Just other folks’ net thoughts and concerns.
Makes You Wonder
Twosdaz Wandering Political Thoughts
A snowball is slowing rolling down over the economy, picking up speed and getting larger.
This is the oncoming Trump economic disaster. The signs are exponentially expanding.
‘Panic rippling’: Coffee exec warns ‘things are getting very dark’ under Trump
Trump Threatens Powell With ‘Lawsuit’ as His Economy Sinks
Trump Promised to Fix Inflation. He’s Doing This Instead.
US consumer prices increase moderately in July; data quality concerns rising
Trump Promised a Golden Age. Then a Montana Lumber Plant Closed Down.
‘Bad for America’: Trump dressed down by WaPo editors for latest side deal
Trump BLS pick suggests suspending monthly jobs report over data concerns
Things just ain’t going well for Americans, and it will get worse. As they awaken to their issues brought on by the reckless incompetent installed in the Offal Office, they’re beginning to reject TACO’s ‘leadership’. As confidence in Trump and the United States economy falls, he’ll get more reckless. More desperate. As the snowball picks up speed and starts wrecking more of the nation, Trump will go off the rails. ta
And that’s a problem. Trump has insulated himself from facts and reality by building a wall of protective sycophants. Republicans in Congress are willing accomplices to Trump’s disastrous behavior. Right-wingers on the Supreme Court are working hard to give him the green light to do as he will. All of them are doing their damnedest to ignore what history has proven and what the facts are showing.
We’ll see what happens when that snowball crashes full on into the economy. At the current rate, it might well be around Black Friday, that hallowed retail day. Maybe then there will be a reckoning.
Until then, we need to hang on and fight the Trump craziness.
Thirstda’s Wandering Political Thoughts
I just want to note. Children are dying of starvation around the world, but most especially, most visibly, in Gaza. And the self-described ‘pro-life’ party in power, the ones who hounds every woman seeking an abortion with religious zeal while screaming about the sanctity of life is doing fuck all about the dying children. No, the greedy Republicans like Speaker Johnson and Donald Trump are focused on making money and saving money, and protecting Trump from the Epstein Files fall out and exposure as a pedophile.
As always, actions speak louder than words. The GOP’s actions scream with hypocrisy.
Mundaz Wandering Political Thoughts
Time to take stock of other people’s thoughts and insights into the current political scene in ‘Murica 2025.
Sadly, too many voters did not realize what the lesson was.
It’s the Trump shuffle, a dazzling tapdance of deflection, projections, and lies that easily beguiles the weak-minded.
He admits the affair but denies the abortions. He won’t run for re-election. Wonder if he’ll end up in the Trump Regime. He has the record for it.
Yep. It’s a metaphor. Funny that it’s probably driven by Trump’s mind. His subconscious is trying to tell him that he’s turning the nation into a sewer.
Yep, the greedy, unprincipled Offal Office liar is living up to his rep as a greedy, unprincipled liar
Those who chose to put on blinders and pretend that the past was different than what history says are doomed to keep trying to rewrite it.
The fact that nobody around him has told him this isn’t how numbers work shows you how afraid of him everyone who works for him is. The fact that he doesn’t know after being in business his entire adult life also explains his many bankruptcies.
That’s the TACO way!
And a final reminder:
Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. With Trump. Smirking together.
Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts
It’s just another WTF morning. Emil Bove was confirmed by the Senate to be a .
You might have more than one Emil Bove in your contact list. This Emil Bove was Trump’s personal lawyer. I know, that starts a gag reflex, doesn’t it? A whistleblower came forward before and reported that this honorable individual, sworn to uphold the law, told people to blow off the courts.
Bove reportedly “stressed to all in attendance that planes needed to take off no matter what,” though he also noted “the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated.”
The suggested response? “Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order,” per Reuveni’s report.
His response to questions about this was that he didn’t recall. Well, of course this ‘honorable man’ didn’t recall saying such things. Despite that, other whistleblowers emerge to reveal this individual’s corrupted character. Republicans, as they’re prone to do in this era, ignored facts and truths and hurried on to curry favor with TACO. So now, Emil Bove has a lifetime appointment as a judge in that same legal system which he told other lawyers to ignore.
But what did you expect at this point for the United States Senate? Voters, led by Republicans, elected an embecile for POTUS. Not just an embecile, but a felon, convicted in court. A sludge of being who’s been accused of being a rapist multiple times.
- A person desperately trying to squirm away from being connected to Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes despite aircraft flight logs, anecdotes, news articles, and photographs.
- A decadent and disgusting individual recorded as saying derogatory things about women, such as “Grab them by the pussy.”
- An individual, who, when accused of rape, didn’t deny it but instead said, “She’s not my type.”
- An idiot of a human being who drew a map to overrule what experts said about a hurricane’s landfall, a brainless meatbag who claimed, “I would never golf,” because he would be too busy and has since mostly golfed.
- A liar, documented and caught in lies well over 30,000 times and counting. One factcheckers catch telling a lie in almost every speech and statement he makes.
With that piece of puke as their leader, were there real expectations that Republicans would find a backbone and vote down his personally endorsed nominee?
Come on, man.
Twosdaz Wandering Political Thoughts
A couple bits of political news seized my neurons last night and today. All are about Trump, one way or another.
First comes Trump’s announcement about Epstein. “Trump says he ended friendship with Epstein because he ‘stole people that worked for me'” Trump was not concerned about reports of predatory behavior, sex trafficking, rapes, and child abuse. No. Trump was upset that Epstein hired people away from Trump’s businesses. Real empathy on display there, isn’t there?
Along those lines, many of us were aghast about Trump’s word choice when talking to reporters about Epstein Island. Trump said that he never had the privilege of visiting Epstein Island. A place shrouded with horror stories, part of the fabric of the cases against Epstein and Maxwell, and Trump says he ‘never had the privilege’. He’s such a mindless, empty buffoon.
Comedians rightfully tore Trump apart on it.
“Trump was like, ‘I’m sorry, what I really meant was I never had the honor.” — JIMMY FALLON
“[imitating Epstein] ‘Hey, Donald, want go to the island this weekend?’ ‘[imitating Trump] Well, first of all, Jeffrey, thank you for thinking of me. Unfortunately, that’s the weekend that the teen pageant that I bought is installing the indoor security locker room cameras.’” — JON STEWART
“[imitating Trump] Sadly, I never had the honor of dining with Jeffrey Dahmer.” — STEPHEN COLBERT
Finally, Senator Durbin gave me some fleeting satisfaction. This was at a recent Senate Judiciary hearing where ‘esteemed’ Republican senators are eager to help give Trump cover. To do that, they want to investigate President Biden’s state of health. Durbin ably points out all the things going on which are way more critical which should be investigated, and ends with a montage of asinine Trump statements that really make you wonder about Trump’s mental health.
Senator Durbin points out that during a Trump meeting with UK personnel, Trump trumpeted that they have an agreement with the EU. UK has not been a part of the EU for five years. You’d think that the President should know that.
Trump also noted, “The kidney has a special place in the heart.”
Then there is the gem when discussing Hurricane Florence, “This is a tough hurricane, One of the wettest we’ve ever seen from the standpoint of water.” I’m glad he clarified that. I thought he might be mentioning it from the standpoint of beer, coffee, or dirt.
The Grand Old Trump Party — GOTP, for short — will never take up investigations of the Dear Leader, of course. They instead try to deflect, attempting again and again to blame Democrats and Presidents Obama and Biden for the economy, Epstein affair, or whatever draws negative attention to this. You’d think that people would be waking up.
But, no. I read a disheartening interview with Latino Trump voters in the NY Times.
Joe, 69, Colo., Republican, retired
I am also very conservative. I have a deep faith. And I think our religious freedoms are being eroded away. But I am optimistic. I think things could change.
Moderator, Kristen Soltis Anderson
What makes you optimistic that things could change?
Joe, 69, Colo., Republican, retired
We have a good president. If Congress will just get behind him and back him up, I think there’s a lot of good he could do for us.
After reading that piece and these voters’ thoughts, I remember, many will not change until something affects them personally.
Time will tell if it’ll be too late for them, and too late for us.
Twosdaz Theme Music
Welcome friends, come in, come in, to Twosda, July 29, 2025. I suspect many of you are like my niece and l’il sister, plotting back-to skool strategies for buying gear and deciphering starting days, agendas, and schedules. We have a while yet here in Ashlandia. The first signs will be the changing of the signs at the schools, making their public announcements for their start dates. Then comes newspaper articles and the police staking out the school zones to remind everyone that those are school zones.
Weird thinking of BTS activities when we’re still in summer’s hot throes. 68 F now, we’re humping up to 93 F tomorrow. The dry conditions have caused red flag warnings about fire dangers. As we heard about this, my wife remarked, “I don’t even know what our evacuation zone is.”
I replied, “We’re Ashland Zone 4.” Her look back pleased and delighted me, as she was clearly impressed that I knew. I added, “There’s a sign on every road intersecting with Siskiyou on the south end of town, telling us what zone the road is in.” Siskiyou Boulevard is the main drag through town, becoming highway 99 as it leaves the northern end.
Her eyes widened. “There is?”
I’ve been enamored with the WSLS Sky Cam focused on some bobcats. Three bobcats were rescued from dire circumstances with deceased or missing mothers in southwest Virginia and are being raised to be released back into the wild. They’re not related bobs. Here’s their story at this link.
The young cats sleep during the day and are active and playful at night, and the camera isn’t at its best at night. But I like to look in when I can and wish them a good life, fingers crossed and all that. This is their live video feed: https://www.wsls.com/watchlive/ The page has several there so you need to look around for the enclosure and click on it.
Seeing those little ones prompted The Neurons to spin up “End of the Tiger” by Survivor from 1982. Most people know the song as one of the Sylvestor Stallone Rocky theme songs. It won some grammys and was nominated for an Oscar, and is often used in sports and politics, usually without permission. The vocalist, Jimi Jamison, based away from a brain stroke in 2014, 63 years old.
I have political thoughts but I’m not going in to them now. Lot of gun violence out there in the United States this week. More critically, we’re waiting for news about the economy. Even more urgently and critically, we’re searching for leadership and answers about the horror-show starvation in Gaza. The U.S. used to be humanitarian enough to try to assuage such situations. Under Trump and his right-wing United States centric thinking and desire to ‘cut fraud, waste, and abuse’ *cough cough cough*, Trump and the Grand Old Greedy Party are disinclined to help any but the wealthy, white, and right wing.
I’m gonna try to have the best Twosda that I can. Hope you do the same. Coffee has been drunk. Time to press to test one more time. Cheers
Fridaz Wandering Poliical Thoughts
Huzzah! The Enshittification of the United States continues at a shitty pace in the United States under PINO TACO. In this story, we have TACO’s full fears on display. See, under the deal approved by the FCC under Trump for Skydance to acquire Paramount, ARSTechnica is reporting that TACO’s regime is permitted to influence editorials at CBS.
Are you ready for a laugh? Here’s what one of the Republican commissioners approving it said:
“Under the agreement, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr explained that Skydance has given assurances that all of the new company’s programming will embody “a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum.” Carr claimed that the requirements were necessary to restore Americans’ trust in mainstream media, backing conservatives’ claims that media is biased against Trump and appointing an ombudsman for two years to ensure that CBS’s reporting “will be fair, unbiased, and fact-based.” Any complaints of bias that the ombudsman receives will be reviewed by the president of New Paramount, the FCC confirmed.“
*giggle giggle giggle* So fucking hilarious. They — the lyin’ right wing, led by the lyin’ Trump — are gonna ‘restore trust’ in the mainstream media.
Trump has been at war with the media, mainstream or not, whenever they criticize him. Screaming, “Fake news!”, TACO waddles hastily away from any confrontation with facts and reality. Want the truth of that? Hell, it’s all over our news for the last dozen years. Just harken back to when Trump kept insisting that President Obama prove that that he was born in the United States, a fact that had been proven and vetted again and again. Trump pushed that fake news all the way, while insisting it was the truth, and then tried to blame it all on Hillary Clinton.
Look at TACO’s dodging and weaving to prove he never had an affair with Stormy Daniels and never paid her off. Just ask Michael Cohen and Hope Hicks about that.
How ’bout that whopper he keeps telling about the 2020 election being stolen from him, a claim never proven and thrown out of court over 60 times?
Last year, while running for President, he pushed the lie that immigrants were eating pets.
Let us consider the current truth Trump is trying to bury, that he and Jeffrey Epstein were never a thing. The latest laughing about the truth of that is how fast Trump’s AG, Bondi, went from saying “the list is on my desk” to Trump and the DOJ claiming there is no list.
Epstein & Trump, BFFs
Trump buries his financial records because he fears the truth. He hides his school records because the truth about them is too much for him to handle. He’s lied and cheated throughout his entire adult life, cheating on wives, cheating on business partners, cheating students at Trump University, cheating investors cheating contractors, and lying about it all.
TACO and the GOTP. They can’t handle the truth. That’s why Trump is always chickening out.
Now it looks like Skydance, Paramount, and CBS can’t handle the truth, either.
What a pathetic bunch of losers.
Twosdaz Wandering Political Thoughts
Just a few tidbits of interest sucked in the grey thinking thingies in me today.
One that was sort of interesting in the course of conversations about inflation, the stock market, tariffs, unemployment, moving manufacturing the U.S., and the economy:
Ford CEO says rare earths shortage forced it to shut factory
This happened back in June. Ford CEO Jim Farley said the slowing critical minerals from China into the U.S. has presented a challenge.
“It’s day to day,” he told Bloomberg TV Friday. “We have had to shut down factories. It’s hand-to-mouth right now.”
Trump has responded by claiming that he’s convinced China to send the U.S. the rare earth minerals without mentioning that China responded as they did when he shoved huge tariffs down China’s throat and stopping visas Chinese students. Mines are supposed to be ramping up rare earth mineral production in the U.S. (Wyoming, Texas, and California) but how long until that gap is closed? ‘Ramping up’ normally takes a while.
Meanwhile, the heat is on in D.C. over the Epstein files. Many, like Trump, asks, why didn’t the Democrats release the files when President Biden was in the White House? Well, first, the records were sealed by a court, and President Biden respects due process. But also, Trump ran on a promise to release them. MAGALand wants that campaign promise fulfilled. It’s important to them because it’s supposed to be all about how terrible the Dems are. The reality may be much different.
As usual, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. That doesn’t include Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans. When the going gets tough, they hurry away as fast as possible.
“We’re not going to play political games with this,” Johnson said in a news conference July 22.
Because Trump is a Republican, Johnson didn’t add, because we have mounds of evidence about how differently the Republicans respond to accusations about their bloated God. Instead, Johnson, ‘not playing political games’, called for an early recess.
Finally, one distraction the Trump Regime threw out in their “Squirrel!” distraction tactics was to accuse President Obama of criminal allegations. It’s a terribly pathetic and desperate move, but when you move against facts and truth, pathetic desperation is your MO. Fact checkers have taken to the Trump Regime claims and have come out with the results: ‘Simply doesn’t come close’: Fact-checker takes seconds to dismantle Trump’s Obama claim.
Fortunately for Trump and his Greedy Old Trump Party, often just called the GOTP, Ozzy Osbourne has passed away at 76. That will take some heat off them as the media and public turn their attention to Ozzy and his career.
Twosda’s Theme Music
Cool air regales us today, Twosda, July 15, 2025, in Ashlandia. Tiny wet old smoke offset’s the mountain air’s freshes. We’ll live. 68 F now, 97 F is forecasted. We saw 99.3 at our house yesterday but didn’t need the A/C. A clear blue sky and focused sun says, yeah, this might be a hot one.
On local news, the talk is about affordable housing. Affordable housing has been discussed since I moved here twenty years ago, along with growth. Each time ‘affordable housing’ is approved and built, investors snatch it up to flip or rent out. So it’s all been 20 years of talk and churn with no substantial changes.
Our local economy isn’t doing well. Ashland depends on tourism and Southern Oregon University (SOU) for the most part, along with some spotty light industry, mostly related to outdoor tourism, and of course, healthcare. Wineries and breweries give us two more legs. Beyond that, we have a service based economy, as most residents are older and retired. Tourism has been damaged by heat, wildfires, and smoke. Tourism’s centerpiece is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, assisted by a series of outdoor concerts called the Britt Festival. Both were heavily cratered by smoke, heat, and wildfires. The pandemic then knocked tourism back again just when recovery began. Now we hold our breath, cross our fingers, and wait to feel what Trump’s attacks on people, trade, common sense and other nations does to tourism.
Meanwhile, healthcare’s rising costs have driven costcutting, layoffs, and firings to that local industry. The Greedy Ol’ Trump Party’s monstrous bill is expected to implode rural healthcare activities, and we’re part of that scene.
Finally, SOU has announced that enrollment has declined again. Tuition has been raised but they can’t keep raising it, so they’ve cut staff and programs. Desperate for money, they’re planning to shift some unused parts of their their campus into that fast-growing industry, assisted living. But again, the greed propelled GOTP absurdly named ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is expected to body slam education at all levels. Trump has cut Pell Grants and other programs, and that will leave a mark.
Underlying all of it: Trump’s charge to deny climate change and do nothing except punish those who do try to talk about it and address its impacts and causes. But climate change will affect the beer and wine industry, tourism, and wildfires. Did I mention that insurance companies withdrew from providing coverage in the area?
BTW, talk is about more than just this. We’re also talking a lot about deer, as they’ve become aggressive and attack dogs and people walking dogs.
Today’s song is “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie. The Neurons slotted the 1974 song into the morning mental music stream for reasons they closehold and don’t disclose.
In a final comment on the morning, the local Internet, and by local, I mean ‘at my house’, is very sluggish. Anything happening to it out there in the world? Probably, but when will we learn?
Have the best day you can. I hope it’s excellent. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 