Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
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
Some insights from the net on the Kirk assassination and right-wing hypocrisy.
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 political observations from the worldwide net to anger and amuse you, and one to remind you to hope.
Interesting, innit?
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
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.
| 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.” |
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.
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.
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.
As a progressive, as a Democrat, I’m often told by Republicans that we ‘libruls’ and ‘dems’ or ‘dumbocrats’ hate America, and that if we hate America, we should leave it. Take our freedom-hating communist thinking (or sometimes they call it fascist because they don’t know what that is) and go to another country. They’re implying that the United States is not our country.
And they’re right in that part. Not when the GOP has a convention — CPAC, one of their largest every year — where they highlight speakers are calling for the end of democracy in America, and the attendees cheer. See, Democrats still support democracy in America; Republicans, in their own words, do not.
Jill has the full story, videos, links, and all.
Mood: goopy
Hey guys, here we are, on Wednesday, 02212024. Or 21022024. Or 20240221. All are right, depending on your region, or maybe your profession.
Sprinter has popped back into Ashlandia. Dollops of gray clouds drop rain that glisten with sunshine. Everything is blooming. Snow? What is this thing called snow? Describe it for me, please. Amendment: that was snark. There’s some snow on the mountains shadowing our valley.
It’s 46 F now, and we’re projected to progress to 57 F before the sun pulls the shades on the day and the weather unplugs the warmth. 36 F will be our low tonight. Not bad.
I’m into GOP politics today. Trump’s changing stories about the classified documents he wouldn’t give up keeps me laughing. There were no classified documents because he declassified them, he said at first. Oh, wait, the FBI planted it there. No, no, I didn’t have to turn it over he’s saying now, and we were talking about turning them over when the FBI raided Mar-a-largo. Which, if we follow his thinking, means there were classified documents which he hadn’t turned over, so he lied from the start. And it was protected better than Biden’s classified documents, which is irrelevant, and shows again, that there were classified materials which he didn’t turn over. Doesn’t matter how protected he claims the classified documents were. The point is, he wasn’t supposed to have them, was supposed to return them, tried to hide them, and continually lied about them.
His continuing spin is worthy of a soap opera. “As the Trump Turns” or “General Bullshit”, we can call his shitshow. Who in their right mind will believe these shifting sands of explanations?
Well, I wrote, ‘in their right mind’. That eliminates many GOP members, politicians, and supporters. Take for instance, the state of play with electing and retaining a speaker. The maniac arm of the MAGA GOP make it a point of contention to turn down any bill or measure that might be actual governing, and then forced Speaker McCarthy out after he so desperately pursued the office. Now Mike Johnson has taken over and faces the same demonic situation. Then these fine representatives blamed everyone else for the mayhem they keep causing.
For example, look at the immigration issue. The GOP and their supporters are supposedly up in arms about that problem. GOP state governors are declaring that President Biden and the Democrats aren’t doing enough, even as GOP governors illegally block the Federal government from taking action. Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill, a bi-partisan bill was created only to have the Speaker and the maniacs withdraw support on orders from Dear Leader, Donald Trump. All but Trump supporters see through this play. Trump and the spineless GOP don’t want an effective answer for the immigration issue and the southern border at this time. Yet one of the maniacs, Marjorie Taylor Green, predictably steps up to complain nothing is being done even after she voted to do nothing.
Their hypocrisy is breathtaking but not surprising. The Trump GOP thrives on selling fear on the issue to their supporters. If a bill is passed, that makes President Biden and the Democrats look effective. The GOP can’t do that! That’s about the single issue they can depend on at this point to keep supporters in line because they’ve fucked themselves with complete abortion bans and the persecution of women for daring to try to make decisions about their own bodies. Now they’re fucking themselves over supporting NATO and the Ukraine. They’re abandoning everything the United States became after WWII.
If you didn’t understand it before, understand it now. The Trump GOP is not progressive. Throwbacks to the Nazi Germany era, the Trump GOP is willing to support a dictator on the basis of no other position but to stay in power. They fear everyone but whites. They even attack powerful women — say a young singer like Taylor Swift, to name one of many women they’ve attacked under Trump — and are eager to shut everyone down except white men, especially wealthy white men. They love themselves wealthy white men and bend over to fuck themselves if they can help wealthy white men. That wealthy white men will save the world is the foundation of their trickledown theory of government.
We shouldn’t be surprised. White ‘Christians’ are one of the GOP’s largest sects. They’ve been afraid of Jews since before WWII and have been eager to undermine democracy in order to stop the Jews. All this is fed by baseless conspiracies. The GOP, as it’s evolved, has depended more and more upon unfounded conspiracy theories to garner support. Are we witnessing its zenith as they support the baseless lies — proven in US courts — that Donald Trump had the election stolen from him, and that they government is actually being run by a shadow government? What happens in the elections of 2024 will reveal much about the GOP and the foundations of democratic republic known as the United States.
With all this happening, The Neurons started singing, “Don’t mess with a MAGA man,” this morning. Up popped the Eurythmics with “Missionary Man” (1986) in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). It’s an ironic use by The Neurons as they chuckle at the GOP white christians and evangelicals declare that the serial sinner, liar, and adulterer known as Donald J. Trump, a very wealthy man who hoards his wealth and hates any and all who dare criticize him, threatening violence at every turn, is God’s chosen to lead the United States. I need to ask, lead the United States into what? At any rate, to return to the song, GOP politicians at every level eagerly support the MAGA man and dare the rest of us to mess with him.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and please vote. Here’s the music. Coffee guzzling has commenced. On to other writing. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 