"I actually don't think that was a loss. 4 goals? I didn't see 4 goals. It looked more like a tie to me, Gianni...."

STOP IT!!!🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/wMgMLFoFyO

— il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) July 7, 2026

"Would I rather watch the cast of 'Hamilton' at the White House than men pummeling each other into bloody pulps?"

"You bet. But there’s a chasmic difference between brilliant Broadway performers and hyped-up men kicking and punching for spectacle. I can’t bear to think what the rest of the world sees when it watches the most powerful country on Earth, the heart of democracy, descend from the hilltop into the primal muck where man-as-beast triumphs over the sublime. (That’s me being polite.)"

Writes Kathleen Parker, in "Trump’s big, beautiful brawl was the worst birthday present ever/A $60 million South Lawn cage match cheapened the People’s House" (WaPo).

"Everything about 'the Claw' feels tawdry, especially when they turn on the lights, which send bolts of blue and white illumination down the 154-foot interlocking steel arches...."

I'm reading "Joe Rogan called the White House UFC event ‘so America.’ He’s right. The 'Claw' bursting out of the White House grounds is the perfect metaphor for the moment, injecting bloody spectacle into the country’s birthday celebration" in the Washington Post

I'm reading that because it's by the Post's architecture critic, Philip Kennicott. He writes:

[T]he UFC match isn’t about celebrating the foundational myths of American democracy. It inhabits a landscape of darker myths, like the perpetual struggle of the frontier, the faux chivalry and resentments of the Lost Cause, the Darwinian drama of survival in a world of hostile forces, enemies, chaos....

Trump takes pleasure in presiding over conflict. The world comes to him, where he, the perpetual winner, lords over contests, over victories and defeats. You’re fired. You don’t hold any winning cards. You’ve lost the match. For many Americans, there is nothing surreal about this delight in domination. It simply reflects the world they live in, where people are losing all the time, at the gas pump, at dead-end jobs, in marriages that founder on the shoals of stress and poverty....

"The president's threatening to leave it permanently.... We'll just host weekly fights between people in politics, you know, and settle our scores that way...."

The comic stylings of Marco Rubio:

When did I first hear the joke that, instead of fighting wars, the individual world leaders ought to put on boxing gloves and fight it out one-on-one? I believe I heard it back in the 1960s and a few times since then, but I couldn't trace it to any particular comedian or commentator. It seems to be a longstanding folk joke.

It was basically the idea behind the MTV show "Celebrity Deathmatch." From 1999, here — at TikTok — are Bill Clinton and Ken Starr fighting it out in the ring.

And here's a serious look at that immense construction on the White House lawn. Maybe you don't think this is funny or cool at all. Maybe you are truly and righteously steamed:

"For many years, these works have inspired audiences around the world by conveying values such as courage, friendship and perseverance."

"Because of this, many fans feel concerned when images from these works appear to be used in political or military contexts that may differ from the intentions of the original creators or rights holders. This petition seeks to convey the voices of fans who, precisely because Japanese manga and anime are so widely loved around the world, hope that their cultural value and context will be respected."

Says an online petition seeking an end to the use of anime in political satire, quoted in "Trump draws anger in Japan with ‘disrespectful’ cartoon fakes/Fans of anime have called for action against the US president, who posts AI-generated clips of himself as their comic-book heroes" (London Times).

I'll just express my opinion in blog tags: "free speech" and "lawsuits I hope will fail."

This made me think of the old Walt Disney Productions v. Air Pirates case. Wikipedia:

Trump posts a "West Wing" clip decrying the notion of a "proportional response."

"The teams totaled 34 hits, and 14 pitchers combined to throw 444 pitches. It was the fourth game in major league history with at least 29 runs and 11 homers."

I'm reading "Brewers outlast A's 15-14 in 12 innings as teams combine for 11 homers and 34 hits in Las Vegas/Andrew Vaughn had four hits and four RBIs, including a two-run double that tied the score in the ninth inning, and the Milwaukee Brewers outlasted the Athletics 15-14 in 12 innings at Las Vegas Ballpark in a wild game that featured 11 homers" (WaPo).

No, I wasn't watching. That game started at my bedtime — 9 p.m.

I just noticed that there's a team now that's just named the Athletics — no city/state in the name. Just the mascot... and it's the most generic mascot. The Athletics. And they played in Las Vegas last night — "at the site of their Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators." They seem homeless. They're not in Oakland anymore, and their normal home these days is West Sacramento, but not enough of a home to become part of its name. Playing a few games in Las Vegas this week has something to do with Las Vegas being its future home. A new stadium will open in 2028.

But maybe you watched basketball last night. I'd rather watch a random baseball game than an important basketball game, but I did pause the movie I was watching and go downstairs to hear the National Anthem and catch a glimpse of Trump. The NYT says "Mr. Trump smiled and saluted in the face of deafening boos when he briefly appeared on the arena’s video board...." I went back to my movie — "A Complete Unknown," now, finally, on HBO — but I did look up the result this morning. I see Trump ruined everything:

Ooh, that Trump. The Knicks lost. Meanwhile, Bob Dylan won. That's what Joan Baez says to him at the end of the biopic: "You won." He's all "What did I win?" and then he rides off into the sunset on his motorcycle. 

I wouldn't have blogged that Colbert-into-the-dumpster video, but with embedded within this somber theater of disapproval...

... I find the whole thing hilarious:

President Trump trolling will go down in the annals of history! @TheRicanMemes 🤣 pic.twitter.com/827Ww5cJUD

— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) May 23, 2026

"May I say, well done in the Americas. You were superb, absolutely superb. Put that little ratbag in his place."

Said Rod Stewart, quoted in "Rod Stewart hails King Charles for putting ‘ratbag’ Trump ‘in his place’/The singer made the remark during a line-up at a 50th anniversary concert for the King’s Trust at the Royal Albert Hall, London" (London Times).

Did King Charles put Trump in his place? Maybe it's like that "bike rage" incident with Benedict Cumberbatch we were talking about yesterday. Two entirely nonviolent men stopped to exchange a few sharp words. 

The commenters over there at the London Times are going after Rod. Top-rated comment: "Rod Stewart put the King and Queen in a very embarrassing position by making political comments in a receiving line. It just shows he has no class whatsoever and doesn’t have the brains he was born with."

And: "Ah, Rod Stewart who made millions for being a hedonistic rockstar boasted about numerous, groupies, and rampant infidelity calling somebody else a 'ratbag' while shaking hand with the highest example of infidelity. Must have his picture in the dictionary next to hypocrite!"

Is this the first appearance of the word "ratbag" on this blog? No, it came up here, where I quoted the NYT obituary for Barry Humphries ("Dame Edna"). The NYT has printed "ratbag" a few times. In a 1984 piece about travel guidebooks, it has: "[I]n a section on 'picturesque patterns of speech'... the 'Maverick Guide to Australia' tells us that a bicyclist there is called a bikey, that to grizzle means to complain and that a ratbag is an eccentric character."

Well, Trump surely is an eccentric character. He should own it. Kind of cool too — isn't it? — in the American way of thinking — to have Rod Stewart calling you a "ratbag."

ADDED: Let's also consider the notion of putting someone "in their place." It reflects a background belief that people have a social rank or a station in life. For Rod Stewart — who, I hear, started from gasoline alley — to praise the King — a person of the highest rank — for putting someone "in their place" is pretty funny. And, we're told, the King just laughed. And didn't that put Rod in his place?

Take me back, carry me back down the gasoline alley where I started from....

"Amazon Discusses ‘Apprentice’ Reboot—With Don Jr. as a Potential Host."

The Wall Street Journal reports.

Interesting, but there is no reason at all to think that Don Jr. has what it takes to assume the role his father played. Schwarzenegger couldn't do it, and Schwarzenegger brought his famous charisma and media-and-politics know-how to the project. The only reason for anyone other than Donald Trump to do "The Apprentice" is to prove the unique skill and talent of our very special President, Donald Trump.

"[A]s Vice President JD Vance took a podium in Pakistan and said no deal had been reached had been reached to end the war in Iran... President Trump... was surrounded by people, but Mr. Trump was somehow an isolated figure...."

"People mostly circulated around him, checking in with updates and then leaving again. For the most part, Mr. Trump sat and impassively watched blood and saliva sprayed out from the fighters beating each other silly in front of him...."

Writes Katie Rogers, "Trump Was Watching a U.F.C. Fight in Miami While Iran Talks Collapsed On his way to Florida, President Trump said it did not matter to him if a deal with Iran was reached or not: 'We win, regardless,' he said" (NYT).

Blood and saliva — I've got tags for both of those.

Trump was "surrounded." People "circulated around him." When you're a star, you can't grab what orbits around you:

Trump answers the question "Did the CIA tell you that Ayatollah Jr. is gay?"

"They did say that. I think a lot of people are saying that, which puts him off to a bad start in that particular country. I sort of have to smile to myself when I see people trying to defend the Palestinian regime for women — women for Palestine — but they kill women if... you don't wear a certain cloth all over your face, you have no chance of living. When I look at gays for Palestine  — but they kill gays. The kill 'em instantly. They throw 'em off buildings. And I'm saying, who are the gays for Palestine? They have a significant amount of gays for Palestine. Now... you know, I did very well with the gay vote, okay? I even played the gay national anthem as my walk-off, okay? And I think it probably helped me, but I did great. No Republican has ever gotten the gay vote like I did and I'm very proud of it, I think it's great. Perhaps it is because I'm from New York City, I don't know. But the gay national anthem was my walk-off and I think it probably — but think of it, gays for Palestine, but they kill gays in Palestine. So when they hear that I think probably we can talk about it but it shouldn't be too hard."

If you like Trump answers that contain miscellaneous material, this episode of "The Five" is a feast. If Trump's weave makes you anxious/angry/insane, buckle in.

I like how the blurred pink petal in the foreground reads subliminally as her naked ass.

 I say when Meade texts me this.

ADDED: It's video at the link, making it more subliminal. A freeze frame:

Extremely humbled.

For the very concerned media - yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys- Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth.…

— Kash Patel (@Kash_Patel) February 23, 2026

Background: "FBI Director Kash Patel defends partying with U.S. Olympic ice hockey team/Videos of Patel celebrating in Italy went viral Sunday night, prompting criticism and questions about his judgment during a critical time for the FBI" (WaPo)(gift link).

The video:

A source sent me this video of FBI Director Kash Patel partying with the US Men's Olympic Hockey team. pic.twitter.com/egjmdhOAF6

— William Turton (@WilliamTurton) February 22, 2026

Meanwhile: "U.S. women’s hockey team declines Trump’s State of the Union invitation/The players 'were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgement,' according to a team statement that cited previously scheduled commitments" (WaPo).

That's putting it very politely.

This is also polite, articulate silence:

Meaning.

One of the most meaningful gifts I’ve ever received in my entire life. pic.twitter.com/AfupGNVTpY

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) February 22, 2026

Why Conan O'Brien says Trump is "bad for comedy."

"Well, years ago, when I was at Harvard and working on the Lampoon, we would try and think of magazines we could do a parody of. And there was one magazine we always knew we couldn’t parody, which was the National Enquirer. If a magazine has, as its cover, 'Elvis Still Alive, Marries Alien and They Have a Baby That’s a Three-Speed Blender'—if that’s what the real magazine’s coming out with, you can’t do a comedic take on that. It’s very difficult, or I think impossible, to do. And I think Trump—if he were a magazine, it’s the National Enquirer. There’s a lot that’s so bombastic and so outrageous and so unprecedented that how do you—'Oh, I’ve got a great Trump impression, and I have him saying this.' Well, that’s not crazier than what really happened yesterday. So I don’t know how this is funny."

Quoted in "Conan O’Brien Is Ready for the Oscars/The comedian and television host talks about the decline of late night, the death of Rob and Michele Reiner, and why he loves when things go wrong onstage" (The New Yorker).

In other words, Trump is already funny, so it's obtuse to build a joke on top of that.

"Knowing Trump responds best to visual stimuli, [Charlie] Kirk had coached [TikTok] to spin up four pages of infographics, 'Trump on TikTok'..."

"... showing his campaign's tens of billions of views on the now-threatened app. A chart... on the first page jumped out at Trump, who had backed a TikTok ban in his first term. 'I'm more popular than Taylor Swift,' he crowed. Many in Trumpworld heard he quickly called Barron, his youngest son, to savor the stat...."

From "How Trump saved TikTok: Backstory of a 2-year campaign" (Axios).

"Great story. I especially enjoy the moving of the three palm trees."

Texted Meade after I sent him "'It’s not leaving until they pay me': sculptor holds Trump statue hostage/Alan Cottrill created an 18ft bronze capturing the moment the president survived an assassination attempt. He says his patrons aren’t paying up" (London Times).

There's a lot going on in this story, but keep reading, you'll get to the palm trees:

"To think, 190 miles an hour down Pennsylvania Avenue — this is going to be wild."

Said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, quoted in "Trump announces August auto race in downtown Washington" (Politico).

The Trump administration plans to usher a massive auto race into downtown Washington in August as part of a broader celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday, President Donald Trump announced Friday.

Flanked by senior officials in the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order to launch what the White House has dubbed “the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C. — the first ever INDYCAR street race in the Nation’s capital.”

"I want to give all the glory and thanks to God.... I would die for my team."

JUST IN: Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza gives all glory to God, breaks down in tears after winning the College Football National Championship.

“I was a two-star recruit coming out of high school. I got declined a walk-on offer to the University of Miami, full circle moment… pic.twitter.com/jhufc5yvVN

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 20, 2026

Chuck Culpepper at WaPo — "Indiana wins a national championship that is almost too much to fathom" (gift link) — begins:

Maybe sometime this month or this summer or this century, all the fans and alumni widely known as Hoosiers and all the people who follow college football might scale a deeply human mental hurdle about the rousing theater of Monday night. They might find a way to believe what they saw. They might believe the gobsmacking truth that when a storybook five months ended, the confetti in Hard Rock Stadium rained down Indiana crimson-and-cream. Many of the 67,227 might comprehend that, indeed, as the videotape shows, they hung around with their joy and their goose bumps and belted out “We Are The Champions.” They might grasp that they heard a revolutionary 64-year-old coach in his second Indiana season tell of “waxing tables” among the unglamorous tasks of a Division II coach a decade ago, at which time, of course, “I never really thought this was possible."... The first 16-0 team in the top level since Yale in 1894 was the losingest program in college football history as of 2023 when it hired [coach Curt] Cignetti from James Madison to very little national ripple on an innocuous Thursday in late November....

Hoosiers fans sing “We Are the Champions.” Incredible. pic.twitter.com/y6LWVXnKqt

— Blake Toppmeyer (@btoppmeyer) January 20, 2026

AND: Little fuss was made over it, and he wasn't the center of things, but Trump was there:

The crowd at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami roars as @POTUS is shown during the Star-Spangled Banner 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/gqQ3ojBXho

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 20, 2026

PLUS: A Cignetti quote that sounds Trumpy: "It’s a great story, a tremendous story. Probably one of the greatest stories of all time."

ALSO: Hoosiers take to the streets of Bloomington:

Safe to say Bloomington ain’t sleeping tonight
pic.twitter.com/vEcr7FU9tp

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) January 20, 2026

AND:

Never Daunted. Tonight, our tower lights will shine in cream and crimson for one hour to celebrate @IndianaFootball winning the College Football Playoff National Championship! pic.twitter.com/S9a8tI7xbD

— Empire State Building (@EmpireStateBldg) January 20, 2026