TUESDAY: Scribe gives voice to a gloomy thought!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2026

Charlie Pierce gets it right: The president continues to rant and yell about how the 2020 election was stolen. Or at least, so says Mediaite in this new report:

‘Crooked as Hell!’ Trump Goes on Rigged Election Rant on January 6 Anniversary

President Donald Trump spoke Tuesday at the House Republican retreat in Washington, D.C. and reiterated his long-held and widely debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Trump made the remarks on the fifth anniversary of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was fueled by his claims of voter fraud as rioters tried to stop the certification of the election.

And so on from there. You can see videotape of Trump's remarks at that link.

Scarily, we probably tilt something like 60-40 toward a disturbing thought, Scarily, we tilt a bit toward the view that the sitting president actually believes the claims he makes during those unchanging rants.

At any rate, through a succession of errors and weaknesses, this is the sitting president we the people have chosen. For the next three years, his judgment on the global stage will be serving as our judgment, which brings us to the closing remark in yesterday's blog post for Esquire by Charlie Pierce.

We chatted with Charlie long ago about our contention that player disqualification on personal fouls is the worst rule in team sports. Those were simpler times back then. The days even seemed longer then, as Harper Lee observed.

Today, we're not sure that we agree with the basic premise of Pierce's blog post. Headline included, his piece started like this—but in the beginning, right there in his headline, Pierce prefigured its gloomy end:

Jack Smith Found Plenty of Damning Evidence Against Trump. If Only That Mattered Now.

This was going to lead the blog on Monday until the president decided to grab the president of Venezuela, his wife, and the country’s oil. (And no, it’s not “our” oil if it’s underneath Venezuela. Dinosaurs did not choose where to die.) On New Year’s Eve, the Republicans decided to release the video—and a transcript—of Jack Smith’s deposition before the House Judiciary Committee that took place in December. In it, Smith demonstrated the kind of implacability that would have made a formidable prosecution if Merrick Garland had been able to get off the dime...

There are a number of highlights....[Smith] ably defended his investigation, including the subpoenas for the toll records on the telephones of certain members of Congress, including Jordan’s. Ultimately, though, Smith was quite clear about what his investigators actually found. In reply to a question about whether there was a political agenda behind his investigation, Smith made it quite plain why he did what he did and how he determined its course...

Many others have said that Smith found plenty of evidence in support of his indictments of Trump. With respect to the January 6 indictment, we're still not sure we agree.

Unless the reporting has been crazily wrong, it seems clear that the former president mishandled classified material at Mar-a-Lago in ways which went well beyond the kinds of misbehavior for which other people have been convicted of crimes. But with respect to the claim that Trump engaged in criminal conduct with respect to his ludicrous behavior between Election Day and January 6, we remain unsure--unsure that he actually committed a crime in the course of his ludicrous conduct.

More on that ages and ages hence! For today, we turn to the gloomy final rumination Charlie prefigured tin his headline. As his blog post ended, Brother Pierce said this:

Jack Smith Found Plenty of Damning Evidence Against Trump. If Only That Mattered Now.

[...]

And almost five years [after January 6], Trump launched an invasion and occupation of another country. This poisonous tree bears considerable fruit. The entire extent of the American government has been repurposed into a private instrument of vengeance and a vehicle for private enrichment. And it may already be too far gone.

If you hit a paywall at that link, you can also click here.

The American government [imperfect as it always has been] "may already be too far gone?" We agree with that provisional sense of gloom and despair. 

A baldly disordered man is in charge of that government. For better or worse, our mainstream press corps still hasn't found a way to describe what's right there before them. 

(In fairness, it isn't clear that some such declaration would have helped at any point in the past ten years. Some such accurate declaration may even have made matters worse!)

The president's judgment will serve as our judgment over the course of the next three years. "It may already be too [late]?"

In our view, Pierce gets it right with that closing remark.

UNDISGUISED: "We're going to keep the oil," he says!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2026

None of this has ever been hidden: We've long complimented the role played by David Ignatius in what's left of the national discourse. But in his new column for the Washington Post, he directs a blow right at this site! 

 As always, his column offers good, sound advice. Except when he lashes out with this:

Trump is riding high on Venezuela. It might not last.

[...]

The presidency is seductive. It leads even cautious politicians to overreach, and Trump is the opposite of cautious. He is seeking to reorder the world, at home and abroad, top to bottom. It’s easy to say that this kind of thinking is delusional, or narcissistic, or dictatorial. But Trump seems convinced that he’s on a roll, and most other countries—China and Russia are the notable exceptions—haven’t figured out a strategy for containing him.

It's easy to say that Trump is "delusional" (etc.)? To the sagacious Ignatius, we'd only say this:

Go ahead! Just give it a try!

Is the sitting president's recent conduct the product of what was once described as "mental illness?" (According to the leading authority, such terminology is falling out of favor.) 

Putting it a different way, is there any chance that the president's niece was right in the assessment she delivered in her 2020 best-seller, Too Much and Never Enough?

She's a doctorate-wielding clinical therapist. This is what she said:

MARY L. TRUMP (pages 12-13): I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist—he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)—but the label only gets us so far.

[...]

Does Donald have other symptoms we aren't aware of? Are there other disorders that might have as much or more explanatory power? Maybe. A case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which in its most severe forms is generally considered sociopathy but can also refer to chronic criminality, arrogance, and disregard for the rights of others...

The fact is, Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for.

As she continued, she offered other possible clinical assessments.

Was it easy for her to say such things? (She wasn't speaking colloquially.) 

We'll guess that it probably wasn't. But even after her book became a major best-seller, she couldn't get anyone else to repeat, and then to discuss, the various assessments she'd offered. The scriveners of Blue America's high journalistic caste all agreed:

Such assessments must be disappeared within the American political discourse. 

According to current rules of the culture, "mental illness" can be discussed with respect to various types of violent street crime. But (clinical) mental health issues must never, ever be discussed with respect to major political figures. 

You aren't allowed to say such things! So it goes as Ignatius bats this kind of medical assessment away once again.

Do our journalists even believe in the existence of "mental illness?" If they do, they have almost uniformly agreed to pretend that they don't.

In the case pf President Trump, the apparent manifestations of what was once known as "mental illness" have never been disguised. That explains the topic selection we made yesterday, even after the sitting president had launched his war on Venezuela.

He had won the Battle of Caracas, with subsequent threats being directed at Cuba, Colombia and Denmark. But in yesterday's report at this site, we focused, not on the assault on Caracas, but on the president's latest crazy behavior, in which he suggested that Governor Walz had somehow arranged to have Melissa Hortman killed. 

Judged by any conventional metric, that Truth Social post by President Trump seemed to be manifestly insane. For that reason, major journalists in Blue America agreed that it had to be disappeared—that the lunatic Truth Social post mustn't be reported or discussed. 

The conduct was manifestly disordered; for that reason, it had to be disappeared. From there, we come to today's Morning Joe, with Joe Scarborough reporting what the president said to him, yesterday, during a telephone call.

What did the sitting president say? At Mediaite, David Gilmour provides the videotape from Morning Joe, and he transcribes Scarborough's report about what the president said.

To read Gilmour's report, you can click here. We strongly suggest that you read his report and that you watch all the tape he provides.

For ourselves, it went like this. 

As we listened to Scarborough's account of the president's comments, visions of psychopathologies (whatever they are) instantly danced in our heads:

SCARBOROUGH (1/6/26): When I pressed comparisons with America’s failed occupation of Iraq, the president’s response was very different. I asked him, I said, "Mr. President, when you say, quote, we’re going to run everything, that obviously causes deep concerns because of the disaster in Iraq."

The president’s response? "Joe, the difference between Iraq and this is that Bush didn’t keep the oil. We’re going to keep the oil."

And to underline his point, Trump said his comments were no longer on background, and he said: 

"In 2016, I said we should have kept the oil. It caused a lot of controversy. Well, we should have kept the oil," the president said, "and we’re going to rebuild their broken-down oil facilities, and this time we’re going to keep the oil."

It sounds like we're going to keep the oil! And sure enough:

Back then, that is what Trump said Bush did wrong after he conquered Iraq. He said Bush should have kept the oil.

Yesterday, he apparently told Scarborough, again and again, that we'll be keeping the oil this time.

At this site, we've outlined various (clinical) pathologies which have come to mind, within the past year, as we've listened to the peculiar claims emerging from President Trump. We've also offered this general overview:

As a general matter, "mental illness" is conceptually complex in a way which "physical illness" isn't. Presumably, there are medical specialists who could help explain some of the points of puzzlement we've attempted to lay out.

It's also true that serious "mental illness" (like serious cognitive decline) is always a human tragedy which robs the afflicted of his or her human capability. That said, do our journalists even believe that such "mental disorders" exist?

Soon, the commander will be moving on Greenland or maybe Colombia, plus Cuba is ready to fall. He clearly plans to "keep the oil" as the spoils of last weekend's conquest.

Different people have different ideas about last weekend's action. That said, very few people will fail to see the madness of the sitting president's post about Governor Walz.

Yesterday, we focused on that Truth Social post because it rips the curtain away from the sitting president's apparent mental state. The person who posted that lunatic suggestion about Tim Walz is the same person who will guide our nation's coming adventures.

Easy to be hard, Ignatius now says. In effect, it's the latest effort to disappear the state of affairs which has been sitting right there before us over a number of years.

The Clintons killed Jefrey Epstein, this madman instantly suggester or said back in 2019. Governor Walz assassinated his ally, Hortman, this same man has now suggested or said.

The madness there is undisguised, and this is the person who will be leading us forward. Please look over here instead, the upper end "press corps" implores.

It's too late to do anything about this—about this astonishing state of affairs. In truth, it was too late all along!

Remember:

Serious (clinical) "mental disorder" is always a human tragedy. When it afflicts a sitting president, it's also a source of great danger.

Tomorrow: He went to the island 28 times, the sitting president said

MONDAY: The madness of the king advances!

MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2026

But mainly, Walz drops out: With the Battle of Caracas won, the madness over Air Force One has been general, with warnings issued to Denmark and Cuba, and tariff claims out of control.

We'll set that aside until tomorrow. For today, we'll focus on this news report in the New York Times:

Gov. Tim Walz Drops Re-election Bid, and Amy Klobuchar May Run Instead

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said on Monday that he was abandoning his bid for re-election to a third term. And Senator Amy Klobuchar, a fellow Democrat, is considering seeking the office, two people briefed on conversations between the two politicians said.

Mr. Walz and Ms. Klobuchar met on Sunday in Minnesota, where he informed her of his plans and she confirmed her interest in running to succeed him. For Mr. Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president in the 2024 election, the departure caps a brief rise in national politics.

Mr. Walz said a widening scandal over fraud in social services programs in Minnesota had persuaded him to drop out of the race. He had been criticized for his administration’s oversight of the programs and its failure to prevent widespread fraud.

“I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all,” Mr. Walz said in a statement he read aloud during a news conference on Monday. “Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences.”

So reports the New York Times. For Mediaite's initial report, you can just click here.

Should Governor Walz be leaving the race? On balance, we'd be inclined to say that it's time for a change. 

Over at Fox, there has been a fair amount of the usual crackpot reporting and commentary about the Minnesota fraud prosecutions since the topic went viral. Also, the sudden emergence of this topic in late November produced two days of astonishing conduct n which the sitting president said that Minnesota's Somali-American population is just a bunch of "garbage."

That said, this is not an invented scandal. The New York Times has published two major reports on the topic in the past six weeks. For better or worse, the first report—a sprawling front-page report on Sunday, November 30—fingered Governor Walz right in its headline:

How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch

The fraud scandal that rattled Minnesota was staggering in its scale and brazenness.

Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program meant to keep children fed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

At first, many in the state saw the case as a one-off abuse during a health emergency. But as new schemes targeting the state’s generous safety net programs came to light, state and federal officials began to grapple with a jarring reality.

Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.

That's the way the lengthy report began. On December 20, the Times followed up with this:

Prosecutors Say Minnesota’s Fraud Scandal Goes Further Than Previously Known

An investigation into fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs has broadened significantly, federal prosecutors said on Thursday.

The prosecutors told reporters that they were investigating suspicious billing practices in 14 Medicaid-funded programs. Until now, the investigation had focused on only three safety net programs run by state agencies.

“What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes,” Joseph H. Thompson, the federal prosecutor overseeing the investigation said at a news conference. “It is staggering industrial-scale fraud.”

A preliminary assessment suggests that more than half of the $18 billion in taxpayer funds spent on the 14 programs and intended to help low-income, vulnerable people since 2018 was most likely stolen, the federal prosecutors said.

And so on from there. By the way:

On Fox, that "more than half of $18 billion" tends to be referred toas $18 billion in fraud full stop, just plain completely straight up!

The Times has been reporting on this topic since 2022. At that time, the prosecutions started under the Biden Justice Department.

Fox News has enjoyed every moment of this. But what about us Blues?

We Blues! Almost surely, we helped send President Trump back to the White House by our refusal to come to terms with some of the peculiar behaviors which transpired, unexplained, during the Biden years.

Will we do better this next time around? We know of no reason to assume that we will, but the attention which will get paid to this giant mess will give us a chance to find out.

Final point:

On Fox, this scandal is presented as the inevitable result of Blue America's surrender to DEI and to the kinds of behaviors which get ridiculed as "woke." It's routinely said that the votes of the Somali community were in effect being bought off, and that no one wanted to complain about what was happening for fear of being called racist.

In our view, this:

Sadly, this interpretive framework makes too much sense to be rejected straight out. By the way, do you ever see this giant mess reported and discussed on our own Blue American "cable news" channel?

Fox News suppresses embarrassing facts. Does our channel ever do that?

UNDISGUISED: "There he went again" again!

MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2026

"Dangerous," one governor said: Late Saturday afternoon, "there he went again."

In fact, "there he went again" again! There the president went again, for perhaps the ten millionth time. 

Governor Walz noticed what the president had done. He used a key word as he pushed back:

The key word employed by Walz was "dangerous." That key word emerged once again!

Governor Walz said the president's latest bit of conduct was "dangerous!" In fact, the president's conduct has never been disguised, and the possibility that danger lurked has never been hidden.

The danger has never been disappeared or disguised—except by the New York Times, along the rest of Blue America's high-end journalistic elites. And no, we aren't referring here to the military action in Venezuela, which had occurred Friday night.

By Saturday afternoon, Venezuela has won the race to serve as our nation's 51st state. Canada, Panama and Greenland—and even newly named Cuba—will now have to wait their turn for future annexation.

The high visibility action in Venezuela had been accomplished. Now, the president decided to reveal himself again.

It won't be reported in the New York Times. It won't be discussed on MSNBC II, The Sequel.

You won't see it reported or discussed at those major news sites. But once again, the danger was clear—and over at Mediaite, readers were allowed to know what the president had crazily done:

Trump Shares Conspiracy Post Suggesting Tim Walz Ordered Minnesota Lawmaker’s Assassination

President Donald Trump took time out of his very busy day deposing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro to “re-Truth” a social media post outrageously questioning whether Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) ordered the assassination of Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman (D).

And so on from there. Incredibly, but predictably, there he had gone again!

For the record, let it be said. The report at Mediaite had managed to bury the lede.

The president had decided to "re-Truth" one of the crackpot social media posts which now litter the "democratized" American discourse. But what exactly did that crackpot post say?

President Trump had decided to re-post a lunatic suggestion. As you can see by clicking here, the president's own Truth Social post was now broadcasting this lunatic suggestion—in all caps, of course:

"DID TIM WALZ REALLY HAVE (D) MELISSA HORTMAN ASSASSINATED?"

Did Governor Walz really have Melissa Hortman (and her husband) killed? In the aftermath of Maduro's capture, that was the possibility this manifestly disordered person was pimping out to tens of millions of denizens of MAGA world.

Let the word go forth to the nations! This president's madness has never been hidden or disguised. And as we've noted on the past, the possibility that this behavior reflects a "dangerous" state of affairs had been suggested right in the titles of two major, best-selling books:

The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President
Bandy Lee, M.D., M.Div. (ed.). MacMillan, 2017.

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Mary L. Trump, Ph.D. Simon & Schuster, 2020.

The New York Times (and other Blue orgs) completely disappeared the first of those books. The Times then hurried past the provisional medical assessments offered in the second of these best-sellers. 

The medical assessments in those books said that something was seriously wrong with the president—and they described the situation as "dangerous." But like Camus' insouciant residents of the fictional Oran in his famous novel The Plague, Blue America's major elites agreed to ignore what was said. 

On Saturday night, there he went again! Governor Walz responded to the president's latest crazy behavior by saying this:

Dem Governors Rally Behind Walz and Slam Trump For ‘Hateful Lies’ Suggesting Minnesota Gov Ordered Political Hit

Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, and vice chair Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) released a statement Sunday condemning the outrageous speculation. It read, in part, “We stand with Governor Walz and we urge our colleagues, regardless of party, to join us in speaking out against this disgusting attack that only makes Americans less safe.” /////

Walz also condemned Trump on X, writing, “Dangerous, depraved behavior from the sitting president of the United States. In covering for an actual serial killer, he is going to get more innocent people killed. America is better than this.”

And so on from there. 

"Dangerous," Governor Walz now said. Full disclosure:

On the clown show known as the Fox News Channel, this governor is known as Tampon Tim, or often simply as Tampon. (The New York Times, and other Blue orgs, refuse to report that ludicrous conduct too.)

Venezuela now sits as our nation's 51st state. There's no way to know how this highly visible action is going to turn out.

A second bit of presidential behavior is easier to assess—to see for what it plainly is. But as we'll be discussing again this week, we won't be reading about that conduct at our favorite Blue American orgs.

As the week proceeds, we'll finish our report on Bill Clinton, who was accused, by President Trump, of murdering Jeffrey Epstein. Bowing to an antique stricture, major orgs in Blue America decided to let that one slide. 

Saturday evening, with Maduro in chains, the American president went there again! This time, it was Governor Walz who was being fingered. There the madman had gone again!

We close with a bit of disclosure:

A situation like this is always a human tragedy. That's especially true when the conduct is there for all to see but it keeps getting ignored.

In this matter, the danger was always right there in plain sight. The sitting president never engaged in any attempt at disguise.

It was right there for all to see. But it kept getting ignored.

Tomorrow: "The wickedness of the times?" (Plato, The Seventh Letter)

SATURDAY: There the president went again!

SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 2026

Is something wrong with this man? You'll understand our decision to postpone the final report in our current award-winning series, THE SQUALOR[S].

Last night's arrest of Nicolás Maduro has burned up our time today. As happenstance had it, we were watching Fox & Friends Weekend this morning when President Trump engaged in a lengthy phone call with a trio of friends (Charlie Hurt, Nicole Saphier, and Griff Jenkins).

Along with remarks about last night's action, standard claims littered the countryside during the lengthy interaction--and sure enough! Along the way, the sitting president did indeed revert to this:

‘A Disgrace!’ Trump Rages About His Own Election Defeat On Fox After Bombshell Attack

President Donald Trump raged about his own electoral defeat as he addressed the aftermath of the strike and capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on Fox News Saturday morning.

News broke after midnight Friday that the United States struck Venezuela’s capital of Caracas early Saturday morning, and at 4:21 AM, Trump announced on Truth Social that Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were captured and flown to the United States.

Trump called in on this week’s edition of Fox & Friends Saturday for a marathon interview, during which he resurrected the false claim that the 2020 election was “rigged”—a claim that underpinned a settlement that included a $787.5 million payout from Fox to Dominion Voting Systems.

[...]

Trump has spent years falsely claiming that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him and/or “stolen” from him, despite the fact that Biden defeated Trump in an electoral landslide that has been reaffirmed over and over by state officials from Trump’s own party and dozens of court decisions—and despite consistent mockery even from some allies. 

So wrote Tommy Christopher. With respect to President Trump, he doesn't leave home without it—without this shopworn, dog-eared rant about the way he was robbed of victory in November 2020. 

At Mediaite, Christopher has transcribed these latest nutty remarks. Also, you can watch the videotape of the president's rant:

JENKINS (1/3/26): Will you, Mr. President, throw your support behind opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who as you recall, won the Nobel Peace Prize and then in turn dedicated it to you for your efforts in pressuring Maduro? Are you going to fully support her to take over, to run the country.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we’re going to have to look at it. Right now, they have a vice president, as you know. I mean, I don’t know about what kind of an election that was. But you know, the election of Maduro was a disgrace, just like my election was a disgrace.  

2020 was a disgrace. And you know, a real disgrace!

Now, 2024 was too big to rig. But what [Maduro] did was— I mean, his was open–I would say frankly—

You want to know the truth? I think Charlie [Hurt] would testify to this. It wasn’t a hell of a lot worse than what they did to us in 2020. It was—

 Our election was a disgrace in 2020, and everyone knows it.

And now it’s, it’s come out, and it’s come out even in a legal forum. But it was disgraceful. 

He had an election there was a rigged election and the people have no love for him. That’s for sure. He’d very little loyalty, if any loyalty He was a dictator, who was a tough cookie, and he ran it tough, and the people can’t believe they got so lucky.

The president also punished the trio of friends with standard unsupported claims about an array of other points. Maduro emptied his prisons and his insane asylums! He sent them all to the United States! Also, he sent hundreds of thousands of gang members!

Charlie Hurt was one of the friends with whom the president was speaking. Along the way, the president's dismissive comment about Machado prefigured the surprising revelations he would make during his subsequent press event.

With regard to his claims about the 2020 election:

More than five years later, President Trump never tires of this delusional claim. We say "delusional" because, on balance, it's our impression that he actually seems to believe the unsupported, unexplained claims he never tires of inserting into every attempted discussion.

In past reports, we've tried to outline the possible medical implications of this bizarre behavior. If it weren't for all the fixed ideas and delusional claims, if often seems that there would be no ideas or claims at all!

Should this sort of strange behavior be a point of public concern? Could the possibility of various medical problems possibly be seen as dangerous?

He went on and on, then on again, about the stolen election which wasn't stolen. Over here, in Blue America, as part of our own Squalor Blue, our major journalistic elites have agreed to sidestep, ignore and disappear this apparent problem. 

Is something seriously wrong with this man? If so, that's a human tragedy, of course.

But is something seriously wrong with this man? Over here, in Blue America, Blue orgs have agreed not to ask!

FRIDAY: He's "locked and loaded" for Iran!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2026

And he's stopping by woods to buy marble: Is the sitting American president in the grip of some sort of cognitive decline?

We don't exactly know how to make some such determination. Meanwhile, Blue America's mainstream press corps has agreed that they will never interview the medical specialists who might know how to shed light on such a topic.

That said, the unusual conduct goes on and on. Today, as they were driving (the possible) Mister Donald, his motorcade (reportedly) stopped for this:

Trump’s Motorcade Reportedly Stops At a ‘Random’ FL Strip Mall So He Could Buy Marble For His Ballroom Project

Go ahead and read the report from Mediaite!

He's threatening to blast Iran to smithereens (and to wreak havoc in parts of Nigeria), but he also wants marble armrests on the seats in the new Trump Center! Is there any chance that this peculiar state of affairs could imaginably, even possibly, maybe become somewhat dangerous at some point? 

We've been asking that question for a long time. We might as well have been trying to catch the wind, or waiting for Dr. Godot to appear with an answer to our gloom-accessible question.

Cognitive decline is tragic, as is any serious "mental illness" ("personality disorder"). It helps if we Blues can remember to state that fact. Politically, we'll likely be even more effective if we really believe that statement.

Having said that, we're thinking this week of the crazy behavior in which this man has engaged for the past fifteen years. Setting possible medical issues to the side—medical issues which are always tragic, whether they involve cognitive decline or "personality disorders"—we're persisting in asking this:

Why haven't major news orgs in Blue America ever screwed their journalism to the sticking point by identifying that crazy behavior as an inexcusable state of affairs? As an inexcusable state of affairs which should be treated as a major front-page "news hook" every time the behavior presents?

More on that tomorrow. To Blue Americans, we'll only say this:

For something closer to forty years, you've been failed by the people you've been trained to trust and respect. When do we Blues plan to reject this dysfunctional lovers' agreement? More on this tomorrow morning, part of our THE SQUALOR[S] series. 

Finally, events like these are always tragic. We advise you to pity the child.

THE SQUALOR(S): The president made a poisonous claim!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2026

Last summer, he went with another: There's an iceberg-adjacent quality to the moral and intellectual squalor we're describing as "Squalor Red."

On the day Jeffrey Epstein died—way back in August 2019—it was easy to spot the part of the berg which sat above the surface. As we noted earlier in the week, the squalor was open to view at that time—for example, in this real-time news report by the Washington Post:

Trump retweets conspiracy theory tying the Clintons to Epstein’s death

President Trump used his Twitter account Saturday to spread a baseless conspiracy theory about the death of Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy and politically connected financier who had been facing multiple charges of sex trafficking involving underage girls.

Trump’s Justice Department announced that Epstein, who was being held in a federal corrections facility, died by “apparent suicide.”

But Trump appeared to disregard his administration’s statement, instead retweeting a message from conservative actor and comedian Terrence K. Williams, who suggested that Epstein’s death might be tied to former president Bill Clinton...

The claim is completely unsubstantiated...

He hadn't waited even a day! Also, the claim he advanced was "completely unsubstantiated," the Post report correctly said.

Starting with four years of ridiculous claims about the place of Barack Obama's birth, that sitting president has been a highly visible source of "the problem we all [currently] live with." In the case of this latest "theory," the president later acknowledged that he had "no idea" if the "theory was true, but he had rushed out to message it anyway.

All in all, what else is new? For whatever reason, that sitting president has been a key part of Squalor Red since at least 2011, when he started pimping his birtherism on the Fox News Channel. And with that, we offer a spoiler alert:

Ever since he started doing that, Squalor Blue has involved the refusal of Blue America's journalistic elites to come to terms with this president's squalid behavior—with the failure of those elites to direct a journalistic focus on this highly destructive behavior. 

On and on the squalid behavior has gone, with Blue eyes averting their gaze.

Tomorrow, we'll offer more on the failure to serve which constitutes a major part of Squalor Blue. For today, let's return to the squalid behavior which has been driving Squalor Red over the past fifteen years.

In August 2019, the sitting president had instantly spread a poisonous message—Bill and Hillary Clinton were somehow involved in Jeffrey Epstein's death! This summer, but also just in the past few weeks, he engaged in a related burst of messaging about former president Clinton.

This new messaging involved a claim which would seem to be clownishly false—a claim that the former president had taken dozens to trips to Epstein's private island in the Caribbean. On August 1, 2025, FactCheck.org reported on this latest poisonous conduct. With apologies for the length of our excerpt—no, you can't fit this on a bumper sticker!—we show you how that report stated:

Trump Offers No Evidence for Claim About Bill Clinton and Epstein Island

Former President Bill Clinton flew multiple times on airplanes belonging to the late Jeffrey Epstein. But there is no evidence that Clinton visited the convicted sex offender’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands “28 times,” as President Donald Trump has claimed.

In a 2019 statement posted on social media, a spokesman for Clinton acknowledged that he traveled on Epstein’s planes during several international trips in 2002 and 2003, when he was no longer president. However, the statement said that Clinton never went to the Caribbean island that was Epstein’s primary residence.

But in recent interviews, Trump—who has been under public pressure to release files related to Epstein’s crimes—invoked Clinton’s connection to Epstein as Trump responded to questions from reporters about his own past friendship with the disgraced financier who was arrested on charges of sex trafficking of minors in July 2019 and died in prison a month later...

“And by the way, I never went to the island, and Bill Clinton went there, supposedly, 28 times,” Trump said when answering questions about Epstein while in Scotland on July 28.

Days earlier, during a July 25 press gaggle outside the White House, Trump made the same claim about Clinton when a reporter asked Trump if he was considering pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell...

“Well, I don’t want to talk about that,” Trump said to the reporter who asked. “You ought to be speaking about Bill Clinton, who went to the island 28 times. I never went to the island.”

There the sitting president had gone again! He'd made another baseless but poisonous claim directed at Bill Clinton!

One key point should be noted here--there has never been any evidence showing that President Trump ever visited Epstein's island. As far as we know, his claim that he himself never went there remains presumptively true.

"I never went to the island," President said last July. We assume that statement is accurate—but that's when the egregious misconduct starts.

Even as he made that denial, the president directed his latest fact-challenged accusation at former president Clinton. Bill Clinton went there 28 times, he now said.

(In one instance, he added the weasel word "supposedly," presumably as a way to keep his statement "technically accurate.")

It was a second poisonous charge, joined to the earlier claim in which the Clintons had somehow played a role in Jeffrey Epstein's death. To its credit, FactCheck.org offered a lengthy, detailed report about this latest accusation--but in the latest manifestation of the conduct we regard as a major part of Squalor Blue, major news orgs in Blue America largely averted their gaze from this latest squalid conduct.

In its August 1 report, FactCheck.org offered this familiar statement about President Trump's latest round of astounding misbehavior:

"We asked the White House for the source of Trump’s recent claim about Clinton, but we have not received an answer."

What a shock! Once again, the White House hadn't bothered to explain this latest poisonous conduct. Meanwhile, the bulk of Blue American org, including the New York Times, did what they've done for the past fifteen years, including in the matter of the original "birther" claims:

There our big orgs went again! Knees knocking, crippled by fear—perhaps not especially sharp to begin with—the major orgs of Blue America averted their gaze once again. As with so many other bizarre behaviors, they refused to build a journalistic focus around this squalid conduct.

They normalize this astounding behavior. As the poet Frost once said:

"Something we were withholding made us weak."

Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he never went to Epstein's island. That said, Bill Clinton has also said that he never went there, as FactCheck.org duly noted.

Why then was President Trump making this latest bout of poisonous claims? With a bit of regret for ever tackling this complex topic, we'll explore that matter in more detail tomorrow—and we'll paint a clearer picture of the second major squalor we're all living with today.

We refer to the refusal to come to terms with the endless squalor of Squalor Red. It's that basic flight from journalistic duty we refer to as Squalor Blue.

For fifteen years, Squalor Red has been sitting right there on the surface. Down below, submerged by a frigid sea, Squalor Blue has proven to be much harder for us in Blue Nation to spot.

Tomorrow: Nothing to look at! Look over here! (Squalor Blue keeps averting its gaze.)