didn’t do the stuff, I would lose my job. If you don’t do what’s written in the script. And, as an actor, that’s what I do. However I made myself feel comfortable, however wrong you think it was, at that time I was making myself feel comfortable in the situations that I was standing naked or doing whatever. It’s hard to talk about because it upsets me and I get upset and still a little bit depressed when I sit and think about and hear about all the stuff people say about certain things in our community and I’m like, ‘I could help, I could do stuff!’ But nobody wants to touch me. I’m not asking for sympathy from anybody. I don’t want anyone’s sympathy. I’m just telling you my side.”

Barrowman says he was banned from the entertainment industry in 2021 and his career is only just now coming back. Shortly after the accusations were made, Barrowman released a statement calling his past actions “high-spirited behavior” and “tomfoolery,” but insisting he never intended to make anyone feel uncomfortable but his remarks did little to quell the criticism. Almost overnight, his character Captain Jack Harkness was scrubbed from the Doctor Who and Torchwood cinematic universe and he could not get work.

Barrowman says the whole thing practically destroyed him.

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Bobservations

Last Friday Carlos had to be up in Lancaster for a translation and it took the better part of the day. As we were getting closer to home at about 4PM, I told Carlos I had  no idea what to cook for dinner so maybe we could eat at Salud. He agreed and off we went for a nice dinner and some great Coyotes Margaritas.

Cut to Tuesday and Carlos had an appointment in Camden and so off we went to that; but it was quick and we were back home by 11:30AM at which time Carlos said he had no idea what to cook for dinner and maybe we should go out. I said, with incredulity:

“You have six-and-a-half hours to come up with dinner—”

“We went out last week when you said you had no idea what to cook.”

“That was after 4PM. You have lots of time to think of something.”

Cut to dinner … mashed potatoes, sliced avocado and some ground turkey sauteed up and served over the spuds. Abd because over-dramatic is my middle name, I said, with incredulity:

“All this needs is a plastic compartmentalized tray and it’d be what I got served for lunch … IN THE FIFTH GRADE!!!!”

Later on Carlos tried to atone for his sins of culinary slop by suggesting he would make a peach cobbler … for me. I reminded him, with incredulity, that I don’t much care for sweets—though his cobbler is dee-lish—and that he was making the cobbler for himself and he just smiled.

This Tuxedo Says is from January 2021 … Seriously, even a cat knows the difference between a riot and a terror attack. I think he needs to give a TED talk to the GOP.

On July 8, 2025, former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya posted a photo of a note she says she received  from a very kind flight attendant with the comment:

“Thank you to the flight attendant who handed this to me in flight.”

Trouble is Tafoya posted the exact same photo with the note over two years ago.

This is some damned strong thirst for attention.

Apparently you can get anything in the subway, even a nice set of beefy beefcakes.

I invented a new golf ball that will automatically go into the hole if it gets within four inches but … note to self: do not carry them in your back pocket.

They said the Epstein files were on Pamela Jo Bondi’s desk.

Then they said the Epstein files do not exist.

Then they said the Epstein files were written by Obama and Hillary when Epstein died in 2019 while The Felon was president.

And the guy who has sued people for telling “lies” about him over 4,000 times hasn’t filed one lawsuit against those who say …

He’s in the files.

The Felon was accused of hijacking English soccer club Chelsea’s lifting of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup trophy following its 3–0 victory over France’s Paris Saint-Germain at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium this past weekend. After presenting the trophy, The Felon stood among the players even after he was asked to step aside.

On Monday, Chelsea marked the win with a celebratory team photo shared to social media  but they chose an image when The Felon wasn’t front and center.

It was like Where’s Waldo but more Where’s That Gelatinous Tub of Flesh Who Can’t Climb Stairs But Stands Among Athletes Like He Is One.

In today's episode of "English is Hard", I ponder how it's possible that "Fat Chance" & "Slim Chance" mean roughly the same thing?

Alvise Rigo is a thirty-year-old  actor and side of beef from Venice, Veneto, Italy though all that matters not: Would You Hit It?