Does it bother anyone else? Are there millions of people out there who daily find themselves pondering the absurdity or maybe even shaking a fist at… somebody?

Here we are, nine years after Trump descended from on high, almost four years after he was soundly beaten in the last election (and the one before that, too), a few years removed from two impeachment trials, and almost daily evidence of incompetence and delusional thinking, not to mention 4 indictments and 91 felony counts. And he’s still standing, still in our faces being loud and pathetic.

And he still has supporters who love him.

In a way, it reminds me of our kids’ first experience playing soccer. Wherever the ball was was where the entire team went. There was no position play. The same thing has been happening with Trump—wherever he is, whatever he says, the media trip over themselves to cover it, unwittingly or maybe knowingly feeding the beast.

History may rhyme, but I bet in the annals of our 248-year existence, we haven’t seen anyone quite like this guy. He deserves to be thrown out on his ear, but instead people still worship the ground he walks on.

Same old story, I guess.

The debate scenario is already taking on the character of a WWF match.

Just stop it already.

We really are a country full of drama queens, aching for a no-holds-barred shouting match between old white men, which, on the face of it, sounds ridiculous, the poster child for irrelevance. Biden’s camp is trying to set boundaries. Trump, even though he shouldn’t be anywhere near a debate stage by now, most likely will take exception to these. So we’ll see what we end up witnessing.

Call me old fashioned, but a one-on-one without an audience, only a moderator, and the threat of turning mics off if things get too loud and off-topic—this all sounds good to me. See if Trump can handle 90 minutes, or whatever the time frame will be, of an honest back and forth, a helpful and hopefully clarifying debate of real issues that will demand preparation and knowledge and a certain amount of restraint.

Yes, that’ll happen about the same time as reports of porcine flight.

First one in June, I guess, and the second one in September. Imagine the media build-up, the pre-debates debate. November 5 can’t come fast enough.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…

Senator Bob Menendez, in some alternate universe, might be squeaky clean and the victim of misplaced accusation and scorn. But Jon Stewart probably wasn’t blowing smoke on Monday night when he methodically took Menendez—and others in Congress—to task over insider trading and many a Congress person’s exposure to temptation and perks unavailable to the rest of us.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars just sitting in his house, gold bars just sitting in his house, and the suspect excuse that he needed to have that much cash hanging around because of the tenuous immigration status of his wife—who, by the way, might get thrown under the bus by her loving husband and take the heat for his being accused of being a foreign agent?

Bob should probably step down, if for no other reason than he gives the appearance of one who has been caught red-handed yet has the chilling ability to stay calm in front of the cameras and speak as if it’s all a mere misunderstanding.

I think this is what incenses me more than anything—that people like Menendez are so used to the power, perks and privileges that they start manifesting various levels of delusion, like they can’t be touched, can’t envision the possibility that they are the ones who have been getting away with worst practices and illegalities.

Double down and deny, deny, deny. A page straight out of the Trump playbook.

Take a hike, Bob. Rough and tumble New Jersey politics aside, your name keeps popping up as someone whose nose is pretty filthy.

It was a real Who’s Who at the Trump trial yesterday. Eric showed up, along with JD Vance and Tommy Tuberville and a couple of local Republicans who wanted to be seen with Donald-the-not-so-Great.

Wow. Such shameless deceit, not to mention pathetic opportunism. One report suggested that these ass-kissers were the surrogates brought in to say what Trump can’t say because of his gag order, which seems plausible.

Anything for the Donald, who’s hopefully grasping at straws at this point. Not that it matters much.

Oh no. Kamala Harris has dropped the f-bomb.

Stop the presses, we have our lead. The world as we know it will now come to an end, because no one on earth ever has dropped an f-bomb. So many were offended that this just can’t stand.

I suppose it is news, but it’s like no one in their own lives and conversations has ever sworn before? It might be unbecoming of a such a high-ranking official to use such language, but is it, really? If it happened all the time, that would be one thing. But most of us know that there is no word quite like the cathartic f-word that comes with a certain built-in impact and gets peoples’ attention. Ask Joe Biden, or Bill Clinton, or Lyndon Johnson, or Harry Truman, and probably a few Republicans as well.

Settle down, everyone.

I blame Trump, anyway. He’s paved the way for the use of all things coarse and juvenile, and he raises peoples’ BP enough to get eloquent people who normally choose their words carefully to throw caution to the wind and release the pent-up frustration of having to put up with such an empty-headed dolt. I’m gonna blame it on him.

Who names their child “Barron”? It means “lord of the realm,” conjures up images of nobility.

Great. Just what we need– another Trump being groomed with an attitude and a skewed sense of entitlement.

Chart your own course, kid. Don’t listen to your old man too intently. Or at all.

Here we go again—Canadian wildfires are back, fouling the air in Minnesota, and Trump is offering up another serving of schoolyard dumbness. He calls Joe Biden a moron, and Alvin Bragg “Fat Alvin.” I’m surprised even his most ardent disciples aren’t walking away, muttering, “Come on, Donald, grow up.”

Should be quite the week in news of the slimy—Michael Cohen is gonna take the stand. Maybe he’ll hold his own and put a few more nails in Trump’s coffin.

Coronal mass ejection. CME. I learned a new term from Bill Nye yesterday. Actually, I had heard of CMEs before but had never committed the phrase to memory.

There was a very powerful CME, or maybe a series of them, that began bombarding Earth on Friday, and people were sharing amazing pictures of the Aurora Borealis from places like Boston and Sturbridge, MA, and other spots around the world that usually don’t get the opportunity to see the wondrous display. I think we might have even been able to see it here in northeast PA but there was cloud cover, and we had gone to bed anyway.

Mr. Nye explained the phenomenon as geomagnetic in nature—highly charged particles are ejected from the Sun and scream through space at over a million mph. If the earth is in their path, there is a collision with our atmosphere at latitudes closer to the poles (and further south, if the discharge is potent enough), producing the display we know as the Northern Lights.

We are lucky that the assault is repelled, to one degree or another, by earth’s atmosphere, which possesses its own highly charged magnetic field, generated by the earth’s rotation and a molten iron and nickel core. I think that’s the way The Science Guy explained it…

In any event, another reason for folks to look up. And a reminder that it’s a gift to have people like Mr. Nye around who enjoy imparting knowledge and explaining, in a non-esoteric manner, what’s going on.

Some may wonder how she got elected in the first place. Ms. Noem has never come across as stable, to me. Unflappable, maybe, but I’ve grown to see this as symptomatic of some sort of affective deficit.

She’s amazing at keeping her cool, very disciplined. It’s what comes out of her mouth, though– as she tries to control her temper and speaks in almost a monotone– that betrays some troubling tendencies and opinions.

And lately, of course, the whole shooting her dog… and goat, and 3 horses saga, along with an imagined encounter with Kim Jong Un– and the decision to include all this in her book– has placed her center stage and given people reason to wonder about a level of desperation, and maybe her sanity. All this may get one to wonder what kind of childhood she had, what influenced her worldview and caused her to take a sharp right turn into Miller speak and Trump worship.

Ambition will bite you in the ass, on occasion, but whatever Noem is trying to sell goes way deeper than ambition. It skews into wild political notions and a creepy demeanor.  

Why let Paul Manafort’s involvement in a Chinese media deal stop you? By all means, get the band back together…

It’s obvious that Trump and the rest play by their own set of rules, that they care not even a little about the rule of law, or honor or anything else. Chaos is what they enjoy sowing, and all that matters is the power and what’s in it for them.

How ugly and self-indulgent can you get? We’re finding out. The dregs are washing up on shore, and there’s still a pulse.