The Fortnightly Rant

Wednesday morning, we woke up without a government. Cynics might ask, what made that any different from Tuesday? Or, from any of the many other times when our political class has shot the rest of us in our collective fiscal foot? Now, it is true that, if we define a functioning government as a body of officials who work together to carry out the will of the people, it’s been quite some time since we have had one. For the sake of argument, let’s call it fifteen years ago, when President Obama, succeeding where ten of his predecessors had failed, created a system of national …

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Thirteen days ago we actually thought that we already had the subject for our next Rant. Will we never learn? On the morning of September 6th, McDonald’s most famous customer, formerly known as The Donald, posted an AI-generated image of himself, dressed up as Lt. Col. “Bill” Kilgore, squatting most improbably for a man of his true girth. Behind him: red and yellow fire, Huey helicopters, and the skyline of Chicago. A hand-lettered legend read, “Chipocalypse Now.” The President of the United States threw in a little bonus for the literate among his followers: a text reading, “‘I love the smell of deportations in the …

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Back in the allegedly good old days, when men were supposedly men, Black folks down south had their very own water fountains, and all the children were ducking and covering so as to survive the nuclear attack that might come at any moment, baseball was called The Great American Pastime. Baseball has been eclipsed over the years by football and basketball. All of these sports, though, have been left in the shade by what is now this country’s most popular—and hazardous—pastime: wishful thinking. How dominant is this practice? Well, the first clause of the First Amendment notwithstanding, it has become our Established Religion. What’s more, …

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We end one fortnight, and begin the next, full of optimism… or something passing for optimism. And why not? As an apocryphal man once allegedly said, as he fell past the windows of the 33rd floor, we’re “doing just fine, so far.” Having thus established, through forceful assertion, that things are currently just ducky, we can now report that soon, thanks to the most amazing, most stupendous leadership anyone has ever seen—truthfully, there has never been anything like it—things will be Great. Again. And when is this Greatness expected to manifest itself? Our best guess is about two weeks. Why two weeks? Because, in this …

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The Grotty Old Perverts have dropped all pretense. Attempting to dodge an all-but-certain electoral catastrophe in the 2026 mid-term elections, Texas is stealing the House of Representatives before our very eyes. Meanwhile, Ol’ Grabby Grandpa is dancing—we use that term loosely—on the roof of the White House, demonstrating that there are no limits to what he’ll do to distract public attention from the Epstein files. In the past, from time to time, we have used hyperbole to make certain points. Let us—to paraphrase an earlier criminal Republican president from a more innocent era, whose unjustified rehabilitation helped set us on the dismal road to today’s …

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Is it possible? Has a decade of Trumpism been enough? Or is this just more wishful thinking? We won’t pretend to be neutral observers. In fact, we’d like to see Elon Mush-for-Brains herd the administration, nine out of ten Republicans in Congress, and two thirds of the Supreme Court into one of his big rockets—indulge us, Elon, and name it Steely Dan*—and send them all to Mars. Or towards Mars, anyway. Tomorrow… if today’s not good for you. Why such haste? Because the Republican Party, having fallen victim to the Trump brain virus, is shoving the last vestiges of the government which actually help ordinary …

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