NOW IT CAN BE TOLD

WHAT A MARVELOUS OPPORTUNITY FOR SATIRE: The dust is far from settled about what The New York Times, March 25, 2025, is calling “an extraordinary leak of internal national security deliberations, disclosed in an encrypted group chat that mistakenly included a journalist from The Atlantic.”

Other Encrypted Group Chats. Now it can be told: The SimanaitisSays website has inadvertently been included in other high-level discussions of the Queens felon and his mob. Tidbits follow, gleaned from previously unposted items of this modest little website.

Trump’s Portrait. The Guardian, March 24, 2025, recounts “‘Insecure Baby’: Trump’s Colorado Capitol Portrait Removed After He Throws a Fit.” José Olivares reports, “Even some Republicans have called the president’s demand to remove the painting ‘petty.’”

Summarizes The Guardian: “Trump complains about Colorado portrait years after it was unveiled…. A Republican admirer of Trump actually commissioned the portrait…. It was unclear what triggered Trump’s tirade about the portrait.”

Even Before The Guardian Story, Though. SimanaitisSays was idling away with the Does This Make My Ass Look Big app, when Trump chimed in at this unsecured location with comments mirroring his own Truth Social platform. In a subsequently lively discussion at DTMMALB, he repeated the claim that Jared Polis, Colorado’s governor, was “radially left.” He also asked whether the portrait “made my ass look big.”

Image from The Guardian.

Others chose not to respond, possibly fearing retribution (an oft-used phrase these days). SimanaitisSays opted for the middle ground: “Many recognize a big ass when they see one.” 

RFK Jr. And Obesity. A team of The New York Times staffers, Teddy Rosenbluth, Roni Rabin, Gina Kolata (whom I recall with respect from AAAS Science), Dani Blum, Alice Callahan, Sheryl Gay Stollberg, and Sarah Kliff, set themselves the task of “Fact-Checking Kennedy’s Health Claims in His Confirmation Hearing,” January 29, 2025. They report, “Early in the hearing, Mr. Kennedy singled out processed food as a driver of the obesity epidemic.” 

The researchers share a more nuanced view: “Many public health and nutrition experts say that ultraprocessed foods — which make up an estimated 73 percent of the U.S. food supply — are probably a factor in the obesity crisis in the United States, and it would be beneficial to cut back on them. But other researchers say that the obesity epidemic is likely a result of many entangled factors, both environmental and genetic, and that the phenomenon may have started long before there were ultraprocessed foods.”

SimanaitisSays and Obesity. Quite the authority on obesity (being sorta Nero Wolfe’s stature), SimanaitisSays had an encounter with RFK Jr. at another unsecured location with the Just A Capricious Kvetch At Serious Science app. 

RFK Jr. attempted to shame SimanaitisSays about ass size. SimanaitisSays countered questioning RFK Jr.’s mental health in driving around with a whale’s head on his car roof, planting a bear cub carcass in Central Park, and continuing to push the long-discredited Wakefield/autism claim.

It wasn’t pretty. But SimanaitisSays would have had The Times’ Rosenbluth et al. on its side.

Brett, Pete, and the Occasional HOOT. Holding One’s Own Together is an online app dedicated to those not wanting to drink alone. Generally, SimanaitisSays would think this is a fine idea—and the website stopped by for a quick one.

Imagine finding Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and Defense Department Secretary Hegseth there in a lively discussion of beer versus what used to be called “hard likker.”

“I liked beer. I still like beer…. There is a bright line between drinking beer, which I gladly do and I fully embrace, and sexually assaulting anyone,” Kavanaugh is quoted as saying. 

Gee, what a fine juristic distinction.

Hegseth apparently knows his ways around whiskey and women: In “Pete Hegseth’s Secret History,” The New Yorker, December 1, 2024, Jane Mayer writes, “A whistle-blower report and other documents suggest that Trump’s nominee to run the Pentagon was forced out of previous leadership positions for financial mismanagement, sexist behavior, and being repeatedly intoxicated on the job.”

Image by Nathan Howard/Reuters via The New Yorker.

On HOOT as well, there’s word of Hegseth being “restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club….” 

By contrast, SimanaitisSays had little to HOOT about: When younger, the website enjoyed an occasional Famous Grouse with Innes Ireland suggesting “Slange-e-vor” in response to “Slange-e-va.”

Pretty tame stuff compared with HOOT pros like Kavanaugh and Hegseth. ds  

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025