What will happen if Trump loses again? Will he finally shut up (that’s funny)? Will the nooses from all the indictments finally tighten? Or would we be in for yet another four years of griping and whining about results and witch hunts and rigged voting?

Will this misery never end?

I liked what Bill Maher had to say about the music that people are listening to, and the messages within the music. There is an unmistakable emphasis on money and acquiring stuff, a message which inevitably resonates and wriggles its way into immature psyches everywhere.

Watch next weekend, when many eyes will be focused on Sin City, aptly named, as the Super Bowl hype machine unfolds for the masses to marvel at and consume and even absorb. It is gross, over-the-top hyper-marketing, with a loud, in-your-face halftime show that probably will induce a few seizures and flaunt someone’s sexuality and convey a message about fame and fortune or a skewed picture of what love is.

Or maybe Taylor Swift’s presence will distract from everything because people will be waiting to see if she drops down from the rafters to endorse Joe Biden.

It would be more of an issue if Fani Willis was dating someone on the defense team. Sounds like someone on Trump’s legal team, or whoever blew the whistle on this “scandal,” is grasping at straws, which is what people around Trump are liable to be doing at this point. They’ll take anything that looks like a smoking gun and run with it, even if it amounts to a hill of beans.

Still, it inevitably will raise questions and take time to sort out, which is exactly what the Trump camp is hoping for—more wasting of time and drawing things out.

Delay, delay, delay. We’re all familiar with the strategy.

I imagine that China and Russia have the same capabilities. They could fly sorties from their respective homelands and wreak havoc here, like the U.S. apparently did the other day when they flew B-1s across the pond to hit targets in Iraq and Syria.

It’s a fine line we’re walking—trying to respond in a measured way, to send a message about capabilities without provoking all-out war with Iran and who knows who else.

What the hell is a measured response, anyway? I’m sure Iran and the rest are beside themselves with appreciation that we were just behaving with restraint in a “measured” way…

It’s all aggression, though, isn’t it? That’s the bottom line. There will be no hints taken from our measured approach, nothing understood or appreciated. Everybody’s looking for an excuse to fan the flames and really go at it. There’s always someone aching for a fight.

It’s the same old shit. Lessons we must be hardwired not to learn.

Just what we need. God’s Army on a mission to “take our border back.”

Is this how Civil War 1.2.1 begins? Or is it more a whimper by misguided “patriots” in search of meaning and purpose in their lives?

They are on a mission from God, so there’s that. And they are probably well-armed and fired up, maybe liquored up, too?

MAGA on display. Does it make you proud, Donald? Or would you prefer not to know these people?

There are more ways than bombs and other offensive weaponry to inflict damage on a nation. China seems to be intent on wreaking havoc with cyber-attacks on our critical infrastructure, according to current reporting. This would indeed introduce panic and discomfort and anger, and violence would ensue without sending one bomb.

I can’t believe we have to think about this stuff. It makes me sound like a paranoid doomsdayer. But the efforts, according to CNN, are real and ongoing.

We better have a robust defense against such heinous behavior, better be keeping one step ahead. Besides biological or chemical warfare, cyber warfare is about as insidious as it gets. Computer technology turns out to be a mixed blessing, at best.

I wonder what Bill Gates thinks about all this—if he’s confident we can stay ahead of it, or if he recognizes that the other shoe will inevitably drop. Because to hackers, it’s like an addictive game, with the added considerations of geopolitical supremacy and national pride.

They get off on the challenge of solving riddles. Breaking things, busting through firewalls and causing chaos. I’m sure there are high fives all around.

Taylor Swift must be riding a carousel of emotions right now. She’s in a highly publicized love affair with Travis Kelce, she’s riding a wave of popularity after stratospheric successes from touring and album sales, and she’s being hailed as a savvy businesswoman operating in rarified air, beyond Beyonce-esque.

And now Fox News and the rest of Earth 2 are losing their minds over the prospect of something they appear to be absolutely paranoid about—that the fix is in for KC to win the Super Bowl, which will in turn provide Swift a platform for dropping some big announcement that will enhance Joe Biden’s chances in November.

This commentary would be hilarious, pants-on-fire stuff if it weren’t coming from the usual suspects who behave this way, to varying degrees, all the time. Their MO is apparent—simply start saying sensational stuff and fan the flames, double down, report it like it’s news, like something verifiable and real. Then hope people start believing it.

Of course, Swift needs to play this coolly, because if she lets all this attention go to her head and does indeed decide to play some overt political role, the alternate universe will unleash an unholy retribution campaign and go after her relentlessly (sounds like that’s what they’re gonna do anyway). Then, what already promises to be an unbearably ugly election season will morph into a juggernaut of mudslinging misery, and we’ll all be begging for it to stop.

And, unless Travis is truly committed, Taylor might end up alone again, with material for her next unlucky-in-love mega hit.  

According to Mike Johnson, the immigration deal is absolutely dead.

The assumption can be made that if this was on the docket in a non-election year, it might not be dead. But since Donald Trump elbowed his way into the conversation and wants immigration to be an issue on which he gets to pontificate with his pants-on-fire, 4th-grade insights, the deal is going nowhere.

Gotta give Trump what he wants, and Joe Biden can’t have anything to crow about ahead of November. It’s baldfaced ugly politics at its best, i.e worst, and the immigration issue will linger, unaddressed until after November, when, God forbid, a Trump administration would open detention centers and send thousands of migrants, including some who have been here for a while, packing.

Just another of a million reasons why Trump can’t happen again.

The level of obeisance here is stunning. Trump, tragically, is Republicans’ ticket to power– nothing more. So noses are held, concessions are made, and souls must be sold.

I’m happy for E. Jean Carroll, if for no other reason than she and her intrepid and inseparable lawyers prevailed over Donald Trump and hit him where it hurts. And if he’s not careful, can’t refrain from further defamatory outbursts, he could be a real cash cow, the gift that keeps on giving.

On the other hand, I’m growing tired of listening to Carroll and watching as she does a bit of gloating of her own, flanked at all times by her lawyers, who are there to… what, make sure she doesn’t say anything that could be construed as defamatory in its own right? She seems to be coming pretty close, maybe, even if what she’s saying is of a more cathartic nature.

So, maybe nothing to watch for, but sometimes it seems like she’s running up against the edge herself and might want to be careful Trump doesn’t resort to what he does best– bring a suit of his own and try to recover or at least tie up some of the funds he’s hemorrhaging.

We shouldn’t be surprised if, as a nation, we are viewed around the world as childish and ridiculous when it comes to politics of late. And by “of late,” I mean the last 8 or 9 years, probably longer.

If the world has been looking to us as a beacon of liberty and sanity during this time, it has likely been disillusioned, finding instead a nation that in 2016 elected a buffoon to its highest office, and with prospects of doing the same thing with the same person again this year!

We are a nation at war with itself, struggling to define itself, licking old wounds.

Even as there are legitimate public servants trying to do their jobs, there are powerful players in the media and foreign adversaries hellbent on perpetuating a ruse, making sure the ones who get outsized attention are the misfit toys, the loudmouths, the jaded children clamoring to get on a train headed out into a desert full of tumbleweed and Gila monsters, the ones on some mission to fuel a myopic beeline back to “simpler times,” i.e. when white people ruled, and Christianity had a vibrant, steepled presence on every corner.

How else to explain a Republican Party that spends so little time working on substantive legislation and considers Democrats the enemy, while pouring all its energies into baseless, politically motivated efforts to impeach the Homeland Security Chief, and the President!

This is the example the rest of the world sees: children at play, preoccupied with overtly vengeful efforts to distract from the sad reality of a party bereft of a sense of direction, a party without substance, splintered by a faction who dares call itself the “Freedom” Caucus. Motivated in no small part by fear and self-interest, spooked by ogres and apparitions. A dark, unwelcoming conservatism bogged down by ignorance masquerading as patriotism, and religious faith that has lost its way.

Of course, America is not without other voices, more rational and equally insistent on being heard. One might harbor enough optimism to dare believe that these will carry the day, but not without a slog through the mud first.