(c) 2025 Malcolm J. Brenner/Eyes Open Media, all rights reserved, not to be reproduced in any form or any medium without express written permission.
A “‘Phin-in-the-Sea” Interview Goes South
Mixing Religion and Politics, but for A Good Cause!
After watching the utterly humiliating spectacle of the first and second elected officials of the U.S.A. — Dumpty-Trumpty and Shady Jay-Dee, if you weren’t clear — acting like mid-level Mafia bosses putting the squeeze on some two-bit hood named Zelenskyy, the commentator Keith Olberman, who hosts the podcast Countdown, was really angry! He cursed the Deplorable Duo up one side and down the other for the pettiness, their meanness, and their fondness for mass murdering autocrats who enslave their people. And in all 28 minutes of this, toward the end, Olberman made a comment that reached out of the flat screen display and SLAPPED ME UPSIDE THE HEAD! This is it:
“Burn in Hell, Trump! I’d say the same to J.D. Vance, but I suspect he’s realized he’s already burning in Hell. HE WORKS FOR TRUMP!”
(CULINARY NOTE: Were you as puzzled as I was by the huge, obnoxious grease stain on the yellow Oval Office couch, next to Secretary of Defense Peter “Cottontail” Heggseth, in Trump’s shameful meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday? Well, scientists who analyzed the stain say that’s all that’s left of former U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (RRR-FL)! Once the least-voting resident of the Senate Chamber, who delighted in taking overseas junkets almost as much as Texas Sen. Teddy “Bare Bear” Cruz, Rubio somehow — rolling dice? Rock, paper, scissors? A tarot card reading? — got elected chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is kind of funny if you think about it. Because he’s got about the intelligence of a castrated bull. Sort of an ox-y moron! When HE was running for president, Rubio, a child of Cuban boat immigrants who put their dry feet in Miami, rightly lambasted Trump on a variety of issues, among them being close to Vlad the Impaler — excuse me, same guy, wrong century! But when Herr Drumpf won the primary, Rubio was at the head of the line to kiss His Royal Heinieness’s Ass, and got the coveted Secretary of State position! But, unlike J.D Vance, Rubio had a lower melting point, and it was apparently exceeded by the heat in the Oval Office while the two Elected Bullies were trying to turn up the heat on Zelenskyy, who, WARNED IN ADVCANCE by other European leaders, had apparently donned asbestos underwear as a precautionary measure. Smart move, Volodomyr!) SLAVA UKRAINE!
AI generated image to my specs, third try. Vance looks a little too Old Testament, but aside from that I think this captures Shady’s current career ladder rather well! Problem is, on that particular ladder he’s NOT ASCENDING… and funny thing, the further down he goes, the hotter the rungs get!
Two Bullies, 1,000 Cameras and the Brave Little Kid!
Yet another letter to our… king, I guess. He could be… McBeth? Where are the three wise women, and their coven of naked hag witches, when you NEED them? But even without them, I saw magic, bravery, and some utterly contemptuous behavior today. Here’s a letter I just sent to #45-47, AGAIN! He’s already in the whale shit that collects at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, so how much lower can he sink? STAY TUNED! (NOTE: The White House imposes a 4K limit on characters, and I have used ALL of mine!)
Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP. Body Language: Ukrainian!
Donald Dumpster Fire,
Wow, what a surprise I had today! I heard that you and Shady — you know, your Veep? — were meeting Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, and of course I wanted to see your warm, charming, thoughtful, humanitarian diplomacy giving encouragement, money, resources and most importantly of all, powerful, precision, long-range American weapons, to the brave ex-televison personality (just like you, only not fat!) now called upon to lead his people in a totally defensive war against a large, bloodthirsty, ruthless and better-armed opponent who, TIME AND AGAIN, has oppressed, starved and murdered his people!
I expected to see YOUR LEADERSHIP ON DISPLAY! I expected to hear YOUR COMPASSION for a nation at war! And I expected you to CONGRATULATE President Zelenskyy on the bravery of his troops, the loyalty of the Ukrainian people, the skillful deployment of the weapons we sent him, and his resolution and valor in standing firm against the oppression of a murderous criminal madman!
Photo: Associated Press — HEY! Who the hell let THEM in?
You (not Zelensky, there was just 1 Ukrainian reporter in the room, you could tell who she was because her makeup was running like Rudy Giuliani’s hair dye) must’ve had about 1K cameras in there to cover the event for posterity, but a moment after I tuned in the broadcast on one of those bleeding-heart networks I watch, SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENED!
I think my TV must have picked up an old episode of “Little Rascals” or “Leave it to Beaver,” because suddenly everything became B&W and what I was watching, changed! Now the show was of two nasty playground bullies, a fat, misshapen, ugly 6th grader named Donald and his accomplice, a 5th grader with 5 o’clock shadow named… hey, what does the J stand for in your Veep’s first name? I can’t be bothered to remember — JD, and they were harassing a tough little 4 grader named Vlodny, dressed all in black, for his lunch money!
“YOU DON’T HOLD ANY CARDS,” the lard-bucket Donnie thundered, trying but failing to sound bad-ass.
“We’re not playing cards,” Vlodny said.
“YOU HAVEN’T TOLD US HOW THANKFUL YOU ARE FOR TO US FOR NOT BEATING YOU UP!” JD whined, sounding like a weasel caught in a leg trap.
“YEAH, AND YOU OWE US 350 BILLION, JILLION, TRILLION DOLLARS,” that lying little bastard Donald said, spitting saliva all over Vlodny’s black clothes.
[Image generated by AI. It only took 3 tries! And no apologies, this time.]
At that point, you know what I really, really wanted Vlodny to do? GET UP AND PUNCH DONALD IN THE FACE, AND BITCH-SLAP SHADY! Then leave.
But strangest of all was THE HAND UP DONNY’S BUTT, like he was a puppet! And why did it smell like borscht? And then the screen went blank.
In conclusion: Since your repeated so many of Putin’s talking points on Ukraine, I conclude that you and your whole administration are RUSSIAN OPERATIVES, doing what the Soviet Union couldn’t do with force: YOU ARE DESTROYING AMERICA FROM WITHIN!
Ye Gods, Putin must have some hella-good COMPROMAT ON YOU! I’m telling my reps in Congress to seek a 25 Amendment solution to you, and if that doesn’t work, I hope some civic-minded citizen will sacrifice him or herself to perform a 2nd Amendment solution. Not me, I’m 73, suffer 3 debilitating diseases, and don’t travel. But you do, and I hope Air Force One crashes in the ocean with you aboard. Shame to kill those great pilots, stewards and staff, but remembering Timothy McVay, they would be merely “COLLATERAL DAMAGE.”
I am buying a bottle of good champagne and saving it for the day you loose your office, your power, your hostility to the America my parents fought to defend, what little honor you imagined you had, your “face” (Japanese) and if it comes to that, your worthless life, LOSER!
You & JD have embarrassed me, the American government, and all our former friends and allies abroad. Although I’m an atheist, I think we should open room in Hell just for you. It could be a new theme ride at Disneyland!
Truly yours, Malcolm J. Brenner, and no, ELON CANNOT HAVE MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!!
Unsolicited Advice, to a Brute, to be Ignored…
Today, inspired by current events, I sat down and wrote a slightly — OK, somewhat — sarcastic letter to our 47th president, who could use a little advice about how to handle all the difficult, complex problems swirling around him, at home and abroad. Here it is! Go forth, Donny, and sin no more! Oh, BTW — your diaper needs changing! I can smell it from here.
Unloved King Shitzfurbranez,
Ye gods, you are an unholy fuckup! Even a little schmuck like me can still give you advice, so here’s a bulleted list:
- Get rid of Elon! You need him, but does he need you? NO! His net income is bigger than some countries’ GDPs! He’s bought you, but how long will it be before he runs out of Special K and gets bored? My advice: Do him on a bridge, like Teddy Kennedy did it with that little bitch Mary Jo Kopechne! You can say you dove into the frigid, swirling water dozens of times trying to rescue Musky, and emerge for the news cameras a sopping wet HERO! Once again, you, Donnybrook, WIN!
- Social Security, which I depend on for a meager $1,005 a month — pardon me, I had a checkered career — is headed for insolvency, and Medicare, which keeps me from dying of treatable illness and pays for my hospital stays and doctor care, appears to be on the chopping block. Oh, the government spent too much, we can’t afford to help the POOR any more! Besides, they must’ve somehow earned their poorness, because that’s where they are, right? POOR! BUT, I have come up with an amazing solution, completely unthought-of by anyone in your cabinet, Musk Ox or extended advisory council! Want to hear it? OK, and I won’t even charge you! HERE IT IS:
TAX THE MOTHERFUCKING RICH!
TAX THE MOTHERFUCKING RICH!
TAX THE MOTHERFUCKING RICH!
TAX THE MOTHERFUCKING RICH!
There! Did you get that? And let me tell you why that’s GOOD economics, GOOD for America and GOOD for YOU: because if you tax the RICH, there aren’t enough of them to form a big mob, like you did on Jan. 6, 2021, pick up pitchforks and light torches, block the exits of the White House so you can’t get out, and burn it down AROUND YOU! That’s what happens, even to kings and queens, when they try to shift the tax burden from the nobles to the peasants. The peasants BURN you ALIVE! NOTE: This is not a threat, so don’t call whatever crook you have running the Secret Service. It’s merely a historical observation. But take my advice & AGAIN, YOU WIN! - Gazans have had at least 46,000 people, 2/3 of them (30,360) women and children, killed in the recent Israeli-committed genocide. I know you don’t give shit about them, but that was state-sponsored payback for the horrifying Oct. 7, 2023 HAMAS attacks where about 1,200 Israelis were killed. Now, you say you, or we, or somebody, is going to OWN GAZA and develop it into beautiful beachfront property, like Siesta Key, Sarasota, FL, where I used to live. But NOBODY ASKED THE PALESTINIANS! Because they’re poor, and poor people don’t vote, not for you, unless they’re white and dumb! I know the Navajo (Nation) pretty well, and they were relocated by the 7th Cavalry around 1862. They tried to scrape a living out of the sorry piece of sand they were forced to live on for 3 years, then gave up and WALKED 300 MILES back to their FORMER home! So I don’t think the Gazans, who have been living in PALESTINE for centuries, if not millennia, are going to leave that easily. My solution? Most Israelis are ASHKENAZI JEWS, which means their ancestry is European! WOULDN’T IT BE EASIER TO SEND THEM BACK TO EUROPE, GIVE GAZA BACK TO THE PALESTINIANS, and shake your buddy Netanyahu’s hand as he gets on the last train out of Jerusalem? Problem solved, and again, YOU WIN, DONNY! And don’t say I’m anti-Semitic, my dad was a Jew, served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in WW2, and was a fine man. I loved him dearly. (My mother also served, as a nurse in the Royal Air Force, but with her, not so much.)
Don’t worry, I’m approaching the end!
•What I said about the Navajo loving their land also applies to Ukrainians. They like their own land just fine. And if that Jewish Fascist Zelenskyy started the war, did the Russian tank commanders have compasses? I ask, because all the Russian tanks I saw (you can tell, they had Russian flags on them) WERE HEADING WEST! I know that Putin is a fellow oligarch-cum-dictator, but just drop a small nuclear weapon, say 1 KT, on the Kremlin while he’s in it! Never mind the fallout, it’s just collateral damage, after all, you will have the heartfelt thanks and prayers of every Russian (I have friends there)! And the Ukrainians can go back to what they enjoy, being servile slaves of that horrible despot Zelenskyy! AGAIN YOU WIN! - The economy still sucks, worse than under Biden! That egg for your McMuffin cost $1! FORGET IT, YOU LOSE, KING SHITZFURBRANEZ! LOSER, LOSER, LOSER, LOSER, LOSER, LOSER, LOSER, you know who will inherit your throne? Not your children, but a man named ELON! LOSER, LOSER, LOSER, LOSER, LOSER, LOERLOSERLOSERLOSER!
Most sincerely yours, Malcolm J. Brenner
P.S. — Just one question, Donald (you never did like that name, did you? What a shit your father was, to name you that!): I had to fill out a long and rather complex form to be able to send this email to the White House, and answer some personal questions to do so. BUT WHY DO YOU NEED TO KNOW MY BLOOD TYPE? It is, for the record, B negative, which I am. Only towards you!
But what, Donnie, can I do? IT’S IN MY BLOOD! — MJB
(Image generated by AI. All you graphic artists out there, from the bottom of my flinty, cheap little heart, I apologize! This time, AI did what I asked, and I don’t have any money to pay you, anyway. And if I offered you my daughter’s hand in marriage, her husband might object, although that’s not a sure thing, they live in San Francisco, after all. So there!)
Go On, Fund Me! Just Don’t Expect Any Payback.
(Originally an email to about 40 of my friends and acquaintances on Feb. 20, 2025.)
Hi, friends, fans and family, foes, fools, and frolickers, freedom-fighters and fellow-travelers,
I hope you’re doing well, or at least mostly adequate. Out of sheer, mortal desperation, I have started a fundraiser on GoFundMe, and it would mean so much if you could take a look at it! (See URL below.) How much?
T——H——A——T much!
The page has some pretty fair pictures of me on it, taken back when I was actually handsome, and AI didn’t write a word of it! Any help, like donating $$$ or sharing, gets me closer to my goal of not having to beg my reluctant and somewhat unpredictable relatives to save me from starvation, getting my lights or water turned off, or having to go straight for a while. Reality! What a major buzz kill, dudes! How do you cope?
I am hoping to raise $200-250 a month, which works out to $3K/year, to supplement my tiny Social Security check. (How tiny? Do you have an electron microscope?) Thanks in advance for your kindness, generosity and support! Just don’t expect the Universe to reward you for your goodwill, okay? It doesn’t work that way, and yes, it is disappointing.
— Malcolm, the mercurial marine mammal
On Order: A New, Improved “Burning Times!”
The following is a slight revision of an email I sent to 34 individuals, some Pagan, a few Christian, and a handful of other religions just for luck. In short, just about everybody I know! I consider this dangerous announcement, from our seriously unhinged Commander-In-Chief (if Little Rocketman Musk hasn’t assumed that authority too) to be a warning anyone who is NOT a card-carrying Christian, to this effect:
Shut your damn pie hole about whatever weird rite it is you do, because talking about it is just as bad as doing it, and if Donald doesn’t send the IRS suits to question your religious tax exemption, maybe he’ll just send the Proud Boys to beat the snot out of you, smash whatever unholy heathen idols you think you’re worshipping, and burn your house of worship!
With that in mind, here it is:
Feb. 7, 2025
Shake the moths out of your asbestos undergarments, all you Witches, Pagans, occultists, Native Americans and followers of other obscure religions, because suddenly our notably-unreasonable sequel, TRUMP 2: MY REVENGE ON EVERYTHING!, is the only attraction at the local drive-in!
As proof I offer you this news report, filed today, Feb. 7, 2025, by Lauren Taylor of Straight Arrow News, bless her pointed little head!
Gee, I wonder who The Donald and the Reptilian who holds his leash, Emperor Elon, will appoint to decide what is “anti-Christian?” Why, that fuming, writhing cauldron of feminist sorcery, Her Witchyness Pam Bondi, the U.S. Attorney General! I haven’t looked at her tack, err, TRACK record yet, but if Herr Drumpf’s other nominees are any indication, I bet she’s as highly polished as a frozen turd can get, to paraphrase the late, great Stanley Kubrick! Wonder Bread, all the way!
What, I wonder, are Pamela’s qualifications to sit in judgment on those who might be considered Anti-Christian? What a challenge! Does this mean we don’t get to enjoy the seasonal Baphomet display of the Satanic Church every Yuletide? Will the Isis-worshipping roots of the Easter Bunny be exposed? Is the Book of Revelations really a “how-to manual” for the Apocalypse, and can Ms. Bondi’s crayon connect the dots without melting?
Who can Pam enlist to help her in this noble crusade? Well, she could use a Quija board to raise the spirit of Torquemada, leader of the Spanish Inquisition, because you’re allowed to do Satanic things, as long as it’s in the Lord’s Name! You get it? There’s absolute absolution at the top, baby! And I’m sure Torquemada, or “Torky!” as he was known to close friends, could advise her.
So could the mad, unlamented pre-Revolutionary Russian monk Grigori Rasputin, who sinned mightily so he could be forgiven! (Notez-bien: Any similarity to the philosophy of Universalism, as espoused by people such as 19th-Century poet Walt Whitman, is co-incidental and unintentional!) I’m sure Cyril of Alexandria, who had Hypatia, the brilliant, Pagan woman mathematician of Alexandria, murdered horribly by a mob, then burned the great library of Alexandria, would be willing to add his two bits worth… you get my idea? The candidates will have to take a number! Their name is Legion!
As the Wiccan High Priestess Starhawk advises, “Never make your religious decisions out of fear.”
I, for one, will not go quietly, and I hope you feel the same way! Otherwise, go read an astrology column! Or a right-wing screed, or a complaint about passivity that is, itself, passive! I will continue to be what I am, a pro-dolphin evangelist (secular), an author, photographer and publisher, and do what I do. I don’t have time to be anti-Christian,
BECAUSE I’M TOO FUCKING BUSY RIGHT NOW FIGHTING FASCISM!
Thanks for being, and remaining, my friends and readers! — Malcolm J. Brenner, now and forever an iconoclast, and individualist, and a Foe of Bullies Everywhere!
(Image of Indiana Jones, or somebody who looks like him, generated on the third attempt by WordPress’s built-in AI, which is an oxymoron. Here’s what I was aiming for:)
A Short Note to the Alligator People
TO: Izod, Inc. Corporate HQ, a major sports clothing manufacturer headquartered in New York City, USA, with outlets throughout this spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
Dear Sir or Madam who reads this complaint,
I’ve been meaning to send back 3 pair of “boxer briefs,” as they are known in the industry, which I made the mistake of purchasing from a Beall’s Outlet store in Port Charlotte, FL. I did not realize my mistake until I got home, opened the package and removed the first pair.
To my shock, horror and astonishment, YOU HAVE MADE THIS INTIMATE ARTICLE OF MENS’ CLOTHING WITHOUT A FLY HOLE! What a stupid inconvenience to have to pull them down, and hold them there, every damn time you want to BLEED THE freaking TOAD! (Pardonnez ma Français, si vous plait!)
Did it ever occur to your overpaid designers that, if I want to pull my underpants down, I can do so even if they have a fly hole in them? Did it ever occur to your porridge-brained bean counters that the $.005 they save by leaving out what must be an extra, minor operation, would invoke the wrath of so many men, all of them inconvenienced, like me, by what is either a colossal oversight or a very perverse design feature, possibly the displaced wrath of some woman designer who is pissed-off at men, for some reason, and wishes they would keep their bratwurst in their pants?
Like I said, I wanted to send the boxer briefs back to you, but I lost the receipt, I’m short of cash for postage right now (the Social Security check never buys as much weed as you hope it will) and I’m cheap, but thrifty too. So I think I will donate the washed boxer briefs to some local charity that collects clothing for the poor and homeless, and suffice it be to express my annoyance at the corporate You, Izod, for marketing such a thoughtfully inferior and poorly-designed garment to an unsuspecting world! Dockers are better-made and more stylish than your clothes anyway, so please rest assured this soured consumer will make it a point to avoid all your products in the future, if possible. Forever and ever, aaaaahh-mennnn!
Sincerely yours, Malcolm J. Brenner /Eyes Open Media/ malcolmbrenner.com
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A Letter to my Russian Translator on Current Events, Part 1: American Turmoil!
Yeah, you’ve seen this photo before! And you’ll probably see it again, before I get done with it, and #45!
Unless you read Russian, and are familiar with the current generation of samizdat — underground home publishing by officially unacknowledged writers — you probably aren’t aware that my novel of non-human intelligence, WET GODDESS: Recollections of a Dolphin Lover, is published in Russian! Here I am, celebrating the official publication in 2015, with my good friend Stoli Ch’naya, who used to be Russian but wisely moved his operations to Lithuania several years before Putin thought to put the bite on him:
This publication — little noted in the Russian press, by design — was actually initiated by the translator himself, who contacted me in 2014 to let me know that he had spent a year painstakingly translating Wet Goddess so his close friends and family could enjoy it as much as he had, and oh, by the way, did I mind?
Yes, he was asking my permission for a deed he’d already done!
Of course, being an ardent capitalist (at least when I have no money), my mind immediately turned to how I, and maybe even he, could turn a profit on the book, and, by the way, spread my radical ideas about dolphin personhood to a new continent and the largest country in the world (as of this writing)!
You may notice that I am not including a photo of my Russian translator here, or mentioning him by name, nor identifying the Russian city or oblast (state) where he lives. The reason for this is the meat-grinder of Putin’s insane war with Ukraine, which is currently turning Russian youth into sausages, with body-bag casings. Although my translator was working as a salesman in a failing retail store when he contacted me, he has, by dint of thrift (and Soviet-style subsidized rental housing, which costs about 1/10th of what it would here), slowly improved his photo and video gear to the point where he’s been operating for a couple of years and as independent cameraman/director/editor for his own and others’ productions! This guy is a typical Republican “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” self-made man, but he managed to do it in the Middle of Bumfok, Nowhere, Russia, without any help from what now passes for the GOP!
Not only that, the dude’s insanely handsome, like a Bolshevik version of Brad Pitt, but with that crazy madness in his eyes that we’ve come to expect from every Russian villain, from Dr. Zarkov in Flash Gordon to Viggo Tarasov in John Wick! When I pointed this out to him, he just replied “Yes, that’s what my mother says, too, but I thought she might be biased.”
This guy is utterly clueless!
I think I’ve said all I have to say, while keeping him safe from the clutches of the FSB! Here, without further ado, is my letter describing the confusing political events of July, 2024, the month and year when A NEW HOPE SHONE FORTH…
July 28-29, 2024
Dear XXXXX,
I know I haven’t given you enough time to respond since my last email, but current events have overtaken me, and the U.S.A. in general! Since I don’t know what or how RU TV covers U.S. news, I suspect you may have heard some rumors, or half-truths, or convenient untruths, about what is actually going on over here.
Because things are a bit topsy-turvy right now, let me try to summarize for your benefit, and that of all your fellow Russians, petit-bourgeois commoners, surfs, kulaks and nobles alike, the often confusing, sometimes confounding U.S. political events of the past month in chronological order, presented on a handy, bulleted (no pun intended) list for clarity, and because everybody else does it:
June 27, one month + one day ago: Ex-President Trump mops the studio floor with President Joe Biden in their first, and it turns out last, debate. Never mind that Trump lied hundreds of times during that 2 hours — the “firehose of falsehoods” you’ve referred to previously — Biden looked weak, and frail, and old. Not good optics! And of course no fact-checking by the moderators, which Trump wouldn’t tolerate. Worst thing Biden got out was “I’ve never heard such malarky in my life (Irish roots showing)!” I saw Biden debate Trump 4 years ago, and he was great. It’s sad to see what’s happened to him, but Grandfather Time catches up with everyone, even us Boomers!
End of June/Beginning of July: The Left falls into general slump, realizes Biden hasn’t got what it takes any more. Influential Democrats like George Clooney, the famous American actor (he was in a bad remake of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris in 2002, but I like Andrei Tarkovsky’s twisted vision better, he didn’t try to film a love story, but he left in those endless cheap special effects shots driving around Tokyo’s Ginza District on wet streets at night) start asking Biden to step down and let someone else lead the anti-Trump charge. Gee, who could it be? I wonder… the U.S.A.’s first Black/Asian female VP, Kamala Harris, former California senator, former federal prosecutor for the district of San Francisco?… NAH! What are you smoking, comrade?
July 13, Saturday: Trump’s dog-and-pony show sets up its tents in the Rust Belt town of Butler, PA, about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh, which used to be the thriving center of the U.S. steel industry in the 20th Century. It’s solid-red Trump Country! Unbeknownst to the Trump security team, the local police or county sheriff, or even the Secret Service or his own family, a mentally disturbed white, Republican 20-year-old named Thomas Matthew Crooks, whose gun-nut father is a rabid Trump supporter, asks borrow his dad’s AR-15 style people-hunting rifle, so he can get some time in at the local gun range. Crooks’ dad jokes that his son needs the practice! (NOTE: Crooks’ high school gun club threw him out because he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, and was a danger on the firing range to himself and others! This kid was no Lee Harvey Oswald, a trained USMC sniper, by any means!)
Later That Same Day: Crooks buys 50 rounds of ammo at a local gun shop, picks up a digital laser rangefinder and a short step ladder at Home Depot, and drives 40 miles to the Butler Farm Show, a seasonal event at which Trump is blathering. While Trump recalls his boyhood friendship with fictional cannibal Hannibal Lecter, Crooks wanders around, measuring, sighting, and planning his shots. Supposedly the Secret Service knew about the danger he posed 18 minutes before the attempted assassination, as people saw Crooks up on the roof of the building that law enforcement was using as a headquarters! Crooks has plenty of time to crawl over the roof. A local sheriff’s deputy follows him up the ladder, but when Crooks points his long gun at the deputy, he falls off! Moments later, and while being intently observed by not 1 but 2 Secret Service sharpshooters, Crooks opens fire.
6:11 p.m.: Making a point, Donald Trump turns his head slightly and a .223 high velocity round flies through his right ear, missing a cranial shot by about 2 cm. Crooks gets off several more rounds, blasting a Teleprompter to fragments, seriously injuring two bystanders and killing a third. The SS sharpshooters put five .50 caliber rounds into young Master Crooks, ending his brief reign of terror, the Secret Service agents mob Trump, who instructs them on a hot mic to put his shoes back on (???) and doesn’t forget to pump his fist in the air, a dramatic salute to his followers, as he’s hustled out of the arena, blood trickling down his face.
Immediately Afterward: The Republican Echo Chamber begins turning out nonsense about the shooting, and there’s no official word from either Trump’s campaign staff or the hospital where he was treated, other than to say he’s “doing well.” Rumors don’t just fly, they teleport! And when it’s finally realized that Crooks WAS a Trump supporter, and his family donated to Trump’s campaign, the Right is utterly gobsmacked! They were all prepared to blame President Biden, for threatening Trump by making him sound like a mean old Nazi, which Biden did by the simple expedient of quoting some of Trump’s statements recorded at his private, unscripted events! Here, Trump praises Fearless Leader, Little Rocket Man, Adolf Hitler, Stalin, and Nikolay Denkov, among other despots, for their firm grip on power. His fans eat it up.
July 15-18: Republican Convention in Milwaukee, WI, a city which Trump has previously declared he hates, and is the capital of American beer-brewing. Trump is apotheosized and given burnt offerings and songs of glad adulation, along with people beseeching him to rescue them and their semiautomatic weapons from the Horrible Socialist Left, as only he can!
July 18: On the last day of convention, Trump announces his eagerly-anticipated choice for VP! It’s J. D. Vance, a freshman senator from Ohio who was famous 10 years ago for writing a briefly bestselling book about how lousy his youth was titled Hillbilly Elegy. Almost immediately, videos of Vance making anti-Trump statements a few years ago start circulating. If you want to know what Pretzel Logic is, it’s politics!
July 21, Sunday: Former Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, finally convinces President Joe Biden to depart the campaign, for the good of the country and the preservation of our democratic republic! Reluctantly, Biden agrees and appoints Kamala Harris to replace him on the ticket! She eagerly accepts, and starts fundraising immediately!
24 Hours Later: Harris has raised over $100,000,000, and set a new one-day record for U.S. political fundraising!
July 22, Monday, A Slow News Day: When the news about Harris’s campaign gets out, Republicans suffer coronary arrest! Trump demands somebody repay him for all the money he’s invested in planning Sleepy Joe’s defeat, because Harris leaves him with no arguments except that she’s Black, she’s Asian and she’s got a vagina! (Which I think everybody was willing to accept on expert opinion.)
LATE MONDAY, 7-29: I put in 4 hours researching and writing this compilation, intending to complete it earlier, but I really felt like crap all day. Current events confound everything; for instance, where’s the supposed bullet hole in Trump’s right ear? And where are his medical records from the hospital ER, where he was treated? The FBI, among others, would like to hear it from Trump’s lips, and he’s finally acceded to their request. Also, the local sheriff’s office SWAT team was never briefed, never contacted, by the Secret Service until after the assignation attempt! Stay tuned to National Public Radio (NPR) for the best reporting originating in the USA. It reflects pretty well not only the news, but how it’s affecting ordinary people over here. Be well, stay low, wear camo and carry spare ammo! That’s the best advice I can give you right now, XXXXX, the rest is up to Lady Luck! — Malcolm
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The Utter Ambivalence of Evil
by Malcolm J. Brenner
I woke from a nap last Saturday, just in time to witness on live TV the attempted assassination of ex-President Trump. It was quite a surreal situation, I assure you; I’d laid my head on a pillow on the couch for just a moment, and it seemed like no time had passed. I sort of lap-dissolved from the national evening news into coverage of The Donald’s election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and became, as they say, another witness to the latest chapter in America’s dark, violent and bloody modern politics, the politics of hate, of polarization, the politics of the AR-15 and the bump stock.
Do you know what the wonderful thing about hate is? It is utterly indiscriminate! As an emotion, a state of self-perpetuating rage and battle-response stress, hate doesn’t care about any reasons who or what is hated, it’s much too primal for such refined cogitation. Any reasons it could come up with would only be thin masks, barely concealing the need to inflict hurt on others. Because hate only acknowledges its own existence, its own pain, its own wounds, and uses them to justify lashing out at the perceived person or object hated, or, as psychologists call it, the other.
Hence, we get news stories of rednecks attacking Sikhs, not because Sikhs are evil or have done the rednecks any harm, but since adult male Sikhs all wear turbans, grow full, luxurious beards and appear prosperous (the ones I’ve seen, anyhow), they fit the rednecks’ preconceived image of “your stereotypical A-rab oil sheik” and as such become the target for discrimination, harassment, assault and worse. Mind you, the rednecks wouldn’t know a real sheik if they tripped over him; many sheiks wear Western business suits when visiting our side of the world. Besides, I hear relations between the Muslims and Sikhs aren’t exactly what one would call amorous, and haven’t been much that way for the past, oh, I don’t know, 525 years?
Would-be Trump assassin Thomas Mattew Crooks, it now turns out, had images of both Trump and Biden on his cell phone, along with schedules of the Republican and Democratic Conventions. Crooks targeted both, but Trump’s convention came first, and was thus the earliest opportunity to do something totally random, totally chaotic, and thoroughly evil. It’s obvious Crooks didn’t care who he killed, finding one victim as good as another! He therefore had no impetus, no narrative, and no motive, except the brooding rage of one incessantly bullied, access to his father’s semiautomatic people-hunting rifle, enough cash to buy 50 rounds of ammo, and the immanent, irresistible presence in his world of an important, accessible target, like the smell of bacon attracting a hungry dog.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies are having a hard time assigning a motive to Crooks’ murderous actions, and no wonder! His only motive was the opportunity to kill someone famous, it didn’t matter who! This kind of randomness, where the flip of a coin may decide whether you live or die, doesn’t care which side you’re on, what uniform you’re wearing, what color your skin is or what language you speak. Like the Xenomorph in the Alien movie franchise, Crooks killed because he could. His attempt to murder Trump made about as much sense as nobody John Hinkley trying to kill President Ronald Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster: NONE WHATSOEVER!
Is this assassination attempt, such a meaningless gesture, a signal that the era of extremism in politics is over? If it no longer makes any difference to a would-be assassin what you as a victim believe, or do, or plan, why bother holding extremist viewpoints? Now, both sides of the Congressional aisle can feel equally threatened!
When it no longer matters who you kill, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, you have truly become a psychopath.
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NO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (A.I.) WAS USED IN THE COMPOSITION OF THIS ESSAY. AS A WRITER, I REJECT A.I. IT’S MORE PRONE TO HALLUCINATIONS THAN I AM! I MUCH PREFER THE APP NATURAL STUPIDITY. YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT AT… OH HELL, JUST GO FIND IT YOURSELF!
All contents including photo are © 2024 Malcolm J. Brenner
On Fascism
“The only
good Fascist is
a dead Fascist.”
— Paraphrasing the racist, murderous Gen. George Armstrong Custer, U.S. Cavalry, butcher of Native Americans. The Lakota would not scalp him after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, because you don’t scalp a dog. Sorry if the Custer family takes offense at this, but your ancestor was a PIECE OF WORK.
The difference between me and Gen. Custer is, I’m RIGHT! Ask anyone who lived through WW2, like my parents. They weren’t great people, but they knew a Fascist when they saw one, and they fought them with their brains and their hands. And if you can’t find anyone, read the books they left, like “The Diary of Anne Frank” or the cartoons of Bill Mauldin, the U.S. Army’s greatest cartoonist! And while you’re at it… FUCK TRUMP! FUCK TRUMP! FUCK TRUMP! FUCK TRUMP! FUCK TRUMP!
There… now I feel better. VOTE, AND VOTE FOR YOUR CHILDREN’S FUTURES!
Malcolm J. Brenner 