This is Mad King Donny’s reply to a question about Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis:

“not a smart person, but a somewhat vicious person, I will say. if you feel sorry for him, don’t feel so sorry for him, ’cause he’s vicious. what he did with his political opponent, and all of the people that he hurt. he hurt a lot of people, Biden, and so I really don’t feel sorry for him.”

How can anyone support a person who is this much an asshole-sociopath-narcissist? This answer would disqualify anyone else from any role in civilized society. But MAGA loves themselves some sharp-edged cruelty, and Donny delivers. He is the Sociopath-in-Chief.

And BOOM! Otega Oweh is coming back to UK for another season. Couldn’t be happier about that. It’s only 150-ish days until the first game, and I can’t wait.

Lots and lots of political news the last 36 hours, but I’ll let that slide for now. Don’t want to ruin my good mood. Now it’s time to get ready for another time and weather change, as I head east on Saturday. Looking forward to family, wet weather, flowers, tomatoes, and some golf in God’s country.

Yesterday’s Starship launch was great. All 33 Raptor engines pushing the largest rocket ever into orbit – what a sight! This was the second launch for the super-heavy booster – a big accomplishment in the program, proving reuse of the booster. And the much-anticipated second stage separation with Ship engine lightup went perfectly – the Ship looked great too on its way to orbit. But that was the end of the good news.

The Ship’s bay door wouldn’t open (blame HAL). The the first stage booster blew up just before splashdown. That wasn’t terrible, because they intentionally dropped the booster at a high rate of speed and an aggressive angle to test its strength. But then 150 miles overhead, Ship started spinning due to a propellant leak. SpaceX lost control of Ship and it disintegrated as it re-entered atmosphere over the Indian ocean.

So half a success. Flight 9 achieved some things, but both vehicles “demising” (in SpaceX’s weird vernacular) was discouraging. Block 2 of Starship has been problematic. I hope that with Musk’s re-dedication to his tech companies things will get better quickly. Though right now the planned launch for Mars in 2026 looks very, very unlikely.

***

That was yesterday. The big event for today is Otega Oweh’s decision deadline – will he go pro or return to the Cats? I hope for the latter – Oweh has the X factor. He can take over a game, and he is now a Mark Pope veteran. He would push UK’s chances of a Final Four into the stratosphere. So fingers crossed all day – Oweh, nobody loves you more than Big Blue Nation. You’ve got a chance to make history this year, so come on home!

***

Meanwhile, in the hellscape known as US politics, Mad King Donny is busy undermining the rule of law. He’s issued pardons to a random crowd of convicted felons:

• A corrupt VA sheriff, convicted of taking bribes
• Former IL governor Rod Blagovich, also convicted of accepting bribes while in office
• Former TN legislator Brian kelsey, imprisoned for campaign fund fraud
• Las Vegas councilmember Michele Fiore, convicted of financial fraud
• Weirdly, reality TV celebrities Todd and Julie Chrisley, for bank fraud and conspiracy
• Paul Walcak, who embezzled over $10M of taxpayer funds. His pardon happened after his wife donated $1M to Convict Donny, a blatant bribery itself.
• And those pardons are all on top of the worst, Trump’s pardon of hundreds of convicted Jan 6th rioters.

Convict Donny’s undermining of the rule of law is intentional. Attacks on judges, attacks on law firms, reversal of convictions, blaming judges for imaginary immigrant-fueled crime waves…it’s all part of a pattern to undermine the Judicial branch, making the Executive the only office with any federal power. The Judiciary better wake up and fight back, hard and fast, or they will find that they are irrelevant in the new US government.

Mad King Donny’s unhinged rants this Memorial Day weekend make it impossible to ignore the fact that he’s not playing with a full deck. It may be senility. It may be his diseased id completely taking over his mind. It may be both those things, along with the fact that he’s not that bright. But whatever the cause, no one in their right mind says these things.

At his West Point graduation speech, he says:

“Peace through strength, you know the term, I’ve used it a lot. Because as much as you want to fight, I’d rather do it without having to fight. I just want to look at them and have them fall. 

And that’s happening. And I’ve approved a $1 trillion investment. And that will be again the largest ever in the history of our country. 

And we are buying new airplanes, brand new beautiful planes, redesigned planes, brand new planes, totally stealth planes. I own this stuff. I own that whole stealth thing. 

I’m the one who can communicate freely this way. They don’t see it, but the other way they see it, I’m not so sure. That’s what they tell me. 

We have the best tanks anywhere in the world. We’re going to start shipbuilding again. We used to build a ship a day. 

Now we don’t build them anymore. A lot of people didn’t know much about getting things built, but that’s all I’ve done in my life is build. And we have the best missiles, we already have drones, and much, much more.”

We don’t build ships anymore? And “I own this stuff. I own that whole stealth thing”? WTF? Who says shit like that? Ships and planes – sure, that’s what US Army officers want to hear about.

And then he told the graduating cadets a nutso story about William Levitt and trophy wives:

“…a very rich, a very rich man, and then he decided to sell. And he sold his company, and he had nothing to do. He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife. Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife. It didn’t work out too well, but it doesn’t—that doesn’t work out too well, I must tell you. A lot of trophy wives. It doesn’t work out. But it made him happy for a little while, at least, but he found a new wife. He sold his little boat, and he got a big yacht, he had one of the biggest yachts anywhere in the world. He moved for a time to Monte Carlo, and he led the good life, and time went by, and he got bored and 15 years later, the company that he sold to called him, and they said, ‘The housing business is not for us.’ You have to understand when Bill Levitt was hot. When he had momentum, he’d go to the job sites every night, he’d pick up every loose nail, he’d pick up every scrap of wood, if there was a bolt or a screw laying on the ground, he’d pick it up, and he’d use it the next day and putting together a house.”

Trophy wives. That’s the profound message MKD had for our graduating military leaders.

Then there’s how he decided to “celebrate” Memorial Day with this posting on Xitter and Truth:

“HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS, WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THEM BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTALLY INSANE, THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDER, AND RAPE AGAIN — ALL PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY,”

Good to know that the President considers me and people who think like me to be “SCUM”. Once again, who says shit like that? And no, we did not have 21M people illegally enter the country in the last four years. And no, judges who oppose his illegal extradition of citizens and immigrants are not trying to keep criminals in the country – they’re trying to uphold the rule of law by insisting on due process for all people on American soil. Geez, it’s exhausting.

But this is all evidence of a damaged, deranged mind. A deranged mind who holds the nuclear codes and commands the US military. Let me get this out of the way – I’ll agree with conservatives on one point – Biden’s infirmity was shielded by his inner circle and that was wrong, dead wrong. It should not have happened. So why are we doing it again? Trump is obviously non compos mentis (not of sound mind), and anyone who listens to him or reads these insane quotes and denies that fact is…covering up. Ignoring the problem – exactly what happened with Biden. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

It’s telling that the White House staff have stopped publishing transcripts of the President’s statements, a long tradition aimed at preserving history. They don’t want a record of his obviously mentally ill statements. They’ve even gone back and erased everything from the last 100+ days, except for his inauguration speech. They’re rewriting history.

Most of the press is still sanewashing Convict Donny’s unhinged statements and behaviors. That’s frustrating, to say the least.

But the net of all this is that it’s 100% clear that we have a “leader” who is not sane. The person in the most powerful job in the world isn’t fit for duty. History will make that clear, but by then we’ll all be gone.

After all the work today, I decided I needed a break. Maybe a reward. So after washing all the dirt and bugs off (weed whacking the jungle is messy), I made my way down to the neighborhood winery – Monserratt. It was nice, but it’s not a place to go solo. I hoped they would have some live music outside, but…no. So I had just one glass of their fine Montepulciano and an order of their best-in-Socal truffle fries, then bugged out. From our comfortable deck looking over the same vineyards, I can still have their wine AND listen to my Spatial M3s, speakers I haven’t fired up in a while. Plus I can watch the hawks and ravens fly and fight, a treat with or without music.

It was fun, but not as much as I hoped. The Spatials, driven by a Marantz 5009 receiver, don’t have the same richness of sound as my MBN speakers in KY (they’re custom; they don’t have a brand, so I’m just using my brother’s initials as their brand name). They’ll play louder (and my neighbors can attest to that), but they’re kind of sterile compared to the MBNs. Rush sounds like shit on the Spatials, and the MBNs provide enough warmth to make the same recording more enjoyable.

Tame Impala, a much more recent and higher fidelity recording, sounds quite a bit better on the Spatials. I think the open baffle Spatials are just *very* accurate. Bad recording, bad replay. So why does the KY system sound better with a lackluster 1980s recording? Something about the combo of the Yamaha amp and the MBN speakers just makes everything sound smoother. Warmer. Maybe it’s just my ancient ears, trained in that same era, recognize something in that sound produced by a 1980s amp and a box speaker, something familiar and comforting. Human hearing is very, very subjective – the processing of sound waves from ear to nerves to brain is still a bit of a mystery.

Bottom line, I find myself falling a bit out of love with the Spatials. It might be time to try a vintage system here in CA. Maybe a big vintage Pioneer or Marantz integrated amp and a pair of Klipsh Heresy IVs or La Scalas. Unless my brother wants to make another pair of custom speakers.

It’s a day for chores. First a trip to hardware stores to get supplies. Then weed whacking as much as I can stand – the new electric whacker has about a 45 minute limit, so I use that to time my breaks. Next, experimenting with cleaners, acid, and scrubbers to try and get the mineral deposits off the pool tile. I’d love it if acid took the scum off, but…so far it hasn’t. I have a feeling it will come down to muscle and pumice stones, unfortunately.

It’s a beautiful day and I’d rather be playing golf, but…duty calls. Happy Friday.

In between working through an ugly project deadline, I made the mistake yesterday of watching/reading news AND reading a post-apocalyptic novel about what happens in the US when the power grid goes down. Yikes. Things are bad in the US, real bad. We have a lawless, corrupt President and a Congress that encourages/enables him. A Congress that just passed a budget incorporating the largest transfer of wealth in history, from the poor to the rich. A President who sees no problem with selling access to the office for a million bucks per dinner guest (a crypto dinner), or a “gift” of a $400 million jet from an Arab country whose state religion declares us an enemy. A “Department of Justice” that is pointedly ignoring the orders of their own judges and renditioning (kidnapping) people to prison camps in places like Sudan and El Salvador. No checks and balances, no rule of law, no one to stop the corruption, no one to stop the Christo-fascist white supremacy cult calling themselves MAGA. This doesn’t end well.

All this bad news and a book about the end of US civilization makes me seriously consider buying some property outside the US as a safety measure. Southern France would be my first choice, but if the shit hits the fan fast, you might not be able to get there. Mexico or Canada are driveable, and factors like access to water (Baja is a hot desert, not a great place if you’re worried about the basics like food and water) and political stability make Canada the clear choice. Though Ensenada would be real easy – great wine, seafood, same climate as San Diego…I suppose I could learn Spanish.

But I’m thinking Vancouver or Victoria. Drive across the border or take a ferry, and you’re in a safe(r) place with a decent climate. But then there’s the matter of family, grandsons. So maybe a defensible hideout somewhere in KY. You’d still be under the rule of the wanna-be-king Trump family, but if you kept to yourself and stayed off-grid, it wouldn’t matter much. But…I don’t really want to live the Amish life. And buying a place anywhere and outfitting it for the end of the world is expensive. Generators, water tanks and filters, food supplies, a defensible perimeter, guns…it all adds up.

Bottom line, Convict Donnie and his Cabinet of sewer clowns are hell bent on ruining a good country (the one we live in), and there’s no simple way to escape.

Though a quick search in Ensenada shows some promise. Vaya con Dios…

During the 1970s there weren’t any Vietnam War protests in my home county of eastern KY. And I would have been too young to attend them anyway, as the war was over by 1975 as I left for college.

But now, 50 years later, I will attend my first political protest – No Kings Day in Louisville, on June 14, downtown. This wasn’t a bucket list item – never saw this coming – but it’s necessary. As the wildly corrupt and destructive second term of Donny Convict moves us ever-toward a dictatorship, we’ve got to do something and a peaceful protest is a good start. I hope a lot of Louisville comes out for this cause.

I realize that protests can turn ugly – Louisville has seen that before, with the civil unrest after the Breonna Taylor incident. I’ll be on the watch for that, as MAGA-types could show up and make it into a confrontation. I have no interest in that. And I think this gathering is fundamentally different. The Breonna riots were prompted by rage and the violence of injustice. This protest should be a more measured gathering of people who see the erosion of our freedoms and want to stop it by being seen/heard. With similar protests happening all over the country on the same day, it can be a powerful statement to the people who have to wake up and stop Mad King Donnie – particularly SCOTUS, Congress, the entire legal profession/industry and the press. Those are the organizations and people who, if they are convinced that millions of Americans will back them up, may finally summon the courage to use their Constitutional power to put MKD in check. Or better, checkmate.

I like the No Kings Day tagline: “We’re fighting for democracy. Let’s make them listen.”

We’re in a historic, critical moment – a moment in which our country could become better, or much, much worse. I already feel better knowing that I’m going to do something to try and bend the arc of the moral universe back toward justice.

With jet lag almost gone, today will be the first truly enjoyable day back in Socal. I have some project work (I’m still part time through the end of the month) and a board meeting, so it won’t be a day of leisure. Lots going on in the world, though:

• The PGA Championship starts today in Charlotte NC. A year ago it was in Louisville and I was on the course. And Scotty Scheffler was busy getting arrested. Still surreal.
• Convict Donny is in the midst of his Pay Me Tour of the middle east. Planes, hotels, crypto…Donny is willing to accept any form of payment/bribe. He’s open for business.
• Congress is busy, working hard to take money from poor Americans and give it to billionaires. And run up the national debt another few trillion. Gotta hand it to the Republicans, they’re consistent. Consistently evil.
• SCOTUS is getting a chance today to opine on birthright citizenship, a direct product of the Constitution. Their decision will be telling.
• It has become clear that Biden and his inner circle did the country a grave disservice by hiding Biden’s frailty during the 2024 election season. Harris’ loss can be attributed largely to Democratic “leadership” and the decision to hide Biden’ actual state. What a horrible, horrible mistake.
• ICE continues to distinguish themselves as The Gestapo resurrected. Of all the things Donny’s regime is doing, this is the worst. Kidnapping citizens, including children, and shipping them off to prison in other countries with no recourse, no due process, is insane. Intolerable. We should have riots every day over this.
• JD Vance is on his way to Rome to attend Pope Leo’s inaugural mass. Another terrible idea.
• Bruce Springsteen Calls Trump Administration ‘Corrupt, Incompetent, and Treasonous’ Good for The Boss!
• Otega Oweh will let Big Blue Nation know if he’s staying at UK within two weeks. I hope he does, but we’ll be fine either way.
• Khraungbin is playing in San Diego this weekend (at Wonderfront), and we’ll be there!

So…yeah, a lot happening. Most of it bad, but we have no choice but to move ahead and deal with it as best we can.

Today is a travel day, so lots of time to sit and think.

I woke up and skimmed the news, and while there’s plenty to write about, I just can’t. The infinite levels of corruption oozing from Trump and his family. A feckless Congress trying to pillage Medicaid and cut taxes on the super-rich. Idiotic on-again, off-again tariffs that roil the market and create enemies. The US “organization” called ICE quickly becoming the secret police, the Gesptapo, and being used to intimidate US citizens. It’s all just too much.

So I think I’ll focus on the positive. As of yesterday I’ve successfully extricated myself from employment – my clients have been informed of my departure and they’re OK with it. Unsurprising. So I can now go back to retired life and get back to travel, photography, family, and creative writing. As I’ve said before in these essays, I didn’t know how good I had it when I said “…sure, I’ll do that project. I’ve been a little bored anyway.” What a maroon, in the wise words of Bugs Bunny. Work life is a *big* sacrifice, particularly of one’s time, and time is the most precious resource we have. Even more so for a person in my demographic.

Here’s to getting my time back and enjoying it. Cheers!

Beautiful day today. A bike ride among the mongo houses in Mockingbird Valley/Hill. Trying ot get a nap after The Night of the Fox. Shopping for birthday presents for a five year old. Frantically dealing with a lost order for 8 pizzas at Costco just 30 minutes before the party.

Then a party with just a few friends/family in which the kids eat pizza and cake and get even more worked up than we thought possible. The ritual tearing open of gifts – and no, we didn’t limit gifts to two dolls or five pencils, Donny. Here are a few of the VIPs at the party. A motley crew.

After evening visits with family, our spring Derby trip is coming to a close. It’s amazing how aware I now am of the time and milestones passing. I spent 40 years just working and letting the time slide by, mostly unnoticed and uncelebrated, and now…it’s nice to be in the moment. Bad day or good day, it’s better to actually experience it, rather than just do what you must to get through it and then on to the next.

After a lot of Derby fun and a lot of Derby Week rain, the sunshine is back. I wish I could say the same for US politics, as the US political weather report continues to be apocalyptic. A hellscape. Where to begin?

Rather than simply repost or link to a bundle of bad news, there’s a theme for today’s essay – I’ll call it the Mad King Donny “oppugnant strategy”. At times it seems that chaos is MKD’s only strategy, but another pattern emerges if you look closely. Oppugnant means “hostile, opposing, and antagonistic”. Donny and his minions have been systematically placing oppugnant people in positions of power. Here are some examples:

• JFK Jr., a weird health science skeptic and denier, is now the US Department of Health leader
• Pam Bondi, a lawyer who has made it clear that she has no respect for the law unless it benefits Donny, is now the US’s top lawyer
• Sean Duffy, former child actor and Congressperson who voted against support for the auto industry, is now Secretary of Transportation
• Pete Hegseth, Fox News personality who has failed in every small management job he ever held, is now in charge of the world’s largest and most dangerous organization, the US Department of Defense
• Chris Wright, a former oil and gas executive, climate change skeptic and enemy of the EV industry, is now Secretary of Energy
• Linda McMahon, a spectacularly unqualified “wrestling executive” (?) and Trump friend who has vowed to destroy the Department of Education, is now the leader of the Department of Education
• Kash Patel, a conspiracy theorist with zero law enforcement experience who has blamed the FBI for multiple unproven and wild “crimes”, is now the FBI Director – America’s “top cop”
• Kristi Noem, aka “Ice Barbie”, a dead-eyed egotistical dog killer, is now the US Secretary of Homeland Security. She is responsible for border security and air travel security, among other things. An incredibly important job, and she has zero interest or experience in protection. Her interests appear to be punishment and cosplaying.

I could go on. Every MKD appointment is for someone whose background and beliefs are the antithesis of the mission of the organization they are named to lead. Up is down, wrong is right, unqualified gets the job. Oppugnant, in other words.

I find this trend particularly disturbing, as it flies in the face of logic, and logic is my happy place. I like for things to make sense, and this only makes sense if your goal is to tear down the entire government.

I have friends who say that’s a good thing, that the federal government needs to be torn down. They’re right in saying that it’s too large and too expensive, and wildly inefficient in spots. But if you tear it all down, quickly, then what? All the checks and balances, the rules of law and order that everyday people depend on are gone. All the good things that government does for citizens are gone. All you have left is raw power. And MKD and his minions are determined that only the Presidency (soon to be a kingship) will hold that power.

It’s hard to see how we can survive four years of this wanton destruction and still have a functioning democracy. 2024 could easily be the last real democratic election in US history. Something big has to change soon, or…game over.