Tag: Donald Trump

Saturday’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I admire the GOTP’s restraint so far. The Grand Ol’ Trump Party is forcing the United States back into th 1800s. Yet, they’re still allowing modern inventions like aircraft, cars, and electricity. Of course, we are speaking of Trump. We know his sense of history is as broken as a rusted washing machine in a weed-infested front yard. He probably thinks they had these things back in those days. In his mind, the shootout at the OK Corral in 1881 has a different slant.

The gunfight at the O.K. Corral pitted Cowboys against members of a loosely organized group of liberals and Democrats called Black Lives Matter on October 26, 1881. Wyatt Earp was the town’s sheriff. His buddy, Doc Holliday had just driven in and finished checking in at the local Marriott. They were planning to do a few rounds of golf. You know, to relax.

They were big golfers in those days. One of the reasons I took up golf was because my heroes all golfed. Though none of them are as good as me. I’m one of the greatest golfers ever. I was doing a round the other day with Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, and Ben Hogan. You know who they are, right? Pretty good, golfers, pretty good. They asked me, Donald, why didn’t you ever go pro? You could have been the greatest. You are the greatest but your name will be left off the record books because you never went pro. But I had other things I was doing. That’s why I never went pro. I wanted to save America and I knew if I went pro, if I became a golf pro, I might not save America. Not because I didn’t want to or because I didn’t have the time or energy. I always have the time and energy to save America. That’s just how these things go. You know what I’m saying?

Now, meeting with Wyatt, the two were waiting for Wyatt’s brothers, Virgin and Morgan, to get in from the airport. After the men got together, they decided to go have a drink to unwind, before they went golfing. They were walking down the street, minding their own business, when a truck full of thugs drove past, taunting them from the windows and making un-American comments about the Bible. A Black Lives Matter banner hung from the truck’s back window, so you know they’re trouble. They’d just, there had just been a big battle, a war, some might even call it, a civil war, fought over states’ rights to carry guns and worship as they pleased. Led by Dems and Liberals, the Black Lives Matter thugs had fought against the states’ rights, cuz they’re not Christians. The Constitution says to honor thy mother and father, but it also says, obey the good book, that’s the Bible, and the lord, thy God. That’s what that fight was all about, the right to worship like a good Christian as you please. Who wouldn’t want that? Nobody. No American wouldn’t.

Well, Wyatt and the boys saw the thugs park their truck up at the OK Corral Diner. Don’t know if you’ve ever eaten at one of those, but they have really good food there, really great food, all-American offerings like spaghetti and meat balls and pizza. I highly recommend eating there. When the thugs left their vehicle, they tore up an American flag hanging by the diner’s entrance before they went in.

Well, that was too much for the Earps and Holiday. They were strong men. Powerful men, patriotic men. They weren’t going to let thugs like those desecrate the stars and stripes. No way. So they marched right into the diner and confronted the Dems and told them they needed to apologize to everyone for what they’d done to the flag. Of course, the others refused, and there was a shoot-out. And Wyatt and his brothers killed them. It became a famous shoot-out, very famous, very well-known, one of the greatest moments in American history, the shootout at the OK Corral Diner. And that’s what it was about, respecting the American flag. And the Bible.

So that’s Trump’s view of history in America. Next: the GOTP is putting forward a bill to change the names of the months used in the United States. January will be renamed Trumpuary in honor of Trump’s inauguration and the way he saved America. July will be renamed Donald.

That way, we can all celebrate the 4th of Donald.

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More FAFO News!

Hi! More news has surfaced of people voting for Trump and then having voter regrets, or donating mullah to the mango guy’s inauguration fleshtivities and paying the consquences. Let’s do a shallow deep dive.

The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Trump for Prez back in September, 2024.

“Public safety and border security will be important issues in the last months of this campaign,” Yoes said.  “Our members carefully considered the positions of the candidates on the issues and there was no doubt—zero doubt—as to who they want as our President for the next four years: Donald J. Trump.” 

Well, looky here, the FOP has flipflopped on their enthusiastic endorsement of Trump just four days into the new term. How can that be when they have no doubt — zero doubt — about ‘who they want as our President for the next four years‘.

My gosh, what caused this? I admit that I was surprised and shocked by their endorsement of a felon for the highest office in the land, the person who ensures laws are enforced. I couldn’t imagine them endorsing him after the Jan 6 Capitol riots which he encouraged. What could possible cause a change of heart for the FOP?

Why, it was Trump’s pardoning of the 1500 or more Jan 6 insurrectionists. But in true bothsidesism fashion, they also dissed on President Biden for pardoning Native American activist Leonard Peltier for his alleged killing of two FBI agents in 1975.

At any rate, their change of heart means jack, given that the election was held months ago. They are some forward thinkers, aren’t they?

In San Fransisco, the owners of George’s Donuts & Merriment are getting backlash after the one part-owner donated a mill to Trump’s inauguration fete. Andrew Dudum decided to FAFO what his California patrons think of his political leanings. Many of their customers are reporting on Yelp that they will not support a business who supports Trump.

Which, you know, makes sense as Trump threatens to withhold Federal aid for rebuilding California from the wildfires still burning in the state. Of course, as ICE makes raids to arrest immigrants and migrant workers, Trump et al are going to FAFO that the agriculture and meat packing industries depend on these workers. Then we’ll witness some serious inflation, and there will be more FAFO news.

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Tursda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Good morning! Hope you’re doing well! Probably not feelin’ too good if you’re a senior citizen watching their mone who voted for Trump!

Over on Crooks & Liars, Red Painter offers a nice FAFO summary of how Trump is looking out for seniors and the poor by wiping out former President Biden’s drug price cuts! Well, they were warned. And, like many others, they are reaping what they sowed.

Of course, eliminating these price cuts will mean less money for other important things, like food, utilities, housing, and clothing. But no worries! Trump is fixin’ inflation, so all that will be coming down. Yes, he’s ordering the Federal Executive Branch to lower inflation! Will it work? Well, he’ll claimed it did! Who will the MAGAts believe, him or their pocketbooks? Why, him! Of course!

Part of his plan is to just order more housing! Yes, he make it happen. The Federal government can’t create those houses, so it sounds like this free-market capitalist is planning on using the Federal gubmint’s power to make it so.

And those tariffs he’s ordering? That won’t affect inflation at all, no sir! Cuz, he’s ordering the rest of the world to pay for them, setting up a new agency, the External Revenue Agency, to collect the monies. Sure, it has everyone confused because it’s bizarro land in its thinking. And sure, it will increase the size of the government and add to the cost of government, because he’s adding more — another department, more people, more technology. And yes, it probably won’t be an effective agency, because it’s Trump! Just like Trump Air, Trump Steaks, Trump University, and all those other Trump-failed endeavors.

But we’ll just need to wait for the next issue of FAFO to emerge for us to know. Shouldn’t be long, though.

Should not be long.

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Grenday’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I read a note on Mastodon. Here it is:

I wondered about the veracity. Because anything on the net is suspect these days. So I searched on the G spot, “Did meta donate to biden’s inauguration fund”. As you can imagine, the results came back with pages informing me about how the Z guy and Meta donated bunches to Trump’s inauguration, and others’ reactions to that. Didn’t answer the question, of course. Search engines rarely do these days.

Tried Finecomb. Even worse results.

Bing came closer to the answer on page two of its results. FoxBusiness reported, “Biden inauguration bankrolled by corporate donors like Amazon, Google, Boeing”. Check out the story. Other than that headline and a qualifier that’s it’s not that unusual as a business practice for corporations to donate to inauguration funds, they didn’t cite any company’s actual donation.

Finally, I tried DuckDuckGo. Sadly, their results were about the same as Alphabet’s search engine.

What is funny in a sad and bitter way is that FoxBusiness barely covers the fact that corporations and oligarchs are pouring money into Trump’s inauguration fund after that headline grab about Biden’s inauguration fund, that I could find. That just doesn’t seem like news to them.

BTW, I did learn through FoxBusiness that Robinhood donated $2,000,000 to Trump’s inauguration fund. So while there’s a lot of shrieking about Meta & Z guy, the B guy and Amazon, and Google, others are rushing in with little fanfare.

Ann Telnaes sure had it right, didn’t she?

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Saturday’s Wandering Political Thoughts

It begins to appear that democracy will not end with a bang nor a whimper, but a tweet. There are billions of individuals, mostly men, but peppered with women, who will cheer that. No, I take that back. They will not cheer because they will not know that democracy has ended. The trappings will continue long after the government has been re-shaped into some form of authoritarianism that endorses wealth and greed and treats the wealthy has a separate class, with a better set of rights and more lenient judicial tolerance.

Yes, much of it has already taken place. The groundwork is there. The billionaires are lining up to make it happen. And social media is the engine.

This gloomy view comes out of a new Dame magazine article. MPS brought it to my attention via their post, “It’s the Media”, as did Scottie’s Playground. I new some of the information Dame presented, but they delivered with deeper and harder facts.

The Dame article is “America’s Right-Wing Propaganda Problem Might Be Terminal“. The article’s great, overarching declaration is, Millions voted for Trump with a distorted understanding of who he is, what he supports, what his policies will actually accomplish, and how severely his second term will hurt them and those they love.

Yes, many of us were aware of the ignorant, undecided voters out there, wholly uncritical thinkers who were briefly engaged with the election, voted, declared themselves good citizens — I Voted — and helped create a disaster set of circumstances. But their ignorance was firmly aided by the right wing, funded by billionaires like the latest villian, Elon Musk, and gleefully supported by the GOP.

Listen, if the GOP tells you that they love America and support democracy, don’t buy it. They do not. Some Republican voters probably do love America and support democracy, but they’re being conned, and they don’t know it.

Worse, of course, is that this phenomena is not just rooted in the United States. It’s a plague, a virus, that’s spreading around the world, undermining democracy and freedom without any shots being fired. This — a right-wing media composed of angry, hateful males who pose as pseudo intellectual influencers to spread their bullshit — is why we’re seeing right-wing influence increasing. People are being told lies. Immersed in the media speaking to them, they’re unaware of the truth or reality.

I still believe Trump’s administration will implode and he will personally crash. He was a convenience to advance their cause. He will be tossed aside. I’m convinced that many Americans will never realize that happened. I remain certain that the economy will worsen under Trump, but again, right-wing influencers will tell them that its great, and they will believe it so.

And so, the United States of America will become a shell of what it was, an empty vessel that once offered the kind of hope for equality and justice which is theoretically possible, and the right-wing media will tell them that’s great again, no matter what their life is like.

And they will believe.

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Frida’s Theme Music

Mood: Happysad

It’s a gorgeous January day. It’s also a sloppy January day, dark and gloomy. Depends. Comparing the day’s weather to other places and their situations, you can easily judge one way or the other. We’re not especially happy because this Friday, Jan. 3, 2025, is sunny, cloudy, and rain, or suncloura. We’ve been having many suncloura days. That’s part of the trick, too: if there’s a succession of like days, it weighs on us. All of this falls onto the final piece, whether you like this kind of weather, or even thrive in it, or you fall into the circle of thought that it’s okay but could be improved. The temp. BTW is 44 F. High will be 51 F.

Another local restaurant went out of businesses on Jan 1. Pie +Vine is the closure. It replaced Piatta’s about ten year ago. Both were owned by the same folk. I’m sad because it means unemployment for some. Conversely, the food has been steadily declining since it opened. Conversations about eating there often mentioned how bad the last meal or the last service was. The same people own several other restaurants. People are not pleased with the owners because they gave no warning to their employees. Just locked doors and put a notice on the door, we’re closed and done. Not the way to treat people, and several employees claim those owners have done the same thing at other businesses across the years.

My wife and a friend are going to see Wicked today. I opted out. Didn’t want to slice another three hours out of another writing day. The movie is two hours and forty minutes but then you need to reach the theater, park, etc. So. They decided they’d first meet for coffee and pastries, so the outing has been extended to about four and a half hours. I’m pleased to have solitary time. I love my wife and enjoy her company but we are together a lot.

Over in the news, I see Republicans making false claims about the New Orleans and Las Vegas terrorists. The Army vets are claimed to have just come over the border. Those lies have been thoroughly disproven but the base will digest it children going after popcorn. Meanwhile, ‘Trump Warned About Invading Mexico’ in a Newsweek headline. “Experts are urging caution.” The article is slanted IMO toward Trump actually using military actions in the way it’s written. GOP talking points about the border are given without any fact-checking or counter-discussion. Piss poor journalism. Seems more like a balloon being floated to see what kind of reaction the idea of invading Mexico gets. It’s been comprehensively demonstrated that the GOP doesn’t need facts to sell their ideas. Given how the Roberts Supreme Court has treated Trump, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump does use military force. Democrats and the international community would condemn it but the GOP would probably crow, “What a man!”

I can imagine such an action quickly escalating into economic arenas, with Mexico retaliating by cutting off the flow of exports, affecting manufacturing, especially cars. Mexico is the number one car manufacturing nation in the western hemisphere. Most of the cars are shipped to the U.S. If car availalability in the US drops, prices go up, driving up inflation and decreasing sales. That would apply to not just new cars but used cars; it’s a ripple effect. The lack of sales revenues would cut into state and local tax revenues. Given all these things, someone might be able to talk Trump and his bloodthirsty Administration down. Hard to say. Trump likes the idea of being ‘manly’ in a corrupted, negative way that was once prized as the epitome of manliness.

Today finds “Missing You” by John Waite circulating through the morning mental music stream (Trademark missing). The 1984 song is all about missing someone while lying to themself and denying that they miss them at all. That’s how it goes with me when the wife is away. The house feels chillier. It’d definitely quieter. I miss turning and saying something or having her ask or tell me something, even if I do also resent it at times. Such are relationships.

Have a proper Frida. Do it up right. It’s the first one of a new year. The new on the year is already fading. Here’s my coffee and the music. Cheers

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Twosda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Musk is busy backtracking over in MAGAland. The MAGAt War erupted when tech right billionaire Musk urged more HIB visas to let more foreigners legally enter the United States specifically to do jobs that Musk feels Americans are not capable of doing. As that sentiment began kicking off explosions of angry indignation, Musk’s dodgy DOGE sidekick, Vivek Ramaswamy fed the flames by noting that Americans were mediocre.

Woo, boy, that went off like a feminist telling a Hell’s Angel to calm down and ride away.

PINO-Elect Trump did his best to calm the situation by lying, because that’s what he knows how to do. Stepping up to the moment, he declared that he was for and has always been for H1B visas.

“I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” he said, according to the outlet’s report.

Which, the Internet’s digital record shows, is a lie. A Forbes article in 2021 specifically addressed how Trump and his adminstration tried to end H1B visas. He blocked visas and suspended them in 2020.

Elon Musk, showing the depths of his hypocrisy and why he’s such a perfect fit for the latest GOP, first escalated, but then called for posts on X to be more positive.

“Please post a bit more positive, beautiful or informative content on this platform,” Musk told his 209 million followers on Sunday night.

Classic ‘do as I say, not as I do’ Republican guidance. As when the GOP calls for cutting the national debt whenever the POTUS is a Democrat, after a Republican POTUS, such as Trump, say, raised the national debt. Huh, huh. A 2021 ProPublica article gives the details.

The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. 

Well, I for one am willing to help Musk with more positive posts on X, cuz I’m positive that X has become a terrible social media outlet since Musk took it over. I’m positive it’s losing money, too. And I’m positive that he helped it become the angry cesspool that it is by removing restrictions and moderators. I’m also positive that his own attitude and lies on X contributed to the lack of positivity on X. I’m also positive that Musk doesn’t own up to any of those things and will blame it all on someone else, such as the mainstream media.

Except, of course, for me to be more positive on X, I’d need to be on X. And I am absolutely positive that is not going to happen.

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Sa’day’s Wandering Political Thoughts

It’s a gloooommmy glooommmy day here. All rain and descending swirling fog. We’re getting less of it up by my home but the weather down toward the valley floor is icky yuck wet, as a meteorologist would say.

Daily Kos delivered a bright ray through the gloom. Furious Democratic Rep COMPLETELY NUKES Trump’s “Modern McCarthyism” They’re talking about Rep. Melanie Stansbury, NM-D, and her magnificent comments about JD Vance’s bill. As Rep. Stansbury highlights, the bill essentially creates a blacklist of who can’t work for the Federal government, based on their perceived loyalty to PINO-elect Trump.

“Welcome to the new House Committee on Un-American Affairs and the new McCarthyism,” she said. “We have arrived here today with this bill.”

The bill has the support of the Heritage Foundation — the conservative think tank behind the notorious Project 2025 policy plan — which issued a letter of support, Stansbury noted.

Led by Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation, supported by Trump and his MAGA base, the United States is goose-stepping back into less free, less democratic times. We’ve been led down this path before. The attached video (same one from Daily Kos) has part of Edward R. Murrow’s editorial about McCarthyism in it.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

We can substitute Trump or MAGA or Project 2025 or the Heritage Foundation or the GOP for ‘Senator McCarthy’. The policies they pursue and the campaigns they use fit McCarthy’s brand of divisiveness, political repression, and fear-mongering.

Good to know that individuals like Rep. Stansbury has our backs.

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Frida’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Vagabond Scholar’s jon-swift-roundup for 2024 took me to perrspectives.com’s roundup:

Trump’s Top 10 Broken Promises on the Economy

This is an excellent summary of Trump’s promises before his first messed-up term. Then, as now, Trump belched out grandiose promises and grandly failed to meet any of them. Yes, those of us paying attention knew that going into 2024. Reading it in an orderly, fact-loaded page is a sort of emotional and intellectual comfort food for me. Kind of thing needed as we slouch toward Trump’s second term.

Of course, reading the summary also triggers my anger at Trump voters, minions, and enablers. They’re either so awfully cognitively impaired that you wonder who is dressing them, deliberately obtuse because the truth is an ugly, scary critter to them, or know that Trump speaks shit but delight in the chaos he generates, or finally (looking at you Musk, RFK Jr, any Kushner, and Vivek), are just base, greedy opportunists who care about nothing except making themselves more money at the expense of others.

Well, honestly, I think Trump was swept in on a toxic melange of all of those things. We’re already hearing about voting remorse, infighting, and exclamations of surprise and disappointment, and he’s not even in office. We’re also witnessing some crowing about how he’s already changing the economy and the world, with people acting like he’s already in office.

The latest infighting erupting is about tech right’s desire for more H1B visas. They cite a need for these because Americans are ‘too retarded’ for the work they need. The charge for these is being lead by those billionaires of bullshit, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

“If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win,” Musk wrote on X.

“I am referring to bringing in via legal immigration the top ~0.1% of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning,” Musk wrote in another post on Thursday. “Thinking of America as a pro sports team that has been winning for a long time and wants to keep winning is the right mental construct.”

Ramaswamy, a first-generation US citizen whose parents immigrated from India, concurred with Musk while defending companies that look outside the US for labor, arguing tech companies hire engineers who were born outside the US or born to American immigrants because “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence,” citing portrayals of smart students in TV sitcoms “Boy Meets World,” “Saved By The Bell” and “Family Matters” as evidence.

“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG,” he wrote on Thursday. “A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Over in deep MAGAland, the reaction was predictably WTF angry. Isn’t the whole thesis of Make America Great Again predicated on Americans being the greatest but undermined by those pesky immigrants, immigrants are who not as great as Americans, who — reminder — are the greatest? Immigrants who are stealing ‘Merican jobs? And here are two MINOs — MAGAs in Name Only, Musk and Ramaswamy, calling for more immigrants.

And so the MAGA base that took Trump to power already begins eating itself and falling apart.

And PINO-elect Trump is not even in office yet.

Brace yourself: 2025 is going to be a wild, wild ride.

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Munday’s Wandering Political Thoughts

PINO*-elect Trump is calling for buying Greenland. What a goofball. Certainly fun to read about him for the crazy factor. It’s like, what will that crazy monkey say next?

“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote in a statement announcing that he chose Ken Howery to serve as ambassador to Denmark.

Sidebar: I think that Buying Greenland and Other Insanity would be an excellent title for Trump’s biography. Feel free to use it.

Back to PINO-elect Trump’s idea. My first question is, has Denmark said that Greenland is for sale? Sure that’s not important to Trump. He likes taking things. Remember, he’s the one who suggest that all he has to do to get a woman is “grab her by the pussy.”

Trump: “Yeah, that’s her, with the gold. I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Unidentified man: “Whatever you want.”

Trump: “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Next question, of course, if he is going to instead pay for it, what is the price? Third in line to ponder is what is PINO-elect Trump’s plan to pay for it? He’s planning to cut taxes and raise tariffs on imported goods, which are both projected to cut revenue. While he’s doing that, he’s going to reduce the deficit, and mass deport millions of people.

I’m guessing that Trump will have to raise the money for buying Greenland in some extraneous ways. Maybe sell some of his bought billionaires on eBay. Putin would probably buy them. Or Trump will do a car wash or bake sale. Can you see a WH car wash? Ten thousand dollars a car. He’ll have the Secret Service do the washing. A bake sale spun right could bring in some cash. First, Trump buys or steals (or calls for them to be donated!) a bunch of baked goods. Then Trump can take a bite of each baked good and sell it for a grand per. “Real Food Certified to have been bitten by PINO Donald J. Trump.” Film him biting each cookie and signing a certificate of biting it. Post it to X. He could sell them for $299 a bite.

I’m sure that whatever he does to raise money to buy Greenland, it’ll be the “greatest and most beautiful thing ever”. Right?

Oh, wait, I know. He can collect and bottle his piss and sell it to raise the money. That’d probably bring in a lot of money. Supporters are sure to buy his bottled piss. I mean, look at how many keep buying his shit.

*PINO: President in name only.

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