Everyone has problems

 You remember the scene.  The young bride from Bulgaria is entreating Rick to help her so she doesn't have to sleep with Captain Renault to get exit visas for herself and her husband.  "Everyone in Casablanca has problems.  Yours may work out," he says brusquely.  Then he goes to the casino and arranges for her husband to win at roulette, revealing himself to be the softie who will eventually give up Ilsa for a greater cause.  I hope I haven't ruined the film for anyone but it's been 84 years -- come the hell on.

Almost everyone in America has problems.  I'm here to help if I can, but I'm no miracle worker.  If you were planning treatment at Curtis Medical Center in southwest Nebraska, the first such facility to close so Big Billionaire Bastards can get tax cuts, you probably don't want to hear "Stop voting MAGA," but consider it.  Meanwhile, I hope you can find someplace that isn't so dependent on Medicaid (RIP) to keep the doors open.  And you healthcare professionals, be careful what you say.  A pediatrician at Blue Fish Pediatrics in Texas wrote, "May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry.  Kerr County MAGA voted to gut FEMA.  They deny climate change.  May they get what they voted for."  The doctor is no longer employed at Blue Fish Pediatrics.

Laura Loomer has what we call a White People's Problem in the fullest sense.  She can't decide how to shop because all the commercials on her TV are DEI.  "If you don't have white people in your commercial I am not buying your product," she writes, daring Madison Avenue to keep shoving people of color down her throat.  (Sorry for that image.)  Several decades ago advertisers noticed that America had a black middle class with money to spend and began calculating how to get it from them.  First O.J. Simpson ran through airports, then Bill Cosby sold pudding and Shaquille O'Neal sold everything, then anonymous black actors were featured in commercials for everything from McDonalds to imported beer and wine to high-end electronics, just as if that were normal.  Not according to Ms. Loomer.  "The only time they ever show a white person in commercials anymore is if they are two gay dudes with an adopted son or two butch lesbos," she goes on, barely able to keep from gagging.  "We need to bring straight white people back to commercials."  Well, Laura, you've got The Leader's ear and possibly other parts, why don't you tell him to Hereby Order the return of 1953?  Do I have to do everything?  

People respond to celebrities when making decisions about where to shop or seek recreation.  It's only natural.  That might be why Trump was so cozy with Barack Obama at Jimmy Carter's funeral.  According to a book by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arndorf, he was entreating Obama to play at his golf courses.  Obama spent the summer doing practically everything else, including mocking Trump's crowd sizes...

...and he will never get over his rage.  Aside from replacing Obama's White House portrait with his own gruesome image and banishing all his books, what can he do but continue to tap out repetitious, ill-written social media posts?  Can't deport him, can't arrest him, can't slap a tariff on him, can't even take away his Secret Service detail.  This level of anger has been known to cause syncope.  Wait till the book (2024:  How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America) comes out and more people start laughing at him.  I know I will.  Age, cholesterol and hot weather may yet save us.

Nothing impresses the Nobel people like a nomination from someone under indictment for war crimes in The Hague and corruption at home.  That must be why Benjamin Netanyahu showed up in Washington yet again -- Ted Cruz doesn't spend this much time there -- to propose Trump for that peace prize he wants more than another fat bribe from a media outlet.  The committee just about got people to forget they once honored Henry Kissinger when this farce happened.  I don't think they'll make the same mistake no matter what Jim (Ohio State sex scandal) Jordan says.

The problem with vacations is running into people from home you'd rather not talk to.  Ted Cruz found that out on a guided tour of the Parthenon with his family when an importunate woman recognized him.  "Twenty kids dead in Texas and you take a vacation?" she said.  According to the woman, "He sort of grunted and walked on.  His wife shot me a dirty look."  It's more than twenty today, as the death toll passed one hundred.  Cruz has bad luck with vacations, such as his Cancun jaunt during the 2021 cold snap that killed 246.  Maybe he should announce travel plans in advance so other people can get out of the state.

And reporters, please stop asking Trump and his crew about Jeffrey Epstein, who he never knew despite all the trips to Pedophile Island.  Why don't you ask about his new grandchild Alex, Alice, whatever it is?  Ask him why, if Alligator Auschwitz is such a great success (and it was his idea, not DeSantis's), it was necessary to send 200 Marines?  Gators not up to the job?  That must be DeSantis's fault.  Just not Jimmy Epstein or whatever his name was.  Get over it, OK?

Let's all get over it.