This Week's Quote

Image:  Sen. Graham's website

Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott got very nervous after Pete Hegseth banned "troops with beards", until someone explained that Hegseth was referring to facial hair.

Paul Rudnick

Source:  X

The Fall Guys and Gals

Image:  Facebook

Thanks to the government shutdown, the 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP will be SOL come Nov. 1. That, folks, is this Saturday.

The USDA, which oversees the food program, posted on its website yesterday that "the well has run dry." But in a service to every American, the USDA also informed us who's to blame: transgender people and immigrants.

Of course. Who else could it possibly be?

"We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats," opines the USDA site. "They can continue to hold out for healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance."

I'm old enough to remember a time—a year ago—when the government worked for all Americans. Now it's a nauseating study in partisanship.

According to Trump's USDA, Democrats are literally taking food from the mouths of babes in order to provide healthcare for transgender lunatics and villainous foreigners.

It's the cost of health-care premiums that concern the Democrats, but why let an opportunity to scapegoat trans folk and the undocumented go to waste? It's as if the American government is channeling Claude Rains:  "Round up the usual suspects."

Genius

 

It's a Full Day

Image by Kenya Aguirre from Pixabay

It took some doing, but I laid my hands on one of Donald Trump's recent daily schedules:

9:00 am     Pardon a criminal. Collect his soul.

9:30 am     Take a turn at the East Wing wrecking ball.

10:00 am   Place calls to leaders of shithole countries demanding they nominate me for next year's Nobel Peace Prize.

11:00 am    Crank call Nobel committee.

11:30 am    Revive plan to get my face added to Mt. Rushmore.

12:00 pm    Lunch. Send underlings to KFC and McDonald's. They pay.

1:00 pm      Nap

3:00 pm      Order Hegseth to bomb possible drug boats on Walden Pond.

3:30 pm      Order JD to push peanut around Resolute desk with his nose.

4:00 pm      Remind Bondi to fork over $230 million, or I'll sue.

4:30 pm      Swap hair secrets with president of Argentina.

5:00 pm      Blame everything on Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe, and Barack Hussein Obama. Consider adding Michelle—"Obama Lama Ding Dong?" 

5:15 pm      Order Bondi to prosecute that girl at Penn who wouldn't sleep with me. Float death penalty.

This Week's Quote

Image:  Facebook

No American president has ever had so many people protest against him, because no American president has ever been so deserving.

Dan Rather

Source:  Facebook

Them's the Rules

 

A Memorable Meetup

Image by Kat Love from Pixabay

I had one of those community experiences on Sunday that left me kafoozled.

That's a synonym I just created for dazed, confused, and aggravated.

I attended a Seattle Meetup for lesbians over 55, and since I've gone several times, I thought I knew what to expect. But this one turned out differently.

I found myself sitting next to a new participant, a 70-year-old transgender woman. I'm well aware some lesbians argue that trans women aren't women, so they can't be lesbians, but I don't hold that view.

A few others and I chatted with R for a bit. When she asked why people were protesting at the "No Kings" rallies the day before, and noted that she thought Trump's tariffs were a good idea, I sensed the woman across from me shift and face the other way, not to mention build a brick wall and rig up an alarm system.

I don't know if transphobia was involved, but she clearly was in no mood to listen to a potentially conservative queer wax ignorant, so I knew I was on my own.

I have an old habit, good or bad depending on your point of view, of being obliging to the socially awkward. So I listened for an hour as R told me that she's lived all over the country, worked at 27 jobs in the defense industry, and been in an unconsummated marriage for over 30 years.

It didn't take an expert to see that R was on the autism scale. That can make a person lonely, so my ears soldiered on. I asked about the Israeli patches on her jacket, and I learned that in her time she's been everything from Episcopalian to Russian Orthodox to, now, Jewish.

It was all adding up to someone who's tried and failed a million times to belong. With some trepidation, I asked about her being transgender. R said she made the gender switch to increase her chances of employment in an industry that's overloaded with men.

I was aghast, but still polite. I reframed the question, hoping R would speak of a long yearning to be a woman. Nope. It was a career move. Like bringing Dunkin' Donuts to a meeting.

Fearful she could be Exhibit A for our transphobic overlords, I wondered if I should poison her coffee.

What do you do when you run into a person in the LGBTQ community who's a conservative Christian's nocturnal emission? A person who actually embodies some of the wildest things they say about us?

I didn't poison her coffee. But boy howdy, I wished I was drinking something other than hot chocolate.