Tag: GOP

Thursdaz’s Theme Music

The sixth day of February has boarded our minds in the year of 2025 CE, a Thursdaz. Crazy frog — our home’s expression for freezing fog, based on a mondetext — has stolen the sunlight, gifting us twilight colors of, gray, white, and black. No snow falling but ‘they’ are warning us that more is on the way. It’s 32 F and greater warmth isn’t anticipated. Snow might be on the way. Or rain.

The primary roads have been plowed here but get off them and yer on yer own. Sidewalks on not cleared, so people must walk on the streets. Everyone gives pedestrians on the roads wide passage but given the environment, I imagine people walking worry with every step about someone losing control of their vehicle.

Weather caused cancellation of my first two lymphedema massage therapy sessions. Another one is scheduled for tomorrow. Also have an appointment for Papi the ginger blade, aka butter butt, Meep, and butter booger, to see what’s going on about his fur shedding.

The Ban Man is at it. Trump bans with a petulant thump. “Ban transsexuals in women’s sports.” Thump. “If I can’t have fun and play sports, neither can they.” “Ban DEI. I’m a rich white guy, born into a wealthy white household. I don’t understand how that was an advantage over others.” Thump. “Ban it all, everything that isn’t me.” Thump.

Of course, the craziness of the first term is still flowering. ‘The U.S. will take over Gaza. Move the Palestinians out.’ What? Friggin’ nuts. Then his ‘team’ scrambles to make it sound sane, plausible, and supported by everyone, and then Trump realizes how nuts he sounded and tries to change what he said. Brother.

It was a busy morning. Friend called to ask advice about his ailing cat. Another called for help with his recalcitrant computer. And, caught up with Mom drama via texts with Mom and a sis. Mom fell again. She refuses assistance and she’s been at war with her live-in boyfriend for months. She’s 89 and he’s 94. I have never witnessed him be anything but polite and nice to her but she declares him mean. My siblings and I have a lifetime of Mom so her claims draw leeriness as a first response. It’s unfortunate but she’s been married multiple times and has had several boyfriends, and drama is her drug. She makes everything contentious with everyone. It’s a sigh-inducing relationship with her.

With that gray-tinged white world staring back at us, it’s no surprise that The Neurons pulled a Cream song, “White Room”, into the morning mental music stream. It’s a Cream favorite o’ mine. A poet, Pete Brown, was responsible for the lyrics, which strike many as enigmatic. I think iyhat pushes me to look inside myself.

My favorite part is this stanza, followed by the chorus.

You said no strings could secure you at the station
Platform ticket, restless diesels,goodbye windows
I walked into such a sad time at the station
As I walked out, felt my own need, just beginning

[Chorus]
I’ll wait in the queue when the trains come back
Lie with you where the shadows run from themselves

h/t to genius.com

I like the way the stanza is belted out, angry, defiant, challenging, before the softly resigned introspection presented by the chorus.

Then, too, there are three phenomenal rock performers demonstrating their craft with bass guitar, lead guitar, and drums. Awesome.

Coffee and I introduced ourselves to one another again and I’m indulging in more caffeine-infused dark goodness. Hope your day offers some escape from the world’s woes and some satisfaction to your plans. Cheers

0

Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Recently caught two Paul Krugman articles. I read one yesterday. This was the post where he shared his tale about why he left the New York Times.

His story illuminated a lot for me. As 2024 progressed and I read his opinions, I thought, what is wrong with Paul Krugman? He is so much less insightful and he seems to be leaning toward the NYT bothsiderism plague. I often found myself begin to read him and then close it because, meh. After he left the Times and began writing on his own, I discovered that he’d regained his sharpness. I’m so much happier to have him out of the NYT yoke and free to comment on the world again, especially the Trumpworld.

Times editors — who deny this — became heavy-handed about Mr. Krugman’s opinions and insights. They rewrote his column, forcing him to rewrite the rewrites. It all became so dumbed down that it wasn’t worth reading.

But he’s back, baby.

That’s a natural transition to Mr. Krugman’s column today: Trump Is Doing Exactly What He Said He Would. Who Could Have Predicted That?

When democracies die, big business and wealthy individuals often play a crucial role in their demise. They provide a would-be strongman with financial support; their control of or influence over news media ensures that he receives favorable coverage, while his opponents are trashed. They do this because they expect to be rewarded with policies that favor their interests and imagine that they will in effect be shareholders in the new autocracy.

What comes next is familiar to anyone who studies history (which the oligarchs don’t.) Eventually it becomes clear that they don’t own the dictator they’ve helped install; he owns them. Maybe they’ll like some of his policies, maybe they won’t, but in any case they’re not in control — and they soon learn that criticizing the big man isn’t just fruitless, it’s dangerous.

In the past this script has typically taken a few years to play out, but this is the internet age, so right now in America the process seems to be taking only a few weeks.

Yep, Paul Krugman nailed it. Trump forced the GOP to be remade in his own image as the Grand Ol’ Trump Party. He brought on billionaires who are interested in having power and money. So guess what, GOP stalwarts? You guys aren’t needed any longer.

MAGA supporters? Naw, Trump can show now that he doesn’t give a shit about you, either.

Rural voters and Evangelicals who said that he shares your values, tells us like it is, and says what we’re thinking? You must have been thinking that th United States doesn’t need a democratic republic any longer. You must have thought that your freedoms and rights would be okay because Trump is like us.

If you haven’t realized yet, he is not like you, not unless you’re white, male, wealthy, selfish, racist, and sexist.

As for you folks who thought he would end wars, cut inflation, and make the United States a better place to live, man are you in for a fucking awakening. Talk ’bout woke! You’ll be woke as the deficit climbs and supply shortages and high prices gut the economy. Bet you’ll be woke as inflation rises and rises.

Those of you who wrung your hands and whined, “The Democrats don’t care about the cost of living enough, so I’m voting for Trump,” have fucked around. If you haven’t found out, you will.

I’ll take it back to Paul Krugman’s post from today to close.

As I get ready to hit the publish button, stock futures are down — but not nearly as much as the situation seems to warrant. Investors still seem to believe that there’s a good chance that Trump will use some minor concessions (about what?) to declare victory and dial the tariffs back. As I wrote about the same time Goldman and Dimon were telling us to chill out, this market complacency is a self-defeating prophecy: muted market reaction makes it likely that Trump will continue and expand his trade war.

And even if some of the tariffs prove temporary, the Rubicon has been crossed. We now know that when the United States signs an agreement, on trade or anything else, the president will treat that agreement as a mere suggestion to be ignored whenever he feels like it. That revelation in itself will do huge long-term damage.

All of this was entirely predictable. But there are none so blind as those who will not see.

0

Munda’s Theme Music

It’s a snow day. We could do with a little snow in Ashlandia but no, why do a little when there’s a lot available?

It’s Munda, Feb. 3, 2025. Thick snow is falling and accumulating, dissing visibility. We have a few inches around our house. But the temperature is hovering right at 32 F here. ‘They’ tell us it will climb to 39 F. What will that do to the snow? Well the traffic cameras tell the story. The storm is coming from the south and east. West and north, there’s less impact. We have variable conditions all around us and it’ll stay like that until tonight, when freezing temperatures take over. Everyone who deals with snow, rain, and freezing overnight temperatures know that outcome.

As for sunshine — what sunshine? Clouds? They’re not visible for the snow. As far as we know, the sky is falling in as small white flakes.

The cats have taken well to the snow. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) has little interest in going out unless the sun is bright, full, and warm. And he’s grown accustomed to this season not being so. Papi, though, always challenges us about being let out. We let him out twice. Second time found him sitting on the porch, watching the snow. He was back in after three minutes. Both then retired to the living room, where the fireplace is going and the blower is kicking warm air across the room.

On to the big news. Beyoncé wins album of the year Grammy. Okay, it was a country album, but still, big accomplishment, right? Big news to fill the weekend gulf when Musk, acting on Trump’s orders, illegally took over computer systems with unvetted people without security clearances or actual positions with the government.

Why, that ol’ Trump. He sure knows how to give the people what they want! They didn’t want all that AID stuff. NO! If they’d wanted that, they would have elected people to Congress to represent them. Then, those people in Congress would have passed an act creating and funding that function.

Which all did happen. The U.S. Agency for International Development was formed in 1961. Congress directs it what to do and provides its funding. As part of the Executive branch the agency then does that. That’s how it’s supposed to work. It’s all part of the checks and balances built into our government’s processes and functions. One man cannot simply say stop.

But he did because Trump gives less than a morning bowel movement about laws and Congress. The GOP is already in his pocket. The Supreme Court ruled that anything he does as POTUS is legal. Or that’s how Trump takes it.

He should be impeached. We know that won’t happen with the GOP in charge. We’ve been down this road before. Few of them have the spine to stand up to Trump. But, hey, the people elected them, too, right?

And this is how the system breaks. This is the fallout of the system coming apart.

I mentioned the Grammy Award because my wife was spitting out curses like a drunken sailor this weekend as she looked at the news. “Look at this news coverage,” I will summarize her as saying, “no wonder this country is going to shit.” Yes, as many of us have noticed, we have infotainment more than news these days. Here’s thirty seconds about Trump, Musk, and the government, and twenty minutes on the Grammies, and a minute on the weather, and five minutes on the NFL Pro Bowl. Now on to sports!

Today, The Neurons have installed “Drive” by R.E.M. in my morning mental music stream. The 1991 song came up because as I thought about all the crap Trump and his minions did this weekend, The Neurons said, “Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.”

Because essentially, the clock is running on inflation, the stock market, the U.S. and economy, after Trump’s moves. And we have judges ruling on his freeze order. And…yes, it’s a list, a list of crimes and transgressions. A list of activity against history, law, and common sense. So…tick. Tock. As the ride commences, we wait for the fallout.

The snow still falls. I’m off to do my writing and then off to a medical appointment. Be safe, and be strong, wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing. Cheers

0

Saturda’s Theme Music

January of 2024 has concluded and we’ve shifted into a new month. Yes, today is Saturday, Feb 1, 2025. It’s foggy, 40, rainy, and foggy in Ashlandia, foggy enough that it’s mentioned twice. Rain commenced early Friday morning and has stayed for Saturday coffee. Looks like it might be here for dinner, too. The respective highs and lows will be 47 and 37 F degrees.

My wife and I were discussing the news yesterday. Talking about what’s going on. That immediately kicked Marvin Gaye up from the mental memory cellar into the morning mental music stream. First up was the song, “What’s Going On”. Released in 1971, Marvin Gaye’s song captured and conveyed the sense of unrest and frustration permeating the nation in those years.

But the rest of the album was also awesome. “Save the Children”. “Mercy Mercy Me”. “Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler)”. I ended up with “Mercy Mercy Me” dominating the morning mental music stream. Gaye’s softly voiced observations, “Things aren’t what they used to be,” resonants with now. Things aren’t what they used to be, and much of it is not good.

The song’s entire title is, “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”. At the time, our environment was a disaster and getting worse. The song’s lyrics reflect this.

Whoa, ah, mercy mercy me
Oh things ain't what they used to be, no no
Where did all the blue skies go?
Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east

Whoa mercy, mercy me,
Oh things ain't what they used to be, no no
Oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas, fish full of mercury

Ah, oh mercy, mercy me
Ah things ain't what they used to be, no no
Radiation under ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying

Oh mercy, mercy me
Oh things ain't what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land
How much more abuse from man can she stand?

h/t to Lyric.com

Concerted efforts were made to clear up the air, land, and sea in the years since. It’s clear that the challenge is never ending. But under this repressive and regressive administration led by Trump, they’re trying to roll that back, too. The motivation behind rolling it back is to make it easier to make more money. Make ‘America First’. Which makes no sense if there’s not air that we can breathe and water that we can drink.

That makes me circle back to, what’s going on? Well, we know what’s going on. The greed of some will kill the people and the planet, and they’re good with that.

As it happens, this is also the beginning of Black History Month. Anytime is a good time to enjoy Marvin Gaye’s powerful talents, but it’s more timely today.

Coffee and I have amended our agreement for me to enjoy its company again today. Hope you have the best day you can. Enjoy the music video. Cheers

2

Wezda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

As Google goes along with the GOTP to switch the names of places on maps, it’s important to remember not to get caught up in the wash. What Google is doing is enabling and aiding Trump by encouraging him but also by trying to distract us, the Constitutional opposition.

Trump and his Project 2025 cohorts are blitzing the federal government and U.S. Constitution. They are working hard to dismember and rewrite hundreds of years of history. Our system of checks and balances, already debilitated by the GOP’s craven lust to remain in power, are under attack through a barrage of illegal activities.

Not surprising. If there’s one thing that Trump understands through his years of cheating others to make money and advance himself, it’s how to work the legal system.

He knows now, yes, legal counters will steadily amass about what he’s doing. But just like the deny and delay tactics employed by insurance companies, Trump and the GOTP will deny and delay, willfully tearing down our society and government in the name of power and greed. Sure, it will be challenged in court, and will ssslllooowwwllly work its way to the Roberts Supreme Court. What will happen there? Pretty unpredictable. Roberts worries more about his legacy than anything else. There’s a strong chance that he’ll convince himself that democracy in the United States has gone to shit — thanks to several previous rulings made by his court, BTW. Once he decides that, he’ll cynically conclude, it’s the ones in power will write his legacy, and will back the GOTP’s bullshit moves.

Craven. Calculating. Cunning. Cruel. Greedy. Unprincipled. Selfish.

That’s the Trump administration. That’s the GOP, now fully transformed into the Grand Old Trump Party, an arm of the Heritage Foundation, supported by MAGAs.

George Conway recently said it well: “Because they are evil, we must stand up to them. But because they are also stupid, we needn’t be afraid to.”

So stand up. Fight. Don’t let them overwhelm you. Resist. Persist.

2

Twosda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I read an excellent analysis by Allison Morrow on CNN the other day: “There’s a reason why it feels like the internet has gone bad”. Ms Morrow goes on to remind us of a term that Cory Doctorow coined several years ago:

Enshittification

Enshittification is the process by which a platform destroys itself. “First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”

The thing about enshittification, though, is that it’s more universal than just social platforms and online endeavors. My wife and I have noticed enshittification taking place in restaurant chains, for example.

Take a chain called Fresh Choice. I don’t know its status these days. When it first came to the SF-SJ bay area, my wife and I loved it. She fluctuates between being a vegan and a vegetarian and all shades in between. Now she eats fish and eggs but not cheese, and never, never eats pork, beef, or fowl. So Fresh Choice, focused on breads, soups, salads and a small dessert offerings, was a reasonably-priced place to go for lunch or dinner.

We had certain favorites, like a squash soup. But then one month, it tasted different. Now, we don’t have evidence but we believe that Fresh Choice was using quality ingredients. But to sustain their profit margins and reduce costs as they expanded, they switched ingredients to less expensive ingredients. We soon no longer found the food as tasty. Then they raised prices. Started doing different levels of purchases, if I recall right. The cleanliness of the local franchise declined, and the wait staff became less friendly. We ceased going.

The thing is, we knew enshittification without naming it, because we’ve seen this happen time and again to businesses. We saw it happen to cable companies and phone companies. Internet streaming services. The airlines, of course, are big examples of enshittification, reducing legroom, monetizing every aspect of travel, stealing away all the aspects we used to take for granted as part of the flying experiences.

As Ms Morrow noted, “In other words: Products are good when they first hit the market, because companies need to lock in as many consumers as they can to achieve the huge scale they desire. Once everyone’s using the product, the company refocuses on creating value for business partners, padding its profit margins and letting the product corrode. Eventually, the company maxes out what it can extract from its business partners, too, and the whole thing fades into obsolescence.

Once you wrap your head around the idea, you start to see enshittification all around — not only online, but across the economy, in services that have been picked over by private equity (vet clinics, nursing homes, prisons, countless other industries) or in the products peddled by highly concentrated industries.

I’ll go one further, though. I think the GOP is undergoing the process of enshittification. As Mr Doctorow said in a Nightline interview, “In terms of the future of enshittification, these platforms that have hollowed themselves out, where there’s just no value left in them except this kind of awful lock-in. It’s the old “we go broke a little, and then all at once.””

That’s this century’s GOP, hollowed out, going for broke. Enshittified, with a shitty leader and a shitty agenda. Let’s hope that we survive as a democratic nation and don’t become too enshittified while MAGA is in power. More than hoping, let’s work against our nation becoming enshittified.

0

Wezda’s Theme Music

Mood: sunshiny

Man, it’s a gorgeous day outside my windows. My first look was south and west. Blue sky. A few clouds and contrails. Sunshine. Appeared to be a late fall day. A litle deceiving as further gazing brought out frost speckling the bare earth and laying on roofs. Temp was 30 F. High of 51 could be. After looking out that side and inhaling sunshine, I headed for the back windows and a view to the east and south. Still sunny. Woo hoo.

Amazed and amused how the MSM addressed PINO-elect Trump’s Monday comments. These were regarding the possible invasion of other countries. Adding states like Panama, Canada, and Greenland. No doubt he (DJT) loves the attention he gets from saying such garbage. It also distracts from the real business taking place. Like he’s the Wizard of Trump, faking people out, insisting, pay no attention to the man behind the curtains. But a CNN article summarized Trump’s comments as — paraphrasing — different from presidents of both parties in the last few decades. Yeah, NS; you’d need to go back in history for a point where the POTUS was talking about taking land from other countries. I guess they felt a need to make a sober and unbiased statement about it.

Of course, if you’re talking about invading other countries, you know, just for the sake of that other country and, you know, freedom and democracy, or regime change, you don’t need to go so far. And just like true Republicans of the last few decades, they’re eager to look at other countries — say, the UK — and declare how that country needs to be changed while ignoring the shit conditions their policies build at home. Their vision is often shaped by greed, so it’s frequently myopic and narrow. They are very good at Orwell-speak though, and doubletalk, so they can’t be discounted. And, with a third of the country voting them in and a third not voting at all, well, hell, they feel a mandate to do whatever they want has been achieved.

Good news on the social media front. Women can now be called household objects on Meta platforms. I’m sure that will advance the causes of freedom of speech and democracy. Yep, that was snark.

The sunny weather has inspired today’s theme music. Live local, right? So looking out those windows and seeing sunshine, The Neurons adopted a cheerful attitude and put “On the Sunny Side of the Street” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark warming). Mom played versions of the song by several while I was a child. I became familiar with versions by L. Armstrong, T. Dorset, D. Day, and Nat King Cole, among others. I checked out several versions online and stayed with Satchmo on The Ed Sullivan Show. Hope you found it favorable as your day’s theme music. I find it a song that’s amenable to lyric variations. Fer instance, I used to sing, “Life can be so sweet with a cat sitting on your feet.” That was inspired by our cat, who liked to sit on our feet. Strange girl but ever so sweet.

Coffee and I ground out an agreement in the kitchen. Here’s the music, and away we go. Have a good Wezda, Jan 8, 2025. Cheers

3

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.

0

Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

The 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, passed away this week at the age of 100. Andy Borowitz had a simple, short statement about President Carter, and what he represented to the nation, and to voters, and contrasted it to what the Republicans keep offering us. The GOP seems to want to take us and keep us in a cesspool.

“Jimmy Carter Deserved Better. So Do We.”

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑