11 December—It’s common knowledge that Donald Trump is by far the most self-centered, self-serving, egotistical, narcissistic, corrupt scumbag ever to rule the United States. Need we be reminded that he’s a disgrace to the office of president and an embarrassment to the nation?
It’s also obvious that Trump is a past master at promoting himself. There’s all the real estate with the Trump family name on it, of course, although the Trump name has ignominiously disappeared from quite a bit of real estate since Donald’s first term in office.
Just this month, abusing his executive prerogative (as usual), Trump renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace—the institute and its building in D.C.—the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. That’s sure to sit well with the Nobel Committee.
Trump has suggested several times that the Kennedy Center—which he has already disgraced by replacing its worthy, competent, well-intentioned board with his flunkies who promptly elected him chairman—be renamed the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts. And that the center’s opera house be named after his wife. His congressional flunkies have already started those balls rolling.
Last month Trump suggested changing the name of the Republican Party to Tepublican or Tpublican. His obnoxious eldest son suggested Trumplican. Funny that neither senior nor junior thought of extending the portmanteau Trumpublican, which is currently used only for his lame-brained claque, to the whole lame-brained party.
Trump’s two-acre White House-dwarfing ballroom boondoggle is referred to by his flunkies as the President Donald J. Trump Ballroom.
And now it appears we’re pretty likely to see the scumbag-in-chief’s images on the three sides of a U.S.-minted coin—obverse, reverse, perverse. The 1866 Coinage Act says that living presidents or others aren’t supposed to be on U.S. coins. But the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020 (passed unanimously by both Democrat-majority houses and signed into law by Trump) allows for living people on the reverse of commemorative coins, but not the obverse.
So Trumpublicans are talking about a one-dollar coin nominally commemorating the nation’s semiquincentennial, with end runs around the law as needed to get it minted. As things stand, the disgusting Trump-themed coin will be clad rather than solid fine silver or gold, surprising given Trump’s insipid predilection for gold. But you never know.
In all events, the ultimate decision on the or a Trump coin (before or after Trump dies) lies with the or a treasury secretary. Trump gave Scott Bessent that job. And even if Scott doesn’t cooperate (which is unlikely), Trump is bound to get his way. Because that’s what tyrants do.
And then there’s paper money. In February, Joe Wilson, one of Trump’s flunkies in the House of Representatives, excreted the Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act, playing with the semiquincentennial aspect. In March, Brandon Gill, another Trump flunky, vomited the Golden Age Act of 2025, to replace Ben Franklin’s portrait on the C-note with the scumbag-in-chief’s. And in June of last year Trump flunky Paul Gosar egested the Treasury Reserve Unveiling Memorable Portrait Act to issue $500 bills devalued by Trump’s face. At least Gosar managed to come up with a strained title for his bill to enable a deplorable acronym.
But why not bring back the $500 bill? It went out of circulation in 1969, along with the $1,000 bill, essentially for lack of use, leaving the $100 as the largest denomination for public consumption. But 100 dollars isn’t worth all that much these days . . .
10 December—Wow! Yesterday a Democrat candidate beat out a Trump-endorsed Republican to become Miami’s new mayor—by a pretty impressive 60 to 40 percent in the runoff election. The important and encouraging thing isn’t that a Democrat won, but that a candidate endorsed by Trump lost.
And a Democrat flipped a Georgia house seat against a Trump-endorsed Republican candidate in a district Trump had won.
And Republicans in Congress appear to be losing their enthusiasm for Trump, although they’re likely still scared of what the vindictive bully can do to their political careers.
And even that threat may be dissipating. Unless, of course, Trump’s pals on the Supreme Court wrest more power from Congress and gift it to the White House, as they appear to be doing callously and injudiciously—and in the bargain giving the courts more power than they’ve ever had. All for the worse, to be sure.
The teaser in this morning’s email from sentientmedia.org, an animal rights-plus organization, is “Factory Farms in Iowa Generate 110 Billion Pounds of Manure Each Year. No One Tracks Where It’s Going.” Without digging into the article, what does the teaser (and title) bring to mind? How about something like “Congress generates billions of pounds of manure every day when it’s in session. And it’s spread thick all over America”?
And that’s only for starters.
The National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org) is among the sources reporting that the Boston Archdiocese isn’t happy—to say the least—that St. Susanna Church in Dedham has a Nativity display with the Holy Family replaced with an “ICE was here” sign. The sign under that one reads: “The Holy Family is safe in The Sanctuary of our Church. If you see ICE, please call LUCE,” referring to an immigrant assistance network in Massachusetts.
The archdiocese calls the sign a “politically divisive display.” Tough. It’s a pity that the proper and politically gutless Boston archdiocese has forgotten that American bishops all the way up to the American Bishop of Rome—Pope Leo XIV—are highly critical of Trump’s immigration policies, with the pope lamenting (tactfully, of course) that foreigners in the United States are being treated in an “extremely disrespectful way.”
We know the sign is politically divisive on the right side because ICE’s acting director has called it “abhorrent.” As of this morning, the sign hasn’t been replaced by the Holy Family. And may it ever be thus.
[Personal editorial note: It just occurred to the Grand Disquisitor that it was 70 years ago today—10 December 1955, a Saturday—that he was called—allowed—to read from an actual Torah in an actual synagogue, signifying that he had officially become a bar mitzvah—literally a son of the commandment—a Jewish adult even though he was only 13. The thrill of becoming a bar mitzvah—and the incentive for enduring the tiresome preparation—had absolutely nothing to do with religion.]
9 December—Painful as it is to admit, Donald Trump has from time to time spoken the truth. And one of his notably and undeniably veracious and accurate observations is that “the American dream is dead.” Of course that’s because with his ascendance to tyrannical omnipotence the American dream has died and been resurrected as the American nightmare.
To celebrate the first American nightmare since you name it, then, here’s a folk song that Trump’s fellow dictator Vladimir Putrid probably knows by heart and may even croon to his mistress. It’s a popular old Russian ditty called “Steppe and Steppe All Around” (“Степь да степь кругом,” “Step da step krugom”).
The steppes, you’ll recall, are essentially the Russian equivalent of the North American prairie, vast, grassy with relatively few trees, hot summers, and cold winters; and in the 1950s and ‘60s the steppes were the Soviet Dust Bowl.
“Steppe and Steppe All Around,” like not a little of the world’s folk music, is rather melancholic, in this instance about a coachman who’s freezing to death and asks his friend to give his horse to his father and tell his young widow to find another husband. We aren’t told the backstory, but it must have something to do with a typically harsh winter in the steppes.
So forget about the sad story and enjoy the beautiful music:
8 December—Last year, when the malevolent majority of the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States effectively transformed the previously first-among-equals president into a first-without-equals tyrant, it started the process of making America the world’s biggest banana republic. When the Supremes rule next year on Trump v. Slaughter, which is being argued orally today, the court’s unfortunately and disgracefully Trumpophilic majority is likely to complete that process.
Thus, given the spitefully malignant currently prevailing despot and his enthusiastically evil coterie of Gauleiters, the foreseeable future of America as the world’s greatest nation in virtually every way is not at all sanguine. Quite the contrary, in fact.
But let’s put all that depressing stuff aside and instead discuss the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which is celebrated today. To start, then, you won’t be surprised to learn that Pope Pius IX, who dogmatized Immaculate Conception during his reign from 1846 to 1878 and was educated as a diocesan priest, wasn’t an obstetrician or gynecologist or even a medical doctor. Only Pope John XXI, way back in the 13th century, had been a practicing physician—and medical professor—before becoming pope. But Pius IX didn’t have to be a medical doctor. Because, of course, the Immaculate Conception was a matter of dogma and faith rather than medicine.
And Pius IX certainly knew all about dogma and faith because most of his business was founded on them. Along with fear, ritual, and control, to be sure. So in 1854 he decreed: “Et quidem decebat omnino, ut perfectissimae sanctitatis splendoribus semper ornata fulgeret, ac vel ab ipsa originalis culpae labe plane immunis amplissimum de antiquo sepente triumphum referret tam venerabilis mater, cui Deus Pater unicum Filius suum, quem de corde suo aequalem sibi genitum tamquam seipsum diligit, ita dare disposuit, ut naturaliter esset unus idemque communis Dei Patris et Virginis Filius, et quam ipse Filius, Filius substantialiter facere sibi matrem elegit, et de qua Siritus Sanctus voluit et operatus est, ut conciperetur et nasceretur ille, de quo ipse procedit.”
Powerful stuff! As a dogma—a divinely revealed truth—it must have been obvious all along, so there’s really nothing to discuss. Just accept it as truth and fact. In that case, though, you may wonder why it took so long for the Roman Catholic Church to officially accept that the Blessed Virgin Mary had been conceived “completely free from the stain of original sin,” as Pius IX would have put it in English.
It’s worth noting (or maybe not) that round about the time of Dr. Pope John XXI, William of Ware, an English Franciscan, and John Duns Scotus, a Scottish Franciscan, were touting the Immaculate Conception as enhancing Jesus Christ’s work in cleansing the human race from original sin after birth. Right. Obviously. Get it?
In all events, it’s definitely worth noting that Duns Scotus, said to be a brilliant thinker even though he was a theologian, in large part thanks to followers of his contemporary Catholic Thomas Aquinas and later Protestant Martin Luther gave his name to dunces essentially because he was so brilliant but his less brilliant followers—Dunsmen or Dunses—were merely sophisitical hair-splitters. And the conical dunce cap is part of it . . .
7 December—Having been unfairly (obviously) passed over for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump has just been awarded the coveted—and very first—FIFA Peace Prize. Talk about a meritorious organization giving meritorious recognition to a meritorious person. No wonder Trump gushed, it’s “truly one of the great honors” of his life. Who wants the crummy Nobel anyway!? It’s awarded by a bunch of corrupt and ignorant Vikings, after all. And Trump doesn’t need the money. (Not that he wouldn’t take it, to be sure.)
FIFA president—and symbiotic Trump goomba—Gianni Infantino reflexively gushed about Trump’s “unwavering commitment to advancing peace and unity throughout the world through . . . notable leadership.” What guys!
After all, as Trump reminded his claque at the now-disgraced Kennedy Center, “We saved millions and millions of lives.” We? Was he admitting that he didn’t end those seven to nine different wars—depending on the day—all by himself? Or was he using the presidential “we”?
But Trump wasn’t forgetting about “so many different wars that we were able to end, in some cases, a little bit before they started, just right before they started.” Is that remarkable or is that amazing!?
Nor was Trump forgetting about what he called soccer’s ability to unite countries, although international soccer matches are notorious for fomenting disastrous violence, as regularly has broken out at World Cup matches and is likely to break out at next year’s World Cup co-hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Did FIFA know (or care) about little things like Trump’s undeclared and unlawful war (really no more than serial murders) on motorboats in the Caribbean and Pacific or his threats to invade Venezuela? And has everyone forgotten about his threats to invade Greenland, Canada, and Mexico if he doesn’t get his tyrannical way? His wayward warlord is probably planning the invasions right now—in a cell-phone conversation monitored by The Washington Post.
Not that FIFA gives a damn about any of Trump’s bellicosity or belligerence. Because FIFA—Fédération Internationale des Associations de Football (International Federation of Football Associations)—being self-regulatory, does whatever it bloody well pleases. It’s the world governing body of association football (soccer), beach football (beach soccer) played on sand, and futsal (small-pitch soccer) played on relatively compact fields.
And like pretty well all international sports bodies, FIFA is (and always will be) notoriously corrupt, with extensive proven allegations and convictions of its bosses for crimes like bribery, fraud, and money laundering. Including in the United States, where a few FIFA felons are still doing hard time in soft federal slammers.
No wonder Donald Trump loves FIFA. And since it’s a symbiotic relationship, may we count on Trump excreting his disgraceful pardons on FIFA felons? Quid pro quo, ya know . . .
6 December—The big news in Goshen, Litchfield, Morris, and Warren (the Region 20 towns in alphabetical order, if you haven’t figured it out) is that even though a live bullet was found in the misnamed Lakeview High School yesterday, causing a typical albeit these days understandable overreaction—sheltering in place, police call, and gun-sniffing dog—nobody was killed or injured. It’s likely, in fact, that although it certainly was prudent to take precautions, most of the kids and staff weren’t scared or worried. But parents, maybe.
According to reliable online sources, the call to Troop L barracks was made at about 9:50 a.m., the police responded immediately from about a mile down the road (probably with sirens wailing and strobe lights flashing), and the lockdown was over by 11:30 a.m. (For the record, newsbreak.com’s CRIMERADAR, which provides a recording of a13-second call from a dispatcher to police, puts the call at “07:02 AM.”)
According to the Region’s website—one of them, anyway—classes at the high school start at 7:50 a.m. (Wouldn’t it make sense to consolidate the websites? Or does Litchfield expect to divorce Wamogo because Wamogo married Litchfield for its money and the marriage doesn’t appear to be going too well?)
So according to the superintendent’s emailed letter, the pupil perp was identified by the rozzers and wasn’t armed. According to online sources, the perp was 15 years old and was issued a juvenile summons for second-degree breach of peace and faced disciplinary action by school authorities. Thus, if readers want to know the young perp’s identity, they’ll have to ask anyone but official sources.
The live round found on the floor of a classroom, by the way, was a 9mm, presumably Luger. And that’s all we know.
To reminisce about the good old days when kids could show off their bullets and even their daddies’ war-trophy firearms and other ordnance in school show-and-tells and the only sheltering-in-place we did was totally useless duck-and-cover drills looking forward to atom-bomb attacks, read Shooting ghosts from October of last year.
5 December—The Oxford English Dictionary’s 2025 word of the year is “rage bait.” If you weren’t aware of its existence, it’s been around for over two decades and means, according to OED, “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted to increase traffic or engagement with a webpage or social media account.” [For some reason, OED calls a website a webpage, which should be a two-word web page, anyway.]
It’s axiomatic that people are more likely to react to negative content and inflammatory rhetoric online and, usually to a somewhat lesser extent elsewhere, when aroused by anger, frustration, anxiety, fear, and stress than when stimulated by positive emotions like happiness, love, and gratitude. Cuteness, on the other hand, elicits incredible positive response. That’s human nature, after all. Aww . . .
Thus rage bait is purposively provocative and insidiously manipulative. So naturally it’s proven to be highly effective in attracting participants—preferably negative contributors who attract other contributors ad nauseam as well as non-contributory visitors—to internet sites and social media. And the more traffic—visitors—a website gets, the more it can charge advertisers. That’s where clever antisocial algorithms come in. Because profit is what capitalism is all about.
But, really, does anybody not try to ignore and just live with all the annoying pop-ups and other ads that pollute virtually every website other than LitchfieldMonitor.com—only because we can’t attract advertisers, truth be told? Don’t those pesky ads really piss you off? Does the Monitor piss you off even without ads?
When you think about it, then, online advertising is effectively—if unintentionally—rage bait. And of course the Litchfield Monitor is not-for-profit rage bait in the public interest . . .
4 December—So Donald Trump dozed off during a cabinet meeting. That’s for another time. For now, it’s Monitor readers who appear to be sleeping on the job. Reading the Monitor isn’t easy. But . . .
Digression first: Bald eagles are said to have the best vision in the animal kingdom, 20/5. 20/5 vision—which is extraordinary in the human species—means that a person (or other animal) can perceive details at 20 feet that an average person (or other animal) can only perceive at five feet. Bald eagles are supposed to be able to spot prey three miles away.
Does that mean, then, that a person with 20/20 vision can make out a basketball, for instance, at three-quarters of a mile, 1,320 yards? Let alone a golf ball at shorter distances. The longest golf hole in the world is said to be at the Gunsan Country Club in South Korea—1,097 yards; it’s a par 7. The longest hole in the United States—only 888 yards; it’s a par 6—is on the Links Golf Course, Post Falls, Idaho. The longest recorded drive was only 579.63.
Back on track, then, it appears that none of the Monitor’s faithful eagle-eyed, punctilious readers, usually eager to report perceived or—in exceptionally rare instances—actual errata, noticed that yesterday’s disquisition was datelined “3 November.” Our typesetter, copy editor, and proofreader clearly was [sic] misfeasant. But the disquisitionist serendipitously discovered the chronological error and smoothly and seamlessly effected the correction.
To digress again, the front-page-over-the-fold story in this morning’s Hearst RepublicanAmerican is headed “Suit claims ex-Litchfield coach sexually abused 2 former middle school students.” The story is pretty cursory, not even naming the two plaintiffs although they evidently aren’t trying to conceal their identities.
Here are the links for the two separate complaints on the state judicial branch website:
https://civilinquiry.jud.ct.gov/DocumentInquiry/DocumentInquiry.aspx?DocumentNo=31478015
https://civilinquiry.jud.ct.gov/DocumentInquiry/DocumentInquiry.aspx?DocumentNo=31477760
Suffice to say for now that the civil suits seeking monetary damages were enabled when the relevant Connecticut law was amended six years ago. And that the chairman of the school board from 1987 to 1993 was Jerry Zinn and the school superintendent was Alan Walker and that they and the alleged sexual abuser, Dave Driscoll, are dead now . . .
3 December—There’s no question that Donald Trump’s pettish, pettifogging, petulant warlord, Pete Hegseth, is—just like all Trump’s favorite fanatical flunkies, when you think about it—unqualified, unsuitable, and unworthy, as well (of course) as unprincipled, unscrupulous, and untruthful.
Hegseth is the personification of misfeasance and malfeasance. Misfeasance is the wrongful exercise of lawful authority; performing a legal and authorized act improperly, carelessly, or negligently—misconduct without the intention of causing harm. Malfeasance, on the other hand, is intentional evil-doing; conduct that is intentionally unlawful or otherwise wrongful and thus fully meant to cause some manner of harm; malfeasance is corruption, criminality, sin.
So warlord Hegseth denied from the outset giving the illegal order to kill the incapacitated survivors of the U.S. Navy’s illegal attack on the first of several alleged—with absolutely no proof offered by Hegseth, Trump, or anyone else—drug-running boats in the Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela. It certainly was good to have an underling—in this case Admiral Frank Bradley—to pass the buck to.
And now Hegseth has added what he and his coterie must consider plausible deniability to his having given the kill order by claiming that he “didn’t stick around” after ordering Bradley to take out what was probably just a fishing boat. Okay. Let’s say Hegseth didn’t stick around for whatever reason.
But why not? After all, that was (as far as we know) the very first foray into what was for all intents and purposes—as far as Hegseth and his senile sugar daddy Trump gave a damn, anyway—an active war zone. So wouldn’t you expect the senior military official—i.e., warlord Hegseth—to insist on being there, being on top of it, closely monitoring the situation? Especially since even the screwed-up Trump-Hegseth war department must have had some lawyerly misgivings about the operation. Same goes for supreme dictator Trump, come to think of it, but he’d have slept through it.
But Hegseth claims to have “moved on to my next meeting.” At the very least, then, that was irresponsible and illustrative of his incompetence. If that was actually the case, then, Hegseth clearly was misfeasant. In addition, of course, to being malfeasant in ordering what’s either a war crime—killing incapacitated survivors in an armed conflict, as Trump’s criminals insist the they’re engaged in are—or just plain murder—since Congress hasn’t declared war.
Plausible deniability has its place. But Hegseth, like Trump, has made deniability implausible . . .
2 December—Among the good news today is that the local snipers have left. Evidently they weren’t able to make friends by picking off non-adventurous locals who in all events have more respect for all animal life, including but not limited to the human variety.
The disappointed sharpshooting duo is likely aiming to work for one of the antisocial and corrupt Trump administration’s despicable divisions that have demonstrated total disregard and disrespect for everything valued by good people, including but not limited to life, particularly the human variety.
So here’s a picture of the miserable marksmen trudging off to do their dirty best for the dastardly bully going down in the other picture . . .
1 December—Among the first phrases you learn in Hebrew school are “ani tzrich letzet”—“I’ve gotta go”—and “slach lee”—“pardon me.”
Three weeks ago, Donald Trump “called on”—i.e., ordered (because he is the bully Trump, after all)—Israel President Isaac Herzog to “fully pardon” Trump’s Israeli BFF longest-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, thus ending the “political, unjustified prosecution . . . lawfare once and for all” on obviously trumped-up corruption charges. Here’s the letter:
Certainly, in the great scheme of things, the corruption Netanyahu is charged with—and to which he has naturally pleaded not guilty—is bupkes, especially when compared to Trump’s well-documented and mind-boggling corruption for which he’ll never be punished.
Herzog (the son of a former Israeli president—an Irishman—and like Netanyahu an IDF veteran and largely educated in the U.S.) diplomatically pointed out that that “anyone seeking a presidential pardon must submit a formal request in accordance with established procedures,” including that the request be submitted by the accused or a close relative. Israel’s High Court of Justice (equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court) had previously ruled that preemptive pardons—pre-conviction pardons, anyway—were permissible in the public interest and/or extreme personal circumstances.
So yesterday, to no one’s surprise, Netanyahu asked Herzog for the pardon, claiming that he expects the five-year-long legal proceedings to result in a complete acquittal (of course) and that the burdensome criminal proceedings have been hindering his ability to govern (of course).
“My lawyers sent a request for pardon to the president of the country today,” Netanyahu said in a video released by his party. “I expect that anyone who wishes for the good of the country support this step.” Of course.
It must be noted that Isaac Herzog does not belong to Netanyahu’s party. Nor does he belong to the opposing party whose leader countered that Netanyahu shouldn’t be pardoned without admitting guilt, expressing remorse, and—of course—immediately retiring from political life. Really?
There’s no question that Donald Trump had to be reelected in order to save his sorry ass. And there’s no question that Benjamin Netanyahu has to keep the Gaza war going for the same reason. Nor matter what he may say. It’s even been suggested—incredible as it may seem—that he had colluded with Hamas on the 7 October 2023 attack.
In all events, Herzog’s office has described Netanyahu’s pardon request as “extraordinary” with “significant [albeit unspecified] implications” and assured the world that the president “will responsibly and sincerely consider the request” after receiving relevant opinions. The relevant opinions are presumably those of Israel’s justice ministry and Herzog’s legal advisors.
Of course, it’s unthinkable that Donald Trump will be putting or has put any (more) pressure on Isaac Herzog to do the wrong thing . . .