Land of The Free, Home of The Gullible

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Before the Former Guy, I had a friend who thought all the (dis)United States needed was a successful businessman to straighten everything out. Not a businesswoman, a businessman who had taken risks, created jobs, and balanced budgets.

And when the Former Guy materialized, this friend was convinced our capitalist savior had arrived. And he wasn’t alone. Large swaths of the country believed the Former Guy was a successful businessman.

But his tax returns show tens of millions of dollars of business losses over several years. I’ll give the Former Guy this, he’s been incredibly consistent. All of his businesses have failed. That will probably change with the Trading Cards though.

Based on what’s been made public this week, in the last 5-7 years, the only times the Former Guy has reported any income were years when he received payouts from his dad’s estate. . . over twenty years after his death. The Former Guy is the quintessential nepo baby.

I’m not sure which is more disheartening. The number of people who can’t accept that the Former Guy is a disastrous businessman; the extra taxes hard working, law-abiding Americans have had to pay to make up for the Former Guy’s (alleged) fraud; or the Internal Revenue Service being afraid to audit him.

Tie goes to the losers.

In Praise of Ireland and Irish Actors

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I’ve been in Ireland lately, thanks to Apple TV’s Bad Sisters and the film, The Banshees of Inisherin. All five “bad sisters” made it imminently clear that they were Irish after The New York Times referred to them as British. In Bad Sisters, the Irish seaside is amazingly beautiful, especially the place where everyone open water swims. There’s some beautiful architecture too. Just a feast for the eyes.

I like everything about Bad Sisters and I’m looking forward to Season 2, except for one thing, the five sisters do not look nearly enough alike. Maybe they were adopted?

Everyone’s movie interests are different. I like to be transported somewhere far away. And then dropped into a unique community with quirky characters. Add in equal parts realism and existential questions about what’s most important in life. No need to blow anything up. In other words, I’m an outlier in that I like the exact kind of films that today’s movie studios are passing on.

So what a joy when my exact type of movie is made. It was amazing spending two hours on an island off the coast of Ireland in 1923. All I’ll say about Farrell, Condon, Gleeson, Keoghan, Flitton, and Lydon is the same thing I’d say about the “bad sisters”, they can feckin’ act.

You, Joseph Murray, Are No Winston Churchill

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I took a course called “The Speeches of Winston Churchill” in college. It was great, especially since the prof was retiring and asked us what grades we wanted. Not wanting to be too greedy, I vaguely remember writing “B+” on a small index card.

Fast forward to George Santos, the young, newly elected Republican from a mostly blue district in New York. Yesterday the New York Times did a devastating piece on him. Not devastating as in mean and vindictive, devastating as in every single thing Santos claims to be true about himself is (allegedly) made up. He’s the Anna Delvey of Congress. I just hope the Netflix special is a little tighter.

Santos’s genius attorney decided the best way out of all the lying was to double down and lie more bigly.

That quote lacks Churchill’s eloquence, humor, and specificity. Did Murray use the prototype Chat GPX to come up with it?

I wonder who or what has inspired all the lying?

Conservatives Are Way Tougher On Crime. . . LOL

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That’s what they tell themselves when they look in the mirror. But whatever “toughness” they supposedly show is always, at best, situational. When the alleged perps are the downtrodden, most definitely. When they’re radical leftists, certainly.

But when it’s powerful people whose politics align with their own, they whine about “witch hunts” and “the Deep State” whatever the hell that is.

Watch Fox News tonight to see the Right’s reaction to today’s news. Not so tough after all.

What I Learned From Watching The World Cup

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  1. It’s Kylian, not Killian.
  2. It really is a “beautiful game” when five one touch passes end in a Di María goal for the ages.
  3. The best leaders sublimate their egos for the greater good. Macron should never have inserted himself into the French players post-game funk.
  4. Only seven months until the Women’s 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Mike Leach

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“After a loss to Oklahoma State in 2007, Leach said of his defense: ‘The entire first half we got hit in the mouth and acted like somebody took our lunch money. All we wanted to do was have pouty expressions on our face until somebody dabbed our little tears off and made us (expletive) feel better. And then we’d go out there and try harder once our mommies told us we were OK.'”