Ferocious, Weak, and Crazy

In 2013 George Friedman, of the global intelligence firm Stratfor.com, wrote an interesting analysis of the national strategy of North Korea titled "Ferocious, Weak, and Crazy." Mr Friedman described the strategy this way:

"... the North Koreans positioned themselves as ferocious by appearing to have, or to be on the verge of having, devastating power. Second, they positioned themselves as being weak such that no matter how ferocious they are, there would be no point in pushing them because they are going to collapse anyway. And third, they positioned themselves as crazy, meaning pushing them would be dangerous since they were liable to engage in the greatest risks imaginable at the slightest provocation."

Three years later, I wrote a post which drew on that article and used ferocious, weak, and crazy to describe the behavior of Der Furor, then a candidate for president. Today, nine years and two presidential terms later, the adjectives apply more than ever.

Der Furor likes to appear ferocious, threatening real or perceived enemies with "fire and fury like the world has never seen." He is certainly one of the most bellicose men ever to hold the presidency, having offered to send the US military into Mexico to attack drug cartels, seize Greenland for national security purposes, and make Canada the 51st state ... and even to deploy the military for law enforcement within the United States. He works overtime to project an image of overwhelming strength and manly virtue, aided by his admirers who churn out laughable images of him as an impressively muscled, heroic, and heavily armed figure. He's besotted with the idea of having a massive military parade in the streets of Washington on his birthday (ostensibly in honor of the birthday of the US Army, which conveniently falls on the same date). And he enjoys striking heroic poses in the style of past strongmen like Benito Mussolini and (dare I say) Adolf Hitler ...

But for all his belligerence and posturing, Der Furor is a weak man. He has staffed his administration with slavishly obedient toadies he knows will not oppose him. When met with actual pushback, whether from state governors or foreign leaders, he is quick to back down, although in such a way as to have someone else to take the responsibility - he recently suggested that the 145% tariffs he imposed on imports from China might be reduced to a mere 80%, although he said that the decision would be "up to [Treasury Secretary] Scott B[essent]."* He will never admit to making an error, for fear of appearing weak. He is a weak man's imitation of a strong man.

And Der Furor is, indeed, crazy ... whether crazy like a fox (as his followers fervently believe) or crazy as a bedbug is for medical professionals to determine. But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board he claimed he would not have to use military force to prevent a blockade of Taiwan, because President Xi “respects me and he knows I’m [expletive] crazy.” Der Furor appears to subscribe to the “madman theory” of foreign policy, that a leader's suicidal threats may seem credible if the opponent believes the leader is irrational**. In any case, his wildly unstatesmanlike behavior, which includes the silly dance moves at his rallies, the making of national policy and announcement of major personnel changes by social media post, and the resort to childish insults and threats when his desires are thwarted, hardly inspires confidence in the mental stability of the leader of a formerly great nation.

Ferocious, weak, and crazy ... it used to be North Korea. Now it's our own president.

In precise legal language, we're screwed.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Translation: if it doesn't work out, I'll blame it on Bessent. As we now know, (reported in the news since I drafted this post earlier in the week) Der Furor has, indeed, backed down from his tariff war with China and is describing it as a victory, although there seems to be no identifiable advantage gained by the US.

** The term is often used in reference to President Richard Nixon, who wanted North Vietnamese leaders to believe he might be crazy enough to resort to nuclear weapons.

"Walmart Liberace"

If you know anything at all about Der Furor, you know that he loves the trappings of wealth and power, especially gold. His Trump Tower penthouse apartment has long been famous for its over-the-top gilding of almost every surface ...

His home at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, is similarly decorated,

Der Furor's belief that acres of gold convey a sense of luxury and power now extends to his redecoration of the historic Oval Office, covering every available surface with gold trimmings, objects, curtains, and carpets. He called in the cabinetmaker who upgilded Mar-a-Lago to add gleaming golden touches throughout the historic mansion, and also wanted to hang a chandelier in the Oval Office, but dropped the idea when he was told it would be too heavy for the ceiling to support. 

Der Furor's Oval Office style has been called "Walmart Liberace."

The Oval Office is the official workplace of the President of the United States, who deserves the right to decorate it in a style that creates a personal comfort zone in which they can make decisions that affect every American and the rest of the world. In that regard, presidents deserve a degree of freedom of expression in their choice of decor.

But the Oval Office is more than just the workplace of the current officeholder - it's a symbol of the United States of America, and it represents all of us. It should present an image of gravitas appropriate to our history. 

We fought a revolutionary war to free ourselves from kings who needed to impress their subjects with displays of wealth and power. Versailles represents in gold and crystal the past glories of French kings. The Kremlin represents in gold the power and dominance of the tsars. Buckingham Palace remembers the golden highlights of the power and majesty of the British empire at its height. And all of those are appropriate to the history of their nations.

The Oval Office should represent the history of a free people ... not a garish whorehouse gleaming with golden bling.

We deserve better than Walmart Liberace.

Have a good day. Demand better, but expect less. 

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Poetry Sunday

Today is Poetry Sunday, but it's also Mother's Day. For the last however-many years, I've reposted my original Mother's Day post in honor of the most important lady in our early lives, but this year I'm going to give it a rest and replace it with this wonderful poem by Carrie Shipers that speaks to the point each mother - and father, for that matter - reaches in the lives of their children.

Mother Talks Back to the Monster

by Carrie Shipers

Tonight, I dressed my son in astronaut pajamas,

kissed his forehead and tucked him in.

I turned on his night-light and looked for you

in the closet and under the bed. I told him

you were nowhere to be found, but I could smell

your breath, your musty fur. I remember

all your tricks: the jagged shadows on the wall,

click of your claws, the hand that hovered

just above my ankles if I left them exposed.

Since I became a parent I see danger everywhere-

unleashed dogs, sudden fevers, cereal

two days out of date. And even worse

than feeling so much fear is keeping it inside,

trying not to let my love become so tangled

with anxiety my son thinks they're the same.

When he says he's seen your tail or heard

your heavy step, I insist that you aren't real.

Soon he'll feel too old to tell me his bad dreams.

If you get lonely after he's asleep, you can

always come downstairs. I'll be sitting

at the kitchen table with the dishes

I should wash, crumbs I should wipe up.

We can drink hot tea and talk about

the future, how hard it is to be outgrown.

It's hard to be outgrown, isn't it? - to know that it's now your children that are worried about taking care of you and protecting you from your fears.

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful ladies out there doing the world's most difficult job in a difficult time. We love you.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Where do these weeks keep coming from? ...

During his visit to the White House, Canadian Prime Minister Carney provided a master class in how to politely tell Der Furor to stuff his idea of Canada as the 51st state; the Papal Conclave selected Robert Cardinal Prevost, who has selected the name Leo XIV, as the new Pope; perennial nuclear-armed enemies India and Pakistan edged closer to open war in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on tourists in Indian-occupied Kashmir; unwilling to be upstaged by India and Pakistan, North Korea launched several ballistic missiles into the ocean; retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter has died at the age of 85; and at El Paso, Texas, border control officials arrested an American citizen who was smuggling 113 grams of fentanyl in her vagina ... a CBP spokesman described this method of fentanyl smuggling as "risky on many levels." 

As we close in on graduation season, I thought it would be appropriate to feature a collection of cartoons about education. Or what passes for education under Der Furor's administration.

I've heard it said that the bachelor's degree is the 2025 equivalent of the GED ...

With any luck, it'll still be there when you arrive on campus ...

It doesn't take long to get that first call ...

This reminds me of the time in college I got to the right number of pages in a theater arts class paper on the opera "Rigoletto" by endlessly repeating the long and hyphenated name of the lead singer ...

This is a little outdated now, as the GOP would not want to use deadly force to protect students studying something as useless as art ...

Field trip ...

These were the only tablets approved by the administration ...

Getting an early start on training for a career in politics ...

This really shouldn't be funny ...

Another flashback: this cartoon reminds me of the time back in grad school when the professor returned my graded paper with the note, "Such persiflage!" 

And so we come to the end of another Cartoon Saturday, which I hope gave you a lift in these trying times.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Poetry Sunday returns with verse appropriate for Mother's Day. See you then.

Bilbo

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

New month, new editorial and signage gems! This week, because Sunday is Mother's Day, it just seems right to look at Mother's Day-related oddities ...

She probably needs it from time to time ...

The meanest mother in Wyoming ...

It's not exactly a spa day, but it's cheaper ...

Musical colonoscopy? ...

What mother wouldn't love a gift this thoughtful? ...

It may be a useful gift, but I'm not sure whether it sends the right message ...

What a deal!! Nothing fishy here ...

I'd like to see the ingredients list for that omelet ...

Just the thing for the mother who has a wooden leg ...

Wow, that's harsh ...

And so begins a new month of Great Moments in Editing and Signage! Don't forget to celebrate Mom on Sunday. And also don't forget: if you see a worthy editorial or signage gem, send it to ol' Bilbo - I'll give you credit when it posts!

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

The President's Budget, 2025

Long ago, the United States government had a process by which the president and Congress worked together to develop a budget to determine how much money it spent, and on what. The last time that formal budget process worked was 1994, when then-President Bill Clinton signed all 13 appropriations bills before the start of the new fiscal year. Since then the United States has not had a single year in which the president proposed and Congress successfully marked up, debated, and passed a formal budget for the president's signature. For the last 30 years, the federal government has relied on continuing resolutions and gigantic, opaque omnibus packages, rather than the budget process, to keep itself going. 

Der Furor submitted his "Skinny Budget" last Friday, cutting virtually all domestic programs - programs that actually help people - by 23% of the previous level, or $163 billion. In the words of the White House press release, it "guts a weaponized deep state* while providing historic increases for defense and border security." The press release goes on to quote  OPM Director Russell Vought's justification of the budget proposal:

“For decades, the biggest complaint about the Federal Budget was wasteful spending and bloated bureaucracy**. But over the last four years, Government spending aggressively turned against the American people and trillions of our dollars were used to fund cultural Marxism, radical Green New Scams, and even our own invasion. No agency was spared in the Left’s taxpayer-funded cultural revolution. At this critical moment, we need a historic Budget—one that ends the funding of our decline, puts Americans first, and delivers unprecedented support to our military and homeland security.  The President’s Budget does all of that.”

Does this budget proposal actually put Americans first by cutting non-discretionary spending by an average of 35%? Let's see ...

Education? Cut by 15%. States and churches (speaking of indoctrination) need to take care of it, whether they can afford it or not. Der Furor is on record as loving the poorly educated, anyway.

Public Health? Cut by 26%. Why should anyone but you be responsible for your health? As Ebenezer Scrooge once remarked***, "If they would rather die they had better do it and decrease the surplus population."

Disaster Preparedness? Slashed. States need to take care of themselves, whether they can afford it or not.

Climate-Related Programs? Slashed. After all, according to OMB Director Vought, they are “antithetical to the American way of life.” I'm not quite sure how that is, but I'm sure it sounds as good to the average MAGAt as the right to bear arms.

National Park Service? Cut by 31%. Parks are located in the states, and the states should pay for them. And once we log out all those useless forests, there'll be no need for a park service, anyhow.

Foreign Aid? Cut by 84%. Better to spend that money on Americans at home ... oh, wait ... we're not going to spend that money on Americans at home, anyhow. Never mind.

National Endowment for the Arts? Eliminated. Why should we pay for cultural stuff that suckers in other countries have already paid for^†? 

Libraries? Support wiped out. Who needs all that accumulated knowledge, even though "do your own research" is a mantra of the suspicious right?

So, how are we spending all that money we're going to save by eliminating things Der Furor doesn't like? As the White House press release explains,

"Defense spending would increase by 13 percent, and appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security would increase by nearly 65 percent."

Somewhere in that defense spending is the cost of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's makeup studio in the Pentagon, while the DHS increase probably covers part of the cost of transporting and protecting Der Furor during his frequent golf outings.

Is there fraud and waste in government spending? Of course there is. Is it best addressed by eliminating inspectors general in government agencies? Hardly. Neither is it best addressed by evidence-free accusations couched in highfalutin' language that appeal to the MAGA faithful.

Do the American taxpayers save money when their state level taxes go up to compensate for services their federal taxes used to pay for? I'm reminded of the old joke about daylight savings time being the same as cutting off the bottom half of one's blanket and sewing it onto the top to make the blanket longer.

There are worthwhile discussions to be had about what the federal government should do and pay for, and what should be the responsibility of the states. Instead of having those discussions, coming to agreement on the proper division of responsibilities, and crafting federal budgets that allow states to properly plan and craft their own budgets, we have a ham-handed meat-ax approach to budgeting that serves no one except those who are more interested in cheap politics than in a functioning, well-funded government that fulfills the Constitutional aspiration to:

"... form a more perfect union, establish justice, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty ..."

We've got a long way to go, and Der Furor isn't going to get us there, at least not with our economy and our civil rights intact.

Have a good day, and let me know in your comments what you think the division of labor should be. What should the federal government do and pay for, and what should be the responsibility of the states? Why?

We'll have this discussion in an upcoming post. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* It's worth remembering that all that "wasteful spending and bloated bureaucracy" was approved by Congress in earlier budgets.

** See this earlier post for an opinion on who's actually weaponizing the government against whom.

*** A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

† If you need arts and culture, go to the Louvre, the Bolshoi Ballet, the British Museum, the Egyptian Museum, and all those other useless places funded by radical lunatic losers.

Musical Sunday

One of my (many) favorite singer/songwriters is the late Leonard Cohen, whose husky voice and marvelously complex lyrics are always a joy to hear. Agnes and I spent many years enjoying the delights of ballroom dancing together, and this particular song speaks to me as few others do ... 

Here are the lyrics:

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in

Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove

Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the end of love

Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone

Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon

Show me slowly what I only know the limits of

Oh dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, oh dance me on and on

Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long

We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above

Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born

Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn

Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn

Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in

Touch me with your naked hand, touch me with your glove

Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the end of love

Burning violin or not, I think this is a great song. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Welcome to the first Cartoon Saturday of May, not like you need it.

The U.S. and Ukraine signed an agreement granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, a move Ukraine hopes will convince Der Furor to continue American military and economic assistance to fight Russia's ongoing invasion; Canada elected a liberal government in national elections this week, a move seen as a reaction to Der Furor's economic and political attacks on Canada; a group of detainees at an immigration detention facility in Texas, afraid of deportation to a notorious prison in El Salvador, formed an SOS message that was captured by a Reuters drone; the US economy shrank by 0.3% in the first quarter of the year, a decrease promptly blamed by Der Furor on former President Biden; a new proposal by House Republicans would levy a series of new fees on legal immigrants to pay for Der Furor's immigration enforcement actions; and in Minnesota, the state Supreme Court has overturned the 2022 indecent exposure conviction of a woman accused of walking topless in a local parking lot, evidently ruling that it was not a righteous ... uh ... bust.

This week, because pretty much all I want to do any more is take the cushions off the couch, build a book fort, and spend the day hidden in it, reading, I thought some cartoons about books and reading would be fun. Certainly more fun than watching the news every day and asking "He did what??."

Sounds about right ...

He's riding the wave ...

I'd be careful with my opinions if I were you ...

It's true ...

"Literary selfies!!" I love it! ...

He needed a better agent ...

Medieval paywall technology ...

I can relate to this guy ...

There's a genre for everybody ...

Not everyone can make a noir entrance ...

And that concludes the first Cartoon Saturday of the new month - I hope it helped you get over the stresses and strains of the past week.

Have a good day and a great weekend, and come back tomorrow for Musical Sunday, when we'll dance to the end of love with Leonard Cohen. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for May, 2025

Yes, I know that you're tired of hearing me complain about the difficulty in selecting worthy ass clowns to whom these awards can be presented. In my defense, the staggering number of candidates in the current administration, plus Congress, plus enablers, plus information-resistant MAGAts, religious bigots, and ordinary-run-of-the-mill ass clowns make the selection harder all the time. I'm getting old and it gets harder to focus all the time. But I started this mess, and I've gotta keep it going, and so it is that I have decided to name as 

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for May, 2025

United States Attorney General

Pam Bondi

Yesterday (as noted in this space) we celebrated Law Day, which honors the rule of law that is a cornerstone of American identity and life. Today, we note that the Attorney General of the United States - the nation's chief law enforcement officer, responsible for the administration of justice and the protection of our rights - appears devoted not to the rule of law, but to the slavishly loyal facilitation of the angry prejudices of a president uninterested in justice that does not personally benefit him.

Under the "leadership" of Ms Bondi, the Department of Justice has turned sharply away from the protection of Americans' rights to focus on "election integrity" and facilitating the identification, arrest, and summary deportation of persons illegally in the United States. The role of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has been changed from the protection of Americans' civil rights to pursuing charges against colleges and universities for alleged "anti-semitism" and sanctuary cities for protecting (rightly or wrongly) the rights of persons illegally in the country.

Ms Bondi has repeatedly twisted, if not completely ignored the truth to justify the arguably illegal and definitely unconstitutional treatment of persons caught up in immigration sweeps, most notably the obvious photoshopping of tattoos on the hand of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, in a clumsy attempt to "prove" his membership in the MS-13 criminal gang. 

She has refused to open an investigation into multiple incidents of the exposure of classified military information by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

In a post on Twitter, Ms Bondi credited Der Furor with "saving over 119 million lives" through fentanyl seizures. 119 million is approximately 35% of the population of the United States. At a cabinet meeting later in the week, also citing fentanyl seizures, she said Der Furor and his administration had saved 258 million people, or approximately 75% of the population.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, Attorney General Pam Bondi - the nation's chief law enforcement officer and protector of our rights - is more focused on stroking the ego and accommodating the angry prejudices and vengeance of her boss than on protecting American citizens' rights under the law. She has richly earned her designation as the Right-Cheek Ass Clown for May, 2025.

Enjoy your civil rights while you can.

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday, when we'll take a cartoonist's look at books and reading ... a pastime evidently not much enjoyed by the MAGA crowd.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

Law Day, 2025

Today, May 1st, is observed around the world in a number of ways. It is observed as Labor Day or International Workers Day in much of the world, National Chocolate Parfait Day by those who love chocolate, and School Principals' Day by educators. But more important at the moment is that today is observed in the United States as Law Day.

The idea for Law Day was introduced by The American Bar Association in 1957, and in 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed Law Day to be observed each year on May 1. Congress made Law Day official when it passed Joint Resolution 87-20 on April 7, 1961. Law Day encourages all Americans to reflect the role of law in the foundation of the country and the importance it has on our society, and to reflect on the personal rights and liberties we enjoy and exercise every day.

One of the major reasons for the success of the United States as a nation in its first 249 years has been its reliance on the Rule of Law - a set of enforceable, reliable rules of government and civic behavior that gave certainty to national civic life. Those rules allowed businesses to plan for the long term and citizens to know that they were free to live their lives without arbitrary and capricious interference from a king who could decide on the fly what the law said and how it was enforced. 

That was then. This is now.

Today, the Rule of Law is endangered as an autocratic president employs an expansive view of his power to define and wield (or to ignore) the law in his quest to reshape the government and the economy as he wishes. Individuals (including American citizens) are rounded up and summarily deported, often to prisons in foreign countries, without the due process the law requires. A well-functioning, if not perfect, economy has been wrecked by the wholesale implementation of the same economic policies that had already wrecked it once before. The Department of Justice has been turned into the weapon that conservatives always whined about, now targeted at those who oppose the administration's policies. Congress has abdicated its Constitutional responsibility to make the laws, allowing a wannabe tyrant to rule by royal decree executive order. Laws intended to protect minorities and right historical wrongs are nullified as "woke" or "DEI" (meaning, unfavorable to white men).

If you haven't read Der Furor's royal decree executive order of April 28, 2025, titled "Strengthening and  Unleashing America's Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens," take a moment now to do it. Read it a second time if you're not terrified of its implications.

On this Law Day, it's worthwhile to reflect on the American promise of "equal justice under law," and whether those noble words engraved on the Supreme Court building have any meaning when a president not only refuses to acknowledge them, but actually ignores them. 

On this Law Day, we must acknowledge the staggering level of corruption in Der Furor's administration, and ask ourselves why we - through our elected representatives - let it happen. 

On this Law Day, we must ask ourselves why Congress is missing in action in the face of incipient tyranny. 

On this Law Day, we must ask ourselves why we have ignored the same abuses of power that we once staged a revolution over. 

On this Law Day, we must stop asking whether or not we're in a constitutional crisis and admit that we're smack dab in the middle of one, and ask whether or not we're willing to face it.

Legal commentator Joyce Vance has noted that each president issues an official proclamation on Law Day, and that Der Furor's proclamation last year began with these words: “On Law Day, we renew our commitment to the rule of law and our Constitution. The rule of law requires that no one be above the obligations of the law or beneath its protections, and it stands as a bulwark against the arbitrary use of government power.”

The level of hypocrisy of this administration is unbelievable, and on Law Day, we must not let it go unremarked. We must stand up to our national ideals, defend the Rule of Law, and insist that Congress and the Courts do their job to protect the rights that set us apart from many other countries.

As Joyce Vance reminds us, "Until [Der Furor's] administration is over, it has to be Law Day every day.

Have a good day. Defend the Rule of Law that defends you against tyranny.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo