Man, these guys passed 'goofy' and 'outrageous' a long time ago, and went straight into demented, desperate lunatic ravings.

I guess when you're a colorless, inner-fireless, charisma-free party apparatchik like Chuck Schumer, having to fight for your very existence for the first time in your political life against an on-coming swarm of out-of-control, flamboyant, drop-mic-moment mouthy, blood-thirsty, ill-mannered progressive monsters, suddenly having to fight for primacy would not make for your best moments.

I mean, haven't you already earned that after more than three decades wearing a donkey suit in the halls of Congress and the Senate?

But the flashy, trashy youngsters lacking any measurable intelligence and zero gravitas now have maximum pressure on the old guys. The problem is that entrenched dinosaurs don't move so fast, and sometimes still prefer measured and civilized discourse to lobbing grenades, so this is pushing them into uttering some really ghastly world-class drivel.

Most of you have probably seen multiple angles of the horrifying crash this weekend. The Mexican Navy training tall ship Cuauhtémoc, a three-masted barque, ran backwards into the iconic Brooklyn Bridge.

There were sailors manning every single yardarm on those masts. 

The Brooklyn Bridge boat accident is worse than anyone thinks. pic.twitter.com/HFAK6atWyK

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) May 18, 2025

You can see many of them dangling from their safety harnesses, having been jolted off in the aftermath of the collision with the bridge,

Brooklyn *WATER RESCUE* Box 0492
Manhattan Bridge
BOAT ACCIDENT, PEOPLE IN THE WATER. TUG BOAT REMOVING PPL FROM THE WATER pic.twitter.com/DPqS5IzsP2

— NYCFireWire (@NYCFireWire) May 18, 2025

Crewmembers were tragically killed on the masts, and many more were injured.

...The Cuauhtémoc, carrying 277 people, was departing from Pier 17 in Manhattan, bound for Iceland, when it lost power around 8:20 p.m. The vessel drifted uncontrollably, and its towering masts struck the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge, snapping and collapsing onto the deck. Two crew members on the masts were killed, and 19 others were injured, with two in critical condition. A search and rescue operation ensured all personnel were accounted for, and the ship was towed to Pier 36 for passengers to disembark.

Initial conjecture was that the ship had lost power and was taken by the wind and rising, swift current into the bridge. There are only two minutes between cast off from the South Street Sea Port dock and impact - that's how quickly it all happened.

But then the two maritime fellows I follow routinely, Sal Mercogliano and Capt John Konrad, pointed out that the current hadn't yet set up to be running at its strongest, and the wind was negligible to account for the ship driving backward at the piers of the bridge, even if the vessel had lost power. But it had some power, because all the lights were on.

The fact that the tug was only alongside and not tied to the ship was also strange.

What they did notice? In one of the still frames, they spotted a wake, which meant the ship could have been moving faster than the current.

After Sal Mercogliano did another of his thorough video breakdowns of all traffic in the area, everything known about the vessel and conditions at the time, he received some info from another marine engineer, which may well help solve the mystery of the rapid and utterly tragic movement into the Brooklyn Bridge.

This is from an experienced marine engineer regarding Cuauhtémoc:

I found a bit of nerdy data. She's powered by a CAT D399 SASC Engine. Those were built between the 60's and 80's and were known for a few issues, one of which is oil pressure reliability.

Those engines came with…

— Sal Mercogliano (WGOW Shipping)