The Revolution Starts Here

Bhutan, August 2026. Photo by Stephen J. Lyons Recently we hosted my wife’s cousin and his spouse for lunch. We had chicken pot pie for supper, followed by ginger snaps and vanilla bean ice cream for dessert. We sat around our kitchen table for three hours and did something we rarely have done in this last dismal year of our shrinking democracy: we laughed, then we laughed some more. Some of it was plain silliness, highlighting marital quirks and tendencies, and making fun of ourselves.

I’m filling up my gas tank at my local Circle K while watching the per gallon price on the neon sign increase from $4.25 to $4.59 per gallon as I’m pumping. Ah, another stark reminder that we are living in the “Golden Age,” as our president boasts. Anyway, suddenly the pump morphs into a television screen and a loud voice assaults my fragile psyche. It announces a sale on some junk food and it continues through my entire $50+ fill-up. How did this development come about?

Robert on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons On the afternoon of the terrorist attacks, my wife Jan and I walk through the shaded streets of our small central-Illinois farming town to donate blood at the local Methodist church. The sky is bright blue and the humidity low. No dust in the air, nor debris, nor fire. The hot summer is ending, and we can feel the first stirrings of autumn. Acorns fall and shatter at our feet.

March on Washington 1963. Trikosko, Marion S., photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons I wonder what the tipping point is for the do-nothing Republican Congress. Will it be when their Dear Leader orders a “limited” nuclear strike on Tehran? Will it be when he cancels the midterms because of a “national emergency?” Or will it be when he infests our cities with armed, masked thugs who gun down American citizens without remorse or liability? Oops, sorry, that has already happened.

The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons For President Dozing Don Trump: 1. Which recently deceased Republican senator from South Carolina once called you a “demagogue” and a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” and urged voters to “tell Donald Trump to go to hell”? 2. Which current Republican vice president once called you “Hitler”? 3.

Somali children. jmbone on flickr.com, via Wikimedia Commons On Tuesday, June 16, The Guardian published a story that will probably never make it “above-the-fold” in America’s increasingly timid and understaffed mainstream media. The headline: “Killed walking home from school: why did Somali children become targets of US drone strikes?” Subhead: “Six months ago, at least 12 people, including eight children, died during a US attack.

I guess as a long-time Democrat I am required to pluck down the $30 admission fee, buy the over-priced merch, and pay cult-like homage to the new $850 million-dollar Obama Presidential Center, aka Barack’s Rock. To praise all the real (or imagined) benefits it will provide to Chicago’s South Side. And always to honor what in comparison to what we suffer at the present was a fairly successful presidency, albeit as low a bar as you can limbo under. But I’m not there yet. Neither are the critics.

[Note: first published in The Satirist https://www.thesatirist.com/] whoismargot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Dear Acting sort of like the worst version of an Attorney General Todd Blanche: Just in case you resurrect the Anti-Weaponization Fund, and I know you will, I am writing you with two requests: First, I feel you owe me $1776M (at least) for damages incurred over the last ten years. These damages include immense pain and suffering at the hands of President Donald J.

The best four years of your life are over. Now what? Creative Commons Congratulations Class of 2026! You did it! That hefty contribution to your unsupportable debt load is now securely in the hands of predatory loan agencies and our cash strapped federal government! They urge thank you in advance for your immediate attention to this matter. And congratulations to your sort-of-proud, yet anxious parents, who I would advise not to transform your childhood bedrooms into dens quite yet.

A follow-up to last weekend's "Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving" 1. I am the LORD, your one and only God, who brought you out of the Swamp, out of the houses of Clinton, Hussein Obama and Biden. YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE OR AFTER ME. And, for a limited time, my SIGNED Bible is now on sale for the reduced price of $59.99 plus postage. 2.