“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man [and woman], see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?” – Marcus Aurelius

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 

I HATE TO AGREE WITH THIS MEME. BUT IT'S A REASONABLE REACTION TO WHAT TRUMP SAID.

 

This is the POTUS talking about an American citizen whose faith is Muslim, who has committed no crime, and who has worked hard and earned everything admirable that he's accomplished.

(It is Trump whom we should worry about, since it is HE who is the actual convicted criminal/felon!)

This sort of rhetoric coming from America's leader sickens me to my core. Our children and grandchildren are watching and listening to him! This is the man the current Republican Party believes best represents America?

Yesterday I featured a post by a Conservative (who comments on the MAGA blog, Geeez). That post exposes the bigotry against Jewish people that festers in many parts of the MAGAsphere. 

This meme that shows Trump insulting and slandering an American citizen running for the US Senate because of his name and religion shows us how widespread that racist rot is in the Conservative/MAGA universe.

A fish stinks from the head.

PS. Before one of my commenters arrives and dismisses this smear campaign against an American citizen's religion as "kayfabe," may I remind him that Trump has a history of being a depraved human being that reaches back into his teens. He wasn't "kayfabeing" back then. It was and is what he is.

IT NEVER DIES

 

The "The Jews control the movies, media, courts, universities, etc., etc., and that's why America is a mess" trope is still around. It has been with us since the Romans nailed Jesus to the Cross. Oh, and I forgot that "the Jews" are destroying "our traditional Christian values."

Those "traditional Christian values" unfalteringly support a man who cheated on all three wives, bragged about sexually assaulting women because he's a star, partied for decades with America's most notorious child sex traffickers/rapists, Epstein and Maxwell; and he's in the Epstein files thousands of times. Trump is a known liar, cheat, and fraudster, a convicted felon, and adjudicated sexual assaulter/rapist (judge's word), with more felony counts outstanding. He has betrayed Ukraine and cozied up to a brutal dictator, Putin. And just last week, Trump topped this misery of lewd, venal, and mendacious behavior by praising a mother who sided with her nine-year old daughter's step-father, her rapist. Trump did not condemn the political ad besmirching the woman who, as a child, endured that horrendous attack. And that's because Trump has no human decency in him, he cares only for what enriches him and gives him power.

THAT is what this benighted commenter on the Mother Ship claims are his and his fellow sailors' "Christian values" -- supporting a disgusting swine like Trump. 

The irony of invoking 'Christian values' while spreading this kind of text is staggering. Let’s look at actual history: antisemitism is a millennia-old sickness that dates all the way back to the Roman Empire, and it has been wrong every single day since. 

On this planet, Jewish people are a tiny minority—accounting for roughly 0.2% of the global population. Trying to blame a small, historically persecuted minority for the complex cultural shifts in a country of 340 million people is the oldest, laziest trick in the book. It isn't 'bold' or 'daring' to resurrect ancient Roman-era scapegoating; it's just slander. If "Sam Huntington" claims to stand for traditional values, he should start by rejecting the prejudice that has caused nothing but horror throughout history."

Sam Huntington:

Weiss is left-leaning, like Saddam Hussein was a moderate Ba’athist. The truth about Weiss is that she is just one of several very wealthy, self-loathing American Jews who now control the MSM.  I’ve noted this over the years, only to have my head handed to me for daring to suggest that American Jews are 100% behind the destruction of our traditional Christian values.  Look, I know people have made such claims before—not only here but also abroad.  I know it isn’t “all Jews,” so please spare me the blather about Jewish friends and relatives who love America.  Still, the number of Jews who continually attack our Christian values and support anti-American and pro-Arab terrorist movements, while small, remains significant—because of what they control: a mind-bending number of American media platforms.

For the record, it’s okay with me if no one cares to spend the effort investigating easily discernible truths over time—I won’t belabor the point.  Still, if the American people want their country back, they (1) need to understand where the problems lie and (2) do something about them.  What, you ask?  Well, at the head of the list, refuse to engage with those platforms and refuse to purchase products advertised on American-hating media.

IS THIS TRUMP PERFORMING "KAYFABE?"

 

Or is he in the throes of dementia and not able to censor his disturbing thoughts?

The comments below...

 

were in response to the New York Times' scathing editorial today, urging voters to reject Trump and his enablers in Congress. Trump told his MAGA cultists to pretend he's on the ballot. The NYT agreed with him and strongly advised voters to give him an incontestable message.

Here's the comment to that editorial and a follow-up comment to it:

Julio Wong El Dorado, OH · 7h ago 

This election should not be limited to a repudiation of Trump, It should be a repudiation of the Republican Party as a whole - specifically, its acquiescence to Trump; its embrace of anti-democratic and unconstitutional norms; its abandonment of truth, justice, and the social contract; and it’s corruption. Republicans up and down ballot are complicit in America’s recent decline. And they should all be held accountable at the ballot.

Jim Brokaw California · 4h ago @Julio Wong -- This! When a member of Congress takes office, they swear an oath to the United States Constitution - Not the president. Not a political party. They swear an oath to the entire nation through the Constitution. The position of being a member of Congress carries with it certain Constitutional duties and certain Constitutional privileges and powers. The Republicans in Congress have grossly and negligently broken and ignored their oaths of office by failing to do their Constitutional duty diligently and for the United States rather than their president, their party, and their own political careers. For this failing the Republicans in Congress all deserve and have earned defeat. Not all will fall in defeat in this election, but to the extent that many do lose, that they suffer the consequences of their negligence will perhaps be instructive to those who remain - and it certainly will be a restorative to the entire nation.

EVERY DAY...

 

we wake up to news about another slimy, unethical action taken by the criminal POTUS.

Here's the Trump administration's latest in dishonorable behavior:

Bishops lament White House meeting that produced photo with Trump, say session was "manipulated" and "exploited" October 26, 2026 / 8:14 AM EDT / CBS/AP

" ... We came in good faith to try to work for the betterment of our fellow human beings, to ease their suffering, to build up the common good, and to pray with a president, not to pose for a political photo opportunity to benefit the few. We should never have been put in that position by the White House. 

 "I did not go without reservations. I wish I had heeded them," Grob concluded. "Please know that I have heard these concerns, understand how I caused them, and I apologize for any damage my actions have done."

Last week we learned that Republicans Ramaswamy, Trump, and Vance were okay with and even enthused about a political ad that exploited an opponent who was raped as a young girl and whose mother sided with her daughter's rapist over her own flesh and blood. I thought that was the bottom of the sewer.

But in the most Trumpian "Hold My Beer" unscrupulous and devious way, he "trumped" himself by running a political ad these clergy never agreed to nor would have participated in.

In his rabid, malevolent deteriorating mind, even deceiving God's emissaries on Earth is not off limits.

I shudder to think what this depraved man will do next.

Shout-out to Vivek!

 

Thank you, Vivek.

There was a real fear that voters would grow complacent and tune out all the noise in the final weeks of this election. Thanks to your ad and the fallout from it, people are mobilizing everywhere to take back their country.

So thank you for the ad. And thank you for not denouncing it -- but instead spending $4 million on an ad buy to run it on television. And thank you to everyone who fell into line defending it. The polls are reflecting it in Ohio, Georgia, Texas, Maine and on. 

You've done a great service to this country by helping to expose the filth underlying this administration and its supporters. 

And to think -- not long ago you were running the Doge program with Elon Musk. Now people are asking you if you're going to have to move out of Ohio.

Please keep it up.  — 

Bill Lichtenstein

YOUR SUNDAY MOMENT OF ZEN.

 

(Snort, snort.)

“ He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory.” —Barack Obama

SATURDAY NIGHT FUNNIES

 

A break from the squalor that is currently residing in our White House.

This is what happens...

 

when a country gives a stupid, immoral  man power:

Dear America,

 

Your president is a disreputable, exploitative, unethical, morally bankrupt coward. In this nauseating post, the POTUS is actually taking the side of a mother who did not protect her little girl from being raped by her husband, her daughter's step-father. Would anyone ever dream that a POTUS would actually do something as hideously craven as this?

The Republican Party is now and will be forever associated with excusing and amplifying people who side with child rapists.

I would prefer the company of a sewer rat to his.

There are good Republicans who are not MAGA. Governor DeWine is one. So naturally Trump savaged him in his post today, because Trump is a horribly damaged human being. And our country suffers daily from his depravity.

Vivek Ramaswamy's October Surprise

 I CHECKED MY EMAIL AFTER PUBLISHING THIS POST AND FOUND A CONTRIBUTION ON THIS SUBJECT BY DAVE MILLER WHICH I INCLUDED BELOW.

By now you've probably heard about the disgusting political attack ad put out by Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and his campaign for governor of Ohio against the Democratic candidate, Amy Acton.

I've seen al lot of horrid, sleazy campaign attack ads in my lifetime, but this was so reprehensible that it shocked me to my core. And that's because as a child (6 years old) I, too, was a victim of sexual abuse. Through therapy and working hard, you get through the trauma and build a life and leave the memories in the past, where they belong.

What Ramaswamy did is beyond crossing a red line, it was inhumane and, IMO, criminal.

I found this on Facebook, and the man who wrote it explains it better than I could, since my emotions would get the better of me.

Suffice it to say that I'm not surprised Ramaswamy found a comfortable home in the current Trumpublican Party:

"An October surprise is traditionally a last minute revelation intended to expose an opponent’s weaknesses, damage their credibility, and potentially change the outcome of an election.

But in all my years, I have never witnessed an October surprise in which a candidate so effectively exposed his own moral bankruptcy, his own lack of judgment, and his own unfitness for public office.

What Vivek Ramaswamy and his campaign have done is far more revealing about his character than anything they could possibly have revealed about Amy Acton.

To take the horrific childhood trauma of a 12 year old girl, a child who endured sexual abuse and unimaginable betrayal, and exploit that suffering decades later for political advantage is, in my opinion, an extraordinary display of cruelty, opportunism, and moral failure.

And what makes it even more disturbing is that his campaign has acknowledged responsibility for the advertisement and continues to stand behind it.

Let me be perfectly clear: I cannot promise anyone that Amy Acton will be a great governor. No one can make such a promise about any candidate.

But I can say this with absolute conviction: A man who demonstrates such a profound lack of compassion, decency, and moral judgment in his pursuit of power has given me every reason to believe he is unfit to exercise that power.

Elections are not simply about economic policies, political parties, or campaign promises. They are also about the moral character of the people we entrust with the future of our communities, our children, and our state.

When someone is willing to exploit the sexual abuse of a child to advance his political ambitions, I have to ask: What moral boundary would he refuse to cross once he actually holds power?

That question should frighten every Ohioan, regardless of political affiliation.

The consequences of electing someone who places political ambition above basic human decency can extend far beyond a single election or a four years term. Such leadership can gradually erode the moral standards we expect from public officials and normalize behavior that should never be acceptable.

Perhaps the greatest irony of this entire episode is that the intended victim of this October surprise may ultimately emerge stronger, while the man responsible has revealed something deeply troubling about himself.

Vivek Ramaswamy intended to make Amy Acton the issue. Instead, he has made his own character the issue.

And for me, that may be the most revealing October surprise I have ever witnessed.

Ohio deserves better. Much, much better."

DAVE MILLER:

Maybe the readers of PE can explain exactly what Republicans are supposed to learn from this ad.

The facts surrounding this story are horrifying.

Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton was repeatedly sexually abused by her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, her mother's husband.

In 1978, Arthur was arrested, charged and indicted for raping her. He pleaded not guilty, posted bond and then fled Ohio with his wife, Amy's mother.

He became a fugitive from justice. Warrants were issued for his arrest, but he never returned to face trial. He died in Pennsylvania in 2004.

And now, nearly half a century later, Amy's mother is publicly attacking her own daughter, calling her a liar and urging voters not to support her.

This is why America can no longer have nice things.

Because one political party, the GOP, seems to have decided there is no depth to which it will not sink, no amount of slime it will not spread, and no personal tragedy it will not exploit if doing so might help win an election.

And its supporters, desperate for any good news in a difficult political year, simply nod in approval.

So I'll ask again. What, exactly, are Republicans supposed to learn from this?