It used to be when someone said “white supremacy” I’d think “Oh, like the KKK” but now I think “Oh, like breakfast cereal.”

“They won’t listen to scientists or Al Gore, maybe they’ll listen to… some random kid!”

They’re pea-brains and virulent anti-Semites, but I’m not sure what harm they would have done by visiting.

So is it just way too late to tell Randy Newman he doesn’t have a very good singing voice?

If Ilhan Omar is boycotting Israel but then had to spend a week in Israel, wouldn’t she starve to death?

Just when I thought Trump couldn’t possibly be any dumber, he goes and does something like plots to buy Greenland and TOTALLY REDEEMS HIMSELF!

Can we stop pretending either party cares about bigotry?

Or, to put it another way, if caring about bigotry were a golf ball, winning elections would be the sun.

Argument I will not listen to:
“This politician you say is horrible is good actually.”
You make that argument, you’re everything wrong with society.
What I will listen to:
“This politician you say is extra horrible is really just regular politician horrible.”

Man, I honestly thought we were done with the whole Snopes saga and then they commission a friggin’ survey asking if people believe our articles.

Snopes has turned my daughter against me.
“Maybe you shouldn’t make fun of people.”
“I don’t make fun of people. I make fun of politicians.”

My 3yo: “Can you put on the kid’s version of Ain’t Nobody Tell Me Nothing?”

Why are there so many nazis in Portland?

Antifa gets rid of nazis by making them feel redundant.

Ridiculing antifa makes you pro-nazi in the same way ridiculing a bunch of LARPers running around a park makes you pro-orc.

Winchester is almost seven months old, but the other kids still act like they’ve never seen a baby before every time we get him up from a nap.

They call themselves “Proud Boys”? That’s the name they came up with?

It’s hard to believe the people who think Trump is this genius who can never do wrong and the people who think antifa are brave freedom fighters are two different groups as the detachment from reality seems so similar.

I don’t know why companies hire big name stand up comedians for their ads and then apparently write a bunch of unfunny lines for them to say.

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
“But what if we called it an ‘anti-rose’?”
“Oh. Then it would be something else entirely.”

How to Beat Donald Trump:
Try not to be worse than him.

My daughter asked why dollars are valuable. That’s a hard one to explain. I tried the “shared fiction” explanation, but eventually told her “Just try not to think about it too hard or the whole system will collapse.”

If they want to fight fascism, shouldn’t they be backing up the people in Hong Kong?

Why are we still talking about slavery? We ended slavery in the 80s with the “Don’t do slavery” slogan.

The Joe Rogan thing is kind of odd from the outside.
“Oh yeah. He’s like a comedian, I think. I know I’ve heard of him. So he has a podcast? That must be pretty niche.”

I try not to comment on people’s appearances, but I just can’t help it this time: What happened to Al Sharpton? It’s like his body just shrunk. He looks like a bobble head.

There are lots of reasons to criticize Israel that have nothing to do with anti-semitism… but 95% of the criticism they receive is because of anti-semitism.

Doing movie break between show binging, so watching the Rambo movies with my wife. I warned her the first one is way different than you’d think, but it’s all dumb action schlock after that. Never seen the 4th one.
I know this one is the “best” one and I should be enjoying it more, but I really just want to see Rambo kill a bunch of commies like he does in 2 and 3.

I liked the way this review explained the robot Feeb from Hellbender. He’s a robot bound by Asimov’s three laws, but does everything he can to go against the spirit of those laws.

I think it would take a lot to convince the right that any time the left are talking about race they’re not just using it as a partisan cudgel.

Man, I was just telling my wife, “I sure could use another Spider-Man reboot.” So what a great day.

“Also, I’m really curious about what happened to Trinity and Neo after the end of the 3rd Matrix movie.”
“After they died and all the fun was sucked out of that franchise?”
“Yeah.”

“Mr. Anderson, welcome back. We missed you.”
“Really?”
“No. Are you sure you don’t want to spend your time doing another John Wick instead?”

How a real president would have handled it:
“I would like to buy Greenland.”
“We don’t want to sell it.”
“I never asked if you wanted to sell it.”

Suffice to say, if the Trump presidency ends with Greenland still in Denmark’s hands, then it was a failed presidency.

If you hear “Chick-fil-A” and your first thought is “They hate gay people!” you live in a bubble.

“So, Goldfinger, do you expect me to talk?”
“No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”
“I don’t have time for that.”

I heard a story that broke my heart. A family had an agreement with a mother to adopt her child, but the child had a birth diagnose of Down Syndrome and the family dropped out. It was made less sad that I heard this from the family who immediately agreed to adopt the boy.
Having a special needs child isn’t easy, but I pray to God I’m up to the task. I don’t think you can do a greater thing in life than make a child feel loved and wanted.

Apparently a lot of people read the 2nd Amendment as “Now let us take a break from listing individual rights to mumble something about militias. Please ignore.”

Wealth is immoral. Let me be burdened with your sins.

Did people just make up this whole thing about The Hunt being about liberals slaughtering MAGA types? There’s none of that in the trailer. And if that is the premise, the liberals are clearly the bad guys.
Or if the production company spread this rumor, bravo on stealth marketing.

I dream of a world where partisanship is considered as big a moral failing as racism.

We need to stop the white supremacists. We also need to stop the not quite as bad but still awful “whites are in my top three.”
Don’t rank the races, people.

Seems like any law designed to stop a bad person from buying a gun could only ever have a marginal effect even if extremely effective since there’s like 400 millions guns out there already purchased.

Of the things sold at Walmart that kill people, would their guns even make the top ten?

I once bought a gun at Walmart. While living in Florida, got an automated phone call from police that there had been break-ins in the area. So I said to myself, “I should own a shotgun.”
So I went to Walmart and I think it cost $200 for a basic pump action shotgun. I think there would have been a waiting period for a background check or something, but it was waived since I had a concealed carry permit.
I bought a box of shells with it. I still have them all as I’ve never fired the thing. It’s not really something you take to an indoor range, is it?
To me, the great thing about a pump action shotgun is it chambers a round really loudly and everyone knows what that sound is.

I hope my son doesn’t end up as absent minded as me. He’s only stepped on the baby three times so far.

“Whoops. Sorry guys. First day as suicide watch guard. I’ll do better tomorrow.”

I read Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and it was nothing like the movie.

That’s pretty damning.

I think at this point we’re less angry at the Clintons and more angry at ourselves for not watching them more closely.

I was just thinking: Who are movie novelizations aimed at? People who would rather read than watch a movie but are still are interested in movies?
I remember reading the novelization of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie as a kid. Action was not as fun in that.

Been meaning to mention that The Pursuit, a documentary by Emergent Order about
Arthur Brooks and free markets, is now on Netflix. I highly recommend it. It’s an exploration of capitalism and its effect (good and bad) on people around the world.
Arthur Brooks is obviously very pro free markets, but what really impressed me with it was him talking with socialists where he was just listening — going at them with the attitude of what are these people right about. I.e, don’t watch The Pursuit expecting the owning of libs.

A pretty amazing thing about my 3yo is she has a couple stuffed animals she wants at bedtime, but she can always tell me exactly where each one is despite always leaving them in different places. I don’t have that memory.
“Can you get me Woofy and Bun Bun, pweese? Woofy is on the couch in the living room and Bun Bun is on the white table in the kitchen.”
She never knows where her shoes are, though.

We can’t use ethnic slurs against Italians anymore? Then who’s left we can use slurs against? The Irish?

I’m a quarter-Italian. I can call people Fredo; you can’t.

Maybe, just maybe, people aren’t against abortion because of white supremacy or because they want to control women but instead oppose abortion for the extremely obvious reasons.
The reasons people are both for and against abortion are fairly obvious and the reasons people plainly state, and to pretend it is all about something else just shows an uncomfortability with dealing with the actual arguments.

Great news! The Hellbender audio book is going into production and should be ready by around the end of the month. We have a professional with a huge vocal range working on it, so I’m very excited to see how it turns out.
This was the first audio book where I got to listen to auditions and pick the narrator. Thanks for all the support so far; there wasn’t originally going to be an audio book but the book has done really well.

As appalling as Trump is, it seems like one shouldn’t have to sacrifice all his integrity to oppose Trump, but in practice it is apparently very hard.

“Stop the presses! Stop the presses! We’re getting ratioed on Twitter!”
All the news that won’t upset Twitter mobs.

I’m reading a book on gross motor skills for children with Down syndrome and it makes everything from rolling over to crawling to standing seem so complicated I’m not sure how any of our other kids learned how to do any of it.
I guess that’s part of the point, though: These are all extremely complex movements involving lots of subtle balance and other issues that we usually never need to think about. If you have to break it down step by step, it’s complicated.

Question for dogs who tilt their head when something confuses them: Has that ever helped?

The SMOD is going to wait until we solve climate change.

If you want something to be crazy expensive, have the government help people pay for it.

If you guys keep watching these debates, they’ll keep having them.

I finished Endgame. It was good!
I’m not really sure no the extend of Captain Marvel’s powers, though. Seems like everything would have been really easy if she just stuck around.

Kamala Harris is like Oprah, but instead of everyone getting a free car, they get prison.

Yes, Trump is unbelievably awful, but we spent billions of dollars back in 2016 to find a president and he was the best we could come up with.

Seriously, though, Chick-fil-A does great food and customer service, and the people trying to make them into a political entity are making up a battle just to lose it.

UHF is available free if you have Amazon Prime. Time to find out if that’s a movie I only liked because I was a dumb kid.

I’m so libertarian, I bristle every time I use the word “free.”

BTW, remember when Weird Al Yankovich’s American Pie parody about The Phantom Menace came out and he suddenly didn’t have glasses or a mustache anymore? Man, it took me years to accept that.

Got Endgame with Bonus Features on Amazon video, but it’s just one over 7 hour long movie file. No sections or anything you can quickly move between. No way to navigate on a Roku except fast forward. Gives me vague memories of using a VCR.

Though I had an NES and played both Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros 3 when they both came out, I notice I get the most nostalgia feeling for the Super Mario World mode in Mario Marker 2. I was 12 when that came out.
BTW, if you want to check out my Mario Maker levels, my Maker ID is WX4-YQD-22G. In a recent one, I try to bring back the fear of Mario’s first enemy. It’s very conceptual.

Using ACX to get an Audible version of Hellbender. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I just put it up yesterday morning and already have 20 auditions to go through. Hopefully I can find someone good as I think it could be even funnier with the right performance.

We have significant amounts of people on the right and left espousing horrible ideas I thought we left back in the 20th century, and I don’t think either party has someone who will forcefully speak out against both.

I hear the term “common sense gun legislation,” but I haven’t seen any that reflects common sense. There are 400 million guns in this country. If your bill operates under the assumption you can successfully keep people from obtaining guns, then common sense was not a co-signer.

All you people who are yelling at Trump even though he said exactly what you want him to say are convincing me you don’t care about white nationalism or mass shootings — you only care about stupid partisanship.

Finding a narrator for Hellbender isn’t easy. More than half the people who’ve auditioned through ACX seem like they’d do a good job. And now I’ve heard the same part of my book read 100 times and hate my own writing.
I’m just kidding. It’s still hilarious.

If the concern really is 30-50 feral hogs coming after your kids, then I want an AR-15 with one of those 90 round drum magazines.
I don’t think I’d trust myself to one shot, one kill in that situation with feral hogs running everywhere. I’d probably also need a second 90 round magazine as backup. Man, where would I keep all that?
Man, I’d be happy to save my kids, but 180 rounds of .223? That has to be uber expensive.

I know your kids are being threatened, but a range of 30-50 is a pretty large margin of error on your estimation on the number of feral hogs.

“Do you want to scream at Trump or actually solve prob–”
*can’t finish the rest of the sentence because the person is already screaming at Trump*

I don’t trust anyone’s outrage anymore. And the louder people scream, the more I assume they’re trying to cover up they’re just being partisan.

These easily angered screaming idiots know what’s best for society and society should conform.

I think a key to 2020 will be whether more Americans feel personally targeted by Trump or the left.

Trump’s supporters take license from the president’s behavior to be awful people. Trump’s detractors take license from the president’s behavior to be even worse people.

*Bernie Sanders walks up to a death row inmate being marched to the execution chamber*
“I know you’re probably a little busy, but why don’t you quickly fill out this absentee ballot.”

Sure the Clintons killed a lot of people back in the day to secure their political power, but I don’t think it’s fair to judge that based on modern standards.

“I’ll swallow your soul!”
-Disney executive looking at a beloved animated feature and contemplating a live action remake

You’re going to be right most of the time if you just assume the thing everyone is getting outraged by is overblown.

I got my first likes for a course I made in Mario Maker 2. I feel so accomplished.
I find the tutorials for level design on Mario Maker 2 quite fascinating. It’s just interesting to here the heuristics on what make an enjoyable level spelled out.
It reminds me of how I played a director’s commentary mode of Portal that explained how levels were shaped by tester feedback. The Companion Cube came about because so few solved a puzzle that required them to carry around a cube from the beginning of the section.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
-Bozo the Clown

Giving the left credit for being right about racism feels a bit like if someone fired indiscriminately into a crowd and then you give him a thumbs up because one of the people he hit ended up being a pedophile.

Winchester is 6 months old now. I don’t know what challenges lie ahead, but I feel so lucky he has three older siblings that are obsessed with him.

#ChristianPrivilege
Being used to absolutely no one caring when you say “I’m offended.”

When I first married, we lived an hour for Orlando. We bought a season pass to Disney World and went many times, usually ending in Epcot for dinner. I am looking forward to eventually going back with all my kids, though.
Man, it was nice exploring Disney World with no rush. If you didn’t have time for something, you’d just say, “Eh. I’ll see it next time.” Also met other season passers who knew all these hidden little secrets about the park.

I’ve been to Baltimore once. All I remember is I had a crab cake. I think it was good.
There. I’ve contributed to the discussion.

My 3yo drew the solar system. I love how she strove for color accuracy. I mean our seas somehow ended up purple (wrong crayon?), but she specifically didn’t color in the sun (because it’s white).

Student loan forgiveness doesn’t make sense to me unless it’s the colleges paying back the loans.

I had only contact watched Veronica Mars—my wife binged it multiples times and I just caught bits and pieces of each season here and there—but the new season on Hulu was great. I think that’s the first Hulu original I’ve watched.
My wife is very upset by the ending while I don’t have the emotional investment.

The assertion is that Trump, who constantly yells at everyone who disagrees with him, maybe yells at minorities a bit more. All I can say to that is “maybe?”

No matter how much Trump lowers the bar, the Democrats limbo right under it.

“I know how to defeat Trump: We’ll rally around how great Baltimore and Al Sharpton are!”

Even more than 2016, it seems like 2020 will be a contest of who is trying to lose more.

Why are the Democrats trying to reverse Milkshake Duck Al Sharpton?

Man, four kids is a lot of kids. Interestingly, it makes me feel wealthy.

If they can get Beyond Meat to be cheaper than meat, then you have something. Until then, it’s just a novelty.

I get that some people do take The Babylon Bee headlines seriously–no matter how ridiculous they are–as happens to The Onion and others. But the only reason the The Babylon Bee gets dinged for it is that The Onion happens to be more well known.
You could clearly label ever piece satire, but when you’re explicitly told that a clearly satirical headline is satire, it starts you on the wrong foot with the audience, like you thought they were too dumb to figure it out.

I still remember the first time Snopes really went after
The Babylon Bee, which was before I started writing for the Bee. It was for the article “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication” which I refuse to believe anyone thought was real.
Still, the Bee ended up getting a warning from Facebook because the Snopes dinged them as fake news. It was insane.

Trump and Ilhan Omar are both horrible, bigoted people, but they’re our horrible, bigoted people.

“Can the ACLU sue him for hate speech?” seems like something that should go in the hall of fame of dumb comments, but considering the ACLU’s regression, it may one day happen.

If someone can’t produce $15 worth of value an hour, it should be illegal to hire him.

All I remember about Top Gun is how I could never successfully land on the air craft carrier. But I think that was the NES game.
Seriously, landing on a real air craft carrier can’t be as hard as landing on one in the Top Gun NES game.

Raising the minimum wage is the perfect fake caring. It puts all the burden on a few businesses most of the wealthy left don’t care about, and if it just makes thing worse for the poor — as predicted — they’ll never know or care.

I’m not going to watch the Cats trailer and you can’t make me.

“So your 2020 choice: What’s worse — a socialist or a racist?”
“And we’re choosing who to send to prison?”
“No. Who will be president.”
“Oh.”

I swear, if voting were mandatory, you’d need to send the National Guard if you really wanted my input.

If Republicans all denounced a Republicans as racist, that might mean something. But Democrats calling a Republican racist is just white noise and doesn’t mean anything to anyone.

Just to update, Winchester is almost 6 months old now. According to his physical therapist, he’s tracking with typical babies on physical development (though I think his head control is a little behind). We just started him on solid foods, and he seems to really like bananas.

The hierarchy for him is still Mommy >>>>> Daddy, but I’m working on it.

The biggest lie of any politician — and the one you should absolutely not fall for — is “I know what I’m doing.”

I’ve never quite understood what “Seb Gorka” is and you’re not going to make me find out.

My prediction for 2020 is that no matter who wins, we’re going to end up with a worse president than we have now.

If you want to chill about politics, you just have to learn to accept that things are going to be bad no matter what. It’s like when I’m stuck outside in a downpour, I don’t run. You’re going to get soaked either way, so might as well be calm about it.

Am I missing something, because it just seems really weird that someone from Somalia is obsessed with Israel. What is even the relation between those two countries?

I haven’t finished reading The Brothers Karamazov yet, but I’m pretty sure Hellbender is better than it. I’m over a thousand pages into that Russian novel, and I’ve only laughed out loud once (“we’ve adopted the metric system, you know”).

Maybe it’s a little late to ask this, but what is Elvis’s song “Hound Dog” about?
I think I got the gist of “Jailhouse Rock,” though.

Trump might be the most successful president ever, as he’s kept all his campaign promises: wrestle an alligator, bomb Belgium, tax cut

Man landing on the moon ten years before I was born felt like this promise during my childhood of great things to come… though it never did. Perhaps my children are of the generation that will go to Mars, though.

If you’re obsessed with banning plastic straws, you’re not an environmentalist. You’re an irritant.

Oh. Good. They’re making more Marvel movies. I like those.

I didn’t get The Brothers Karamazov. I thought it would add up to more. The trial part at the end lost me. And despite the length, I didn’t feel I got to know Ivan well enough.
A few parts evoked real emotion, but it was all disconnected. And I liked the sentiment it ended on, even if I didn’t really get how it tied into everything.
And again, despite the length, I think my novel Hellbender has a thousand times more laughs.

Saw Justice League as it was finally available to rent digitally after HBO or Showtime or something had it exclusive. It was entertaining but dumb.
The villain, Steppenwolf, was like the uber generic villain. Almost felt like a placeholder. “Interesting villain goes here.”
And one of my main takeaways was that, while I like Amy Adams, I do not like her as Lois Lane. She’s too soft. Lois is supposed to have a hard edge to contract with Clark Kent’s midwestern earnestness.
Anyway, the whole thing just felt like they didn’t try very hard. Villain wants to destroy the world for some reason, so they had to stop him—which mainly meant waiting for Superman to show up. He kinda disproved the whole “we need a team” thing. Just need Superman.

What I also just saw, though, was Shazam. That was fun and very enjoyable. Funny, but also got superhero chills at one point (I think I’m borrowing that phrase from Half in the Bag).
Superhero chills is that feeling you get when the hero is finally stepping up to be the hero he’s meant to be. I like Marvel movies, but they seem to be missing that. Last other example I can think of with that was Wonder Woman.
Next movies I’m waiting to rent digitally are John Wick 3 and Endgame—though that one might finally trick me into buying it digitally so I can see it weeks sooner.

Mr. Rogers is the Chick-fil-A of people.

“Ha! AOC was crying over a parking lot!”
POLITIFACT: “False, haters, we checked a satellite image and it was an empty road.”
I might be paraphrasing
James Taranto, but fact checks are like editorials but dumber.

“Wow. AOC is crying completely real tears over what she’s seeing. Should maybe we point the camera at it and take a picture?”
“Nah. I don’t see what that would add to the story.”

Reviews are important. You can tell me how great my novel is, but that doesn’t help me — I already read it and know it’s great. You need to tell other people. So I can get their money.

If you didn’t know, lots of episodes of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood are available to you if you have Amazon Prime.
For if you’re sick of the kids watching ponies and bad CGI and whatnot.

So is that Harriet Tubman movie a prequel that takes place in the John Wick universe?

BTW, I think Rutger Hauer’s Blind Fury is a fun movie if you haven’t seen it. It’s sort of an American version of Zatoichi with a blind Rutger Hauer taking on mobsters with a cane sword.
He got blinded in Vietnam and the natives there taught him to use a samurai sword for some reason even though I don’t think that’s a thing in Vietnam. It has John Locke from Lost in it (but he’s a coward).
I think I first heard of the film as either Siskel or Ebert listed it as a guilty pleasure. I also remember there’s a scene where thugs try to steal a car from an old lady and she pulls a gun on them, causing them to complain about the need for gun control. Subversive!
I liked the Blind Fury so much, I bought it on DVD a while ago but had to buy it as a double feature with Rutger Hauer’s Omega Doom, which is yet another Yojimbo ripoff but extremely terrible.

For the Nintendo Switch Lite, if it’s handheld only, is it really a “Switch”? What’s it switch into?

Can you vehemently oppose Trump without becoming worse than him? The evidence keeps point to “No.”

Everyone should just lackadaisically oppose Trump like me, the smartest, most reasonable man on the internet.

The only thing Jim Hopper did wrong was not shoot even more Commies. #FatRambo

For you youngins, Commies were the Nazis of the 80s.

Both political parties are falling apart and it’s great. How do we keep that going?

How come you can make like hundreds of different cheeses out of cow’s milk but only the one out of goat’s milk and it can barely hold itself together? What’s wrong with goats?

So who is the best Stranger Things character? It’s Dustin, right?

Some people get upset if they have a child with Down syndrome because it’s not what they’re expecting, but let me tell you: No child is going to be what you’re expecting. They’ll all be much more than that. No person is small enough to fit in your imagination.

The Lion King remake does seem like the most pointless of the live action remakes (which are all already kind of pointless) since it’s not really live action, but just an inferior type of animation for telling the story.

My 3yo is becoming so bossy. Whatever happened to that #BanBossy campaign where they tried to teach little girls to stop being so bossy?

Man, just stepped outside for a minute. Thank you air conditioning. #Blessings

It may be out of fashion, but I still blame all our societal problems on hippies.

So is there like “progressive privilege” where if you think you have the right politics, you feel like you can get away with any behavior?

The “AR” in “AR-15” stands for “AR-15 Rifle.”

With the way Trump has completely torn apart both parties, is he the worst president ever or the greatest president ever?

Little more than halfway through The Brothers Karamazov now. Plot-wise… it’s a little meandering.

The Democrats tearing each other apart, calling each other racist, has to be one of the most delightful things I’ve seen in politics in ages. It’s like all the angels in Heaven are smiling down upon us.

I don’t know why Shakespeare is considered so great. I read through one of his “comedies” — A Midsummer Night’s Dream — and I only laughed out loud twice. I literally laughed more times watching The Hangover.
Maybe Shakespeare is good at some things, but I really doubt he could have gotten hired to write for something like 30 Rock.

The “AR” stands for “Aramalite” which is German for “assault rifle.”

What would happen if Armalite made an AR-16? Society would collapse!

My 3yo kept begging me to play Mario with her, and I am not made of stone.

Scientists theorize that an AR-27 would be dangerous enough to destroy the whole universe.

Believing there are experts who can confirm what the correct politics are is a childishness on the level of believing in a tooth fairy.

So are really the only two choices people crammed into horrible detention centers or open borders?

Personally, I’m fine with tons more people coming here, but it’s like with people coming to Texas from California: Remember why you left.

Funny how The Brothers Karamazov talks a little bit about the folly of equating and Christianity and socialism. Eh, nothing new under the sun.

Man at supermarket was apologizing for his kids’ behavior (which I didn’t care about). Found out they’re his grandkids whom he had gotten out of a shelter in another state. Wish I gave him more words of encouragement; hardly a greater good you can do than give kids a good home.
It’s tough being a Christian and an introvert. You want to lift people’s spirits up, but you’re not very good at it.

I hate to say it, but my 3yo’s drawing of our family is a wee bit creepy.

Didn’t help that when she handed it to me, she whispered, “Seven days.”

*Democrats tear each other apart, calling each other racist*
MOST REPUBLICANS: *sit back laughing*
TRUMP: “No one is paying attention to me!”

Instead of apologizing for his tweets, Trump will just wait until everyone’s forgotten about it because he’s done something even worse.

So it’s over halfway through The Brothers Karamazov that you finally get plot stuff happening, most of the book so far just being setup (though it does kind of warn you about that).
My opinion so far is that Dimitri and Grushenka are perfect for each other as they both cray cray.

Funny how The Good Place started specifically saying it’s not the Christian version of Heaven, but after 3 seasons it stumbles on to why you need Jesus.
“It’s impossible for anyone to earn their way into the Good Place!”
*Jesus appears*
“Exactly. But maybe there’s another way.”

Maybe the House of Representatives can pass another resolution broadly condemning hate and bigotry without specifically naming anyone.

In case you didn’t know, I write for The Babylon Bee. If you see an article from them that makes you say “Man, they’ve sure gotten political. I miss the old Babylon Bee,” I wrote that!

We’re not getting rid of anyone here in America — the racists, the commies, the trolls — and we’re just all going to have to learn to live together. We’re going to keep moving into the future, and it’s no man left behind.

Re: this article, I’ve noticed that while you see a lot of criticism of Christians, you see little criticism of Jesus. That tells me people don’t look at his words very deeply, because if you’re not a Christian, you disagree with him on some big things.
Jesus had a lot of haters in his day, but now we act like everybody’s cool with him. But they ain’t.

This impeachment stuff is starting to be like when they kept teasing that Niles and Daphne were going to get together in Fraiser. I don’t what season finale they’re saving that for.

There are lots of bad racists out there, but part of the problem is the left doesn’t have any language left to describe them that they didn’t already use up on Mitt Romney.

I’m doing it. I’m reading The Brothers Karamazov.
I usually take no more than 10 days to read a book, but I’m giving myself twice as long for The Brothers Karamazov. Light summer reading!

Every dentist office I’ve talked to seems confused about their being dental insurance on our medical insurance even though pediatric dental has been an Obamacare requirement for years (my sister has it and she doesn’t even have kids).
It’s fairly useless since it doesn’t kick in until you meet your medical deductible, but hey we did that this year thanks to the NICU in January.

What happens if some hate groups adopt the Nike swoosh as their symbol?

I hope the title of Trump’s parade is “Tank You for Your Service.”
I guess even more clever if it would be a parade of tanks from all the different wars and they called it “Tanks for the Memories.”

Republicans are going to get the monopoly on American flags and tanks and Democrats are going to get the monopoly on feeling bad about everything.

So what’s happened here? Betsy Ross once made the “OK” symbol with her hand?

I’m still having trouble buying this “the Betsy Ross American flag is racist!” is a real thing and not just a bad right-wing parody insinuating the left hate America.

With The Brothers Karamazov, everyone has this big two part name I have no idea how to pronounce that I just recognize by sight. Everyone also has a nickname which is used interchangeably to keep you on your toes. Still, 100 times easier to read and follow than The Silmarillion.
I’m reading the Constance Garnett translation, which is a very old and traditional one but I’m finding it quite readable.

We should plant the American flag on more things in space than the moon.

We can’t take American freedom for granted. We must constantly hunt down commies and nazis and imprison them in the Phantom Zone.

When they said Trump was going to have tanks, I assumed all of D.C. was going to be flooded with tanks, them rolling over cars as America-hating weenies fled in terror.

There’s not a better era or a better country to live in, you lucky people you.

I always mute instead of block. It’s hard to imagine someone doing something so bad I would deny them my tweets.

Arguably, Communism is worse than Nazism because after the Nazis murdered millions, people were like “This is a really bad thing” but after Communism murdered millions, lots of people are still like “This just needs a few more tweaks.”
It’s like we have a bunch of political raccoons rummaging through the 20th century’s trash.

Complaints about capitalism are always on the order of “This goose that lays the golden eggs bit my finger. Kill it!”
“Sure, I’m unimaginably wealthy compared to how I used to be, but my finger hurts. This is a complete failure of golden egg-ism.”

Why won’t Pelosi step aside and recognize that the future of her party is young, moronic antisemites?

Don’t you love politics? It’s all about rooting for the terrible to be able to stop terribler.

Stranger Things 3 definitely gets extra 80s points for adding a Soviet threat this time.

My infant eyes saw the last six months of the 70s, which means I’m part of the greatest (recent) generation, Gen X. We got a little angsty in the 90s, but other than that we’ve done nothing wrong and are pure and blameless.

I love Erica, the nerd-hating Commie-fighter. “Can’t spell America without Erica.” #StrangerThings3

I enjoyed the second season of Stranger Things, but it definitely made some missteps (I think the biggest was having Eleven be separate from everyone all season). The third season has been pure fun so far, though.

*our 3yo dumps Honey Nut Cheerios all over the counter and floor*
“What are you doing?”
“I’m just making me an hors d’oeuvre.”
*she notices our confusion*
“A snack is an hors d’oeuvre.”

This Bible verse made me laugh out loud today.
Proverbs 23:13 “Do not withhold correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.”
There’s a lot of hand wringing now about spanking, but the Bible is all like “Eh, it ain’t gonna kill him.”

Every day, Win grows more powerful.

Stranger Things 3 harkens back to when Americans were tougher and if a small town got invaded by Commies—like in Red Dawn—they just handled that themselves and didn’t feel the need to get the government involved.

Future generations will have technology and advantages we can’t even imagine that they’ll whine about and take for granted.
If someone from 200 hundred years ago suddenly got the life you have right now, he’d be more ecstatic than someone winning a hundred millions dollars. So can you be just a little bit happy about your good fortune?

I have a new novel out!
It’s called Hellbender. It’s more satirical than my previous novels. And @AXECOP made the cover. But it now. Only $4.99 for ebook (cheap). If you get the paperback, Amazon will give you the ebook free.
Trump is not mentioned in it. So if you’re like “I need more things to be all about Trump!” then I’m sorry; I have failed you.
What it does have is robots and katanas and Satan and explosions and a cube with bunnies on it — all quality story content that is lacking from the novel I’m currently reading, The Brothers Karamazov. So buy my novel now!

The dream is one day the American men win the World Cup and then like half of the U.S. is completely unaware of it.

The Brothers Karamazov is interesting, but the patronymics are starting to drive me a little crazy. It seems like such a cumbersome way to talk to each other. If there’s only one Dimitri in the room, you don’t have to keep saying “Dimitri Fyodorovich.”
Maybe I should try the patronymic thing. That would make me Frank Frankovich.

Stranger Things 2 wasn’t bad, it just was more of the same and didn’t have the specialness of the first season. Season 3 recaptured that charm, though. It was excellent.
And I completely forgot about The Neverending Story song. That used to be such an ear worm.

My fear was that when Eric Swalwell dropped out, two new candidates would enter the race making the Democratic primary like a hydra.

Just for fun, I wrote a free short story called “The Demon Capitalism.” It’s sort of an exploration of the Faustian bargain at the heart of capitalism from the perspective of a struggling, feudal-era farmer. Very intellectual.

Man, some people get angry when you make fun of soccer. It’s either that or ignore it. Making fun of it seems more respectful — it’s acknowledging it exists.

I wish a cat fight is where you threw angry cats at each other.

How could lots of people die from repealing Obamacare when there wasn’t some big drop in the death rate when it was enacted?

Trump has been baited into treating soccer as if it’s a real sport.

I remember trying to watch soccer when South Africa was hosting the World Cup and they had those vuvuzelas buzzing constantly over the slow-paced spectacle and they were all like “We enjoy this!” Then it became clear: Soccer is just a joke the rest of the world plays on the U.S.
Yes, the whole world is like “Soccer is the greatest! We all love it!” and then they laugh and laugh every time they trick an American into watching it. We keep falling for it. That’s why the World Cup is every four years–give us enough time to forget last time we fell for it.

What are they going to ask Mueller?
“So what did your report say?”

Things sound horrible, but I can’t trust anyone who is telling me it’s horrible, so maybe it’s not as bad as it seems.

I don’t care who is president as long as the majority of Americans are clear he or she is a dishonest idiot who shouldn’t be trusted.

Bernie Sanders has not promised to refrain from burning down the whole convention with his psychic powers if pigs blood is dumped on him.

I think the only question for me with the Democratic primary is will the eventual winner be so terrible as to actually get me to vote for Trump.

I don’t really get the whole citizenship question thing.

The citizenship question seems like voter id in that a small, vocal group is like “This is the most racist thing ever!” and most Americans are like “That isn’t already a requirement?”

When there’s a good quote I want to use in a speech, I always google it to make sure it wasn’t first said by Adolf Hitler.

The far left keep demonstrating they’re far more hateful than their targets. And the thing is, no one is afraid the KKK are somehow going to seize power again, but they are afraid the far-left might manage it.

I don’t know how much you’d have to pay me to watch one of these primary debates. I might watch the general elections ones considering whoever the Dem nominee is. The ones between Trump and Hillary were entertaining.

To use a reference all of American can get, The Office, the Democratic debates is like a debate of a bunch of Michaels and Dwights with a couple Kevins thrown in and maybe a Toby (though he doesn’t stand a chance).
Man, I would vote for a Stanley. “Keep cool with Stanley.”

If after the debate, Kamala Harris says “Hey, would you all like to go score some drugs together,” don’t fall for it. She’s a narc.

They’re all idiots, so the goal should be to elect the one most likely to do the least amount of damage. I think hands down that’s Yang.

BTW, I’m still willing to be elected president if you want. On day one, I’ll find a nice quiet place in the White House and get to work on my novels. If you leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.

So is any Democratic candidate going to be honest enough to say “Let’s have open borders!” or are they all just going to weasel argue for that?

If I was a super villain who wanted to starve billions, I’d lobby to make food a “right” and have government take over food production.

I’m hearing rumors Swalwell has surged to 0.2%

Marvel needs to space their movies better. There was no way to see Captain Marvel on video before seeing Endgame in the theaters and now spoiler filled Spider-Man: Far from Home is out before Endgame is on video.
(there was no way for my wife and I to see Endgame in the theater with a newborn so still waiting for video)

That Yesterday movie looks neat, but the universe I’d do best in would be one where no one has ever heard of The Simpsons. I’d be the funniest person ever. Though I assume that story would end with me being murdered by John Swartzwelder.

Billboard I just saw:
California too late.
Texas still great.
Vote Republican.

The left reduced the term racist to mean “someone I disagree with” and they’re quickly doing the same for white supremacist and white nationalist.

I tried watching that Neo Genesis Evangelical on Netflix, but it was a cartoon.

flammable : inflammable :: fascist : antifascist

Just seems like so much work to be garbage people like the Charlotteville nazis or the antifa. Not only do I not want to be a horrible person, but I’d also rather stay home.
Are all the worst people in the world extroverts?

There are lots of ways to be as morally awful as a white supremacist, and there’s no reason for the far left to explore them all.

If I were president and met with Kim Jong Un, I’d probably strangle him. I’d bet the press would have a field day with that one, but I’d have a good explanation: “He was within strangling range.”
Actually, if I were president, it would probably be a good idea to keep me away from all foreign leaders. I don’t care for them. As the leader of the U.S. government, I almost wouldn’t like myself (except I’m pretty awesome).

So has anyone confirmed that Nike pulled an American flag show because Colin Kaepernick complained? It sounds like satire.
And I thought Kaepernick’s whole schtick was that he was against police injustice or something but wasn’t against the U.S.?

I’m still skeptical of this whole thing. It still sounds like something some right-wing rag made up. “Kaepernick hates America so he made Nike stop selling the shoe.”

If we don’t win this ladies European kicky ball challenge, will we be able to celebrate our country on the 4th?