Satyrdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

TL/DR: Trump lies a lot. So does Speaker Mike Johnson. And they’re wrecking the United States. Also, an explanation of the TLLs.

GOP duplicity and hypocrisy increases. Not surprising, really. Duplicity and hypocrisy are not finite. Tariffs don’t affect their availability. Duplicity and hypocrisy are as cheap and free as words. With the Epstein Shutdown of 2025 diving toward unpopularity reaching MAGA’s levels of hatred for diversity, Trump and the GOP are lying more about it.

BTW, this is Trump’s third government shutdown in less than five years of running the government. Spell that out, Trump has had a government shutdown in three out of five years of governing. Such a weak leader, isn’t he?

Except, we know the Epstein Shutdown isn’t like the others. This shutdown is to, one, distract people from the Epstein files and stop their release so that all the dirt that Trump did with Epstein is kept hidden from the light.

The Smirketeers. Donald Trump, left, with Jeffrey Epstein, second from the right, BFFs.

Perhaps as importantly, the Epstein Shutdown gives cover to the Project 2025 architects, enabling them to orchestrate the MAGA takeover of the Federal government. They want only GOP loyalists in there. Anyone critical of Trump or the anti-Christ known as Charlie Kirk must go! Third, and even more importantly, Trump can barrel through the Constitution and its checks and balances and broaden the cold war he’s conducting against Democrats through Federal funding of projects in blue states and blue cities. It’s all pretty cunning evil, certainly worthy of another Austin Powers movie.

Here’s where the hypocrisy, duplicity, and well, general lying kicks in.

Trump says it’s all the evil Democrats’ fault. Claims, they want funding to give trillions away to illegal immigrants. That’s a bonafide Trump Lie Level 5 lie, or in net shorthand, a TLL5. Trump lies so often and completely, we’ve been forced to develop a scale to discuss his lies.

Trump Lie Levels Examples for Clarification:

TLL1: Trump’s lies about his golfing or his weight

TLL2: Trump lies about coming out with a healthcare plan to replace ACA

TLL3: The lies Trump told about $50 million in funding for Hamas condoms

TLL4: Trump’s lies about immigrants eating pets.

TLL5:  Democrats shut down the government because they want to give free health care to immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally, a lie Trump continually repeats.

Going along with Trump’s lie, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Hell) is now praising the Federal government that he so often maligned. From Carl Hulse in the NYTimes.

Shutdown Politics Has G.O.P. Singing Government’s Praises

“You’re talking about women, infants and children who rely upon these supplemental nutrition programs that are now not being funded and being shut down,” Speaker Mike Johnson lamented on the Fox Business Network. “They are affecting FEMA services in the middle of the hurricane season.”

Never mind that Mr. Johnson led Republicans this year in pushing through legislation to slash nutrition assistance programs as part of the party’s marquee tax cut law, or that President Trump has taken an ax to FEMA grants during his first months in office.

In the upside-down political messaging surrounding the shutdown fight, conservative Republicans, usually eager to assail government largess, have transformed themselves into enthusiastic evangelists for federal spending and programs. It is part of a bid by the G.O.P. to maximize the pressure on Democrats, who routinely advocate for government workers and services, to relent in the spending battle.

Speaker Johnson pushes TLL5 lies out there, pretending he cares about people and how the government helps people. Johnson’s actions, as Carl Hulse pointed out, Speaker Johnson has consistently and cruelly demonstrated that he does not give a shit about anyone but Trump and whoever will help keep Trump and the GOP in power as they destroy the United States in all but name.

The truth is the Democrats want the CR being offered to include provisions to stop healthcare premiums from rising. The GOP under the Trump and Johnson tandem put those into effect in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill passed earlier this year. Even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is outraged about it.

Greene ‘disgusted’ if health care tax credits expire and premiums double

We need to vote these liars out of office. Stand up and be heard. Wake up those who are sleeping through the Trump Destruction Machine and what it’s doing to the United States. The longer it takes to wake others up and stop the destruction, the longer it’ll take to rebuild and resume our effort to be a democracy with justice, freedom, and equality for all.

Twozdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Stuff from around the web.

Ha, ha, remember when Kristi Noem said this? My goodness, those Trumpers really lack memories, conscience, and principles, don’t they?

More of the same, Stephen Miller edition…

Trump’s actions are not popular. Is the country heading in the wrong direction? You bet! Will that stop him? No, because he’s locked into an alternate reality.

Priorities, priorities, priorities.

I don’t understand. Why would ICE agents go to a restaurant in a war zone?

Country Star Zach Bryan Divides Fans With Anti-ICE Ballad

Once again, from Trump’s alternate reality…

Fridaz Theme Music

Snap, crackle, and whoosh. September’s final Frida descends on us. September 26, 2025. 54 F outside. Sunshine, blue sky, changing trees, classic Americana fall look. We’ll climax at 80 F today.

Dreams again propel today’s music choice. I’ve been dreaming deeply, frequently, vividly. While thinking about last night’s featured dream this morning, all about a boat ride on a wide river on an overcrowded boat, followed by a fast drive on a wide highway in an overcrowded car, Les Neurons brought Mazzy Star into the morning mental music stream and “Fade into You” plays.

[Verse 1]
I wanna hold the hand inside you
I wanna take the breath that’s true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth

You live your life, you go in shadows
You’ll come apart and you’ll go blind
Some kind of night into your darkness

Colors your eyes with what’s not there

[Chorus]
Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it’s strange you never knew

h/t to Genius.com

Reading last night, this morning. Realizing again how much U.S. conservatives feast on violence and hypocrisy. Decry violence, but always blame others for it, and never do anything about it except their Twister edition of the blame game. In that way, they’ll always have their violence, always have their game to play, which distracts and enrages their base, and keeps conservatives going. If not for violence and taking down freedoms, and giving tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy, the GOP has no platform. Sure, the claim they’re for law and order. Anyone without their head up Trump’s ass knows that’s a play they’re putting on. The GOP staunchly declare they’re for small gov’t, another farce as they launch government into being meddlesome and invasive while reducing the ways in which it’s helpful. GOP also lectures that it’s for state’s rights, but that’s only when doing so serves them. No, they’re for big, controlling, violent government.

The Trump Regime likes to brag ’bout how great it is. How wonderful they’re making the United States. Trump is especially bullish about his accomplishments but when you line up the facts, he comes across like a fourth grader bragging about getting the best grade in class when it turns out he failed. This thought comes after reading a Daily Kos piece about Trump’s FEMA withholding funding from hurricane victims. Trump’s alternate female version, Kristi Noem, bragged about how fast they were doing it. Turns out the states are saying, nope. We’re not getting much help from them.

Hope peace and grace shows up in your day. If it shows up in mine, I’ll offer it some coffee, something to eat, something to feed upon and grow. Got my coffee. Awaaay we go. Cheers

Swear, Cry, and Sigh

Jill Dennison has done it again. She’s collected some memes that definitely need to be shared with more folks. Some made me swear, some made me cry, and some were rewarded with heavy sighs. Sometimes, I did all of that at once. Here a few to whet your interest. They show, with these simple words and images, how far we’ve been twisted by Trump’s alternate reality in the United States. Head to Jill’s site to read ’em all. Cheers

This Is What Hypocrisy Looks Like

Just a friendly reminder of the flaming spineless shit spinners we’re telling with.

GOP congressman tells Americans ‘prices are up … for the good of the country’

And just for fun…

Fridaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Fridaz political observations from the worldwide net to anger and amuse you, and one to remind you to hope.

Interesting, innit?

Outrageous. A person who never served and has no honor, denying what they earned through their service and honor. What a travesty the United States is becoming under TACO.

Looks like someone visited a cheap hobby store.

Sunda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Southwest Nebraska medical center announces plans to close, blames uncertainty over funding

The uncertainty over federal Medicaid funding appears to have claimed its first victim in Nebraska.

Community Hospital in McCook announced Wednesday that it will close Curtis Medical Center in Curtis, winding down its services over the next several months.

“Unfortunately, the current financial environment, driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid, has made it impossible for us to continue operating all of our services, many of which have faced significant financial challenges for years,” Troy Bruntz, President and CEO of Community Hospital, said in a news release.

The budget reconciliation bill that the House of Representatives voted to approve on Thursday contains several provisions that experts say will slash Medicaid, which rural hospitals are more dependent on than their urban counterpart

Read the rest…

Mauna Loa Observatory captured the reality of climate change. The US plans to shut it down

The greenhouse effect was discovered more than 150 years ago and the first scientific paper linking carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere with climate change was published in 1896.

But it wasn’t until the 1950s that scientists could definitively detect the effect of human activities on the Earth’s atmosphere.

In 1956, United States scientist Charles Keeling chose Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano for the site of a new atmospheric measuring station. It was ideal, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and at high altitude away from the confounding influence of population centres.

Data collected by Mauna Loa from 1958 onward let us clearly see the evidence of climate change for the first time. The station samples the air and measures global CO₂ levels. Charles Keeling and his successors used this data to produce the famous Keeling curve – a graph showing carbon dioxide levels increasing year after year.

But this precious record is in peril. US President Donald Trump has decided to defund the observatory recording the data, as well as the widespread US greenhouse gas monitoring network and other climate measuring sites.

Read the rest…

The Dilemma of the Fourth of July
As we finish out this holiday weekend, it’s a good moment to reflect on how the Fourth of July is a complicated holiday for many of those living in the United States. At Native News Online, author Mark Charles looks at the contradictions in the experience of July 4th for many Native communities.

“The other day I was eating dinner with my wife in a restaurant located in Gallup, New Mexico, a border town to the Navajo reservation. Gallup was recently named “Most Patriotic Small Town” in a nationwide contest. Soon after sitting down I noticed that we were seated at a table directly facing a framed poster of the Declaration of Independence.

The irony almost made me laugh.

When our server, who was also Native, came to the table, I asked if I could show him something. I then stood up and pointed out that 30 lines below the famous quote “All men are created equal” the Declaration of Independence refers to Natives as “merciless Indian savages.”

The irony was that the restaurant was filled with Native Americans customers and employees and there in plain sight, a poster hanging on the wall was literally calling all of us “savages.”

Read more…

Wenzda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

PINO TACO is moving into full bully mode. The mango chump who would be king has become a royal pain in the ass with his attitude.

This ‘servant of the people’ is screaming about disrespect. “If you spit, we hit.” Or some shit like that.

It’s true playground diplomacy bullshit, a threat worthy of an individual with little mental acumen.

Of course, he lies to embellish his reasoning and thinking for using the military in Los Angeles. Says the whole place is burning down, just like it did before, or some shit like that.

“Los Angeles was under siege until we got there. The police were unable to handle it,” he said, claiming the city was “out of control when we got there.”

That was a surprise to people living and working in Los Angeles. They’re far more worried about unwanted military troops entering their city. But here is Trump, acting like he’s King George III and this is 1775.

Not to be outdone, Gov. Abbott, the Republican Reactionary running Texas, has ordered his state’s national guard to quell unrest this weekend. Just in case, you know. They’ve learned nothing on the right. Escalating tensions and violence only leads to greater escalation. We saw it the colonies in the 1770s. Saw it again in the 1960s. Witnessed it at Kent State. Saw it again at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

And it’s really a problem when a strong-arm government views protestors as insurrectionists and employ their own military to put them down. For Trump to do this after Jan 6 of 2020, when insurrectionists destroyed things, and injured and killed people in his name to overturn the election results, is as hypocritical as anything Trump has ever done.

It’s like saying masks aren’t healthy and then ordering ICE agents to be masked.

Or claiming to be the most unfairly persecuted person ever and then arresting people and deporting them without paperwork, trial, or due process.

But that’s Trump, seeing everything upside down and backwards, leading a group of people who are the same.

Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I was beginning to type that like most of the country, I’m shocked by the GOP reaction of the California fires. Their leaders, like PINO-elect Trump, politicize the disaster and display no empathy. But I realized that I couldn’t claim that ‘most of the country’ feel this way. 31% accept what Trump claims or agree with his sentiments, without regards to the load of lies he puts out. Another 39% are too indifferent to pay attention to the news and are likely unaware of it, except for the fraction of that 39% who live in the affected area.

Meanwhile, demonstrating how classy and courageous they are — yes, that’s 100% pure, unaltered snark — Republicans like the governor of Texas, Abbott, want to raise the flags to full staff on inauguration day. See, the flags are at half mast or half staff to honor one of our previous presidents, James Earl Carter. But he was a Democrat, and in the GOP world, Democrats aren’t deserving of being mentioned in history nor respected except as an evil that must be wiped out. Some possibly — yes, some — are outraged that a previous POTUS isn’t being probably respected. But they mostly remain silent about it. Cuz, you know, they don’t wanna upset his Trumpiness.

This is the same party that bewailed the polarization dividing the country back when Trump was shot at during the election season. Do they recognize that they are pushing divisiveness while decrying it? Possibly. Maybe. Who knows? I say that they don’t, but that’s based on a small subsection of right-wingers I personally speak to, and they never own up to it. Do I recognize that this post attacks the GOP with broad generalizations and also encourages the divisiveness? I sure do, but until a majority of the GOP stands up and acknowledges the outrageous lying, hypocrisy, bigotry, and hatred that permeate their party, I see no reason to mollify my anger about those peckerheads and their behavior.

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