Well, the cool front arrived as advertised, thank goddess. It was windy during morning swim, and I lost an earplug. I made a few halfhearted underwater canvasses of the crime scene, then figured it was gone for good. Finished my swim, showered, dressed and thought I’d walk the perimeter of the pool one more time before ordering another pair. The wind had pushed it right to the gutter, only one lane down.
Obviously, today is my lucky day.
Go ahead, laugh, but if we still had a swimming-supplies retail storefront nearby, I wouldn’t have even bothered looking for it. But in a time when we have to buy so much online, it seemed worth the extra effort, just to avoid shipping and handling. While some online shopping is undoubtedly efficient, I’m starting to crave the experience of entering a store and being pleasantly surprised by what I find there. I have a friend who does Instacart for her groceries exclusively, something I cannot imagine. You let someone else pick out your apples? Girl, are you crazy? Trusting someone else to buy my groceries is like trusting them to do my laundry. No way.
And with that mishmash of nothing in particular, let’s get to the news, which has continued the week’s trajectory of being ever more horrifying: Emil Bove (a man whose soul is worn on his face, if there ever was one) on greased skids to be a federal judge. A Justice Department recommending a one-day sentence for a cop convicted of firing wildly into Breonna Taylor’s Louisville apartment. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, marked for death. It’s just one fucking thing after another.
Late in the afternoon, I read that President Pudding-for-Brains is diagnosed with something called chronic venous insufficiency, and I was disappointed it wasn’t congestive heart failure. I’m not in a healthy frame of mind these days.
So I leave you with one excellent obituary, for Connie Francis, who left the mortal plane this week at 87. I’ve known two Connie superfans in my life. One was my old buddy Paul, who loved to go around singing “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” and other Connie hits. The other is a friend here, who can extemporize for an hour about her business sense, particularly her recordings of her hits in other languages, which of course sold well in those countries. She learned the lyrics phonetically, and discovered that yeah, the world was waiting to hear “Vacation” in Japanese. You have to admire a girl like that.
Also, this phrase is waiting for you low in the obit:
Like Mr. Darin, with whom she was romantically involved until her father chased him off with a gun when she was in her late teens,
Well, they were Newark Italians.
God, I need some good news, and no, I don’t mean something about a plucky puppy or warmhearted mail carrier. I mean I want to see something that gives me hope for the future of my country. Let’s hope the weekend brings something around.
alex said on July 17, 2025 at 6:14 pm
And here I thought his problem was penis insufficiency.
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Deborah said on July 17, 2025 at 6:22 pm
I was heartened to hear a recent theory that maybe Trump is actively trying to find a way out of serving his term, partly because his base is souring and partly because he’s just bored with it, by declaring a medical reason, so he can go off in to the sunset living his life as a multi-billionaire jetting where ever he wants and playing golf until he keels over. Lord please make it so.
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Julie Robinson said on July 17, 2025 at 7:26 pm
It might not have come up if he hadn’t tried to cover the bruising with makeup that was such a bad match.
I’d wish him further heart problems, but I’m writing from the hospital, where Dennis had a heart catheterization today and needed two stents. So, I don’t have it in me to wish this on anyone.
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Sherri said on July 17, 2025 at 8:00 pm
I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t believe anything the Trump administration says. They lie about everything, whether they need to or not.
If I were to wish a terrible disease on Trump, I’d make it some disease that he demolished funding for. Plus guinea worm disease.
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Dorothy said on July 17, 2025 at 9:16 pm
Oh Julie I’m sorry to hear about Dennis but truly the stents are probably a good thing, even it the procedure and all the hullabaloo around it were scary. I’m facing the prospect of hubby losing his voice. He’s been getting raspier and raspier for about 2 months now. He sees an ENT on August 5, earlier if someone does a cancellation and they can squeeze him in. He’s a 3 times cancer survivor and we’re really hoping this is not #4.
Nancy if any of the three items I entered in the Ohio State Fair win a ribbon, I’ll let you know. I hope that could be some good news that cheers you. I dropped them off today; judging happens on Sunday I think.
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Deborah said on July 17, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Dorothy, are they quilts? Good luck, I hope you win a ribbon.
LB and I just got back from the Good Trouble protest in Santa Fe. At its peak there were maybe 500 people, which is OK for here but not great. There were 2,000 people at the protest for the sale of national forests and BLM land a few weeks ago, that’s a touchy subject for people around here. I took my sign with the rat body with Stephen Miller’s face, and the word Nazi. I had it printed yesterday at Office Depot, I made it for the No Kings protest in Chicago and printed it there too. It’s a crowd pleaser, I was afraid people wouldn’t know whose face it was, but so far only one person asked me.
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Dave said on July 17, 2025 at 9:32 pm
Certainly off topic but CBS must be willing to do anything that the current person defiling the White House wants, paying $16 million for his library, guessing The Art of the Deal will be the one book in it and now Stephen Colbert’s show is canceled effective next May. Does anyone want to bet they take him off before that? How long before 60 Minutes goes.
Dorothy, may your husband receive a good report and may it be something else. Our oldest son lost his voice for about six months in 2020 , to this day no one knows exactly why but he got it back through therapy. Of course, he was far younger than your husband (mid thirties at the time) but it was a scary time for the entire family.
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chris said on July 17, 2025 at 9:56 pm
I’m bummed that Connie Francis didn’t like her performance in “Where the Boys Are”. Her movie romance and performances with a pre riddler Frank Gorsham as a hipster beatnik bass player always make me smile. I can’t deal with the real news right now. It’s too much.
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Sherri said on July 17, 2025 at 10:10 pm
I think the Dems should go all out on the Epstein stuff and throw Bill Clinton under the bus in the process. They should say, yep, Bill Clinton liked to hang out with Epstein because of all the little girls, and Trump was right there, too! Which will MAGAts find worse, that Trump liked little girls or Bill Clinton? Leak some stories about the wild parties Clinton and Trump were involved in, what good friends they were.
I’d rather Dems throw Clinton under the bus than trans people…
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Mark P said on July 17, 2025 at 11:41 pm
Chronic venous deficiency can increase the risk of deep vein thromboses, and potentially stroke or other cardiovascular events. Aspirin therapy can reduce the risk of clot formation, but it’s not recommended for patients who have not already had some cardiovascular event. So, what’s Trump’s status? Has he already had a cardiovascular event? Can we hope for more?
It could be a stroke that leaves him weakened on one side and nonverbal. It would be wrong to hope for that. At least in most cases.
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Jeff Borden said on July 17, 2025 at 11:52 pm
I’m with Sherri. Guinea worms! Family-sized.
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alex said on July 18, 2025 at 3:21 am
I adored Paula Prentiss’ performance in “Where the Boys Are.” That’s the one where she goes swimming in a fish tank in a restaurant, right?
It was Clinton who talked Trump into running in the first place, no doubt miscalculating that there was no way this arrogant buffoon could defeat Hillary in 2016. Where else could this have occurred but Pleasure Island where both were getting serviced. Yes, throw them both under the bus, and Bill Gates while we’re at it. No fair that Prince Andrew has to bear this disgrace all alone.
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David C said on July 18, 2025 at 6:52 am
The chronic venous deficiency feels like an excuse for him to resign to concentrate on his health, and golf, and plucking money from the rubes, and saying stupid shit.
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chris said on July 18, 2025 at 7:43 am
Alex- Paula Prentiss my idol as a kid at her sardonic best. She found her tall boy in Jim Hutton another one of my faves. Our friend Pam was friends with Frank Gorshin, she met him smoking on the streets of NYC in one of the impromptu Bloomberg lounges. Pam’s boss was close friends with Yvette Mimieux. Our very own 6 degrees of separation with the boys.
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alex said on July 18, 2025 at 8:56 am
Yay Chris! Let’s hear it for the boys!
I idolized Paula too. I think she first came onto my radar as a bonkers patient of Alan Arkin who was playing a psychiatrist. Our friend Pam led quite an interesting life and I’m still grieving that it was cut short. (BTW, I got Cologuard results back yesterday and it’s all good. And so much better than the colon prepping and propofoling and butt scoping.)
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FDChief said on July 18, 2025 at 10:28 am
Why NOT wish a rapid and painfully horrible death on Shitler? Would the world have been better if had Adolf been killed in WW1? Stalin hit by a truck in 1919? Hell yes!
Trump is a symptom more than a problem, but he IS a problem. And to quote his dictatorial predecessor “no people no problem”.
I’d love to be optimistic, but there’s a recent post over at the “Lawyers, Guns, & Money” blog (go look; I’m not going to link and wind up in review jail…) about the “crazification factor”.
That was a thing during the Bush Era. IIRC it was Darth Cheney’s “favorable” rating; it never fell below 27%. That was a baseline cult, the real whackadoo true believers, who looked at Iraq and Katrina and every other Dubya disaster and pleaded for more.
Now?
More like 40%.
So, yeah; two-fifths of our supposed “fellow Americans” are batshit crazies, the kind of people who made up the Hitler Jugend who were still fighting for their Leader as Zhukov’s T-34s were rolling down Unter den Linden…
Nope. We’re just fucked.
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Jeff Borden said on July 18, 2025 at 11:33 am
Even if tRump were to resign for health reasons–personally, I don’t think his ego would allow it– we’re left with JD Vance, the sock puppet of Peter Thiel and that ilk. We’re still very much fucked.
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Linda said on July 18, 2025 at 12:47 pm
Is anybody else amazed that “Petty Little Baby” is listed in many headlines as a Connie Francis hit, simply because it was big on Tik Tok? For Ms Francis’ real base of over 60 year olds, it’s baffling. And it shows you how little old folks and their universes count.
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Mark P said on July 18, 2025 at 12:58 pm
Are we fucked?
Well, the best we can hope for is that there are free and fair elections in 2026, and that the Democrats take a majority in both houses. But then what? All that does is keep another BBB from being passed. Without a super majority, Congress can’t do anything about the damage that has already been done, and if you think things are bad now, we haven’t seen even seen the shit pie come out of the oven yet. The damage that has been done to the federal government will echo down the years, way beyond the end of the Trump regime. A mere majority in Congress cannot do anything about that.
Yes, we are fucked for years to come. Even if we get a decent Democrat for president in 2028 and a supermajority in Congress, the damage won’t be undone for years, if not decades. We will have to completely rebuild the federal government, almost from scratch. I won’t live to see it done.
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Deborah said on July 18, 2025 at 1:14 pm
I get that we’d end up with Vance if Trump left office for health reasons, and JD is awful, but he’s not as bad as Trump, barely. But barely is better than nothing. I agree it would take a lot to get Trump to quit especially for health reasons. He’d probably rather die, and die he might, who knows, hopefully not by the hand of an assassin.
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Jeff Borden said on July 18, 2025 at 1:45 pm
Mark P,
At 74, I know what you mean, brother. And I was dumb and naive enough to believe the election of Obama was a huge positive turning point for our nation. Silly me.
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Dexter Friend said on July 18, 2025 at 2:10 pm
The late Yvette Mimieux…the first beautiful woman I couldn’t get out of my head over; I was 11, she was on-screen at Kendallville’s Hy-Vue drive-in movie theater. “The Time Machine”, Rod Taylor.
During Covid 19 my family insisted I get groceries curbside at WM. Once was enough. I get most items at Aldi’s and the relatively new Dollar General Market stores.
Mike Barnicle is a panel member on Morning Joe. He always tells how he does the family shopping at Market Basket in a Boston suburb.
The late great baseball manager, George “Sparky” Anderson, retired in Thousand Oaks, made daily trips to a supermarket to buy fresh fruit and talk with the store clerks. It’s proof that time flies…Sparky died 15 years ago.
At my home , Mom did the shopping. One married aunt did their shopping, another, my uncle, did theirs. 40% of men in nuclear families do all or most of the food shopping, but 60% of women in these families still shop for groceries. Stats from AI, my new buddy.
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jcburns said on July 18, 2025 at 2:51 pm
Not that it’s important, but Market Basket stores in suburban Boston are way, way nicer than your average Dollar General.
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Jason T. said on July 18, 2025 at 3:51 pm
FDChief, the crazification factor was based on the level of support achieved by Alan Keyes, when he was running for the U.S. Senate against Barack Obama.
Both candidates were men, both candidates were Black, both had about the same level of name recognition, but Alan Keyes was certifiably insane. He pulled 27 percent of the vote, indicating that was the absolute minimum level of support a crazy Republican could expect.
The new crazification factor is based on last year’s North Carolina gubernatorial race, where the Republican candidate boasted about being a Black Nazi, declared his support for Adolf Hitler, referred to MLK as “Martin Lucifer C**n,” and admitted to writing pornographic fan-fiction that he posted to the Internet. Yet he got 40 percent of the vote, which is about where Trump’s approval ratings always seem to hover, no matter what he does.
Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog has an explanation and concludes, “It’s comforting to think that all but a quarter of the country could turn against a Republican, but I don’t think that’s true anymore. Three out of five seems to be the best we can do now.”
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Dave said on July 18, 2025 at 4:32 pm
What Jeff Borden said at 21, which saddens me greatly, I’m not going to see a great correction, maybe if I make it to 100 but I doubt it, I’ve got a year on you, Jeff.
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Jeff Gill said on July 18, 2025 at 5:14 pm
Today can’t have been good for Donald’s chronic venous insufficiency.
Dorothy, do you have any plans to stop by the Ohio state fairgrounds this year in person? Happy to try to coordinate days.
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Dorothy said on July 18, 2025 at 6:59 pm
I think I would literally crawl to the grocery store rather than have someone else pick out what I want and deliver it to me. Now you know I could not possibly do that but I had to express my very negative feelings that I have about someone else shopping for me.
Jeff we are trying to figure out a good day and time to go to the fair but due to a few prior obligations next week, it seems the best time might be Thursday around noon if we bring Olivia. If we don’t bring her, maybe we could get there when the doors open. It’s going to be brutally hot a few days next week. The temperature won’t fluctuate very much at 10 AM or noon so ….
Mostly I just want to know if any of my three submitted items get any kind of recognition. I just looked at my phone to see if I have your phone number but I only have your blog address and your street address! Not sure why we never exchanged numbers. Maybe I could send it to you via Instagram.
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Sherri said on July 18, 2025 at 7:33 pm
It really makes you wonder just what the Donald fears in the Epstein info. I mean, we already know he’s a rapist. He’s already got SCOTUS immunity. Is he really afraid the whole thing will fall apart if there is evidence that Epstein procured underage girls for him? Did he kill one of them or something?
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Jeff Gill said on July 18, 2025 at 8:12 pm
I will check over there at Insta, Dorothy.
Why the show runners have turned 2025 over to Carl Hiaasen, I’ll never know.
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Deborah said on July 18, 2025 at 8:38 pm
Agreed, Sherri, he’s already known to be a completely slimy guy, what could be worse? Have you been seeing the stuff they’ve been showing on Bluesky about his modeling company, and pictures of him oogling teenagers etc. It’s been disgusting forever. Did his base not know that about him? Why not? It’s all out there, and has been for ages, in plain sight. Weird.
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Jason T. said on July 19, 2025 at 12:31 am
OT, but I see the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press are going to end their joint-operating agreement, leading to speculation that one of the papers will close.
I also see that in reporting on the end of the JOA, Deadline Detroit used an AI-generated editorial cartoon, not a photo or illustration from a real human journalist.
Some mornings it doesn’t pay to gnaw through the straps …
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ROGirl said on July 19, 2025 at 6:51 am
With the rubes starting to push back on what they’ve been primed to disbelieve no matter what information gets released, is this the turning point for the sociopathic huckster clown king?
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FDChief said on July 19, 2025 at 11:34 am
Re: crazification, the LG&M piece did reference the Keyes-v-Obama numbers, but I remember the discussion coming up at the end of Dubya’s second term w Cheney used as the object of the cult. Same-same, really. Point being that the cult has gotten WAY more culty. We’re not going back.
What’s odd to me is that I think the Klown Kar Administration is overthinking this. Yes, of COURSE Tubby was in it. He’s a huge publicity whore when Epstein was big publicity, he likes his victims helpless because it makes you a bigger man when you take it by force…his cult knows all this and either likes it or doesn’t care.
If they’d just thrown open the case the MAGAts wouldn’t do a thing except whine that the Clintons weren’t being tried. That’s all they care about. By playing this game the Trumpkins are just riling the normies. Stupid, but this whole 47 regime is based on stupid.
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alex said on July 19, 2025 at 12:36 pm
I remember Keyes v. Obama. The Illinois GOP at first wanted to try the Jesse Ventura playbook and hoped to recruit Ted Nugent or Mike Ditka, neither of whom were interested. This was after their favored family values candidate had dropped out because his ex-wife went public about having been coerced into frequenting sex clubs with him. So they recruited Alan Keyes with the intention of dividing the Black vote in Chicago; instead they ended up suppressing the White vote downstate and delivering the Senate seat to Obama in one of the biggest landslides ever.
And Obama was an accidental candidate himself. The favored Dem, who was White, had to drop out when the GOP leaked his divorce records and revealed that he was a wife beater.
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Jeff Borden said on July 19, 2025 at 1:28 pm
Ah, memories. Imagine being married to Jeri Ryan and still not being happy with your sex life. And to give Keyes an Illinois residency, they rented a cheap apartment in Calumet City. Clown show. The Illinois QOP is as messed up as the Ohio Democratic Party.
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Icarus said on July 19, 2025 at 10:33 pm
Does anyone think whatever the Epstein files or list or whatever reveals will matter to MAGA?
When Obama finally released his birth certificate, they all said it was a fake.
Oh, and yeah, Instacart is cool for some things, but if you let them pick your produce, they will give you the worst stuff because they are incentivized to do so.
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Jeff Gill said on July 20, 2025 at 7:50 am
My one point of encouragement in all this is that the obvious response to the WSJ story is “yeah, his assistant contacted my assistant for this birthday thing, which people do, and they cooked up something that I signed, but I don’t see why you all are making such a big deal out of it.” Like Franklin Graham would be saying that’s the last straw to find out Trump doodled a Sharpie outline of a naked woman? The story would be over if he just conceded it & minimized it. The only reason to be so frothingly upset & totally denying it is if there’s more stuff in the pipeline that’s more damaging.
That’s my hope, anyhow. I have trouble seeing him lose support over finding out he was in bed with prostitutes or strippers; the only thing I could imagine him imagining would hurt him with the base is underage girls, and that’s got to be what he’s fearful of having come out. The “wonderful secret” certainly hints in that direction, along with the mutual congratulations on youthfulness due to their enigma-ness. But this alone isn’t going to light the match.
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David C said on July 20, 2025 at 7:57 am
I’ve always said a prostitute, three Boy Scouts, and a goat, but that may not even do it.
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FDChief said on July 20, 2025 at 10:35 am
I think the classic is “live boy or dead girl”, but YMMV
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susan said on July 20, 2025 at 12:40 pm
“Dead girl” did nothing to pillory Loathsome Joe Scarborough. I guess he still needed the “live boy” part.
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Dexter Friend said on July 20, 2025 at 1:38 pm
I shop the local Chief market for fresh vegetables and fruits, but for shelf items, I can’t beat Aldi’s and the relatively new Dollar General Markets, which sell fresh items and deli things and are huge in selection compared with the old DGs, some of which are fine but others are dirty and not well-stocked.
I have to drive 12 miles to the DG Market in Edgerton, and 19 miles to Aldi’s in Defiance, but really, do you think I like staying cooped up in Bryan all the time? At least I can gander at corn and wheat fields and horses and cattle on the drives.
Tomorrow, who knows what my VA doc will throw at me? Last January she screamed at me when I asked for a ‘scrip to renew my 5-year disabled parking permit, which she gave me 5 years ago, saying I should be finding out why I can’t walk without a walker or canes, even as I reminded her I have been to 4, no …5 ortho-surgeons. She sent me off for X-rays and an MRI exam in Ann Arbor, which yielded no way to a cure; she sent me to a chiro which only made my back hurt worse, plus he cracked my neck which was fine prior, and still hurts now. If she acts like a bully-doctor again, I’ll bolt and begin using my Medicare and supplemental insurance in the civilian medical system. Probably not…I know what medicine costs out in the world, and I take a cabinet full of “old age medicines.”
A family friend, a doctor, wrote the parking ‘scrip for me.
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Deborah said on July 20, 2025 at 7:38 pm
What a shitty doctor, who yells at patients. Can you report her? Next time maybe turn your phone on video with sound and see if she does it again. Horrendous.
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