Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Show me the receipts.
Here is a PINO Trump claim on TruthSocial.
“This Radicalized Judge is saying that Sleepy Joe Biden can fly more than half a million Illegals into America, IN ONE DAY, but we have to hold many years of long and tedious trials to fly each and every one of them back home. Where is the JUSTICE here???”
I call, “Bullshit.”
PINO Trump made this claim on April 18, 2025.
If President Biden flew in more than 500,000 people, there’d be lots of evidence. To make it easy, let’s do an exercise. Say that President B. flew in 500,000 people. Let’s say that he used aircraft that can carry 500 people. The 24 hour average would require forty one flights per hour. Military aircraft can’t carry that many people on a flight. Civilian aircraft wouldbe needed. Commercial flights.
So show us the evidence that President Joe Biden flew out that many people in 24 hours, you liar in chief. I don’t believe you can. Because it’s a lie. Because the only way that you can feel good about yourself and what you’re doing is to lie and make up shit about others.
That’s the truth of who you are.
And we have the receipts.
Trump is celebrating his first 100 days. Some of his most fanatical base are applauding and telling us and each other, “Look what he’s done!” Other Trump voters are saying, “Oh my god, look what he’s done!” Others of us are saying, “Damn it, look what he’s done!” Only that first base group seems real happy.
I’m part of the third group. After 100 days, I’m not better off. Nor is my wife. Or any of my family.
Chaos reigns. Pragmatically, inflation and high prices keep my wife and me from buying less. We go out less often because eating out is not cheap. Yes, that’s a first world blues complaint, isn’t it? Except that we share that frame of mind with many others. Lack of going out and eating affects others’ jobs and income. Affects the local tax revenues, and yes, our state of mind. With higher prices, it’s more of a struggle to donate to charities. It usually takes a second thought to convince ourselves because we worry about what will happen to the economy with Trump’s tariffs when the dominos begin falling.
Trump thinks it’s all swell. Experts and history disagree.
We’re not doing better after Trump’s first 100 days because he’s slashed through treaties, alliances, and agreements. His appeasement approach to Putin and Russia has undermined allies like Ukraine and encourages naked aggression. Traditional allies now don’t trust us. I fully understand that. Being isolated as a nation isn’t a safe stance in this complex and violent world. Trump shrugs that off like it doesn’t matter. History is not his strong suit.
Only strong suits for Trump are lying and conning people. Looking back on how this failed businessman made his money, it was by being corrupt, immoral, and dishonest. By not paying contractors. By gaming the bankruptcy systems and conning others into investing in his businesses. Then, doing a Trump good-bye, he slips away with the money and leaves others with the mess.
We’re not doing better because of what Trump did to government agencies in his first 100 days. Under the guise of cutting ‘fraud, waste, and abuse’, he empowered Elon Reeve Musk to have ‘DOGE’ go in and cut personnel and services. Laws and legal protections were shrugged off. So were Congressional mandates done years before. Trump didn’t agree with them or like them, so he just cut them. In effect, he became a one-man nation. Our previous votes and mandates were dismissed. He’s implemented the Project 2025 playbook after insisting all through his presidential campaign that he knew nothing about Project 2025. It’s totally in line with his reputation as a liar and conman.
On top of those traits, he’s proven to be cruel and lacking empathy. He demands and rewards personal loyalty and punishes whatever he perceives as criticism or disloyalty, to the detriment of our democracy and national welfare.
We’re not doing better after Trump’s first 100 days for what he’s done with our history and rights. As a deeply prejudiced, ignorant, and flawed individual, whatever he doesn’t understand or agree with is removed and locked out of sight. Included in this are women’s contributions to our advances. Women’s contributions and women’s rights. He rejects due process as though it’s a pizza topping choice and not a Constitutional-mandated requirement. He undermines our independent judiciary by railing against them, threatening violence, and rushing to the Roberts Court for ’emergency intervention’. Through it all, of course, he refuses to take responsibility when things go to shit, refuses to learn, and refuses to change.
More pragmatically and personally, we’re not doing better after Trump’s first 100 days because of what his behavior has done to the stock market. That directly translated to our retirement accounts. Our IRA and 401k’s. While our frugalness, savings, pensions, and investments have inured us to the impact on our retirement accounts, it takes its toll on our emotional and mental states. We worry more. We rethink our choices and decisions. We plan for the worse.
Others are not as fortunate as us. Trump has cut FEMA aid to communities recovering from natural disasters. He’s cut HeadStart, education funding, and food assistant programs for the poor, children, and the elderly. Thanks to his encouragement to not get vaccinated and his cuts to health and medical services, measles outbreaks are spreading. He’s cut grant programs for medical research.
His recklessness has us wondering and worrying, what next?
No, we are not doing better after Trump’s first 100 days. Were I grading this on a letter scale as we did in school, he’d get a big red F- for all that he’s done.
A misty veneer keeps the sunshine under wraps. Mists devour the greenery, truncating the world view to a small circle of existence. Rain keeps everything looking wet. A secure house with a little heat keeps it all cozy.
It’s Saturda, May 3, 2025, and 46 F. Not far off from the tops of 50 F.
Our ride home yesterday was uneventful. Traffic was light and moved well. Fascinating to leave the coast and arrive in a warm and sunny day in Roseburg. We stopped for gas at the Costco station there and then zipped on down I5. Total travel time was 4.5 hours, with a stop to eat egg and cheese croissant sandwiches we’d bought at a bakery that AM, and the stop at Costco for gas, using the restroom, and wandering around that Costco for a few to get a taste of it.
We did have one close moment. A semi began moving over on us. Think he saw a ramp ahead where traffic was coming on. Didn’t see my silver SUV in his mirrors alongside him. Fortunately, we had shoulder room. I snapped us left and punched the loud pedal while my wife let out a large gasp. Looking back, I saw everyone slow down behind the truck. Took a long time before people began passing that truck again.
Today’s music was inspired by AKing. They reminded me in comments of Rory Gallagher and “Bullfrog Blues”. I first heard Canned Heat do the old blues song in the 1960s. I had it as my theme music back in 2019. You know, during the first Trump administration.
Well, did you ever wake up
With them bullfrogs on your mind?
Well, did you ever wake up
With them bullfrogs on your mind?
You had to sit there laughin’
Laughin’ just to keep from crying
And many of Trump’s bellicose, Constitutional contrary, authoritarian wannabe whining texts have me shaking my head. So it’s an apt theme song for today’s political atmosphere where you have to sit there laughing just to keep from crying.
Here’s a copy of Canned Heat performing “Bullfrog Blues”.
Then here’s a tape of Rory Gallagher and his band doing a rousing performance of the same ol’ tune.
Both renditions have me remembering and grinning.
Coffee has been reintroduced into my biosystems. Neurons are beginning to fire in order. Hope your weekend rockets you to good state of mind. I’ll do my best on my head. Here we go. Cheers
Yes, this is about politics. The life aspect called Fuck Around, Find Out. Trump voter edition.
A woman posted about how bereft she was. She met a boy when she was sixteen. He was her first in all relevant ways. In love, they married and had a child.
She voted for Trump. She doesn’t say why. But that love of her life is an ‘illegal’, as the political shorthand is used. Even though he’d been in the United States before he could walk and lived here and here alone all of his life. He’d tried a few times to become a U.S. citizen. For sundry reasons, it wasn’t accomplished.
Now, fulfilling his campaign promises, Trump’s forces came and took her man away.
I surely do feel for her and her daughter. I don’t want to pile on. Explain, this is what you voted for. Nor remind her that her vote was going to upend many other people’s lives.
I really just wished she had listened to Trump before she voted. Thought about the ramifications of his promises. Then made her vote. And I want to ask her, what lessons will you take from this?
Yes, that’s what I wonder.
Michael Seidel, writer 