Mundaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Trump directly attacked Venezuela this week, two strikes on two other nations in one week.

Disappointed, I wasn’t surprised. My immediate response: was this a military action or CIA activity?

I was also concerned about deaths, injuries, and property damage and destruction.

Other questions came up for me:

  • Did Trump consult with Congress beforehand?
  • Did the strike have any military and economic success?
  • How do Americans view this attack?

Trump’s increasing attacks on Venezuela and other nations are disconcerting. I worry that they’ll translate to open warfare or counter attacks.

Some comments associated with news of the attack surprised me. Several individuals cited President Maduro’s unpopularity with Venezuelan citizens as a solid reason to attack Venezuela.

I would turn that attitude back on them: Trump is unpopular in the United States. Does that provide other countries with a legal rationale to attack the United States?

Trump and his administration frame this as part of an ongoing war against ‘narco-terrorists’. They’ve not introduced any evidence to support the claims.

The true reasoning is very opaque. Trump often inspires speculation. I think it’s partly due to his established pattern of lying and his growing struggle to remain coherent.

I, with many others, often wonder: is this latest military action to distract us?

Trump has reasons to distract us. The list begins with polling, worries over the economy, and the Epstein files.

While we speculate, there’s certainly valid reasons for the speculation. As this year ends, many polls show growing disapproval for Trump, his government, and the consequences of his actions.

Trump and his administration’s behavior toward the Epstein files lends circumstantial evidence that Trump worries about the files’ contents. Delaying the release of files didn’t help. Neither does Trump’s recurring insistence the files are a ‘Democrat hoax’. Each denial increases our wonder about what the Epstein files say about him.

There’s a third pillar supporting speculation that the attack was a distraction. One, Bondi had the FBI comb through the files for content about Trump. Second, the files were heavily redacted after release. Three, a million more documents were ‘suddenly found’ and released.

Last, though, Trump continues to tout the economy as the greatest. Data doesn’t support him. One quarter showed surprisingly strong GDP growth. That doesn’t translate to Trump’s unbounded enthusiasm. Many professional forecasters project meager average GDP growth for 2025, just 1.9%. 2026 isn’t looking much better.

Job growth has been weak. Unemployment is rising.

Headline inflation isn’t sharp, but affordability worries people.

With such a weak economy and other indicators, I don’t think attacking other nations improves our situation. And that is my largest concern about Trump and the attacks.

They’re illogical, and do nothing to improve conditions in the United States.

That’s why I really wonder if they’re just distractions.

Twozdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Dementia Donny has been living up to his hype, blasting us with more wondrous boasts about the greatest and most beautiful things he’s doing for us.

Solving real problems fell off Delicate Donny’s radar long ago. His previous magic was to ‘tell it like it is’. Morally bankrupt and intellectually dishonest people fed off it. Now, with no one reining him in, his reign is a crashing, shambolic nightmare.

Affordability and inflation haunt Trump. The East Wing’s demolition reminds everyone who looks toward the White House sees it and remembers all of Trump’s past failures such as Trump Air and his string of failed promises, like “Mexico will pay for the wall”.

Now, hospitals are shuttering in rural areas. More are closing in 2025 than have in the past five years. Rising costs for food, healthcare, and energy are undermining Trump speeches that everything is better than before. Rising bankruptcies point to data that everything isn’t getting better.

Thing about it was that Trump’s bluster often covered his damage. When that didn’t work, he’d order wild distractions. That strategy was aided by those who want to further his agenda. Now, reality is engulfing the nation. Disapproval for Trump is drifting toward historic lows. Approval is becoming as weak as a memory of sunshine. Although media conglomerates still kowtow to Trump and his sycophants appease him by naming things after him, Trump is a weakening individual with waning influence.

Even Republicans are awakening to that truth. Stands are rising against him. Speaker Mike Johnson in the House remains Trump’s man but voter anger is stinging rank and file Republicans. Worrying about keeping their seats. they’re jumping off the MAGA wagon, though they carefully say little to anger Trump. He still has a big stick.

Trump’s biggest crutches remain the cadre he installed as his cabinet. Vought, Noem, Miller, Hegseth, Bessent, and Kennedy race forward, trying to do as much damage as possible before Trump shuffles off the stage. Vance is eager to seize the reins, but all know, he isn’t Trump. Although Trump can’t or doesn’t care to see it because it isn’t about him, Trump is institutionalizing regression under the guise of progress. That is how Project 2025 planned it. These are not mere villains, but morally ambiguous players dedicated to the Project 2025 cause.

Vance seems to be coming from a place where he thinks he can say, “Hey, we’re all Christians here,” and earn a stronger following. Christians might go for that but the rest of us are dubious about it. As Heather Cox Richardson related in her December 21, 2025, piece, Vance and the Project 2025 crowd continue to try to rewrite history and facts.

Speaking today at Turning Point USA’s annual “AmericaFest” conference, Vice President J.D. Vance said, to great applause: “The only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God we always will be, a Christian nation.”

Actually, we haven’t.

Vance’s statement flies in the face of our Constitution, whose First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” James Madison of Virginia, the key thinker behind the Constitution, had quite a lot to say about why it was fundamentally important to make sure the government kept away from religion.

In 1772, when he was 21, Madison watched as Virginia arrested itinerant preachers for attacking the established church in the state. He was no foe of religion, but by the next year, he had begun to question whether established religion, which was common in the colonies, was good for society. By 1776, many of his broad-thinking neighbors had come to believe that society should “tolerate” different religious practices; he had moved past tolerance to the belief that men had a right of conscience.

Ms Richardson’s final line in that paragraph struck me. This is where we’re seriously regressing as a nation IMO. As a progressive democracy, we were moving more past tolerance to the belief that everyone was equal but individual, but that the roots of individuality didn’t matter. What mattered was that all of us were humans, invested in one another to advance together, or fail together.

Now the Project 2025 gaggle has us as a nation regressing. We’re no longer even ‘tolerant’. Yes, Trump pushed that idea, giving it more emphasis as it gained traction. What deeply disturbed so many of us as Americans and U.S. citizens was how many of our fellow citizens weren’t willing to be tolerant. Not only were they not being tolerant of others different from them, but now they’re moving toward being more aggressively violent.

That is Trump, too. But the resentment, the willingness to be intolerant was always there, as was the violence. Trump and Project 2025 used that to propel Trump forward. Needing more votes than his base provided, Trump appealed to people upset with the economy by falsifying and magnifying how bad it was. Now the truth is out. Affordability is a bigger problem under Trump than it was under President Biden. Paul Krugman noted that the national deficit did not decrease under Trump but is bigger than it was in the first nine months of 2024.

Voters are noticing Trump’s failed economics policies. GOP stalwarts are noticing. No matter how many buildings are named for Trump, no matter how much he tries to change the narrative, the damage has ended Trump’s ability to lie and blame others.

There will be a reckoning with voters in 2026. Despite being in an ideological bubble, Trump knows it’s going to be bad for him.

He feels it, and it shows.

Sundaz Theme Music

Happy solstice morning greetings from Ashlandia. It’s 41 F with moderately heavy rain today. The weather systems tell me that’s how it’ll be all day, with the high reaching for 47 F. A ‘white Christmas’ isn’t being dealt to us this year.

Yes, it’s Sunda, and it also happens to be winter solstice north of the equator, December 21, 2025. Down south of zero, they’re celebrating the summer’s arrival.

We’re doing our ‘traditional solstice’ dinner but it’s being winged. Our traditional celebration evolved from previous celebrations we’d cludged together from pagan practices regarding solstice. Building on those, we started having a simple dinner of soup, salad, and bread as part of solstice. It expanded for a while, with others invited in to celebrate with us. COVID broke the tradition. We observed alone for a bit but shifted from it. Partially contributing to that was a sense of weariness my wife and I both felt; just weren’t up to celebrating, given the world’s state and trajectory.

I proposed doing soup and bread for solstice dinner again. But instead of making it all ourselves, we’d visit the Food Co-op and Market of Choice and buy some fresh soup from them.

I read about “King Mida in Reverse” in blog comments the other day. I haven’t heard nor thought of the song in years. Think I heard it on Sirus XM while driving on a long trip back before BCP – Before COVID Pandemic.

The commenter was saying this song, by the Hollies, perfectly describes the Trump effect. He’s a destructive force masked as something else. Trump will advance, mostly through luck, lying, evading responsibility, and cheating, but whatever he touches is the worse for it. Look how he destroyed so many businesses and yet enriched himself. Now he’s doing it on a gigantic scale, destroying the moral fabric, government structure, and checks and balances of the United States. Meanwhile, he’s turning us, We the People, against each other based on race and politics, cratering the economy, and making us sicker via terrible health care decisions. Yes, PINO Trump is most definitely King Midas in reverse. That’s why he throws gold on everything in a desperate effort to change the optics on what he’s doing. But the results of dropping approval ratings, rising disapproval rating in all areas, increasing unemployment, decreasing employment, and diminishing affordability speaks for itself. Dizzy Donny is failing, flailing, and fading.

Unfortunately for the U.S.A., Trump has turned over governing to Russell Vought for domestic affairs, Stephen Miller for domestic security, and Pete Hegseth and Marcos Rubio for diplomacy and foreign policy. Except for Rubio, these are individuals We the People don’t trust with the keys to a car, let alone running the nation. But that’s where we are, thanks to PINO Trump.

Lyrics

~snip~

I’m not the guy to run with
’cause I’ll throw you off the line
I’ll break you and destroy you
Given time

He’s King Midas with a curse
He’s King Midas in reverse
He’s King Midas with a curse
He’s King Midas in reverse

It’s plain to see it’s hopeless
Going on the way we are
So even though I’d lose you
You’d be better off by far

He’s not the man to hold your trust
Everything he touches turns to dust
In his hands
Nothing he can do is right
He’d even like to sleep at night
But he can’t

All he touches turns to dust

All he touches turns to dust

All he touches turns to dust

All he touches turns to dust

~snip~

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Time to chug some coffee and crank the energy motor up. Hope peace and grace sneaks out of hiding to give you a hug. Here we go. Happy solstice. Cheers

Twozdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

First, the ‘good news’.

The number of measles cases in the U.S. are on the rise.

No, that is not ‘good news’.

It is vindication.

The data clearly shows that the measles vaccinations policies followed in the U.S. for the last several decades were working. The science was understood.

Now, led by a charlatan in Health and Human Services, one Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and emboldened by the Trump Regime, the U.S. has had over 1900 cases reported in 2025. With winter striking and people keeping closer proximity, measles outbreaks in several states are growing. It’s doubtful to me that the TACO Regime will take action to address these outbreaks. The outbreaks are part of the Project 2025 strategy to undermine health and morale in the United States. While it’s not explicitly stated as such, that is the intention which emerges.

Trumpsanity continues plowing over the nation.

Trump is suing the Pulitzer Prize Board. It’s been going on for a few years.

In late 2022, Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board, which, he claimed, defamed him by refusing to retract prizes it gave the New York Times and the Washington Post for their Russiagate reporting.

Trump, in the lawsuit, alleged that the Times and the Post defamed him in their articles and that the Pulitzer Prize Board, by awarding them, defamed him as well. Many Trump critics attacked the lawsuit as frivolous, pointing out that the Pulitzer Prize Board itself didn’t write the articles he claimed were defamatory.

~snip~

Recent articles reveal that the Pultizer folks reacted by demanding records from Trump to prove what he’s claiming.

As of Thursday, the case had reached the discovery phase, with the Pulitzer board submitting a 12-page filing with a “litany of broad discovery demands” for Trump’s legal team. In addition to demanding more typical documents pertaining to Trump’s various lawsuits and claims about the political impact of the Pulitzer Prizes, the board also requested a wide range of documents detailing much more personal and intimate details.

This includes “all” of the president’s tax returns dating from 2015 to now, so as to show any potential financial harm caused by the Pulitzer board’s actions. It also requested health records and prescription histories to demonstrate proof of Trump’s claims of mental and physical anguish.

“To the extent You seek damages for any physical ailment or mental or emotional injury arising from Counts I-IV of Your Complaint, all Documents (whether held by You or by third parties under Your control or who could produce them at your direction) concerning Your medical and/or psychological health from January 1, 2015, to present, including any prescription medications you have been prescribed or have taken,” the filing explained. “For the avoidance of doubt, this includes all Documents Concerning Your annual physical examination. To the extent you do not seek such damages in this action, please confirm so in writing.”

~snip~

One, I’m very pleased that the Pulitzer Prize Board is pushing back and not capitulating, the path which so many universities and media organizations followed. Two, I love that response: this is what you’re claiming, so show us the receipts.

Of interest now is how the TACO Regime will react. I expect bluster, of course. Claims of executive privilege will probably spring up as well. TACO never likes revealing paperwork because the paperwork inevitably reveals the depths of his deceit and lies.

Trump showed again he’s an empty shell of a human.

President Donald Trump responded to the mass shooting over the weekend at Brown University, telling a crowd gathered at the White House that “things can happen” while offering “deepest regards” to the families of students who died and urging a speedy recovery for the injured.

~snip~

I couldn’t find any statements that Trump made about the disastrous flooding in Washington. Sure, the Trump Regime signed off on assistance but he, personally, said nothing about the disaster. No, he’s too busy slamming Rob Reiner after the actor and his wife were murdered by their son.

Trump, in a post on his social media network, said Reiner and his wife were killed “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”

He said Reiner “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness.”

~snip~

That’s Trump. Always going lower. Always taking the lowest, tasteless, classless road possible.

Compounding the Trump Regime’s struggle with truth and success, unemployment is rising.

Statistics and history show that U.S. unemployment climbed to 4.6 % in November 2025. That’s the highest rate since September 2021. It’s also change-your-diaper time for Deflecting Donny, once again.

Employers across the U.S. added 64,000 jobs in November, beating economists’ forecasts, new government data shows, even as new October figures revealed a loss of 105,000 jobs, a sign the labor market remains under pressure.

The unemployment rate in November rose to 4.6%, the highest level since September 2021.

~snip~

Trump will blame President Biden for the rising unemployment. That’s a given, even though it’s been Trump’s economy since the 2025’s first month. Trump might even blame President Obama for this poor unemployment, because that’s how loosely connected to reality Dopy Donny is these days. The wires between his brain and reality are frayed and broken, and it is showing in his speeches and reactions. He’s quicker to jump to hostility and bullying than in previous years. Those attacks are often not landing as they have in previous years.

Sadly for Trump, at the same time that reports claim the nation added more jobs in November, ‘beating economists forecasts’, October figures were revised, showing it was worse than originally claimed. The job numbers were also revised downward for August and September.

Man, talk about a bad trend. Tsk, tsk.

Wonder if Vegas is putting up odds that the November jobs numbers will be revised downward in January?

Twozdaz Theme Music

Twozda, December 16, 2025, has settled on Ashlandia. And it’s brought fog again. Like, hey, thanks for the gift, but we’re full up on fog. More sunshine or light rain would be welcomed. A hard rain came yesterday for a few hours. Welcome change to the fog and the month’s first precipitation. On the sunny side of weather information, the various systems are aligned regarding the temperature and current weather, agreeing across the board that it’s foggy and 50 F. I provided feedback to Alexa and several online weather sites this week that they were getting our weather wrong. Like one day is a fluke, two days is a coincidence but three days is messed up. Not saying that I did it, but I do believe others are like me out there and told the systems, hey, you’re getting our weather wrong.

Mom and sis have reached detente again. Mom’s was probably accidental. Sis admitted, Mom is probably experiencing dementia. Sis has backed off from moving Mom back to her house. Sis acknowledges that she’ll probably need to continue provide food, shelter, and assistance for me. Sis has rejected the idea of having Mom declared incompetent and moved to a home of some kind at this point, as that requires an effort she’s not willing to put out. I don’t blame her. So much of this falls on her as she’s there and the other sisters have checked out, and I’m across the country. Sis and I do a lot of texting. I try to be as supportive as possible and keep my criticisms and disagreement low key and gentle. I think she appreciates and enjoys that outlet and that’s the best I can do at this point.

Movement against Trump seems to be rising. People are saying, enough. Some of them are even Republicans. Hope that continues growing. His affordability tour is flailing, I’ve read. He goes off script into familiar rants, which are now wearing thin. Attendance is poor. Doesn’t help that Deceiving Donny keeps talking about how prices are coming down, or that affordability is a hoax. Too many are hurting from the truth. Food and energy prices are not done as Deceitful Donny keeps boasting.

The machine behind Death Donny is grinding on, though, dragging down everything known as the United States for the last century except the name and the flag. Wouldn’t put it past Trump and his regime, though, for him to announce that they’re changing the flag and dropping the stars for blue states. Just the dimwitted, smirking, asinine behavior that they consistently show, crowing about how they love the nation, how patriotic they are, how they’re doing things in the name of saving the nation or keep it secure. It’s all garbage talk, and polls show people aren’t buying it much these days.

I have Little Feat playing “Dixie Chicken” in the morning mental music stream. Yes, that’s wholly derived from a dream line where someone said, “Do you have brain fog?” Thinking about that question and the events surrounding the dream, The Neurons began playing the 1973 song for me. Strange, but most of the rest of the dream was about me trying to shoot a woman. I was being coerced to do it and didn’t like it at all.

That’s it for the morning summary. Hope and grace come by and give you a hug and a kiss. Coffee and I are having a visit. Happy holidays to you. Time to busta move. Cheers

Fridaz Theme Music

Good morning from Ashlandia. It’s foggy today, Frida, December 12, 2025. Think I’ll return to bed. Sleep it out until the fog is gone.

I brew about that while I make my morning brew. What aggrieves me a lot about this is that Alexa is oblivious to the fact. It tells me, “It’s 41 degrees with clear skies in Ashland. Today’s high will be fifty blah blah blah.”

I stopped listening to it. My system says its 31 F. My eyes tell me it’s foggy. No sunshine, no sunshine. Alexa is wrong with the weather today just as she was wrong yesterday and the day before. I don’t think Alexa provided correct weather on any day this week. I don’t know if this is a symptom of Alexa’s failings or a failure caused by the National Weather Service. I further don’t know if the NWS failure was caused by Trump’s DOGE cuts or something else.

Fog socked us in all day yesterday. It’s a freezin’ fog sort, clinging to your exposed skin like it’s trying to suck your warmth out of you. Sort of like some sort of horror movie critter. What’s also interesting about being enclosed in heavy fog for days on end is that we used to get NWS warnings issued for that condition. We were getting them last week. We received none this week.

Photo of downtown Ashland, Oregon, taken in the afternoon, 12/11/2025.

The Trump Regime has successfully created a fog of confusion, distrust, and uncertainty. It’s not just in the areas of the weather and weather warnings, either.

Today’s song is by The Dave Matthews Band. My wife uses the expression, “What would you (say or do) if I told you (something about something).” She was using it yesterday. Paying attention to that, The Neurons brought the song, “What Would You Say” into the morning mental music stream.

The jaunty 1994 song features some interesting lines, such as, “Don’t drop the big one.” A song for our times. Fun video to watch, as the band invests strong energy and passion into their music.

Headlines tell me that Trump pardoned Tina Peters for her election theft efforts. He’s loyal to the lawless. Her pardon does nothing for her because he’s Fed and she’s incarcerated under state law. IEarlier this week, Trump was threatening the International Criminal Court not to go after him or any of his cabinet members for the murders and other crimes they’ve done, just as Putin would warn. Trump also tried bullying Indiana into gerrymandering their districts to save his rear against losing more seats. The Indiana GOP turned him down.

Trumpy Dumpty is also on a tour to convince everyone that he and the GOP are successfully making everything affordable again even if affordability is just a hoax and Trump says it’s not his fault, anyway, it’s all because of Trump’s favorite scapegoat, President Biden, even though…Trump used to campaign on stopping inflation and making everything better on Day 1. Heather Cox Richardson provides a lucid summary in her December 11, 2025 post.

That Trump’s boasting, cajoling, and bullying has a desperate frenzy urgency can’t be denied. He’s losing the plot and he’s losing popularity. Democrats are pretty firmly against him. The young are turning against him, as are Latinos and Independents. Soon, all that will remain will be white Republicans. And when they realize how unpopular, unsuccessful, and unintelligible he is, they, too, will quietly walk away.

Got my coffee. Think I’ll add a little peace and grace to it. Hope you have some peace and grace in your Frida. Here we go. Cheers

Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Why, it’s just like Jesus!

Nice summary of Trump’s Own Party’s attitude, a Clay Bennett cartoon via Daily Kos.

Free Tina!

Meanwhile, the Trump Regime continues its thriving hypocrisy practice. Tina Peters is a Colorado MAGAt. She was also an elected official. She claims the 2020 was stolen and allowed Trump allies illegal access to voting machines. Her convictions in state court include four felonies.

Trump wants to pardon Tina but can’t. Tina was prosecuted under state laws. Wah-wah. So Humpy Trumpy told the DOJ he weaponized to go after the entire Colorado prison system to apply pressure to Colorado lawmakers and the governor into ignoring law and order, as Deceitful Don does, and just set Tina free.

What’s really freaking comical is how this person claims the lawsuit is about the conditions in the Colorado prison system. Not humane enough.

Isn’t that outrageous? This orifice of horror and cruelty, who gleefully celebrated the Alligator Alcatraz, who callously orders family separated, ignoring human rights, legal rights, and due process while disappearing people, including parents, is wringing his hands over Colorado’s prison conditions. What a fucking farce.

Hey, look! Trump lied more!

After being in office for eleven months with GOP control of the Congress, Trump is trying to blame Democrats for inflation.

“That’s our message. They gave you high prices. They gave you the highest inflation in history, and we’re giving you, we’re bringing those prices down rapidly,” Trump said. “Lower prices,  bigger paychecks — you’re getting lower prices, bigger paychecks. We’re getting inflation, we’re crushing it, and you’re getting much higher wages.”

~snip~

Prices aren’t going down. Hence, the speech to declare he’s doing.

Trump speeches are a waste of air. Then he went on with more trumpshit.

~snip~

“I have no higher priority than making America affordable again,” Trump said. “That’s what we’re going to do. And again, they cause the high prices, and we’re bringing them down. It’s a simple message.”

~snip~

But, but, but Trump says the affordability is a scam.

~snip~

“The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats,” Trump said Dec. 2. “The word affordability is a Democrat scam.”

~snip~

So there Dozy Donny goes, bellowing about how well he’s fixing affordability after bellowing about affordability not being a problem because it was a scam. Follow that Dizzy Donny logic?

He also told us to cut back on our pencils and dolls.

~snip~

“You can give up certain products. You can give up pencils. That’s under the China policy, you know every child can get 37 pencils—they only need one or two, you know they don’t need that many,” Trump said, adding, “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter, two or three is nice, but you don’t need 37 dolls.”

~snip~

Less is better is a great sentiment who wants more money, more money, more money! Less dolls, pencils, foods, gas, is great for the masses but Duplicitous Donny wants more of everything for himself. Look how he festooned the building previously known as the White House with unneeded gold. Couldn’t he do with less gold, as he lectures us to do with less?

No, we know him too well by now. He’s a master of double standards.

Disapproval of Trump and his policies are rising

Of course, those of us outside of the Trumpbubble know that Trump hasn’t lowered prices. Prices have been going up. Trump has tried lying to us about it. Tried hiding numbers. Worked with Walmart to con us into believing Thanksgiving was more expensive in 2024. We saw through all that. People are feeling it, and it’s showing in polls.

Too many still support Trumpy Dumpty and his backward policies in my opinion. I’m looking forward to seeing his approval crash in 2026.

Fridaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Trump has announced that every street named “Main Street” in the United States is going to be called “Trump Street” by popular acclaim, beginning on Jan 1, 2026.

No, that’s not true. Far as I know. That’s how it feels, though. A golfer, he wants a NFL football stadium named after him. Tasteless, he wants the Kennedy Center renamed after him. He wants to name everything after himself for doing nothing but lying, cheating, stealing, and destroying. I’m not in favor it. Only thing I’d like to rename in Trump’s honor is toilet paper. Call it Trump paper. Then I can use Trump paper to wipe my ass.

Other than that, let’s name poor houses after him. And the homeless. He deserves that. “Look at those poor Trumps, standing out there in the cold rain.”

It’s wild how the nation is spiralling downward. Let’s cut off immigration, except for H1B visas for business. Let’s cut education and help for children but encourage families to have more children. And how will these families pay for them with healthcare, food, and energy prices increasing? We’re building AI facilities and robots to take over jobs. More companies are laying people off to use robots and AI instead of people. In Trump’s rage against Democrats, he’s attacking blue cities and states. Yet blue cities and states provide a large portion of the nation’s economic drive. So he’s gutting the nation of its economic power while trying to attract and encourage manufacturing. But who will have money to buy anything with employment falling?

Trump’s policies are already killing our local economy in southern Oregon. We depend on tourism, education, some beer and winemaking, and healthcare. Those are our largest revenue streams.

Last year, the Trump Regime cut funding for public transportation. Just like that, bus service fell to severely cut levels, affecting students, the poor, elderly, and remote.

SNAP and food assistance programs were cut, affecting the food-insecure, lower incomes, and homeless.

As costs rise for running a city and repairing things, the city is levying more fees on its citizens. That strains people’s spending and savings and cuts into discretionary spending. That results in less people spending on the local economy, with less tax money flowing to the city. See how that works? The city doesn’t.

Meanwhile, parks and rec want to open more parks. This is even though the city’s structural debt is blowing up. Parks and rec already cut their headcount, resulting less park maintenance, and its shows. Their solution is to build more parks. Build more bike trails. That’ll bring in people, they think.

Really, man, they are not paying attention.

Our local college is Southern Oregon University. SOU. They’ve responded to a continuing and growing cash flow problem by cutting programs, raising tuition, and reducing staff, including professors. With funding assistance from the Trump Regime falling, they’re facing a dire future.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is our big annual draw. They’ve seen reduced attendance for the last ten years. First, drought, hot temperatures, wildfires, and wildfire smoke pushed tourism down. Then COVID pushed tourism down. Now the Trump regime, with its open hostility towards foreigners, is pushing tourism down. A festival and region dependent on tourism will fall as tourism falls.

Finally, the local hospital announced cutbacks. This used to be the Ashland Community Hospital, but then it was bought by Asante. It has announced it’s closing its beds and surgical center. Just going to be some limited services. We’ll need to trek down the road to another hospital for assistance. But bus services have been cut. How are the poor and needy going to get there?

We’re being gouged and hollowed out in so many ways. This is just my state, my region. How much of this is being repeated across the United States? We know from news reports of growing corporate layoffs and flat employment growth. News reports inform us of meat packing facilities shutting down. Trump cuts through DOGE gutted research funding for universities, including cancer and other medical research. His policies also reduced foreign student enrollment.

As this downward spiral continues, the delta between haves and have nots in the United States will grow with the population of the have nots increasing. We’re leaning toward being a nation of underemployed, uneducated, unmotivated individuals. Our robot-run factories will pump out goods destined for foreign buyers on foreign shores.

Yes, I’m pessimistic about our nation’s future under Trump and the GOP but I’m not the only one. Meanwhile, a Yougov poll shows that while 40% of respondents think Trump will be judged as a “poor” president, 18% believe that he’ll be remembered as “outstanding”.

I guess those 18% are the haves, or perhaps have-nots who have not met their FAFO moment.

Thirstdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Is this a dull-witted regime occupying the building formerly called the White House?

I say yes!

After Dippy Donny’s regime shuttered the U.S. Institute of Peace earlier in 2025 and left the building empty and the work undone, the regime now renamed the building the Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace. Perfectly droll of this administration, who are all pretense and no substance when it comes to peace and finding peace. Trump always believes he can bully others into peace. “Take our deal, or else.” He claims he’s ended 60 billion wars, including several that ended before his father was born. (Yeah, that last sentence is some hyperbole, right there.)

But an empty building is a great symbol of an empty head and their empty efforts.

Meanwhile, the Roberts Court hurriedly and unsurprisingly ruled the Texas partisan gerrymandering was right on! Yeah, that’s good, the hard right court said.

Supreme Court revives pro-Republican Texas voting map sought by Trump

We also have more insight into Trump’s thinking and planning, or the lack of it, is what I should write. A new architect has been brought in to work on Trump’s new ballroom. That architect will submit their submit official plans to the National Capital Planning Commission ‘soon’.

White House brings in new architect for Trump’s sprawling $300 million ballroom

~snip~

Initially estimated to cost $200 million, Trump said in October that the new ballroom would cost about $300 million. The entire amount is being paid by donors, including him, he said. It’s “going to be probably the finest ballroom ever built, and we’re doing it to no cost to the country,” Trump said then.

~snip~

Isn’t that just like Trump? “Look how great and grand my building will be. All for just $200. Oh, wait maybe more.”

Sounds like Trump had more of a concept of a ballroom. Just like he has more of a concept of a replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act.

I’m beginning to believe the great Trump Wall will be finished first and Mexico will pay for it before the ballroom is finished.

O-oh say, can you see, how affordable everything is getting? New reporting is about rising energy costs. Before we jump into the rising costs, let’s look back at 2024, when Duplicitous Donny was campaigning and making promises:

“We’re going to get your energy prices down. We’re going to get your energy prices down by 50%.”

PBS NewsHour, Trump speaks at campaign rally in Wilkes-Barre, PennsylvaniaYouTube
 (August 17, 2024). 

More at Doggett.house.gov

Now, let’s look at what’s going on in 2025 after almost eleven months of Trump rule.

The secret behind your skyrocketing energy costs

Stephanie Tate couldn’t figure it out. After three years of living in her new Illinois home, her winter energy costs last year suddenly spiked to $400 per month.

She had three different technicians come to look at her HVAC system and furnace, but nothing was wrong with it. She had her home insulation inspected and found no issues. She installed new, energy efficient windows to stop cold air from leaking into the house.

“It still didn’t make a dent,” she said.

In the summer, her bills were even higher, driven by the cost of the electricity needed to run her air conditioner. Tate tried to use her heat and cooling sparingly in hot and cold months.

“In the winter, I keep my heat well below 68 — and it gets cold here, so you just bundle up,” Tate said. “In the summer, my AC is at 75. I’m dealing with a little warm weather inside my house.”

Diving into her bills, Tate found something surprising. Her electricity bill’s delivery fees — the costs customers pay to help maintain electric infrastructure like the poles and wires carrying power to their homes — were often just as high as the cost of the electricity she used.

~snip~

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “You’re paying more for everything right now, and the electrical costs — the way they increase so exponentially and so quickly is stunning to me.”

~snip~

The nation’s electricity infrastructure is old, and utilities across the country have recently been pouring money into upgrading it; in just five years, US utilities increased their spending by $5 billion on transmission (the massive high-voltage towers carrying electricity from one region to another) and another $16 billion on distribution (the smaller substations, poles and wires).

Electric utilities are making “essential investments” to strengthen the grid, said Drew Maloney, president and CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, an electric utility trade group.

“Our electric grid is America’s most important machine — and we have to make sure it works reliably every day for families, businesses, and local communities,” Maloney said in a statement to CNN.

Part of that investment is driven by new demand growth. Electricity demand in the US used to be pretty flat. Now, demand is exploding primarily from data centers, along with new manufacturing and home and vehicle electrification. Power demand from data centers alone is projected to reach 106 gigawatts in the next decade, according to a report from research firm BloombergNEF.

~snip~

As I read it, residential consumers are funding the need for new electricity for corporations building new facilities that need a lot more energy. That will make those corporations more money, and greater profits, and pay less taxes. And those CEOs will see higher pay and greater bonuses and pay less taxes while Stephanie Tate and other Americans fund the growth.

That’s how it goes in Trump’s United States. Bend over and grab your ankles, if you’re less than a billionaire. As Trump himself warned you, “WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!)”

With tariffs signed, Trump warns of ‘pain’ to come for Americans

How long will it take us to take the lesson to heart that Trump does not give a shit about anyone except the ultra-wealthy and himself?

Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts 2

We are so polarized in the United States in the second decade of the 2000s.

Yeah, that’s not news.

Last election for the POTUS in 2024, we had those on the right screaming about President Biden’s sleeping. They declared him feeble. ‘They’, egged on by Donald Trump and JD Vance, raged about President Biden’s enfeebled state. In their eyes, he was too old, too tired. And who should replace that enfeebled, tired president, the one called Sleepy Joe by Donald J Trump?

Why Donald J. Trump, of course! A year younger but so much more energetic, they declared. Despite his haggard appearance. Despite the photos of him sleeping at his trial in 2024.

Trump is what we need, they cried. Despite his felony convictions. Despite his business failures. He tells it like it is! Despite his well-documented lies. Despite his hatred, and his use of slurs against people, especially women and the handicapped. Despite his three marriages and payments to a woman for sex.

They thought Trump would lower prices through tariffs. Reduce inflation! Bring back jobs! Increase the prestige, success, and conditions in the United States.

The rest of us thought this weird. Trump had already been POTUS. He’d not accomplished anything he promised. His biggest broken promises were not building the wall that Mexico would pay for. He’d been twice impeached. He instigated insurrection against the United States and tried to overturn the election results when he lost.

Trump didn’t replace the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare, he mocked it — as he promised. Trump never even rolled out a concept in four years plus.

Trump said he would ‘never golf’ or ‘take vacation’ because he’d be too busy working for the nation. Trump has since golfed more than any POTUS. He’s golfed about 25% of his time in office in 2025.

And Trump, Trump, is the only POTUS to have the government shutdown three times. His third government shutdown, the Trump Epstein Shutdown of 2025, is the longest on record.

Now Trump has established new records. Through Trump’s orders, 80 people, strangers to the United States, as we rarely know their names, or their records, or any evidence against them, have been murdered in international waters, a violation of U.S. and international law.

Through Trump, U.S. citizens are being turned against one another through his deployment of unneeded national guard and military units. He offers flimsy excuses and reasons, declaring that the places where he’s deploying them are burning, when there is no evidence at all of these things happening.

Through Trump, tourism and travel to the United States is cratering. Through Trump, prices are rising and affordability is falling.

Trump makes money on being POTUS. He pushes products with his name on them, like his Bible, his gold shoes, his gold cell phone. He’s destroying the White House, having it torn down, over the objections of We the People.

And weirdly, weirdly, through all of this, some part of the United States population declares that Trump represents the best of us.

The rest of us recoil in horror. We think Trump represents the worst of us.

Trump’s greed is not the best of the United States. His failed businesses are not the best of the United States. His lies, womanizing, and cheating are not the best of the United States. His lawlessness and childish mocking of other people are not the best of the United States. His ranting on Truth Social is not the best of the United States. His wanton disappearing people based on the color of their skin or their accents, without any due process, is not the best of the United States. His killing of citizens from other nations without due process is not the best of the United States. His persecution of political opponents is not the best of the United States. Nor is his greed, avarice, and shallow thinking the best of the United States.

Twisted and polarized. This is what we are. The real question for us is, where do we go from here, in 2025, as we near the end of just the first year of Trump’s second term?

Many of us are holding our breath as 2026 approaches. Because we do not know what Trump will do next. And given his lawlessness and the way he’s breaking our nation, chances are, whatever he does, it will not be good for anyone except Donald J. Trump.

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