You scratch my nuts I'll scratch yours

 Bibi nominates Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Not sure Netanyahu knows what a ceasefire is

 Someone should crack open a dictionary for him.  The news it's hard to keep pace anymore.  Musk forming his own political party.  Fringe activist Laura Loomer now an unofficial national security advisor.  God help us!  Flooding in TX.  They're saying the Trump cuts didn't help they made things worse.  Dunno are we still working on cancer?  Homan is out of control but he goes to church every week.  Wreak social havoc and then take your soul to the cleaners every Sunday.  A president being mediocre is not the issue for me it's the sheer weirdness of this Administration.   All you can do is take up a hobby in the meantime and hope it passes quickly.  Not sure why he still has fans.

In defense of voting for Trump

 Small but growing rift among conservatives.  A realization that many of Trump's latest actions suck for lack of a better way of putting it.  Joe Rogan has come out against the ICE raids.  Not sure if technically he's a conservative.  MTG has been busy blasting Trump over the bombing of Iran's nuclear sites.  Candace Owens told Piers Morgan that she is now embarrassed she told other people to vote for Trump.  Then there's Tucker.  OK.

What I'm seeing on some of the more liberal YouTube channels is gloating among the Left ("We told you so") and even anger at those who voted for Trump but who now have regrets.  It was all out there in the open they say.  Not really.  Trump's first term was fairly normal as a frame of reference.  Re the ICE raids JD Vance was directly asked, what was it during the VP debate what the plans were for the majority of illegal aliens who are not criminals.  He pointedly would not answer the question.  The overwhelming emphasis during the campaign was always on the criminal element.  As for bombing Iran Trump campaigned on the exact opposite no foreign wars ot entanglements in the Middle East.  America First.  Now to the real bone of contention.  Many libs take issue with having been called crazy and exaggerating for the things they said about Trump during the campaign, the whole TDS thing.  Yes because they used specifically Hitlerian rhetoric.  Technically though while Trump is many things technically he's still not a Hitler.  Has a ways to go if you know your history.

At least give those of us credit and some points for now admitting mistakes no?  That's how you grow.  Not hearing the same regrets about Biden.  

This too shall pass.

The ascendancy of the weird Right - it now IS the Right

 The latest examples being "Alligator Alcatraz" and those racist conservatives who want to deport NYC Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.  My friend has imbibed deeply of the Fox News propaganda.  For him Iran was on the verge, the very cusp of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead to hit NYC.  For Mark Levin if you opposed Trump bombing Iran's nuclear facilities you're an unpatriotic American.  Levin gives off this vague creepy psycho vibe and said to MTG after their recent dust-up "you're on my radar."  Hmmmmm......Hannity is somewhat milder but his aging blockhead fills the screen as he constantly beats the drums for war in the Middle East or at least a bomb here and there.  The Senate now seems okay with Trump's giant sausage of a bill thus mortgaging our future and our children's future.  Musk continues to attack the bill and he is right for once.  At this rate the midterms may turn out to be a big blue tsunami.  The rise of Mamdani represents a left-wing populism not to be ignored.

It's all very depressing but this too shall pass.  Hopefully next time we'll get somebody better.

I was having some trouble sleeping and thought it was my mattress

 Mark Levin over at Fox says we can all sleep better at night knowing Trump took out Iran's nuclear facilities.  Turns out we don't need the My Pillow guy after all.  MTG rips Trump a new one.  She may have said some loopy things in the past but she's 100% right.  Same with Tucker.  Some dispute over the exact damage to those three Iranian nuclear facilities.  Not exactly obliterated despite the hyperbole.  Also Trump's big mouth gave them advanced notice to put the enriched uranium someplace else.  Neocon warmongers who never picked up a rifle themselves.  Hannity probably wouldn't even know what to do with a home intruder.  Fox News - We Decide Then Report;)

Trump has made Americans less safe

 Iran did not threaten us.  We were not at war with them.  Iranian Foreign Minister meets with Putin although other reports say Russia is unlikely to enter the conflict.  UPI reports however that other countries are willing to supply Iran with nukes after Trump's act of bellicosity.  Now as we all know Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently testified before Congress that it is the consensus of the intelligence community that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons as the Ayatollah suspended that program in 2003.  After Trump dumped on Tulsi however she now says new intelligence has come to light (read: whatever Netanyahu says) in order to keep her post.  Call her Flipper.  People can't withstand the wrath of the Orange Man I guess.  I get concerned when I'm running low on the Christian Brothers.  For Hegseth it's the hair gel.  The last question when does Trump take Greenland?

Every president likes to use the military

 But Trump promised to be different so why throw rocks at a junkyard dog?  Trump campaigned as an anti-neocon non-interventionist America Firster.  Instead we get a saber-rattling Israel First foreign policy, impulsive interventionism.  Trump has claimed on his Truth Social overwhelming success in totally obliterating Iran's three nuclear facilities.  He has ignored the advice of his own Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard who recently testified before Congress that Iran was really not that close to developing an actual nuclear weapon.  She's probably on her way out.  Now we have to worry about a protracted conflict with Iran and possible terrorist reprisals.  Pakistan has just nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize why I don't know.  Troubling times but kind of took Homan off the front pages.

Is it anti-semitic to not want to go to war with Iran?

 Trump mulling over possible strikes against Iran including the use of bunker busting bombs to target Iranian nuclear facilities.  What happened to no new wars and America First?  An Iranian missile struck a major hospital in southern Israel.  Oh the humanity!  Meanwhile Netanyahu just attacked Gaza's last functioning hospital.  Never fully understood countries with nuclear weapons telling other countries they can't have nuclear weapons.  What only we know how to use atomic bombs in a moral way?  All that and more on today's episode of Stranded.

Will Trump go to war?

Are Trump and Musk still hot for each other?

 Musk has expressed misgivings, deleted some tweets and says he may have gone too far.  Trump says he might be open to a reconciliation.  Defense Sec'y Hegseth says the US has contingency plans to occupy Greenland if necessary.   Israel attacked Tehran targeting their nuclear facilities and chain of command.  ICE agents are chasing farm laborers through strawberry fields and going into meat production plants.  Big military parade tomorrow.   Trump's birthday.  DHS Sec'y Kristi Noem doesn't like to be interrupted.  What's up with Dr. Phil?

The News is a bit off-center of late

Bill Cosby may spend the rest of his life in prison and President Donald Trump may win the Nobel Peace Prize. Haven't googled Bill Cosby's exact age of late. Could be 89, 97 or 105 but Justice has been served. Public disgrace and opprobrium not enough and I'm no legal authority but I thought there was a statute of limitations or something. The Hollywood academies have rescinded his many awards and mere mention and it's as if I Spy never existed. They finally realized Roman Polanski is a perv too and did the same such is the feminist juggernaut a little late in coming though. President Trump is seriously being mentioned as a viable peace prize potential winner with the upcoming Kim Jong-Un summit in Singapore the Stormy Daniels saga being merely a springtime diversion to fuel the news cycle. As an aside I don't see any more tip cups in Dunkin' Donuts and I have a chunk of change to spare. Are the clerks making too much or something?

Can Dennis Rodman save the world?

Seemingly overnight the whole North Korea/Kim Jong-Un discussion is now the easily unhingeable despot may possess an actual hydrogen bomb.  Think fusion not fission and over 10X the power of an A-bomb.  If Kim can customize it for the nose of one of his ICBMs he can conceivably detonate it at a very high altitude thus causing a superpowerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP) completely destroying the US power grid.  This whole thing reminds me of a bad Austin Powers movie.

President Trump, following through on Obama's Red Line

Some are no doubt already making the case that Obama's shifting red line encouraged Syria and President Bashar al-Assad to attack a small Syrian village with chemical weapons killing and injuring scores of children. One can use the word "allegedly" but for all intents...President Trump followed this within 24 hours with 59 air strikes with Tomahawk cruise missiles of a Syrian airfield believed to harbor chemical weapons. Now things get complicated with Russia refusing to cooperate with the U.S. over avoiding air conflicts over Syrian airspace. Russian warships have already moved into the region closer to our fleet so you have the seeds of a major world crisis in the making. Trump is getting bipartisan support on this one from Marco Rubio to Charles Schumer usually a critic but the base is mighty unhappy with these developments. There's that Pat Buchanan strict non-interventionist/isolationist wing to deal with. Obama was too much the Hamlet intellectual with this aspect of our foreign policy. Trump of course is taking some flack for not consulting with the UN Security Council and Congress first but if first showings are any indication we may be dealing with a very militaristic and action-oriented president on the world stage. As long as he stays away from the nuclear codes.

I Am So Shook

Reality has finally set in and it's the Zoloft/Abilify phase for liberals, the PTSD of Hillary losing. Now in a logical universe Trump becoming president of the United States would be like if the late Benny Hill had at one time become the PM of Great Britain. Wouldn't happen, not likely to happen and really can't happen all things considered. Trump has gone on the record as saying that the use of nuclear weapons would be a good strategy in the war against ISIS but on the plus side he and Pence have accepted the official report on the Russian hacking. I got the heebie-jeebies too that vague weird anxiety ever since the Election but liberals are so shaken to the very core of their being that even in dreams they're working out their tweets and blogs and anti-Trump posts for the next day now that Ole Man Winter has set in and it's cold as a witch's tit outside so all the placards and posters have been safely stashed away gathering dust and spiderwebs ready for the first hint of spring. We'll see what happens but I hope they make it. Hang in there!

The McBlog - a couple of thoughts on the go

Is it a sign of age when you spend most of your time on the computer looking up medical ailments? The failure of gun control - conservatives would rather you have a nuclear shoulder launchpad than risk a government takeover. Lovingly from my mobile device.

The 3rd & Final Debate, foreign and domestic repairs

It took but half an hour or twenty minutes or so before businessman Romney veered off into more comfortable domestic terrain, done on purpose and killed a small block of time and Obama happily took the bait (geez Dad can we rap about birth control again?  I see an opening!).  Not exactly two Kissingers squaring off against each other and sure enough Obama obliquely got his pills in (I'm beginning to think he takes bc pills himself) when he said Romney has social policies more from the '50s, a Mormon cross between Robert Young and Leave It To Beaver but onto to Syria and some other more pressing matters.  Bashar al-Assad to date has killed about 30,000 of his own citizens, brings to mind Stalin's old quip that one death is a tragedy 30,000 is a statistic to paraphrase.  Obama kept talking sanctions up the kazoo whereas Romney agreed but said while there would be no military involvement under his administration we really need to arm the rebels the right ones anyway.  I pretty much watched the whole thing with a quick sidetrip for a whizz and a refill and in my notes there's everything.  Obama took out Osama bin Laden which in a foreign policy debate is perfectly fair to point out and also somehow took out Khadafy.  The evening started out with Mideast terror/Benghazi of course and perhaps the best line of the evening was when Romney said we can't kill ourselves out of this terror situation but really need to engage the Muslim world to reject extremism (hey Sat the real War Against Women can best be capsulized in the pic of little Malala recuperating in her British hospital room, just thought I'd get that in).  So how'd that reset go with Putin Mr. Obama?  Romney sees Putin more as a geopolitical foe, I see him as nostalgic for the Cold War and not wanting to move on but Obama somehow sees him in less menacing terms, dunno.  Iraq, status of forces agreements, the Red Line with Iran, future talks between the U.S. and Iran not being true, tensions with Israel which even many Dems are concerned about, Obama's global apology tour.  Geez this blogpost is beginning to resemble an updated version of We Didn't Start the Fire.  Rom's feeling is that the world's worst leaders saw weakness in Obama and this made events in the world worse and yeah China was ripe for discussion (we'll save that for the comments section).  Leaving Afghanistan in '014 (we hope) and Romney was quite straight about Pakistan being an ally after all they have about 100 nuclear warheads and if Pakistan somehow became a failed state we wouldn't want them getting into the wrong hands.  DRONES, education, a strong economy and the overwhelming need for a strong military which in my view Obama seemed particularly weak on, kind of stammered.  I finally figured out the media's formula for determining the winner in these things, if Obama didn't do horribly then he won.  Of the three debates this was the most pivotal imo.  Of course when I go to my e-mail later and find out who's trending today on Yahoo I may revise that.  Oh yeah Bob Schieffer a class act:) 

The whole taking out Ahmadinejad's nuclear program thing

Obama has said to Bibi I got your back, I think he also said wait 'til after the election. Dealing with Iran - on paper it makes perfect sense but something tells me it's not a good idea. Israel or rumor has it has already taken out at least four Iranian nuclear scientists or those in charge of its burgeoning nuclear program, preferred MO seems to be two guys on a motorbike attach some kind of remote control device to the bad guy's sedan and KABLOOEY like a Jason Bourne movie so Israel seems to be doing a good job all on its own. OK so we'll have a more secure world in the future, maybe, but you think you're paying alot in gas now! Also watch for world markets to destabilize and tumble and an increase in terrorist attacks. WHO will replace Ahmadinejad btw and I think it's safe to assume he'll be part of some overall collateral damage? I mean are there alot of moderates waiting in the wings here, some burning lava lamp of democratic fervor bubbling beneath the Iranian soil? We've had a dubious relationship with our nominal friend and ally Pakistan, if they turn totally rogue do we do them too since they already have the nukes Ahmadinejad has only been dreaming of? Again it's not my call but are any of you getting antsy about this?

Obama - more concerned about birth control than rising gas prices

It'd be like if JFK were more worried about fat kids during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Obama's Political Understanding of Sex: Get Involved. Do you really want government in the bedroom though telling insurance companies they have to pay for contraceptives for women? Now to me Sex is a private affair and I wouldn't think of walking around White Plains all day begging for a handout to pay for some rubbers and a tube of Astroglide but they're saying now gas is gonna hit some kind of record this summer, might reach $5/gallon and this of course has to do with Iran (many say oil speculators - http://weblogs.wpix.com/news/larrymendte/2011/05/wall_street_does_it_again.html). Now you'll notice once Khadafy bit the dust the price of regular began to dip ever so slightly but Jim Cramer of Mad Money said this morning on the Today Show that as long as Iran has its nuclear program gas will be a problem, oh God you mean 'til the End Times!?! True Iran only exports about 2.5% of its oil to the US but the bulk of it goes to Europe and then there's the critical Strait of Hormuz to consider which Iran has threatened to cut off. So what does Obama do? he grabs the horns of the Catholic Church over an issue formerly understood and settled, Don't Go There. Pick a fight with the RC Church in an election year with gas set to hit $5/gal - WTG!!! your political advisers must hate you. BTW congrats to His Eminence from NY Cardinal Dolan. I was reading in the paper the other day that David Brock of Media Matters is literally spending millions of dollars to get more favorable media coverage of Obama (HUH?). They'll be more than happy to do it for free David with Brian Williams sucking on his left nut and Rachel Maddow directing the jizm onto a poster of Rick Santorum. Just read on Drudge the European Union has just approved a whopping $172B bailout for Greece. Of course there has to be some deep cuts and oversight......hey Obama are you following any of this? Now I realize many of the Kool-Aid drinkers out there still see Obama as some kind of Savior but even as Messiahs go he's pretty weak. I think Dolan sucked all his charisma out of him and I just know he has a big old cold one on tap if Obama goes down to defeat.

But who else was in the running the Dalai Lama?

Well it wasn't gonna be Bibi we know that. As long as your name isn't George W. Bush you have a shot. I understand the rationale for Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize, taking measures or trying to take measures to reduce the world's nuclear stockpile (only the most nostalgic paleocons yearn for those good ole Nagasaki days) and his outreach to Muslims in the famous Cairo speech obviously played more than a part but his mere nine months in office weaken the argument considerably I might add. Oslo Norway, known to be very liberal, don't they smoke pot over there?

So are congrats in the offing or in order from us right-wingers? not if you're Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity. Maybe O's decision to take away our radar in the Czech Republic and our interceptors in Poland had something to do with it, imagine Reagan doing this!!! but really who else was gonna win this one if you want to be totally objective about it? DR. OZ?

But Z wanted a Big News Event and he sure as hell got one!!

Would you argue with God?

or why even conservatism tends towards moral relativism in the end, aka liberalism

Steamtable Catholicism got me thinking. I mentioned there that even many of those staunch conservative and tradition-minded Catholics don't care to fully partake of that item known as Catholic Just War Doctrine which, honestly applied, holds that the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was ethically wrong. Has nothing to do with politics per se, one very important principle of the Church's teaching is that you cannot deliberately target innocent civilian populations in time of war, ok. Now I would hazard a guess most modern-day conservatives support Truman's action but the question before the board today is this - would you argue with God? Put another way, let's say when we go before God someday he kindly explains to us that by His Divine Reckoning that particular action was grossly immoral, would we still stubbornly hold to our positions and even argue the point before Him or would we humbly admit our mistake and errors in our moral reasoning? It's a rhetorical, theoretical question and can be applied to any issue under the sun, I'm using this one today because of the vast majorities who still say we did the right thing. The arguments advanced for the bombing all smack of moral relativism, pragmatism and I really need not repeat them here, the salient point being most people don't seem to care but what does God think? Shouldn't the moral compass of a religious and spiritual nation be higher than this?

Would you argue with God? (Honorable mention goes to conservative thinkers Joe Sobran, Pat Buchanan and the late Russell Kirk for opposing the use of the Bomb)

Thoughts on money

Had a debate once about you can't take it with you with an older person, said why not spend it while you can and have a good time and she made the point that bequeathing it is more important on down the line so I got to thinking let's put this into practice,

the children have been left their fortune by Mom and Dad, sharing the same guiding philosophy as they did they hardly spend it either so they grow old and make out their will and the succeeding generation does the same thing and so on for 5 generations but it just sits there, meanwhile Iran now has the nukes and Putin's successors have teamed up with China and they're threatening the West so yes, it IS important to have a nice nest egg,

"the money's there, don't worry but you can't touch it"
"why is it there?"
"I really don't know but it's important that it's there and it stays there"
"Can I take some out?"
"Of course but just a little bit at a time"
"Is that a mushroom cloud I see?"