September 22, 2025

Who will be the last clown standing? My AI had an ominous take on this question.

 


Comedy in America won’t really die, die as in dead, ceasing to exist, under Trump’s punitive censorship. By now those paying attention have seen clips of late-night comedians standing up for free speech and perhaps seen interviews with experts explaining why strongmen try to censor satire and humor which mocks them. You may have read articles like Why Dictators Don't Like JokesDictators Seem Strong, But They Can't Take a Joke, and Comedy as a Revolution: Why Tyrants Have No Defense Against Laughter

In “The Oldest Warning Sign: How History Links the Death of Comedy to the Death of Democracy” Thom Hartman wrote about the lesson of history and dictatorial censorship of comedy today.

There’s no need to expound on the “why” related to Trump and his anti-jokester juggernaut. I use that word deliberately because it has been most often associated with the Nazis in modern times.

Now it is used in reference to Trump:

Perchance AI seemed to have an opinion as to what was happening here in the United States with comics. Below is the first set of illustrations I got asking for “many dead clowns on the ground in a circus ring.”

As you can see it in the center bottom image there are seven clowns on the circus floor and eight in the dark in the background. I took one of the standing clowns in the upper right illustration and moved him into the one which I used to be the only featured clown still standing.

AI, the machine intelligence, put the clowns in the dark in the wings waiting to go on. I didn’t ask for this.

Attributing creative human thought to the computer, I’d say the “artist” wanted to convey the idea that the clowns behind the curtain are watching and waiting to see what happens to the daring performer before they go on.

If my brave clown goes down, who among those left will have the guts to take their place? See footnote 1

Thanks for reading Hal Brown's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Leave a comment

Previous Substacks

Share Hal Brown's Substack

My comments in RawStory

This is my go-to website for breaking political news.

1

I Include among the late light comics everyone writing satire and drawing cartoons mocking Trump.

Click above to enlarge image.

September 21, 2025

The Homan bribe cover-up: It's become a threadbare cliche to ask "what would happen if a Democratic president did this?" By Hal M. Brown

Tue, Aug 26 at 5:23 AM


The title of the two articles, one above the other from The NY Times (above) tell a story even without my inserted words from and photos of Trump. 

MSNBC and other media covered the first story about Trump’s Truth Social post, so I didn’t have to read that Time’s article.

The Homan bribe story was all over the news yesterday (articles here).

Homan’s Wikipedia page is keeping up with this:

There’s not much to say about what the these stories tell about Trump’s obessive need for revenge and his corruption.

He’s going after people he considers enemies for (the following word is so appropriate) trumped up or non-existent crimes and allowing actual crimes by his allies, in this case bribery, to be covered up. This is so obvious we know what Garfield would say:

RawStory, in Trump's 'impeachable offense' sparks fury: 'Most corrupt thing I've seen from a president', published some reactions from social media.

When it comes to Trump, it has become a threadbare cliche to ask “what would happen if a Democratic president tried to do this?” For example, this is what Ron Filipowski posted this morning:

I don’t think that it remains to be seen whether or not Homan gets his just rewards. I very much doubt that he will. All I am curious about is what happens on what will prove to be the irrelevant edges of this story. I hope we’ll see congressional hearing over this. I want to see how Pam Bondi and Kash Pattel answer quesitons about why this never went anywhere. I want to see the FBI agents involved testify. I really want to see Homan himself under oath asked about it.

This bounced the Bondi and Homan and articles off the top of HUFFPOST:

Excerpt:

“To be very clear, [say] the president orders troops to go to every polling place in the United States on Election Day,” Bernstein ( Richard Bernstein, is an appellate lawyer focused on election issues and a former clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia) said. “According to the government’s argument, no federal court could enjoin it, the president would be immune and the president could pardon all of the people he ordered to break the criminal law. If that’s not a prescription for how to lose our republic, I don’t know what is.”

So many anti-Trump journalists and pundits are hinging their hopes on the Democrats winning back control of Congress. Don’t think Trump isn’t well aware that this would be possible if there are free and fair elections. He may not want to take his chances on the success for gerrymandering and the usual Republican cheating. 

Thanks for reading Hal Brown's Substack! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Share

Share Hal Brown's Substack

Leave a comment

Previous Substacks

My comments in RawStory

/

September 20, 2025

My early nomination for the Time Person of the Year and the Nobel Peace Prize

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, and the even more lofty Nobel Peace Prize, are the most prestigious and coveted awards that recognize the endeavors or accomplishments (outside of science) benefiting mankind by a person or a group of people.

As I despair about what is happening, both to our country and the world, where authoritarianism is taking or has taken hold, I wish one or both of these awards could be awarded to the people who are trying to fight it. 

It may not be a universal aspect of human nature, but most people crave or at least appreciate recognition for efforts they’ve expended to achieve, or are trying to achieve. People like Trump lust after it. Most others, from Time’s award to the Nobels, to winners of Oscars, Emmys, or Pullitzers, at least get a rush when they win one.

My nomination for the Time/Nobel can be divided into categories, though this really isn’t necessary. It includes everyone who participated in a demonstration against an authoritarian leader, everyone who shared by talking or writing about what was happening, and in a different way, everyone who risked or gave their lives fighting it in Ukraine.

I wish one or both of these awards could be given now. I have no doubt that millions of us are despairing. We need a boost. 

Thanks for reading Hal Brown's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

.

Share Hal Brown's Substack

Leave a comment

Previous Substacks

My comments in RawStory

/

September 19, 2025

Jimmy Kimmel may have his name become a verb. It could be the new word of the year. So far Trump is killing democracy by kimmelling it.

Tue, Aug 26 at 5:23 AM

 


In 2024 the Oxford new word of the year was term, not a word. It was brain rot (click here). Now we have a possible 2025 word of the year thanks to Donald Trump and Jimmy Kimmel.

Kimmelled, to be kimmelled, and kimmelling arent listed as newly coined words in the Oxford English Dictionary, at least not yet. However, they may very well be added before long. The defintion of “to be kimmelled” barely needs to be spelled out. Starting now Trump has a list of people, TV personalities and shows, and organizations he wants to be kimmelled.

What Trump said on Air Force One as he departed from the UK is making the news:



The word itself sounds ominous. Take out three letters in the middle…

and we see what it spells.

Being kimmelled will end up meaning something short of being literally killed. Trump’s psychopathy (pronounced as "sigh-KOP-uh-thee) isn’t at the level of those of despots who order enemies actually killed whether formally or clandestinely by their agents. He is “merely” content to ruin lives.

If the word gains traction I can see someone who was fired because of their criticizing Trump saying “I’ve been kimmelled” or those involved in a TV show like, for example, The View” saying “we’ve been kimmelled.”

This is far more than an assault on the First Amendment. This is an assault on the entire US Constitution. It makes sense to begin with the amendment the Founders thought important enough to put as number one before moving onto the other nine in The Bill of Rights. 

Above is actually still on this US government website for children called Ben’s Guide. Ben of course, is Ben Franklin.

Trump has used coercion and lawsuits to try to impose his will. Trump has only employed hard force in his anti-immigrant mania. He has used ICE and other armed agents, including soldiers, rather than the equivalent of the Nazi Gestapo. He is wearing velvet gloves to keep the blood of his victims off his hands. He has a sanitized version of a blitzkrieg.

What Trump and his toadie enablers are doing is killing democracy and replacing it incrementally with a dictatorial autocracy. Ben, in Heaven, would not be happy if he could see what was happening.

Thanks for reading Hal Brown's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Share Hal Brown's Substack

Leave a comment

Previous Substacks

My comments in RawStory

Who will be the last clown standing? My AI had an ominous take on this question.

  Comedy in America won’t really die, die as in dead, ceasing to exist, under Trump’s punitive censorship. By now those paying attention h...