Tag: facts

Frida’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Well, well, well. I think John Stoehr kicks a few relevant covers off the whole MAGAmess as it relates to Jeffrey Epstein files.

Donald Trump just blew his cover as the ‘real victim’ in new scam on MAGA | Opinion

The president is trying to change the subject after the attorney general closed the case on disgraced financier and Jeffrey Epstein. That’s why Donald Trump has lately been harping on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Someone is to blame for some makebelieve problem and Trump wants to be seen as the solution.

But even if Trump were able to redirect the press corps’ attention, he is unlikely to change the dynamics under way among the MAGA faithful. Trump says Powell must go so that interest rates fall, but to the extent that MAGA base was ever motivated by inflation or the cost of living, it was a secondary concern. MAGA’s principal motivation is drawn from a cosmic story about the battle between good and evil, and with the Epstein scandal, Trump has raised doubts about which side he’s on.

Which story? QAnon. It’s the belief that Donald Trump is the epic hero in a secret war against powerful and malevolent (and Jewish) conspirators who have plotted with agents in the government (the deep state), corporations (wokeness) and the media (lies) to sabotage America. The end of the story was supposed to come when Trump released the Epstein files in advance of executing God’s enemies.

Read more here…

Stoehr’s piece of thinking tickled me. I knew MAGALand was infuriated by how the Trump Regime is handling the Epstein Files. Trump promised to release the files so they could know the truth. MAGAts want the files, specifically, ‘the list’, released. The List is supposed to be the smoking gun, the evidence of all the deep shit that Trump has been claiming the hated Democrats and Liberals have been doing in secret while creating and managing their vast shadow government, where they control the weather and scheme against the pure Christians and whites who deserve a nation unsullied by non-whites, a land where education isn’t tainted with facts and truth that makes them queasy.

But after detail after detail is put out there about the Epstein file, Trump finds himself increasingly angry, defensive and isolated. He’s flailing to make the rest of the world turn the damn channel. But as Stoehr points out, MAGALand can’t; to disavow the Epstein files as Trump demands means that they must also disavow the entire fabric of the QAnon universe.

Pulling that thread would unravel their fantasy. MAGALand knows it; Trump is trying to pretend it isn’t true. But if MAGALand is forced to accept that the Epstein files lack all the damning evidence that Trump has claimed is in it, they might be forced to confront, how else has he lied to us? They might even start realizing how much Trump duped them and used them. They might even question if Trump was sent by God. As one of Trump’s far right supporters, Nick Fuentes, said, “You are fat, you are a joke, you are stupid, you are not funny, you are not as smart as you think you are,” Fuentes said, later adding, “This entire thing has been a scam.”

That could be the end not just of Trump but of all those others who spread and supported his fictions. For him, for them, it’s less about if Trump is in the files; it’s more about the Democrats not being in it.

Fingers crossed that this all blows up. Frankly, I don’t give a damn any longer who might be in it.

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Facts, Truths, & Observations

Daily Kos has a smile-producing post today. Here are some highlights.

What in the name of dysentery is Kristi Noem talking about?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is so freakin’ weird.

On Monday, the official Department of Homeland Security X account posted an image of a painting, along with the caption, “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage. New Life in a New Land – Morgan Weistling.”

DHS screenshot dysentery MM

First, Noem is showing a painting of people who could be immigrants. Many immigrants came to the United States and went west as settlers or pioneers. But let’s go on.

DK points out the Oregon Trail truth:

If you grew up playing the video game “Oregon Trail,” you know what this evokes: dysentery. The National Park Service estimates that 30,000 settlers died from it—nearly 10%—on the Oregon Trail alone. That’s 10-15 deaths per mile.

But maybe that’s on brand for today’s conservatives. After all, they’re bizarrely excited to bring back measles, too.

But dysentery was just the beginning. Gun mishaps, hypothermia, wild animals, drowning during river crossings, rightly hostile Indigenous tribes—this was a death gauntlet. It’s just plain weird to romanticize one of the most brutal chapters of American expansionism.

And that baby in the painting? That poor, nameless baby?

In the mid-1800s, one-third of children didn’t make it to their 5th birthday according to this study from Our World in Data. Other estimates suggest that infant mortality was closer to 40-45% during this era and likely even higher on the trail. 

~snip~

And stepping back, what does this painting even have to do with DHS? Are they trying to police vibes now?

It’s just all so weird.

These Trumpists aren’t “tough.” They’re just strange.

What strikes me as so wild and strange about this is is similiarity to Trump’s fantasy that he’s like the fictional Superman character. Both Noem and Trump’s willingness to play make-believe has to dismiss the truth and facts. Many ratioed Trump’s post, pointing out that Superman was an undocumented immigrant, and that he stood up for the oppressed, and was not an oppressor, like Trump. Superman fights the kind of evil which Trump is spearheading.

Yep, the Trumpettes are delusional. They’re bullies. They’re liars.

And they’re strange.

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Sunda’s Wandering Thoughts

I baked for the Independence Day festivities. I’m not usually the house baker but my wife thought I should bake as a blow against the patriarchy. So bake I did.

My baking was the modern kind: a brownie mix, egg, oil, water. Everything except the water was purchased at a store. The water came from my faucet, part of our city’s water and sewage systems.

I made circular brownies with M&Ms in a silicon baking pan created for that job. We have a gas oven with a timer and all that. I added the ingredients into a bowl per directions, preheated the oven to the temperature they told me to use, and doled the rich concoction into the waiting little cups built into the silicon ‘pan’. Then, see the timer for the time the instructions recommended, wait, watch, and test to see if they’re done, using the honored toothpick test.

The process allowed a lot of free time thinking. And that becomes my point. Baking has been around about 10,000 years. The earliest evidence of baking comes from Egypt, and not the United States. While it may have started around the Meditarranean Sea, it grew. Many peoples, cultures, and societies contributed to its growth and the lessons learned in what works. Then they passed it on. People took it up, tweaeked and refined it, documented it, and passed it on. People from many religions and ethnicities had a hand in it. Men and women, along with people of less certain genders baked, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of nationality or religion, until we reached this point that baking is a well-refined and understood process, simplified enough that even a neophyte like me can gather stuff and bake.

Here is my real point, something the Trump Regime and its half-assed backward, racist, sexist supporters want to dismiss. We live in a world of developments built on the shoulders of others. We’ve stacked advances and helped consolidate, perpetuate, and spread the gains. Name an industry and explore it, and amazingly, you’ll probably discover that it wasn’t all done by white Christian American men. Now the Trumpettes want to pretend that no one except white Americans did anything worthwhile, especially in the United States to deliver the success we’ve achieved as a nation, trying to bestow as much credit as possible on men and Christianity, even if they need to lie to make their case, which they do.

America First! Hell, the United States wouldn’t exist without immigration — and shall we talk to the peoples who lived in North America before the waves of explorers, settlers, and armies ‘discovered’ the land mass? America First! Our form of democratic government is derived from other nations, as is our mercantile system, which also depends on other nations for success.

Trump’s willful, deliberate ignorance won’t stand, although it will do serious damage. Progress comes from unforeseen developments as much as planned advances. We don’t know who will make a critical, game-changing insight. Trump is trying to pretend otherwise. He can successfully fake it for a while, but eventually, his willful stupidity will bite us all in the ass.

As always, time will tell when and how. Meanwhile, we grit our teeth and resist his ignorance as best as we can.

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Frida’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Just putting out reminders who Trump is because he likes pretending he’s someone else. I know I’m getting numb to it; I’m sure others are, too. We’re angry but numb.

Angry But Numb might be a good rock group name.

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Wenzda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I was one to jump on the stage when we asked before the flash flooding in Texas killed so many, “Why weren’t they warned?” Now we have more insight into the answer. And yes, the path to this disaster goes right through DOGE.

As the Texas Floodwaters Rose, One Indispensable Voice Was Silent

When a reporter demanded to know why the summer camps along the Guadalupe River weren’t evacuated before its waters reached their deadly peak on July 4, Rob Kelly, the highest-ranking local official, had a simple answer: “No one knew this kind of flood was coming.”

Why not? Kerr County, Texas, had lots of history to go on — as Kelly went on to explain: “We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States.” The National Weather Service had even brought in extra staff that night. Most important, the service had issued three increasingly dire warnings early that morning — at 1:14 a.m., 4:03 a.m. and 6:06 a.m.

What Kelly didn’t mention, but which has since become well known, is that the Weather Service employee whose job it was to make sure those warnings got traction — Paul Yura, the long-serving meteorologist in charge of “warning coordination” — had recently taken an unplanned early retirement amid cuts pushed by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. He was not replaced.

Read more here…

This is infuriating. This was one of the many warnings we progressives, liberals, and Democrats voiced time and again: Trump and the right wing want to destroy government. They don’t care who is killed or impoverished when they do, as long as it isn’t them. And it wont’ be them; they’re protecting themselves.

We see similiar stories emerging with taxes, education systems and school districts, disaster responses, diseases, trade, employment, deportation, rising crime, and healthcare emerging across the nation. It’s horrible to read these stories. But so many blindly follow Trump and the GOP, they voted for their own ruin. And many still swear, “Yes, but this is better than what the Democrats were offering.”

What is it that they thought the Democrats were offering, they can’t really explain. They just insist that President Biden was destroying the United States. They rallyed around the price of eggs.

The price of eggs are higher now. Do they really think they gained anything by supporting Trump and his treacherous agenda, which is clearly based on Project 2025, which he dismissed over and over again.

When will they learn and reject the Trump Regime’s incompetence and destruction? How many more dead Americans will we count before they finally awaken? Repu

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Frida’s Wandering Political Thoughts

As I survey life in the United States from my home in 2025, it feels to me like we’ve gone from Nanny State to Bully State. Trump demonstrates his bully tendencies with everything that he does.

Donald Trump Makes Legal Threat To CNN And The New York Times Over Their Reporting On Iran Intel Assessment

Along the way to becoming a bully nation, the Trump Regime is energetically dumping facts. Trump’s own regime’s Intel said Iran wasn’t near completing a nuclear weapon. Trump claimed that he knew better without offering any facts.

After the bombing, Trump said that the mission resulted in Iran’s nuclear capabilities being “obliterated.” The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment said that Iran’s program was probably only set back a few months. Trump insists, without evidence, we must believe him.

On June 20, a reporter asked Trump: “What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your Intelligence Community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point.” Trump responded, “Well then my Intelligence Community is wrong,” and he said that Gabbard was “wrong.”

You can see why doubt is blooming like flowers in the spring. The Trump Regime’s response to everything among its directors, press secretaries, and cabinet members is, hey, trust us. They really dislike questions and react with violent anger when questioned, especially when facts get involved. Yet, we have several parts of the government saying one thing while TACO insists its otherwise. We have metrics saying one thing while TACO and his trumpizens insist their alternative set of facts say differently.

Polls are showing, for now, that more U.S. citizens believe the United States is on the wrong track. We see more of the same in the latest consumer confidence index.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans’ view of the U.S. economy worsened in June, resuming a downward slide that had dragged consumer confidence to its lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index slid to 93 in June, down 5.4 points from 98.4 last month, which represented a brief uptick.

Of course, as a group, the U.S. electorate is a jelly-filled crumbly invertebrate. Many critics will say of this group and my gross generalization, there are so many issues, the issues fracture us. Yes, and that’s normal in any democracy. But shouldn’t history, truth, and facts mean more? As we’re frequently finding, truth and facts only matter to same when they slap people in the face like a used diaper via personal experience.

We see this especially demonstrated in the Immigration issue, as orchestrated by Killer Noem and her banditos. After teaching people to question authorities and question mask-wearing gunmen, we’re now supposed to just accept that it’s okay for ICE to disappear people? We used to fill milk cartons with people who went missing. Now, like a lying president and mass shootings, disappeared people is becoming a new American norm. Doesn’t matter if the disappeared are criminals; doesn’t matter if due process is followed. Who needs law and order in this growing lawless nation?

Remember when we used to say, “Innocent until proven guilty”?

Do you recall the days when “Everyone has their day in court”?

What about that old idea that, “If you’re not doing anything illegal, you don’t have anything to fear”?

Hey, that shit is gone. This is what happens when history, facts, and truth no longer matter. Little by little, day by day, decision by decision, act by act, truth, justice, and due process matter less and less.

And then a point is reached when nothing matters except the bully in charge.

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Wenzda’s Theme Music

Daylight come and it’s time to get up. That was not always the case. A shift worker for over a dozen years, I was often driving home as the sun bite into the sky.

Not so today, Wenzda, June 25, 2025. Let’s run the Ashlandia summer day checklist: cool night; check. Blue sky; check. Bright sun; check. Temperature in the low 80s; well, that’s not usual. We generally reside in the 90s at this point but I enjoy the 80s more, when we’re talking temperatures in Fahrenheit. Today, the sun will rouse us from the 60 F where we now chill to the low to mid 80s.

The neighborhood is lazy with low passing vehicle noises and a number continuing a porch project. No trains or aircraft are heard today, and the birds are circumspect in their discussions. I’ve not read much news yet this AM and continue to dwell in a ‘wait-and-see’ spirit. That spirit has songs ’bout trouble circulating in the morning mental music stream. Coming into six months of TACO’s second presidency, many balls are in the air. We’re witnessing the GOTP sabotaging justice and the legal system, the education and healthcare systems, environment and the economy, doing so under the guise of progress while ignoring fact-loaded decades. Meanwhile, PINO TACO saber rattles like he’s an old battle hand and not the coddled man-child born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

The Neurons cultivated a broad selection of trouble songs for the old stream. From it, Buddy Guy’s take on trouble, “I Smell Trouble”, has assumed dominance.

Into the day we go. What happens next, nobody knows. Hope yours goes well. Cheers

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Frida’s Wandering Political Thoughts

So many of the headlines I read today make me pause and ask, “Yes, and?”

These rural Californians voted for Trump. Now the land they love is in danger. This is solid Fuck Around and Find Out Material. Trump wanted to sell Federally owned lands during his infamous rule as 45. Saner heads prevailed back then. Now the saner heads have left his flock. Trump and the GOTP are pursuing the sale of Federally owned lands. “Oh, no!” Trump voters cry, wringing their hands. “We’ll stop him.” How? By not voting for him any longer? Dumbasses.

Study: In States with Lax Gun Laws, More Children Are Killed by Guns From Diane Ravitch’s blog. She begins, “Guns are the leading cause of death among children. A new study concludes that states that have eliminated gun restrictions have higher death rates among children than states that have retained restrictions. The National Rifle Association, which opposes any restrictions on access to guns, dissented.“

No shit! The NRA dissented! The New York Times reported on the study. Naturally, the red states will continue to ignore facts and studies like these, because, well, that’s who they firmly are. Then they’ll blame blue states for increased violence and death. SMFH.

First measles case confirmed in Utah amid national outbreaks  “The Utah diagnosis comes amid a national spike in measles cases reported in at least 36 states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of Thursday, there were 1,214 confirmed cases across the country and 23 outbreaks reported in 2025.”

36 out of 50 states report measles: 72%. And we’re still in the first year of PINO TACO’s Regime of Ignorance & Misinformation. Wait until the Musk DOGE cuts are fully felt.

Why are so many children getting long COVID? Newsweek reports, “It’s been more than five years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, although millions of Americans, including children, are still affected by it today.

“More than one million Americans died due to the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while many were floored by the infection for weeks or even months.”

Well, going out on a limb, I think it might have to do with anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. I think they’re being encouraged by PINO TACO and his worm-eaten Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Only fools are surprised by any of these trend. But then, as the news continually demonstrate, the United States has become number one in raising fools.

And too many of them are now running the government.

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