Monday, July 13, 2026

the 40 days of trumpmas - a surreal serial poem

the 40 days of trumpmas - a surreal serial poem


Remember, remember! The fifth of trumpvember

 the 40 days of trumpmas - a serial poem

 

for 40 days the trumpeter reigns,

his lies and hate on whom he disdains,

but election day will come so soon,

we'll no longer hear the orange baboon;

 

in 39 days full of world wide problems.

we could elect him to get rid of the muslims,

but as he'll rant on trivialities of his presidential life,

what could be worse? - you could be his wife;

 

in 38 days just what will you do?

the donald has said he likes lgbtq,

but as he bullies his women and all his men too,

if youre questioning, what stops him from bullying you?

 

in just 37 days, some people are saying,

(or pleading or hoping or some even praying)

the duke of prunes will dye his forelock purple my friend,

and thus make america grape again,

 

our days are down to just 36,

before our problems the don will fix,

he will on day one do what hes said - true,

he'll wall out our enemies - and fat women too!

 

on the 35th day of trumpmas

yes just seven weeks remain!

will the polls and tallies deliver us

donald with his golden mane?

 

34 days and the vice-pipers have piped,

though pence didnt say why donalds suit shouldnt be striped,

he wouldnt defend his master's string pulling,

to make america great? - who do they think they're fooling?

 

just 33 days till the macho tornado,

unless its blown away by hurricane machado,

with women and voters he has so much to loose.

keep your mouth shut donald (unless youre changing your shoes)

 

32 days and we’ve been hit by the big blowhard,

donald spoke here in fla (oh, we had a hurricane too)

this administration gives us playing the race card, a weak economy, and unemployment

but if you want a job you could be donald’s campaign manager (unless youre a jew)

 

31 days, just a month, remains;

will the donald say hes sorry, and his baser impulses restrain?

or keep blaming bill clinton for our moral demise;

when trump speaks to us, our NO votes must be our replies!

 

election comes this time (in 30 days) each 4 years,

time for praise and tears and fears;

as polls will open in many states,

vote early, please dont vote late!

 

down to 29, just a leap february,

and theres still the donald quite

contrary;

donald donald, how does your garden grow?

quoth the master debater, "with pretty maids groped in a row"

 

just 28 days - later or soon,

and the zombies will rise, led by the big goon;

unless everyone gets a reality inoculation,

i might have to move to canada for a well deserved vacation; 

 

now just 27, less than 4 weeks,

no time for you to say 'yikes!' or 'eeeks!'

obama wants to go to mars and colonize it for man,

lets send trump tomorrow! and colonize it for orangutan!

 

26 days are all that remain,

will our democracy and economy go down the drain?

if we all keep listening to the blustering oaf,

will he give jobs and prosperity? - or just half a loaf

 

25 days - will more women speak?,

of the antics of donald who the presidency seeks,

dating 14 year old girls or groping their mothers,

how did the gop pick him over the others?,

 

24 days - were down to two dozen,

the next woman who speaks just might be your cousin,

or mother or sister, aunt, niece, even daughter,

describing the circumstance in which donald caught her,

 

23 days left and trump doesnt yet have as many accusers,

as cosby, but he assures us that they are all really losers,

sent by bankers or hillary with secret agendas,

to disrupt our election of him - our defender!,

 

22 days and we know charity begins at home,

but donalds attention is so prone to roam,

his gift that disappeared to 911 survivors from his foundation?,

oops! maybe donald spent it on a vacation,

 

21 days and trump says the election may be rig-ly,

if hes not the winner and his total's not big-ly,

tremendously higher than hillary gets,

he warns his supporters may all lose their wits,

 

20 days left and while george zimmerman still walks free,

the man who shot at HIM got 20 years - while trayvon got eternity,

trump wants us to support our cops and maintain law and order,

he'll put all the inner city dwellers in jail, and send the immigrant criminals far across the border,

 

19 days left till we all go to pretend,

to elect someone to lead us, as if on it our lives depend,

but wise man, donald trump, already really knows,

who we really voted for - a wolf in president's clothes?,

 

18 days and we bad hombres demand a rebate,

on the ill feelings left since the comments of one candidate,

the debaters have met in their final grudge match,

but only donald can say from whose hands victory will be snatched,

 

17 days and our government is corrupt with quid pro quo,

did you take latin at wharton? is that how you know?,

donald wants us to fire at them all - the bureaucrats lined up in rows,

and believe me, corruption is a subject. that donald really knows,

 

16 days - lets set term limits on all our office holders,

and put all our women in binders - or maybe in folders,

donalds endless complaints are becoming a sour whine,

have a little cheese with that, from wisconsin, where 

hillary's doing fine,

 

15 days and on stocking covered thighs did linger,

two miniature hands with two thumbs and eight tiny fingers,

they belonged to the donald who believed that he owned,

any thing that he wanted - or anyone he got alone,

 

14 days yes only two weeks,

till the duke of orange assends to the throne he seeks?,

to rule all americans, the strong and the weak?,

and dominate the globe with power that's peak?,

 

the 13th day to go - does that seem unlucky?,

not for donald whos lately been appearing quite plucky,

claiming media, polls, and parties are against him,

and rallying his multitudes with wit waxing dim,

 

on the 12th day of trumpmas donald awoke with a jerk,

promptly fired his latest campaign manager (who considered that a perk),

if youre "AAAfroAAAmurikan" and unemployed i can put you to work,

barked donald the businessman from behind his sly smirk,

 

it's the 11th and engineer casey trump is in the caboose,

i hear some of you saying oh no! what's the use,

our campaign will probably just go off the tracks,

but donald says its ok - cause he's got "the blacks",

 

just ten days left yes only one-zero,

til donald is hoping that he'll be your hero,

as new hillary emails come under investigation,

donald hopes to rename camp david to camp donald for

his vacations,

 

like a cat has nine lives we're left with only 9 days,

till we're subject to donald? and his old wicked ways,

on foreign affairs he says he'll save us from isis,

but his domestic affairs are misogyny and crisis,

 

our days are numbered - yes only eight,

till once again we make america great,

by getting rid of candidates who have nothing to add,

goodbye donald you wont make america sad,

 

just one week to go - its day minus seven,

till america's lifted above - to trumpty dump heaven?,

where for rich folks like donald opportunity abounds,

and we keep the working poor with a wall that surrounds,

 

how the time it does fly its already day 6,

till americans problems the donald will fix,

his solutions begin on trumpday number one,

dont you like them? they'll come at the barrel of a gun,

 

Five days to go, baby, One in five,

No one here gets out alive, now,

david dukes not opposed to all jews,

he backs trump - who are you going to choose?,

 

only 4 days left till the armaged-don,

he'll seize power by the horns once he has won,

and donnie will be what he longs for - a winner,

using the FBI to wreak havoc on hillary the sinner,

 

only three left, just a triad of days,

and the donald his supporters continues to amaze,

with hoopla and folderoll made up in his head,

his winning temperament will leave us all dead,

 

just a pair of days - 2 - till trump paradise,

since these words you're reading please heed my advice,

the creatures that surround us are beginning to bite,

'blacks for trump' fear the Illuminati so lets turn out their light,

 

just a single day left till our thanksgiving,

deliver us from donald and preserve the living,

forget sanity and disgard your misgivings,

but pray hard to your gods that they'll be forgiving,

since we've got the nukes why can't we use'em?,

on the road to 2016 why couldn't we lose HIM?,

 

and trumpmas now has finally come,

the tallies will count up to a winning sum,

unless the earth is struck soon by a cataclysmic comet,

to elect a candidate who just makes you want to vomit?,

we wish you a merry trumpmas at this time each 4 years,

if you have'nt voted you've lost the chance to mitigate your fears,

cause donald duck is ready to lead, forget your crocodile tears,

so you'd better get the vaseline and lubricate your rears!

 

stay informed 1

stay informed 1

 https://5calls.org/

 https://www.buildtheresistance.org/

 https://indivisible.org/resource/guide 

https://choosedemocracy.us/

https://choosedemocracy.us/resist-list/ 

https://choosedemocracy.us/what-can-i-do/ 

https://accountable.us/home/trump-accountability-war-room/ 

https://deptofpeoplewhowork.org/ 

https://www.citizen.org/ 

 

The ICE List A public, verifiable record of U.S. immigration enforcement - incidents, agents, deaths, vehicles, and facilities - documented with sources and open to everyone.

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Killing during an ICE operation in Biddeford, Maine 2026-07-13 • Biddeford, Maine (Pool Street / Hill Street)

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Lindsey Graham Chose Evil

Lindsey Graham Chose Evil

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/lindsey-graham-obituary-trump/ 

Lindsey Graham Chose Evil

Conspiracy theorists liked to say that Graham’s Trump sycophancy was a result of blackmail. But the truth is worse: He stuck with Trump to keep the US war machine going.

Jeet Heer
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., left, gestures as President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while in flight on Air Force One, Jan. 4, 2026, as they were returning to Joint Base Andrews, Md.

Lindsey Graham gestures as President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on Air Force One, on January 4, 2026.

(Alex Brandon / AP)

Although Senator Lindsey Graham, who died unexpectedly on Saturday at 71, was one of the most odious figures in American public life, he does deserve a partial defense from a strangely pervasive calumny directed against him by liberal critics. In the last decade of his life, Graham underwent a dramatic political transformation. In 2015 and early 2016, Graham became a no-holds-barred foe of Donald Trump, whom he lambasted as “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who “represents the worst in America.” But Graham started to warm to Trump once the insurgent candidate won the Republican primary on May 4, 2016. This process accelerated after Trump was elected president in November, when Graham became, against stiff competition, the president’s most obsequious lackey.

Graham’s metamorphosis was all the more startling because his earlier disdain for Trump sprang logically from his political history. Prior to 2016, Graham was best known as the ultra-hawkish ally of fellow war-happy senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman (their noxious nickname for themselves was the “Three Amigos”), which made him a natural opponent of candidate Trump’s isolationist foreign policy. Further, Graham had a history of bipartisanship, working with Democrats on immigration reform and campaign finance and casting the sole Republican vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nominations. This gave Graham a profile, on domestic matters at least, more mainstream than Trump’s burn-it-down populism.

What explains Graham’s quick change of political identity? One theory popular among Resistance liberals and Never Trump conservatives was that the senator, who was widely rumored to be a closeted gay man, had been blackmailed by Trump, perhaps with kompromat provided by Vladimir Putin. In 2019, for instance MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle dropped a heavy-breathing hint along this line by suggesting that Trump knows “something pretty extreme about Lindsey Graham.”

The blackmail theory was never grounded in evidence and suffered the further disadvantage of making Graham seem like a victim rather than someone making affirmative choices about his life. The actual story of Graham’s ideological conversion is much worse than any conspiracy, because he gave us his principles for the worst of reasons: to stay close to the center of power, stave off MAGA primary challenges, and bring Trump around to Graham’s deeply militarist worldview.

More from The Nation

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, right, joined by US Senator Lindsey Graham, speaks to reporters on Tuesday, April 6, 2021, in Columbia, SC.

South Carolina’s Process to Replace Lindsey Graham Is What Democracy Should Look Like South Carolina’s Process to Replace Lindsey Graham Is What Democracy Should Look Like

The Palmetto State will let primary voters nominate Graham’s successor. Maine, on the other hand, is letting a party convention pick Graham Platner’s replacement.

John Nichols

Protecting Liberty, Protecting People

Protecting Liberty, Protecting People Protecting Liberty, Protecting People

On July 4, 2026, a large group of masked members of Patriot Front entered the Washington, DC, Metro system. This artwork is inspired by a Reuters photograph by Cheney Orr.

OppArt / Andrea Arroyo

Graham Platner’s video dropping out of the US Senate race in Maine.

The Graham Platner Fiasco Proves Messiah Politics Is No Alternative to a Failed Establishment The Graham Platner Fiasco Proves Messiah Politics Is No Alternative to a Failed Establishment

Democratic leaders have rightfully lost credibility. But that’s no excuse for political adventurers to seize the moment and pump up false saviors.

Jeet Heer

MAGA Murder Inc.

MAGA Murder Inc. MAGA Murder Inc.

ICE kills again.

Steve Brodner

Walls of Solidarity

Walls of Solidarity Walls of Solidarity

Street art in Barcelona expressing solidarity with Palestine, June 2026.

OppArt / Bob Bingenheimer

Candles are lit during a vigil for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national shot dead by a federal immigration agent, on July 8, 2026, in Houston.

What One Week of Trump News Says About Our New Normal What One Week of Trump News Says About Our New Normal

Trump’s constant cruelty can make it all seem routine.

Column / Sasha Abramsky

 

 

March to July: What’s different as US-Iran fighting escalates again?

March to July: What’s different as US-Iran fighting escalates again?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/13/march-to-july-whats-different-as-us-iran-fighting-escalates-again 

March to July: What’s different as US-Iran fighting escalates again?

With ceasefire in shambles and both sides exchanging tit-for-tat attacks, is the region again plunging into all-out war?

iran
A billboard with an image of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is displayed in Tehran on July 13, 2026. [Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency via Reuters]

Air raid sirens have blared over Gulf nations as the United States and Iran have launched expansive attacks against each other again, escalating tensions as their fragile ceasefire has unravelled over the past week.

Oil prices have spiked, and markets have plunged after Tehran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the global energy kill switch  and the biggest flashpoint in the ongoing conflict.

After US President Donald Trump said the April ceasefire struck by the warring nations was “over”, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said, “Revenge is the will of the nation.”

So are the US and Iran back to full-fledged war?

A projectile falls at an unknown location during what the US military’s Central Command said on July 11, 2026, were strikes on Iranian military targets
A projectile falls at an unknown location during what the US military’s Central Command said on July 11, 2026, were strikes on Iranian military targets [Handout/Screengrab/US Central Command via Reuters]

How did the US-Iran ceasefire unravel?

On July 6, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) struck three commercial vessels, including a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker, off Oman.

The following day, the US said it carried out retaliatory strikes on Iranian military targets, leading Tehran to respond with missile and drone attacks on military bases across the Gulf where US forces are deployed.

On Wednesday, Trump said the ceasefire was over. The IRGC shut down the Strait of Hormuz, saying the US was interfering in the waterway’s management by facilitating alternative transit routes.

It triggered tit-for-tat attacks between the US and Iran with Washington carrying out deadly strikes on multiple Iranian cities, most of them along the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran.

Iran has attacked Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan and Qatar and has conducted more attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on June 18, 2026 [Reuters]
Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on June 18, 2026 [Reuters]

Are the US and Iran back to all-out war?

Analysts told Al Jazeera that the conflict is currently evolving from tit-for-tat attacks to sustained combat – but with limited areas of engagement.

In the first round of attacks on Iran that began on February 28, the US and Israel conducted a broad, sustained air campaign across Iranian cities. The attacks killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran on the first day of the war.

The latest round of US strikes, by contrast, is largely concentrated around the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian counterattacks have so far been focused on military bases in the Gulf that are used by US soldiers although debris from intercepted missiles and drones has fallen elsewhere, causing injuries.

Unlike the relentless air attacks on Iran in March and Tehran’s own blistering response through attacks on its Gulf neighbours, the latest round of attacks comes at a time when the US and Iran are still not ruling out talks completely. In fact, in his post announcing that the ceasefire was over, Trump noted that both sides would continue to hold talks.

Qatar and Pakistan are working behind the scenes to contain the conflict.

More questions linger for Trump at home, especially if his administration must now secure congressional authorisation for the war on Iran.

The War Powers Act states that a war must be authorised by Congress 60 days after hostilities have started. Trump dodged this requirement by claiming that the war was already “terminated” when the ceasefire began on April 7- before the 60-day timeline on the first phase of the war was over.

The war on Iran has been widely unpopular in the US. Trump’s approval ratings have dropped as a result as polls indicated that voters are also dissatisfied with his administration’s handling of inflation and soaring oil prices.

Mourners dig graves for children killed in a strike on a primary school in Minab in Iran’s Hormozgan province on March 3, 2026
Mourners dig graves for children killed in a strike on a primary school in Minab in Iran’s Hormozgan province on March 3, 2026 [Handout/Iranian Press Center/AFP]

What’s different from March?

Late February and March saw the most intense fighting between the two sides. The conflict shattered the long-held perception that the region’s commercial hubs were insulated from major conflict.

Targets – difference in scale and type

A US strike on a school in the southern Iranian city of Minab killed 168 children on the first day of the war. Iranian missiles and drones came for Dubai’s skylines, setting the Fairmont The Palm luxury hotel ablaze, while debris from intercepted projectiles fell near the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, and Dubai Marina.

The US and Israel struck Iran’s energy facilities, and Iran responded by bombing oil and gas installations across the Gulf. Several international airports in the region were forced to suspend operations.

So far in the ongoing round of fighting, the US and Iran have been more restrained in the nature of targets they have chosen, avoiding civilian or energy infrastructure for the most part.

Earlier, the US and Israel claimed that their strategic objectives in the war included degrading Iran’s military and command structure and denuclearising Tehran. The current fighting appears focused on each side coercing the other into backing down on the Strait of Hormuz.

Israel

Another major difference in the current phase of the conflict is that Israel has not openly joined the US in the latest attacks on Iran.

When the war started, Israel was a main party to the conflict. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at one point that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had forced Washington’s hand on starting the war. Trump denied this.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) reached in June between the US and Iran mandated the end of hostilities on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Beirut also entered into a separate ceasefire with Israel, which demands that the Israeli military withdraw from swaths of land it occupies in southern Lebanon.

Israel has not stood by any of the agreements and has continued to wage attacks in southern Lebanon, albeit less frequently.

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The Islamabad MoU

Even though the MoU, mediated by Islamabad, has glaring gaps, the framework gave diplomacy a chance to take the talks forward to end the war in the region.

Current points of friction also include the different readings and interpretations by Washington and Tehran of the contents of the MoU. They have accused each other of violating the agreement.

Despite attacks between Iran and the US, it is still likely that diplomacy is continuing, Paul Musgrave, associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.

Currently, both countries are trying to figure out where the other’s “red lines” stand, he added.

Iran’s objectives seem to have grown over the course of the conflict while the US’s have “amazingly” shrunk, Musgrave said. “The US is no longer talking about regime change, but people in Tehran are starting to talk about something that looks like hegemony over the Gulf,” he noted.

That means it’s going to be extremely difficult to get back to diplomacy, Musgrave warned.