“Even the gods fight in vain against stupidity” – Friedrich Schiller
navigating the second Gilded Age through humor, invective and insight
“Even the gods fight in vain against stupidity” – Friedrich Schiller
That’s what NRCC stands for, right?1.
Many years ago, I was a registered Republican. But I finally grew up and fled the party in horror at what they’d become. Which was far less horrific than what they are today.
Because of my youthful indiscretion, I still occasionally get “surveys” from the NRCC. Of course, they’re actually thinly disguised pleas for money.
This used to annoy me…until I took the time to fill one out during Trump’s first term with all sorts of funny and obnoxious comments about how idiotic the party’s priorities — and His Majesty — were. I also enclosed some Trump bucks (fake currency featuring a picture of Trump behind bars, where he belongs). Someone must’ve read at least part of my response, because for the years since then I haven’t heard a peep from the NRCC.
Until the other day.
So, since they’ve apparently forgotten that Mark Olbert wants nothing to do with them and would rather stick his fingers into a running garbage disposal than support them financially, here are the answers I’ll be using to respond to their survey.
NOTE: Your CONSENSUS DOCUMENT is an official Republican Party Document to be completed and returned only by the registered participant. Simply use a blue or black ink pen to fill in the circle that reflects your opinion. Then return your completed CONSENSUS DOCUMENT along with your gift using the pre-addressed envelope provided.
YES! I will do my part to unite House Republicans around the NRCC’s plan to strengthen our House Republican Majority. Our Party is strongest when we stand united against the far-left radicals who attack our beliefs and do everything they can to tear down President Trump. To do my part in this important effort, I am enclosing my most generous gift of [an array of amounts starting with $1,000].
1) How long have you been a Republican?
To my great shame, I was a Republican from 1980 until 2000.
2) Do you typically vote a straight Republican ticket?
Only if I want to unleash Hell on Earth, which I never do.
3) How do you classify your political ideology?
Thoughtful, rational and progressive. Which is why I haven’t voted for a Republican since 1990.
4) Do you support Republicans’ America First agenda?
Not being historically ignorant, a Nazi or a moron, no.
5) Do you approve of the job President Trump is doing so far in his second term?
He’s doing a fabulous job as a demented, delusional, incompetent wannabe dictator. Otherwise, not so much.
6) Do you support building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico?
Only if we can relocate all the Trumpanzees to the Mexican side of it.
7) Do you believe the federal government should arrest and deport all illegal aliens?
Much as I abhor the vicious way you klongs will do it, since I’d love to see the red state heartland collapse when its ag sector implodes, I’m willing to go along with it. After all, the reason our immigration law was written the way it was is because it had to cater to ag sector businesses, who wanted cheap, easily exploitable labor.
8) Do you agree that the new election security laws passed between 2020 and 2024 helped reduce voter fraud and prevent the Democrats from cheating their way to power?
Nope, because voter fraud almost totally exists only in the irrational, deluded minds of Trumpanzees, so there was almost nothing to reduce. On the other hand, those “election security” laws did a great job of disenfranchising voters who might’ve voted against Republican candidates. Which was the real goal of those laws all along, of course.
9) Do you support the work being done by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to cut the debt, eliminate waste, and make the government function better for the people?
No, since that’s not what they’re doing. They’re doing something Republican electeds have claimed all along they wanted to do…but didn’t have the balls to do themselves because they knew it would get them shitcanned out of office.
I do support transporting Musk to where he longs to be, though — Mars. Only I don’t want to waste money sending food, water and air along. He claims he’s a can-do/self-starter kind of guy, so I’m sure he can figure out how to get that stuff once he lands.
10) Do you believe a new ban on “assault weapons” would reduce the freedom of law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to make our communities any safer?
No, but it might reduce the senseless slaughter of school children. Of course, I know you assholes don’t care about that.
11) Do you believe international college students here in the U.S. should have their student visas revoked if they are caught supporting terrorist groups like Hamas?
I’m willing to go along with that, provided we also deport Trumpanzees who are part of domestic terrorist groups. Like the January 6th folks.
12) Do you think four years of Biden’s economic and immigration policies left American communities less safe and prosperous?
Not being a delusional nutjob, no. But three months of His Imperial Majesty Trump the First sure has!!!!
13) Do you think parents should have more power and choice over where their kids go to school and what is being taught in those schools?
What are you, commies? Only if they pay the whole cost of their kids attending the schools they control. This is America, we don’t give you public funds for private use!! Well, unless you’re wealthy.
14) Do you think it’s wrong to let biologically male “trans” athletes compete on sports teams for women and girls?
No. But I do find it interesting you klongs think it’s such a huge issue. It’s almost like you’re unsure about your own gender identity. Which is fine! I have no problem if you’re gay/lesbian/trans/etc.!
15) Do you blame Democrats’ overspending as the primary cause of the massive inflation we continue to see across the country?
Umm, I think you need to update your survey, ’cause inflation pretty much returned to normal under Biden. Although His Imperial Majesty Trump the First is hard at work re-energizing it.
16) Do you want Congress to eliminate taxpayer funding for organizations (like Planned Parenthood and others) that perform abortions?
I thought you guys wanted to decrease government spending??? The federal funding Planned Parenthood gets lowers overall government spending.
17) Do you think Republicans should aggressively hold Democrats accountable for the disastrous state of the nation that awaited President Trump when he took office last January?
What’s with these delusions you obviously suffer from? Because the nation was in pretty damn good shape when Trump took office the second time. Granted, he is doing his best to wreck international trade, restart inflation, collapse the stock market, etc. Maybe you need to aggressively pursue mental health care reform, for yourselves and others.
18) Do you think Republicans should focus voters’ attention on the border crisis?
Sure, because it’ll hasten gutting the economies of those red states that put this moron back in power.
19) Do you think Republicans should campaign against the socialist plans of people like Bernie Sanders and AOC?
No, you should keep focusing on the National Socialist agenda of His Imperial Majesty. But try and rein in those sieg heil salutes, okay? They make people think you’re Nazis.
20) Do you think Republicans should continue to embrace President Trump’s America First agenda as a campaign message?
Absolutely! Because if that doesn’t convince Americans to shitcan the GOP we’re probably too fracked to be rescued anyway.
20) Do you believe it is important for Republicans to strengthen our House Republican Majority so we can enact the entire Trump agenda?
Sure, because, again, that’ll hasten your demise. Only, try and get him to articulate an agenda, and stick with it for more than 24 hours, okay?
Actually, I think it stands for National Republican Congressional Committee. But I’m not sure. Because the GOP leadership is full of numbskulls these days. ↩
mostly incoherently, but still…
“We’re gonna start a big investigation on [California’s high-speed rail project] because it’s — I’ve never seen anything like it. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. The worst overruns that there have ever been in the history of our country. And it wasn’t even necessary. I would have said, ‘You don’t buy it.’ You take an airplane — it costs you $2. It costs you nothing.”
© 2025 Mark A. Olbert, except where noted. All rights reserved.
For many reasons, I will never forget Mr. Muchio, who taught me algebra in the 7th grade.
One of the biggest challenges in learning algebra isn’t the math itself. It’s learning how to parse descriptions into mathematical equations you can then use the rules of algebra to solve. It’s a process of abstraction, figuring out what are the essential details and what is “merely” descriptive and/or reflective of a particular situation. This is commonly known as learning to solve word problems.
We quickly became masters of this…or thought we had.
As Mr. Muchio pointedly kept reminding us, what we were actually doing was leaving stuff out to overly simplify the problem. I still remember his admonition, decades later: “You’re using a silly rule: ‘when in doubt, leave it out’. But it means the problem you solve isn’t the one you were supposed to solve. Be careful about what you leave out!”
Once upon a time I was chief financial officer of a startup biotech company. One day my boss, the CEO, and I were traveling back to meet with investors to pitch them on why they really wanted to keep buying our stock.
During the flight I reviewed the financial models and presentation I’d spent days creating. Somewhere over the Midwest I suddenly realized several of the key summary values, which were central to my analysis, had gotten hard-coded. They didn’t reflect the revised assumptions I’d made.
This meant my beautiful and compelling pitch was completely wrong. In fact, we didn’t look like such a good investment after all.
Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night. I had to revise everything.
Ever since, my Excel models are littered with “check figure” lines, that confirm totals are, in fact, reflective of the data they claim to summarize.
One of my earliest political memories was of Joe Namath, a very talented and famous quarterback in 1968, being asked who he thought should be our next President. I was 13 at the time.
I remember thinking “He’s a phenomenal quarterback. But why in the world would anyone think that’d make him an expert on national politics and the Presidential candidates?”
It takes a lot of time and effort — and focus — to become an expert in anything. Very few of us have the resources to do that in many different fields.
This spillover expertise effect really comes into play, at least in the United States, with business titans and governing.
Just because someone is successful in business, they don’t necessarily have a clue as to how to successfully lead a community in its pursuit of happiness and the greater good. Business, for all its challenges, is a much, much simpler environment to operate in than government. I know this from personal experience because I worked in each for 20 years, as a financial executive and as a local elected official.
In business, you succeed by focusing on making money while not breaking the rules. Or at least not breaking them too much.
In government, at least in a representative constitutional democracy, there is no single goal, and no marketplace in which to value tradeoffs from moment to moment. In fact, there’s often no market at all.
The Michelson–Morley experiment, which produced the data that overthrew Newtonian physics, was performed in 1887.
But it went unexplained until 1905, when Albert Einstein published the special theory of relativity.
What were the world’s physicists doing during those 18 years? Ignoring the data and hoping it would go away? Playing pinochle?
No, they were trying to jam the empirical data into Newtonian physics. Because that just had to be true! It’d successfully explained everything (well, almost everything) for centuries!
Once you accept the box you’re in, it’s damn hard to break out of it. Or even realize you’re in a box.
Ever wonder why research reports in Science, Nature, or any other scientific journal are terribly boring and hard to read?
It’s because the authors are required to disclose, fully, materials and methods, how they did their analysis, etc. They have to establish provenance, and reproducibility…both of which are key to critical thinking.
They only get to discuss what their results (might) mean in the last few bits.