FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2026
...and evoked Kafka's hoof: For us, it has never quite reached the level you might call Kafkaesque.
That said, the phenomenon one might call The Amazement began in 2011. It had never occurred to us that some such act of misdirection could persuade so many.
That phenomenon was driven by Citizen Trump. Last night, fifteen years later, a little small mutt, with millions watching, continued to toy with the structure of the known world.
As usual, he opened his show with two to three minutes of jokes. Believe it or burn forever in Hell, this was the first joke he told:
Good evening, everyone.
A new report claims that video compiled by the Obama Foundation shows that the former president wept in front of staffers after Donald Trump won the presidency.
Sources say Obama was worried about the future of his country.
You know—Kenya!
Halfwits in the audience laughed. For the report on which this sally was based, you can just click here.
Friend, did President Obama weep that night? We don't have the slightest idea!
We'd score that report "a bit inconclusive." In the larger sense, though, there you have it:
Fifteen years later, the little small mutt of our failed "cable news" was still pimping the Kenya theme! (As he repeatedly does!)
On this particular evening, the Fox News Channel's Martha MacCallum was one of the flyweights surrounding this child. In our view, someone should ask MacCallum this:
Given the Catholicism you find so important, why are you willing to associate yourself with ongoing conduct like this?
(From AI Overview: "Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum is a practicing Catholic who frequently discusses her faith, upbringing, and, as of 2025, participated in a pilgrimage to Rome with the Archdiocese of New York." For the record, and stating the obvious, there's no reason why she shouldn't do such things as that.)
MacCallum is 62 years old at this point. (The nut-ball is 61!) She still isn't willing to walk away from behavior like that, or from the giant salary her compliance continues to bring her.
Fifteen years later, this small little mutt is still out there, pimping this brain cell-killing theme. At 5 o'clock, he overtalks Tarlov. At 10, the nutcase does that!
(In fairness, someone has apparently told him to stop comparing liberal women to horses, cattle, pigs and whales, dogs and unspecified "livestock." This happens much less frequently now. He may have been told he must stop.)
On the downside, he keeps putting pictures in people's heads with undermine the possibility of the American project, such as it has been. As he does this, Blue American orgs stare off into space:
Nothing to look at—move right along, Blue America's top stars have all said.
(Full disclosure: There's always been something wrong with this guy, dating back to his famous hiring of the several dwarfs. His current bosses have found a way to make money off his unusual condition.)
At any rate, like Jesus before him, Obama wept! He wept for his country—for Kenya! The little guy opened with that last night. The theme dates back to 2011, when Citizen Trump, caddied by Rachel's drinking pal, began his four- to five-year reign as the king of American birthers.
Today, we admit it again. As of 2010, we didn't know that a person could get so many people to believe something as stupid as that.
In fairness, many people are born in Kenya; it happens every day! For example, Lupita Nyong'o wasn't born in Kenya—but she almost could have been.
That said, Barack Obama wasn't born in Kenya. He was actually born in Hawaii.
As we eventually noted, no other American president was ever born that far from Kenya! No matter! Citizen Trump, capably caddied by Rachel's pal, kept going on the Fox News Channel and making his ludicrous claims.
(He'd even sent people to Hawaii to check the whole thing out!)
Before too long, surveys began to arrive. They seemed to show that an amazing percentage of voters had come to believe this baldly unfounded claim.
At first, we assumed those surveys had to be wrong in some way. We didn't know that you could get that many people to believe some such stupid, inaccurate claim.
(The New York Times was the hometown paper of record. The editorial board endlessly dragged its heels before—stirred by our own award-winning jibes—the board finally agreed to complain.)
Back then, Citizen Trump pimped it out. Last night, fifteen years later, so did the little small mutt, with MacCallum chuckling him on.
(This is the way the world ends, this one guy once wrote. Not with a bang but a whimper.)
All last week, we watched other stalwarts pretend to discuss the terrible crime which has occurred out in Tucson. They kept pretending to discuss this crime all day and also all night.
For CNN, we'll assume this provided a ratings boost. At the Fox News Channel, this full investment helped get President Trump out of the news at a time when his ape-invested Truth Social post—along with fatal shootings in Minnesota—were dragging his ratings down.
For us, the dumbness of those pseudo-discussions was a very tough pill to choke down. Was our species built for this line of work? Very early, this Monday morning, we flashed on Kafka's hoof.
What in the world is Kafka's hoof? In a related bit of behavior, a second cousin, three times removed, was mutting it up last night. We're thinking of Kafka's ability to dream up Gregory Samsa, perhaps his most famous protagonist, a salesman "who wakes to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect."
Had Kafka once glanced down at his foot as he lay on his bed and suddenly seen something quite different? Did an instant flicker of vision place him in line with Darwin, and then with (the admittedly fallible) Freud, and perhaps with the later Wittgenstein?
Man [sic] is the rational animal, the western world has long said and been told. We were made in God's image, we've also long been told.
We're just like the critters, it's been said and implied, except breathed into us was a soul, or perhaps just this force called pure reason. It's even been said that we humans are conscious, and perhaps that the others are not.
Man [sic] is the rational animal! Except, as we all know, we aren't!
The little guy with the giant salary opened with Kenya last night. MacCallum just sat there and took it. So did the other three analysts.
On Monday morning, we flashed on Kafka and Samsa. Did Kafka once see, in the briefest of moments, that, for all our admirable traits, we aren't what has always been said?
For the record, the Fox News Channel will roll right along. Nothing to look at! Just move along, The Voices have unwisely said!
ReplyDelete"He wept for his country—for Kenya!"
Who did, the "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii" former WH tenant? Nice. I'm touched.
Thanks for the laughs, Bob.
...and please, please, please, keep watching. They'll turn you into a normal guy yet! ...fingers crossed...
The six y.o. troll got to post first again. What a strange little boytroll.
Delete"For us, it has never quite reached the level you might call Kafkaesque."
ReplyDeleteWhy then has Somerby spent the last several days supposing that anyone else feels that this time is Kafkaesque? This is apparently his invention, attributed to others who never mentioned Kafka. A fraud, since Somerby himself now says he has never felt that way.
This appears to be one big goof to Somerby. His snide joke. His mockery of the dismay felt by Democrats as our justice system has gone off the rails and Trump put his own gestapo on the streets. Today there is a description of a detainee hospitalized with a skull fracture and bleeding in his brain. ICE lied that he had run head first into a wall, when they had actually severely beaten him to the point of brain injury. But Somerby thinks it is fun to invent Kafka allusions that not even he experiences. What is wrong with Somerby?
Meanwhile, a ray of hope in the Supreme Court decision that Trump had no authority to impose tariffs, rolling back his unauthorized use of tariffs to blackmail nations worldwide using the power that actually resides in Congress. It is a relief that 6 (out of 9) Supreme Court justices are still willing to adhere to the rule of law and stand up to Trump, even if it leaves a messy financial situation to clean up as corporations that have been charged for tariffs file lawsuits to get their money back.
Yay yay yay Supremes!
Supreme Court rules against Trump on tariffs. I support this decision legally, although I think it’s not good for the US policy wise.
ReplyDeleteThis widely expected ruling was entirely predictable, so we now have to ask: what kind of idiot would have implemented the tariffs in the first place, knowing this day was likely to come?
DeleteTrump and his innumerate lackeys applied an equation to determine tariff rates per country, were told by the equation’s authors that they did the math wrong, and instead of correcting their error, misapplied their wrong math. As a result, countries were over-tariffed in many instances for no reason other than that the administration is run by bumbling buffoons who refuse to acknowledge and correct their errors. The brunt of the tariff costs have been shown (90%) to be shouldered by consumers and US businesses, and now small businesses have been shown to be most negatively affected by them. Nice work, Donnie. Running this country into the ground economically like one of his bankrupt businesses is a special version of the longstanding underperformance of republican administrations economically.
DeleteTariffs are a tax on American business. This cost gets passed on to consumers.
DeleteCorporate income tax is a tax on American business. This cost gets passed on to consumers.
Why do liberals oppose tariffs but support higher corporate income taxes?
Because tariffs are regressive.
DeleteI oppose the fucking blatant dishonesty coming from that orange abomination you worship, dickhead, you fucking fascist freakazoid.
DeleteWhy don’t you ask midwestern farmers that question? Go ahead and ask manufacturers who have seen countries do what they need to in order to establish new trade partners, excluding the US. The US has been labeled an unreliable trade partner. That will not be corrected any time soon insofar as there is no guarantee that the same low IQ voters won’t elect another Trump in the future. That you cannot tell the difference between raising taxes on businesses (and the wealthy, for that matter) and the massively disruptive effects of tariffs on trade partnerships is ample evidence that you are one of them.
Delete“The tariffs worked!” said Howard Lutnick’s son.
DeleteGet the fuck out of here idiottroll David.
DeleteHector, can you amplify? I agree that tariffs are regressive. Tariffs are an additional cost on businesses. The cost of tariffs gets added to the price of products. The poor spend a larger % of their wealth on products, so the poor are disproportionately affected by the tariffs.
DeleteBut, isn't the same true of corporate income tax? Corporate income taxes are an additional cost on businesses. The additional cost gets added to the price of products. The poor spend a larger % of their wealth on products, so the poor are disproportionately affected by the corporate income tax.
It seems to me that the basic flaw in usual argument is this: It assumes that the additional cost of higher tariffs will be passed on to customers, but the additional cost of higher corporate income taxes will not be passed on to customers. Perhaps this is true, but it would have to be demonstrated, not just assumed.
Go away dude troll David. Years of evidence shows nobody can explain anything to you as you are a fucking idiot.
DeleteThere is no Constitutional mandate prohibiting regressive taxes, there is a Constitutional mandate against a demented old man basing tariffs every other day on how hurt his feelings are without Congressional approval. Jagoff.
DeleteTariffs change trade partnerships. Corporate taxes do not. Taxpayers are now subsidizing soybean farmers, but not to the extent that their losses are compensated for. Canadians are no longer buying US whiskey. The tourist industry in Florida has lost over $50 billion this year and 200,000+ seasonal jobs. But go ahead and reiterate your dumbass argument. Like this administration, you have no idea of what is wrong with their tariff policy.
Delete@12:17 - It's a basic economic fact that a country's tariffs are good for the business of that. They help domestic businesses compete against foreign businesses. That's why countries all over the world have tariffs. That's why they're called "protective tariffs."
DeleteThe problems you mention are real, but they're second order effects. They're minor compared with the direct help that tariffs provide for domestic manufacturing.
This is a matter of law, not efficacy of tariffs.
Delete"Hector, can you amplify?"
DeleteI don't know the exact mechanism that explains why tariffs are more regressive but it is a conclusion shared across the political spectrum.
The article below states that "shareholders bear most of the corporate income tax burden" and we know this isn't true of tariffs:
https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/who-bears-burden-corporate-income-tax
12:24 You continue to conflate Trump-specific tariff policies with the broad concept of tariffs. You do this dishonestly or ignorantly, although I cannot rule out both.
DeleteIt is a basic economic fact that Hoover's excessive tariffs accelerated a global depression you fuckwhit troll David.
DeleteThanks, Hector.
DeleteSo good for domestic manufactured that the 4th 1/4 GDP slowed to 1.4% and the deficit continues to explode. At least all that tariff money will pay to blow up shit in Iran (not) haha. So much winning.
DeleteDiC isn’t the least bit worried about the deficit at this point.
DeleteWhere’s my $2000 tariff dividend check? I was going to use it to buy a couple of cans of coffee.
DeleteWhy do liberals oppose tariffs but support higher corporate income taxes?
DeleteFor my part, I don't think that tariffs are inherently bad. I do think that the way Trump imposes them is asinine; nor does he have the powers to do it unilaterally. The economic emergency, as everything else that comes out of this administration is a lie. Trump didn't get his Nobel Peace Prize -- tariffs! Canadian prime minister said something that Trump didn't like -- tariffs! And so it goes.
Corporate taxes are taxes on profits. Business investment, i.e. operational and R&D expenses, are not taxed. In fact, lowering both personal and corporate taxation works against business investment and encourages upward redistribution of income. In other words, lowering tax rates works against building up business equity.
Raising taxes on corporations, and particularly since they have been reporting record profits in for many years, is not similar to tariffs.
DeleteHistorically, tariffs have been a net negative.
David is ignorant on this kind of basic knowledge because he is a foreign troll whose knowledge only extends to the talking points he has been handed.
What David tacitly recognizes here is that inflation is primarily driven by corporate power.
Oops.
50% of the Covid price surge was corporate price gouging.
DeleteCorporate income tax is a tax on American business. This cost gets passed on to consumers, just like when American businesses are fined for breaking the law.
Delete"Halfwits in the audience laughed. For the report on which this sally was based, you can just click here.
ReplyDeleteFriend, did President Obama weep that night? We don't have the slightest idea!
Somerby revives the birtherist complaint against Obama in order to remind us all that Lupita Nyong'o's (born in Mexico City) lived in Kenya from age 3. I knew he would get around to talking about her eventually. The bros are upset because she has been tapped to play Helen of Troy in the new film The Odyssey. The racists think Helen must have been white, since she was the most beautiful woman in the world, created by Zeus mating with a Swan (thus not human) in a part of the world where most people were brown skinned. But the Nazi's are throwing a tantrum because their vision of beauty is different than the director's.
Somerby won't come out and join their campaign to torpedo the movie before it is released, but he hints at his alliance by emphasizing that she is from Kenya, just as Trump attempted to undermine Obama by claiming he too was from Kenya. Nyong'o won an Oscar for best supporting actress. She is now a US citizen (since 2004). And she is certainly beautiful to anyone whose lenses are not blurred by racial hate.
Repeating this kind of filth, even if Gutfeld said it, reflects badly on Somerby, who doesn't fool anyone when he pretends racist tropes deserve to be pointed out, so that no one misses them when they are spread by Fox.
Then Somerby attempts to blame humanity for his own obsession with Gutfeld. Racial animosity is not rational and it is not universal. Over here is blue America, we like Nyong'o fine for the role of Helen and consider her a good decent person who we are proud to welcome as a naturalized citizen. It is the right who feels differently, including Somerby who lets Gutfeld do his dirtywork for him. After all, Somerby could have told us that he was back to birther bashing of Obama without repeating what he said, advancing the impact of Gutfeld's performance.
"For the record, the Fox News Channel will roll right along. Nothing to look at! Just move along, The Voices have unwisely said!"
Somerby makes sure we all get a good long view of right wing race-baiting today, throwing in his own dig a Nyong'o so we all know she is Kenyan too, in case we were trying to avoid Fox ourselves. Hard at work for the right, as he is every day.
We'd score that report "a bit inconclusive." Somerby doesn't tell us that the source is a right wing website and that the story is being widely reported on the right but by no centrist or left-wing media. So, it is a bit of propaganda that he dutifully repeats but tries to distance himself from while doing so.
Then Somerby takes off on Martha MacCallum. She too is right wing, but Somerby's suggestion that, as a professed Catholic, she must be responsible for Gutfeld's nasty behavior to the point of resigning her Fox job strikes me as unfair. She isn't his mother. Gutfeld told the jokes. Somerby should call for him to resign because of them, not a bystander.
"Somerby won't come out and join their campaign to torpedo the movie before it is released, but he hints at his alliance by emphasizing that she is from Kenya, just as Trump attempted to undermine Obama by claiming he too was from Kenya."
DeleteIn writing this sentence, did you consider the presence of unknown gunmen on the grassy knoll?
11:28 - Whoa! Expert work with that stiletto!
DeleteI meant, 11:18.
DeleteDG, what possible purpose could Somerby have to mention Nyong'o today?
DeleteSomerby has previously alluded to interests shared by the Curtis Yarvin crowd and the Proud Boys. He knows saying that stuff out loud would alienate all rational human beings (assuming he ever believed in rationality), just as Trump has been told he cannot say out loud that "Hitler did some good things".
If you don't recognize Somerby's not-so-cleverly-disguised references, that means you are not his audience. It doesn't mean Somerby didn't intend anything by these memes yanked from a clear blue sky.
So, DG, how stupid are you? Recall that I predicted last week that he would get around to Nyong'o. He can't resist.
Mencius Moldbug is way more Kafkaesque than Gutman, except that both are right wing and those right wing bros love The Illiad. And yes, they are trying to torpedo the new film, from the right, with outrage about the casting of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Read something besides Somerby sometime, why don't you?
Nyong’o would deserve a genius visa, unlike Melania, if she weren’t here as a student ultimately becoming a citizen.
DeleteI would not necessarily say DG is stupid; he is merely right wing.
DeleteIf you think I'm right wing, I'd necesarily say you're stupid.
DeleteIt is obvious to everyone here you are right wing, you denying it is just kind of wild.
Deletehttps://apnews.com/live/supreme-court-tariff-ruling-updates
ReplyDeleteNow I've seen everything. Look for Trump to wag the dog and attack Iran.
Trump has to stop the nuclear enrichment program that he proclaimed was obliterated in an earlier bombing campaign. Maybe China could use a secret weapon and extract this demented sex pest like the felon did to Maduro?
DeleteFor the Iranian theocrats to acquire nuclear weapons and delivery rockets would be potentially disastrous. Trump is actually dealing with this world-changing risk. It's easy to mock Trump's actions -- IF you just ignore the problem.
DeleteAsk yourself what you would do if your were faced with the challenge. That's a useful mental exercise.
Go fuck yourself dickhead
DeleteThe commenter reminded you that Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear capacity was wiped out with that strike a while back. Was that another lie, a delusion, from Trump?
DeleteThere was a treaty with Iran pertaining to their nuclear capacity, the JCPOA, that Trump withdrew from. Why?
So why did he tear up the Obama era Iranian treaty that per experts was working exactly as intended you dumbass? Why does he have to re-bomb Iran's nuke sites that according to today's White House website was completely obliterated you double speaking flip flopping moron?
DeleteThat's what I said 12:46. But the asshole troll won't respond, or will respond with the stupid, as that is all trolls have.
DeleteThe Manhatten Project as formed in 1942 , culminating in the detonation of the first nuclear bomb in White Sands in 1945. The Iranian nuclear program started in the mid 1950’s. Do the math. How is it that they have been weeks away from producing enough weapons grade uranium for the last few decades? You don’t think they could get the requisite amount from other sources? How do you think Israel got enough for its first nuclear bomb? Geez. The level of gullibility.
DeleteThanks for your responses. I ask again, What would you do if faced with t his challenge?
DeleteDiC, Trump withdrew from the treaty that regulated Iran’s nuclear program. So, he broke something that was fixed, and now, you come along to ask what I would do. I WOULDN’T HAVE WITHDRAWN FROM THE TREATY IN THE FIRST PLACE.
DeleteI would start a proxy war for Israel.
DeleteCongress has the sole power to declare war, btw.
DeleteSuch dumb ass mooks think they can bully their way. Fuck 'em. Haha.
DeleteFrom The Guardian newspaper, 19 Feb:
"The Times is reporting that Donald Trump issued his latest diatribe about the UK’s Chagos Islands deal (see 9.34am) because Keir Starmer is not letting the US use Diego Garcia to bomb Iran."
For once His Dickness the troll is right. We should bomb the shit out of all countries with nuclear weapons or plans to develop them. It is the only way you stupid fucking moron. Checking the past 15 years in Iran, diplomacy worked, bombing failed. Dickhead the stupid troll answer is more bombs. Useless troll. Go away.
Delete"Given the Catholicism you find so important, why are you willing to associate yourself with ongoing conduct like this?"
ReplyDelete"Christianity is under attack—but by divisive right-wing fundamentalists who publicly worship Jesus while fighting against, voting against, and legislating against his actual commandments. Help the poor? No. Care for the sick? No. Turn the other cheek? No. Render one’s taxes? No, sucker. Be kind to the incarcerated? Hell no. Welcome the stranger? Bitch, please. Modern right-wing Christians have been suckered into an anti-Christian trap of aligning with power, instead of challenging it. But conservative power was what Jesus stood up to—not for—time and time again"
Fucking nasty ass weirdos.
Reply
I mean, the history of Catholicism is rife with the inquisition, power politics, corruption, pedophilia, Father Coughlin, etc. In the US, there is a significant split among Catholics between right wing conservatives who support Republicans and Trump, (think Opus Dei) and a more liberal faction that welcomes immigrants, gay people, etc.
DeleteThere are many like MacCallum.
From the Epstein files, we learn that Bannon wanted to take down Pope Francis, who was more of a progressive force in the church.
Bob is a little late to the game.
For the most part, White Supremacy and racism started with Catholics (15th century Spain), and Bob proudly continues that tradition.
DeleteWhy is this policy not insane?
ReplyDeleteDetroit Police Chief Todd Bettison vowed to fire two police officers for contacting Customs and Border Patrol amid traffic stops, which is in violation of the department’s policy.
Bettison shared at last week’s Board of Police Commissioners meeting that one of the officers allegedly called CBP requesting translation services and another to report a suspected illegal immigrant. The two officers have been suspended amid Bettison’s request to the Board that they be terminated.
Devolving from dumb comments about trade policy to an anecdote about a local police force. Nice, DiC.
DeleteJust tell the stupid troll to fuck off the hell out of here.
DeleteMaybe the Detroit police chief wants do his duty and job to serve and protect his 90% black populace you fucking fascist & racist goon.
DeleteAs a foreign troll, David is unfamiliar with our laws, demonstrated by his ignorant comment.
DeleteDavid's job here is to distract, deflect and divert. David is a fucking asshole if you haven't figured that out yet.
DeleteI will briefly explain to you, David, why this is a good policy, and any cop who contacts ICE should be fired.
DeleteThe police charter is to protect the community and uphold the laws of the community, in which the police department operates. It is of the paramount importance that the residents should be able to trust their police force. Having cops cooperate with ICE adds a wild card into policing, which endangers both cops and residents. There is absolutely no public policy imperative for the cops to be concerned about anyone's citizenship status. It's just completely orthogonal to the well-being of the community.
Glad I could help, David.
Trump is now giving a presser to once again show that he can simultaneously deliver a hateful unAmerican screed and shit his diaper simultaneously. The midterms will be wonderful.
ReplyDeleteKing Shitz-in-his-pants just called supreme court justices "sleazebags".
DeleteIt is wild Republicans still talk about Biden, when a couple of weeks ago we all watched (and audibly heard) on national tv Trump poop his pants and then his handlers immediately cleared the room before the assembled journalists could ask a question.
DeleteApparently, now King Shitz-in-his-pants said he intends to defy the Scotus ruling. Impeach the motherfucker.
DeleteAdditional tariff: Trump also announced that he will impose a 10% global tariff on top of tariffs already in place. While these new levies can only take effect for a maximum of 150 days, barring congressional approval for an extension, Trump claimed, “We have a right to do pretty much what we want to do.”
DeleteThis is fucking unbelievable. Impeach this motherfucker and throw this criminal in jail.
Trump needs to bomb the Supreme Court, not Iran.
DeleteDavid in Cal, like all Right-wingers who care about punishing non-whites and not at all a rigged economy, love the job Trump has been doing by pardoning those convicted of fraud.
ReplyDelete