The hits keep on coming, but gaming keeps me... sane?

 Well, in the Before Times, I never even considered that anybody capable of getting into power at the federal level would do some of the incompetent and stupid shit that I've seen in recent weeks, and certainly not with broad support from either political party, and yet, here we are.  There's too much to recount in detail, but, just to call out a few recent examples:

• High-level officials passing classified data around on Signal, then accidentally inviting a reporter into the chat, then lying about the contents of the chat under oath to Congress.
•  Tanking the market by imposing mass tariffs on the world, including islands without permanent human habitation but excluding Russia.  Compounded by "conservative" voices being unable to decide whether the problem is just a math error by the President's team (!), or even whether these massive tariffs will increase consumer prices.
•  Shipping people to El Salvador to imprison them based on their suspected gang membership, without due process, based on things like "they have a tattoo".  Not a gang tattoo, mind you, just a tattoo.

Meanwhile, the world at large continues to burn, with Russia and Israel both violating cease-fires in their respective fights and playing fast and loose with the truth.

At least there's signs of people getting properly pissed off about the state of things, although we're still at the "let's have a lovely weekend afternoon protest" stage.  There were a lot of people at the various "Hands Off" protests yesterday, so maybe that will help some congresscritters realize that they have an actual problem, and aren't just facing "Soros-funded" protests any longer.  Not that I'm holding my breath.

Well, enough of that unpleasantness for now.  On the games front, I actually finished Disgaea 2 PC!  Well, "finished", in so far as made it through the "main" story... which gives you a choice between restarting the main story line, or doing a side story/prequel involving one of the characters you encounter repeatedly in the main story.  So, yeah, I've got a save there waiting to go, if I want to dive back in for that content... but I'm kind of thinking I might check out the Book of Hours DLC first/instead.

Of course, none of that will take place until I clear out my XBox Game Pass backlog, which, right now, isn't budging because I'm still playing through Avowed.  I'm enjoying the game a lot, but I'm also noticing things that make me question why, exactly, I'm liking the game as much as I do.  Maybe I'll do a proper write-up on it once I'm done - I've worked my way through three of the four major "zones" in the game, so it shouldn't be that much longer before I've finished.

Our long national shit-show continues

 Recently, the 3-year mark of Russia's invasion of Ukraine passed, which obviously isn't ideal for anybody involved, to put it mildly.  Still, Ukraine stands strong, backed by the military hardware they've received from the West.  Unfortunately, we went and elected a president with strong dictator tendencies who, at best, sees a lot to admire in Putin and his governmental setup, and wants to end the conflict soonest, in Russia's favor.

My god, the gall of Trump and company... first, they try to arrange a "peace deal" without Ukraine or any European partners being involved at all.  Then, they try to pass the laughable claim that Ukraine started the war to weaken opposition.  Then, most recently, they lure Zelensky to the White House with the promise of a "trade deal" with no security strings attached, that Ukraine would have likely taken just so the U.S. had some skin in the game... only to ambush him in an Oval Office photo op that, "somehow", Russian state media had somebody present live-streaming.  And after that, many federal-level Republicans start saying things about how Zelensky wasn't very appreciative, and that he'll need to resign.  Honestly, do you people think nobody's watching this farce?

Of course, at the same time, the whole "doge" business continues apace, now with threats that they're going to go after Social Security.  Funny thing, though... in their haste to take an axe to everything they don't like and/or want to steal for themselves later (yes, I'm looking at you Elon), they both neglected to make sure they dotted their Is and crossed their Ts, which is coming back to bite them in court, and made cuts to things that are both visible to and cared about by many of their MAGA faithful, so the Republican enablers in Congress are starting to hear back on that in places like the "town hall" forums they love to hold.  Of course, that means they're doing things like running away mid-forum and canceling future forums... and that's guaranteed to turn out well.  Nothing builds bonds like performatively not listening to your constituents, after all.

So, now we're entering the "race" part of the whole "reshape government to Trump/Musk's will" thing.  Will the bad guys manage to push through their desired changes and consolidate power before the Republican congresscritters decide that they'd rather risk Trump's ire over the heat (and likely much worse to come, historically speaking) they're starting to get from their constituents?  Oh, and I suppose the off chance that the courts find a way to meaningfully interfere that SCOTUS won't overturn, although that process is, by design, slow enough to not likely play a role here.

Yeah, I'm definitely starting to see why Warren Buffet is shifting his investments to alcohol producers at this point.

Everything expected, and more

 Well, it's barely more than two weeks in since President Trump took back the reins, and I'm feeling suitably ill (and not just because I've got the latest seasonal crud, either).  As expected, Trump has been doing plenty of shady shit with questionably-legal orders, either direct to his flunkies or by means of executive orders, while giving no fucks about how that makes the U.S. look.  Well, outside of "looking strong", that is, which is some pretty weak sauce in a world with an active Russian invasion of Ukraine lingering on.

What I didn't expect... well, where to begin.  Trying to start trade wars with our bordering, in-a-free-trade-agreement neighbors, maybe.  Talking about taking back the Panama Canal or taking over Greenland, either of which would, I'm pretty sure, count as casus belli with our allies.  Sending the world's richest Nazi (yes, that was a fucking Nazi salute, you sane-washing media freaks) and his hand-picked tech team to commit Blitzkrieg on various government agencies.

The one I just heard about, though, takes the cake.  Trump wants the U.S. to take over Gaza, and rebuild it as a resort area.  I mean, I get it, from his addled, real-estate developer mindset, it's a fine way to improve the property values of that recently-at-war region.  But that has to totally ignore, well, everything about that region for the past few millennia.  I swear, it's like somebody seeing a recently-kicked hornet's nest, where the hornets are just starting to calm down a bit, and deciding that the hole in the nest would be a great place to stuff their dick.

There are interesting times ahead, to be sure.  Here's hoping they involve some quick push-back and firm limits from those co-equal branches of government, however unlikely that may seem.

Inflection point incoming!

 Change is in the air.  Heck, I only have to call out Russia this time for their continued douchebaggery, since Israel and Hamas have got a ceasefire in place, with hostages getting released and everything.  Between that and Syria's recent changes (which, funnily enough, isn't getting a lot of press coverage here in the U.S., and I haven't heard anything about us lifting any sanctions on them or anything like that), I'd normally say that things are looking up a bit.  Of course, that would ignore what's coming down the pipe tomorrow.

Tomorrow, of course, being, among other things, the re-inauguration of Trump, the once-and-future president.  Sure, he's been credibly shown to have tried to hijack the last election, and he's been convicted of felonies in the meantime (no thanks to the previous head of the Department of Justice there), but the stupid, stupid people have spoken.  Starting tomorrow, the loony wing of the Republican party and their enablers, the rest of the Republican party, will have some measure of control over all three branches of the federal government.  Here's hoping they don't manage to do anything to corrupt or eliminate future elections entirely.

Of course, one thing that will complicate their plans is a good crisis or two.  Right out of the starting blocks, they've got one (for certain values of "crisis", I suppose), and it's of their own making!  Namely, TikTok showed more integrity than they all expected, and, after the Supreme Court told them that the law trying to force them to sell out on supposed "national security" concerns was constitutional, TikTok took everybody at their word and shut down U.S. access to their systems.  Now, they've got a bunch of angry people on their hands, Biden says he's not enforcing the law, and Trump is making noises about using executive orders to bring TikTok back.  Simply put, this isn't what you expect from the success of a well thought-out response to a national security threat.  Me, I've never been on TikTok, so I've got no direct skin in the game, and I look forward to the gymnastics involved in what happens here going forward.