SPINNING HALF-TRUTH STRAW INTO BIG-LIE GOLD

by Raymond Nat Turner

Phil Maddox, a Minneapolis-area resident, told The Intercept he recorded the video [above] on Sunday morning during a quick drive around his neighborhood to keep tabs on federal agents in the area. 

POP-POP-POP … One, two, three kill shots disturbing

ICE-cold Minnesota morning. Morning frozen in the past.

Bloodstained airbag. Driver-side door ajar. A

Third Reich-ish morning ambush on crooked legs of big lies …

Expletives dripping from masked lips—shooter man struts

away after blasting 3 holes into the bullseye. No pulse to check.

No blood to scrub. No tears to fight. He prances away as if it was

routine rifle range target practice. Or, the video game of—Gaza.

Made his bones. No one to answer to but remote-controlled, traitorous,

CRC: Cruel Reich Cult. They got his back. The violence-worshipping

vampiric cult celebrates bloodshed. And for its Fox-box foot soldiers

heirs of Goebbels quickly begin to spin half-truth straw into big lie gold …

No semiautomatic “thoughts and prayers.” No “Political violence is 

unacceptable.” “Indefensible.” or, “has no place in our democracy.”

No “good guy with gun is the only thing that could’ve stopped bad guy

with gun.” Mother-poet-guitarist-legal observer’s character must die too.

Career criminal 34-count felon floods the zone riddling her body with dreck-

dipped bullets. Buckeye big lie “Haitians are eating the dogs” architect empties

his clip center mass. Puppy-killing princess of darkness, fires “domestic terrorist”

shots. “Weaponized vehicle” shots. Blonde Lil Eva Braun blasts “lunatic” rounds …

School Shooting Du Jour; War Of The Week; Nonstop Genocide—

Holy trinity, sacred triad of violence worshipped daily by Warfare State.

And besides, didn’t its high priest—pomade man—prance and pontificate to a roomful of medals “ Maximum lethality—not tepid legality.” “Violent effect—not politically correct?”

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

TONIGHT WE’RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 1939

by Steven Kent

UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration's demand for “lists of Jews” —The Guardian, January 13, 2026

At U of Penn, who's in the Tribe?

The whole thing has a 30s vibe:

Demand a list, some names get crossed—

Say, how much does a Holocaust?

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books.p

BEN CARSON CHATS WITH VOLTAIRE

by Judith Terzi

V:   In Candide, I write that optimism is the madness
to claim that everything is good when it isn't.
What's your view of optimism, monsieur Docteur?

BC: Well, right now, as I see it, the hope we can repeal
Obamacare would seem the best of all possible
worlds. Mon Dieu, François, it's the worst thing
since brain cancer.

V. Oh, I heard you say since slavery on the Charlie
Rousseau show last week.

BC: Boy, I'm learning fast how to be a politician.
Yeah, I said slavery. Merde, I should have said
it in French so no one would understand. That's
esclavage, oui? Pardon my accent!

V: BTW, have you read Candide? So you think
healthcare for the people is more pernicious than
forced prostitution, child labor, mutilation, torture,
war. The Inquisition?

BC: Well, I can't say I've read it. Any form of socialism
is a no-fly zone for moi; it's right up there with
other horrors, including the Third Reich. Any
organized system helping the peeps is contrary
to the security of a free State, the right...to keep
and bear Arms.

V: Oh oui, oui, your sacred 2nd! A propos of arms,
monsieur Docteur, didn't you say that the Jews
would have had a better chance with Hitler if
they had had guns? Now just where would these
six plus million guns have come from?

BC: Well, I'm not familiar with Germany's gun laws.
Then or now. Maybe Schindler's List? Ha ha ha ha.

V: You mean la liste de Craig? So you think if
you're elected, the country could become the
healthiest of worlds?

BC: Only God knows, really. What I know is that evil
shows its ugly visage from time to time. We've
seen the cancer in these past eight years like we
saw it during WWII. Vigilance, vigilance, we
need vigilance. It's terríbul.

V. Terrible!! So what's your fix, monsieur Docteur?

BC: Well, for those mass shootings at colleges & theaters,
we have to arm each & every being who crosses
the threshold. That way, each member of a group's
well-equipped to attack an attacker. And that's my
remedy as Curer-in-Chief of this diseased nation.
And that includes arming pre-schoolers as well as
chiropractors & acupuncturers.

V: Well, my good Docteur, I guess this is no time to be
making enemies, then, is it?

BC: I used to tell my patients an apple a day keeps the doc
away. Now I tell the American people: A gun a day
keeps the killing at bay. Vive la France!


Judith Terzi's most recent chapbook, If You Spot Your Brother Floating By, is a collection of memoir poems from Kattywompus Press. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Atlanta Review (International Publication Award, 2015), Caesura, Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo), Raintown Review, Unsplendid, and Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Beyond Baroque). She lives and writes in Southern California.