There are way too many invertebrates out there

For years I've been hearing that the only effective way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them, call their bluff, dare them to do their worst, because as long as they keep getting their way the bullying will just get worse. Apparently way too many people in what one would assume are positions of power are actually spineless cowards because the number of people willing to stand up to the orange cockwomble is depressingly small. Cheeto Mussolini says "jump" and the cowards don't even bother to ask how high. They just comply. 

On the positive side, sort of, the high power law firm of Paul, Weiss is now enjoying a shit ton of condemnation from the legal community for caving in to the Human Yam's demands. Ditto Columbia University. And of course gutless Senator Schumer is getting to see his planned book tour cancelled because it was clear he was going to be greeted by jeering crowds anywhere he was dumb enough to go.

I am, to be honest, totally baffled why so many people who could actually do something are instead doing nothing, or worse. Nada. Zilch. Just a lot of baffled deer in the headlights body language and vague blathering on about the need to be civil and "work with" the Trump administration. Is there a polite way to say "fucking morons?"  

For sure I need to include our state's senior senator as a moron, the spineless idiot who is actually in a position to be confrontational -- he's announced he won't run again in 2026 so has nothing to lose by pissing off MAGAts or Cheeto Mussolini. Trump decided years ago to fuck over Michigan because he hates our Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, so Gary Peters could say or do anything and it wouldn't make things worse. 

There are numerous reports of how unhappy even the hard core right wing nutjobs are with the path of destruction tRump has created, but none of them are willing to stand up to him either. Joni Ernst, the junior senator from Iowa, was making noises about voting against one of Trump's nominees but then she reportedly got some death threats -- and that's when her spine turned to jello. Ditto her colleagues. They all know just how willing the MAGAts are to engage in violence -- anyone who was in Congress on January 6, 2021, got a vivid demonstration of MAGA lunacy -- but if a few of them managed to find the guts to say, screw it, do your worst, most of the MAGAts would just crawl back under their rocks. There are some who are sufficiently brain dead to harass people, threaten them in various ways, maybe even attempt to shoot someone, but the number of MAGAts willing to put their own lives on the line when they're not part of mob is pretty small. MAGAts may be delusional but most aren't totally stupid. Talking big at the local watering hole is one thing; going and actually doing something is different. 

In any case, all it would take is a handful of people with the guts to be the first to tell the Human Yam to fuck off to inspire others to stop cowering and grow some cojones. I don't think it's likely to happen -- the Republican Party has operated under Newt Gingrich rules* for too long -- but I can dream. 

*Gingrich believes the only thing that counts is winning a majority for the party; whatever happens to the country is irrelevant as long as the other party loses.

Turkeys have really big feet

1874 turkey track quilt

I spotted the biggest bird tracks I'd ever seen in the snow recently. I was ambling up the driveway to the Woman Cave when I saw the largest prints I'd ever seen outside of a zoo. My first thought was, holy wah, do the new neighbors have emus? If I'd spotted huge bird foot prints in the summer I'd have thought "sandhill crane" because we have a pair that nest on the edge of our property every year, but in early March? It didn't hit me immediately that lately most of the turkeys I've seen have been single birds, not flocks. 

The turkey tracks were, in any case, a nice distraction from the flaming dumpster fire that is the tRump administration's incredibly chaotic approach to governance. How incompetent do you have to be to think that first telling remote workers that they have to return to an office and then turning around and cancelling the leases on the offices they're supposed to come back to is some sort of genius solution to eliminating waste and fraud? I can understand (sort of) the decision to cancel leases on some facilities, the part-time offices where maybe a representative from the IRS or Social Security visits once a week, but cancelling leases for a national park's headquarters? Which is what the DOGE geniuses did in Arkansas: cancelled the lease on the headquarters for Buffalo National River. I've been to BUFF's headquarters multiple times. 

The park occupied multiple rooms in their leased space in Harrison. All of that space was used, packed full of stuff. The park historian's space alone was crammed with files and books and enough material that it would take several large U-Haul's to empty just that one room -- which does beg the question, where is that material supposed to go? Is it saving any money when the park then ends up having to rent storage elsewhere? Where do the fifty-plus years of park administrative records go? The archeological artifacts collection? The employees who were not fired but no longer have an office to go to? No planning, no thought, just a bunch of mindless Musk acolytes crossing stuff off lists and then bragging about how much they're saving the country by causing chaos. 

I noticed the news item about BUFF because it was (and still is) one of my favorite parks but the Younger Daughter tells me DOGE also hit facilities in Fayetteville, although she wasn't sure exactly what. She's actually been paying more attention to Cheeto Mussolini's antics than I have. She is a federal employee and she does worry about just how safe anyone's job is now. It's easy to imagine tRump deciding entire job categories aren't necessary, like historian or writer. If something doesn't have an obvious immediate resale value, the orange cockwomble figures it's useless or should be trashed. 

Only 202 weeks left to go, assuming we all survive.