Prepare for chaos

Donald Trump is clearly not healthy — the rapid cognitive decline, his terrible appearance, I can believe he’s going to be dead in the next few years, or so incapable of doing his job that he’ll have to be declared incompetent and replaced. I wouldn’t be as certain as Rick Wilson (who I don’t trust anyway), but we may see an abrupt change of leadership before his term in office is over.

“Trump is dying” and “Vance knows,” according to conservative strategist Rick Wilson.

Conservative anti-Trump activist Rick Wilson, who co-founded the Lincoln Project and hosts the group’s podcast, has written extensively about Donald Trump. On Friday, the strategist declared that the president is indeed dying.

“Slow or fast, he’s headed down,” Wilson wrote, adding that there are “rumors” about what comes next. “Rumors from the Trumpverse are that the circle who knows what’s up is very, very small and very, very paranoid.”

It’s a possibility and a scary one.

Who has seen The Death of Stalin? If you haven’t, check it out: it portrays the mad scramble for power among a gang of selfish, incompetent boobs when the Great Leader suddenly died. That may be the United States in the near future.

JD Vance has made an announcement.

Vice President JD Vance has now made an unexpected statement regarding President Donald Trump’s health, stating he is ready to take over at any time.

On August 27, 2025, Vice President JD Vance declared himself prepared to step into the role of president should President Donald Trump’s health falter, a statement that has reignited speculation about Trump’s physical condition and the future of his administration.

Vance, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, confidently stated, “I’m ready to step up if, God forbid, anything happens to the president,” addressing concerns raised by Trump’s recent diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) and ongoing controversies surrounding his leadership.

I wonder how Trump is reacting to his lackeys’ publicly salivating at the prospect of his demise.

Good news on the autism front!

Within a month, we’ll know definitively what causes some forms of autism. RFK jr says so.

We’re finding certain interventions now that are clearly, almost certainly causing autism, Kennedy said. We’re going to be able to address those in September.

That’s a bolt out of the blue. These kinds of conditions are difficult to research, and we’d expect to hear that kind of announcement in scientific papers and presentations at meetings, rather than at Trump’s regular ego-stroking sessions with his cabinet.

It’s also surprising since this is the state of our knowledge, according to the NIH:

Scientists don’t know exactly what causes autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Autism was first described in the 1940s, but very little was known about it until the last few decades. Even today, there is a great deal that we don’t know about autism.

Because the disorder is so complex and no two people with autism are exactly alike, there are probably many causes for autism. It is also likely that there is not a single cause for autism, but rather that it results from a combination of causes.

So the NIH doesn’t know, but RFK jr does. But then, the NIH is a hollow shell of a scientific institution, since they appointed an anti-vax hack, Jay Bhattacharya, to run it, and since they canceled approved grants right and left. I don’t think the answer is coming from the NIH.

Maybe the CDC has been working on it? I don’t think so. RFK jr has taken a wrecking ball to that organization, firing its director, and seeing senior leaders resigning.

The ongoing chaos at the CDC reached its breaking point Wednesday.

The Washington Post reported in the afternoon that Monarez was being ousted just four weeks into taking over the role, a decision later announced by HHS on its X page. Over the next few hours, four senior staff members, including the CDC’s chief medical officer Debra Houry, turned in their resignation notice. Some of the members posted their resignation letters online, including Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

I don’t know where RFK jr is getting his revelations, but I do know that in science, it’s not just the answer you get, but how you get that answer, and he’s not only failing to show the trail followed to arrive at his answer, but is actively working to obscure the methods behind his conclusions.

As a guess, I suspect that the big announcement in September will be that vaccines cause autism, a claim that has been disproven over and over again.

By the way, he went on to claim that windmills are “wiping out the whale population” in the Atlantic. He’s just pandering to the crooked mafioso at the head of the table, so expect more of that in September.

They’re not hiring the best

A stupid man

Do you like NASA and space research? Sorry, it’s all going away. The man in charge is not qualified, as if that is any surprise.

Sean Duffy, the acting administrator of NASA for a little more than a month, has vowed to make the United States great in space.

With a background as a US Congressman, reality TV star, and television commentator, Duffy did not come to the position with a deep well of knowledge about spaceflight. He also already had a lot on his plate, serving as the secretary of transportation, a Cabinet-level position that oversees 55,000 employees across 13 agencies.

Sean Duffy is not the right person to run just about anything. My brain shut down at “reality TV star”.

What he’s planning to do is worrisome.

Nevertheless, Duffy is putting his imprint on the space agency, seeking to emphasize the agency’s human exploration plans, including the development of a lunar base, and ending NASA’s efforts to study planet Earth and its changing climate.

Putting humans in space? Robots do it better. Let’s not look at the damage the Trump administration is doing to the Earth — turn off the satellites that are looking at the planet.

Church shooting in Minneapolis

Another mass killing, this time at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. It was horrifying: the killer opened fire at a group of kids in the school, killing two and injuring 17 before they killed themselves. No more horrifying than every other school/church/public killing with freely available weapons, but one thing will enrage the right wing: the shooter was a trans woman.

It’s more complicated than that, though, although we are already getting the usual fingerpointing at everything but the gun culture.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also confirmed the identity of the suspect, calling Westman a “deranged monster.”

“This level of violence is unthinkable. Our deepest prayers are with the children, parents, families, educators, and Christians everywhere. We mourn with them, we pray for healing, and we will never forget them,” Noem said in a statement.

Yeah, they were a bad person who committed a deeply evil act, but quit pretending it’s unthinkable: it happens all the time, it’s become routine, and all we’re ever supposed to do is “pray”…which never works. We don’t know why the killer snapped, but there is evidence that this was the end result of long-festering issues in this person’s life.

Two videos, posted Wednesday morning and since removed by YouTube, show someone flipping through dozens of pages of notes dated over the course of several months, which include what appears to be doodles of weapons, middle fingers, and expletives. There are also repeated references to killing.

The videos, which depict handwritten journals and a display of high-powered weaponry, paint a portrait of a person with a rambling and deeply nihilistic outlook, according to analyses by law enforcement and ABC News.

The writings in the notebooks and on the firearms, which are written in a blend of Cyrillic alphabet, English and other languages, indicate a series of grievances, anger and ideations of harm to self and to others.

The writings also appear to show overt references to other high-profile school shootings and shooters.

In one notebook, there is a sticker that says “defend equality” with an LGBTQIA flag, overlaid with a gun. A gun also has writings against Israel.

Taking up a full page of a notebook is a hand-drawn birdseye view of the inside of a church with pews. The drawing appears to show the interior layout of Annunciation Church.

In one of the videos the shooter refers to personal depression and apologizes to family members.

“Depression,” “nihilistic,” “grievances” and “repeated references to killing”. This person needed serious help. Were they given any? From this article it’s not clear.

Their mother was retired from a job at the Catholic church, and they’re clearly obsessed with the church, given that they targeted it. I came away from reading about them feeling that a significant problem here was conflict with the church’s position. Maybe rather than blaming transness for the shooting, we should consider Catholicism to be the problem?

Nah, this was a crisis that can’t be pinned to one single cause. Trust me on this though: the media will blame anything but easy access to guns and hateful religious beliefs.

Some people think the innocent are still criminal

Someone named Dewey took exception to my article about a prison being reopened, and quickly fired off a “rebuttal”.

Aw, cry more. Criminals belong in prisons. People who illegally enter homes belong in prison. People who illegally enter businesses belong in prison. People who illegally enter the country belong in prison.

Sure, criminals belong in prison. Listing crimes that get people arrested doesn’t impress me. By the way, he forgot “People who riot and commit violence against the police and vandalize the US Capitol belong in prison.” Or “People who rape women and sexually harass young women belong in prison.” The problem is that these penalties are not justly applied.

Also, people are allowed to enter the country and, for instance, apply for residence or for asylum. Just being in the country doesn’t make a person a criminal.

I’m sure you’d love to completely eliminate the prison system and switch to the honor system, but you’re not in charge, thankfully. Obama was a rockstar who deported over 3 million illegal aliens and did so without the nebulous “due process” you liberals love to whine about.

I’m not lobbying to completely eliminate prisons, but do find it wasteful to reopen prisons that were declared redundant and shuttered over a decade ago. Why reopen a prison unless you’re planning to throw more people into it, in a country with declining levels of crime?

“Due process” is not nebulous. It’s a specific legal process that requires that the state demonstrate criminality and give the accused an opportunity to present their case in court.

Trump probably isn’t competent enough to get even close to that record level of deportations, but any number helps. Beyond him, the people’s minds are changing rapidly. You’re going the way of the dinosaurs. It would be best that you accept that fact.

Why should I accept the fact that injustices are being done? I will oppose them to the end.

I ventured into the jungle…I mean, garden

I was feeling a bit robust this morning, and managed to hobble all the way out to the backyard, where I could explore the fauna thriving there. Mary was hovering at my elbow to make sure I didn’t topple over, but I did OK — another week or two, and I might be going on real walks (as long as I don’t do anything stupid.) Things I saw that made me happy:

We spotted two monarch butterflies flitting over the garden. No photos, though, they didn’t land and pose for me.

The place is hopping with grasshoppers, which, while not normally associated with good gardens, is fine with me — the purpose of the garden is making spider food, not tomatoes. Mary may disagree with me.

Oh, and it was so bright. I’m not used to that anymore.

We also had lots of interesting pollinators, like this two-spotted longhorn bee.

Of course, the queen of the garden, the devourer of grasshoppers, the true monarch, was Argiope trifasciata.

It’s a fine crop, and congratulations to Mary on her superlative gardening skills. Maybe tomorrow I’ll make it to the front yard to see what wonders flourish there.

ICE is digging in like a tick, I see

I thought all we were getting for sacrificing science was a paint job for the border wall, but no! We’re getting more prisons! Overall, crime is down significantly, but we’re expanding the prison system.

There is a small town about 45 minutes south of me named Appleton, that used to be home to a medium security prison that was shut down about 15 years ago. Now the plan is to reopen the facility under ICE control. It’s got 1600 beds, but I’m sure they can easily double that.

I see no advantage to this construction project, except that it means there will be a nearby locus for protests. Also, who knows, as a liberal university professor I could end up staying there sometime! I sure hope they make it clean, comfortable, and luxurious.

There’s a reason Lindsay Ellis is a master of the video essay

She has a new fundraiser-essay, “The Unforgivable Sin of Ms Rachel”. I’ve only seen a half hour of it so far, but it’s magnificent — she is discussing the importance of empathy in raising children and normal human interactions, and is exposing the horrible anti-empathy arguments of conservatives. It’s 2½ hours long, unfortunately, but man, it’s good and thorough. Everyone ought to watch it. Learn more about the anti-Christian sin of empathy, and how the Sermon on the Mount is a crime against Jesus.

It’s also a fundraiser for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. I was motivated to donate.