Welcome to the Summer of Stupid
Stupid bills, stupid people, and stupid policies are the hallmarks of Summer 2025
T.S. Eliot, in Burnt Norton, the first of his Four Quartets, describes “a place of disaffection” this way:
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
If ever there was a summer of disaffection and times where the aim of some is to distract from distraction by distraction, the summer of 2025 is it. In the last 24 hours I have seen three separate instances of “men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind…wind in and out of unwholesome lungs” on display, if you will allow “men” as a placeholder for men and women.
Kristi Noem and Habeas Corpus
In a Senate hearing Tuesday, Secretary of Homeland (I hate that word) Security Kristi Noem described “habeas corpus” as “a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country” as if the United States Constitution were just a bit of paper, blown in the wind. Seriously, she did that thing as if up was down, black was white, and nothing meant anything.
Kristi, for the record, what you described is haberemus corpus (we should have the body) which is not a recognized principle of law.
Noem’s idea of habeas corpus, is of course, absurd and stupid and cynical as hell, right down to the idea that Her Hero, Donald Trump, should be allowed to suspend it without the consent of Congress.
The “Big beautiful bill.”
Ever notice how Trump reused the alliteration Democrats did with Build Back Better? I’m sure that was no accident, given his desire to receive all the love he didn’t get last time.
That big beautiful bundle of excremental paper they call a bill is something stupid too. For starters, they want to pretend their Medicaid cuts are only to young men like the ones described below by the vapid Rep. Patronis:
As we discussed on the last podcast, my son worked 3 part time jobs and yes, played Xbox but also just barely stayed above the Medicaid limit and was on the ACA-subsidized plans instead. How many more just like him are working multiple part time jobs or even one full time job that doesn’t pay jack and doesn’t have benefits? Many, I’m guessing. Seems like the last time I looked, Walmart didn’t pay enough to keep their full time employees off Medicaid and SNAP.
But they think we’re stupid and will accept the new Republican definition of “welfare queen.” I guarantee you they are not thinking of white people here, despite the fact that the majority of Medicaid recipients are white and working already.
But the TRULY stupid part of this is that nibbling at the edges like this will not save billions in Medicaid cuts. Certainly not over $800 billion. The only way to actually save on Medicaid is to cover everyone and call it Medicare for all, not cut people out of the program who can least afford to be cut. This will not stop stupid Republicans from cutting people out of the program and dismissing them with a wave. Let them die and decrease the surplus population, indeed.
Medicaid is just the beginning. We already know about the stupid tax cuts for billionaires. But there is so much more in this bill, so much that they want to ram it through and “up our ass”. There’s more, of course. There are provisions to stop income tax on tips but not payroll taxes, and most tips are below the level for income taxation. That provision is set to expire when Trump leaves office, by the way. The same for taxing Social Security - they want to raise the cap on who pays taxes on Social Security, but are not eliminating the tax altogether. That provision is also set to expire when Trump leaves office.
Tax credits for buying EVs will expire, also credits for solar and wind energy.
And they will effectively cut SNAP benefits by forcing states to cover part of the cost for them, instead of the 100% currently covered by the federal government. Because what is more stupid than making sure people don’t eat? As it is, kids get 2 of their 3 meals at school because the food stamps now debit cards don’t stretch for an entire month.
We are a country that wants to deny people access to healthcare and food. That’s just fucking stupid.
And they want to do it while raising the debt ceiling for the totality of Trump’s tenure so they can turn around and use it as a weapon when it comes to ours.
Truly, truly stupid and cynical: Thinking we are so dumb we don’t see what they’re doing.
Nancy Mace’s Naked Videos
Nancy Mace is a disgrace. That’s my poetry for the day. She is a narcissist with a mean streak who has no problem blaming others for her own destruction. But her latest stunt is truly vicious.
Let me say up front that I have no idea who is right or wrong when it comes to her latest breakup. I just know they were engaged, and then they weren’t.
Here is Nancy Mace claiming that her ex kept sex videos of her on his phone. I’m not going to opine on what people decide to do with their partners, but it’s pretty common to do videos like this and keep them. Would we have known he did that if she didn’t say so in an on-the-record congressional hearing? I think we wouldn’t have, given that she broke up with him well over a year ago and there hasn’t even been a whiff of a Nancy Mace sex video rumor out there.
That yellow circle in the back is Nancy Mace’s naked silhouette, she says. Okay. I don’t really view that as a sex tape, per se.
As to the rest of her accusations, all I will say is that if they are true, she should have filed a police report and gone from there. Using her congressional immunity via the speech and debate clause from lawsuits for libel and/or slander if these allegations are not true is truly a misuse of the privilege and pretty vile. Of course, we’ll never know one way or the other, will we?
But I can say I’d never have known there were sex tapes if she hadn’t brought them up.
It’s going to be a long, hot summer with lots of stupid. In fact, you should just plan to serve up your Memorial Day picnic with a slather of stupid so everyone can know just how utterly ludicrous these people are.
If you see stupid online, say something. Use the hashtag #SummerofStupid to let the rest of us know you’ve found more. By the end of the summer, we ought to have a whole pile of stupid ready to launch the midterms with. In the meantime, make as much noise as you can about it.
Call your representatives and Senators. Protest. Tell your friends.
Friends don’t let friends be stupid.