Trump keeps trying to dodge the truth. The UK won’t let them.
Thank You, UK
Floofllantis
Floofllantis (floofinition) – To brighten a space or existence with an animal’s representation or presence. Origins: Floof Marketing PLC, 1999.
In Use: “During the pandemic, when people were urged to stay home and many businesses were shuttered, the popularity of floofllantis grew, resulting in a large increase in housepets.”
In Use: “Realizing how the Internet could be employed to enhance animals’ situations, Floof Marketing PLC launched the first floofllantis campaign, urging existing housepets to act silly, cute, loving, or interesting to entice their hoomans to share videos on the net.”
Twozdaz Wandering Political Thoughts
My thoughts are drawn to our local political scene. Ashlandia is a small town, dependent on tourism for most of its business revenue. Ashlandia is home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which puts on several plays from March to November. A local university, Southern Oregon University, supplements the employment base by hiring people for its needs. Adjacent to rivers and a ski resort helps draw more tourism for us. We also have multiple local breweries and wineries. Other than that, we’re mostly restaurants, coffee shops, a couple bookstores, head shops selling THC and CBD products, and several grocery stores.
With tourism down, we’ve been struggling as a town. Tourism was driven down over ten years ago by droughts which lasted several years ago, deepening into a serious problem which called for water rationing, followed by smoke pollution from wildfires. Plays were cancelled due to these threats. Outdoor activities were curtailed. Then the pandemic struck, with all that it delivered to the table. Finally, Trump has struck. Just as tourism was beginning to rebound, his xenophobic policies and tariffs take another axe to our numbers. Local services were also curtailed due to grant cuts and budget cuts. SOU enrollment is down…again. Tuition is up…again. SOU programs and classes were cut…again.
With all this afflicting us, the city was strapped for cash and has a budget deficit. Besides those issues, we also have a homeless problem. Trump’s cuts did us no favors on that front.
Into this cauldron of difficulties come our local government leaders. Their solutions.
- Cut back on park maintenance and add service fees to local utility bills to make up the parks deficit.
- Build a new park. Mind you, they’re short of funds to take care of the existing parks, but WTH.
- Shut down the senior center and pool. Because they’re short of funds, they couldn’t hire the people needed to keep those open. But let’s build a new park that we don’t have the money to maintain.
- Give BIG pay raises to the city management staff, especially the city manager. Because, hey, with this budget deficit, revenue down, and tourism down, we need to ensure they’re better compensated than We the People, the Ashlandia denizens.
- And let’s cut essential service staff after giving those pay raises because you know, less people are better. We’ll also cut the hours to the utility and city offices because we need to cut expenses.
They even, from time to time, talk about doing away with the police department because it costs too much.
The city manager states, without evidence, that the new park will draw tourists. Ashland already has Lithia Park, Hunter Park, Garfield Park, Clay Street Park, and a half dozen more. Their facilities are being closed because of budget deficits. Sure, the water park shut off the water this summer because we lacked the funds for the water and staff to run it, and Mountain Park is mostly closed for the same reason, but let’s build another park to draw more tourists.
That makes a lot of sense. Not.
Satyrdaz Wandering Political Thoughts
Some insights from the net on the Kirk assassination and right-wing hypocrisy.
Fridaz Wandering Political Thoughts
Unfettered by good sense, morality, or wise advisors, Trump is more frequently turning to violence for answers. A few months ago, he sent the U.S. national guard to LA on trumped up ideas about ‘restoring the city’. All with half a brain knew we were witnessing political theater and an attempt to intimidate anyone who opposes him. He’s threatened or used the same tactics on other cities, including the nation’s capitol, Washington, D.C. Each time, these are ‘blue’ cities, which means the Democratic Party holds many leadership positions. Each time, too, the facts about crime rates and violence which he cites are absolute lies.
Trump employed the U.S. military to attack Iran to destroy their nuclear weapons capabilities. Its success is questionable. Since then, he used the U.S. military to attack and kill eleven people in international waters. He gave no evidence to justify his actions. Acting like the king he thinks he is, he’s decided he has a divine right to attack and kill others if he deems them a threat. He’s shown the same disregard for intelligence, critical thought, and law as his minions employ armed and masked ICE agents to disappear people, regardless of their legal status, often making up questionable reasons for their actions.
Now, when someone who supported him, Charlie Kirk, a person who advocated violence, was killed, Trump blamed, without evidence, ‘radical left violence’. In his catalogue of political violence, Trump never mentions the violence he has advocated. He never mentions his supporters’ attack on Congress on Jan 6. Instead, he pardoned those people and rewarded one who was killed while breaking in and refusing police officer’s orders to stop. As Robert Reich writes, Trump never mentions Democrats who have been shot and killed. Trump calls Democrats enemies of the United States and treats them as such. He likes to make believe that he’s as strong and ethical as fictional characters like Superman.
But Trump, with his words and behavior, continues to display his brand as a bully, a divider who preaches hate. He’s a threat to common sense, peace, and justice, and he needs to face facts for a change and step up and take responsibility for the rising violence and polarization in the United States.
Before it worsens.
Memories
Jill Dennison published a thoughtful post regarding the 9/11 attacks. Like many, I know exactly where I was and what I was doing. For some reason, early that morning, I woke up suddenly ill and went down to the living room at our home in California. Settling on the sofa under a blanket, I turned on the television and heard the news of the first attack. Then, as I watched, I saw the second aircraft strike. It was a very surreal time. My wife recalls it and always comments that it’s not like me to go down and turn on the television like that. She always felt that I had some sort of psychic reaction to the mass deaths that drove me out of sleep.
Thirstdaz Theme Music
We’re in a weather triangle, a tangle of seasonal changes. Summer is drifting away, taking its warmth and going elsewhere. Today’s high is 75 F, an eleven-degree scramble from our current posture. Thunderstorms threaten again. Looking back, we had few days over 100 F, a relief from previous years when clusters of such days savaged us. Much more rain is visited upon us than usual, allaying drought worries. For the record, this is Thirstda, September 11, 2025.
So, here we sit, looking back at 9/11 while pondering the assassination of Charles Kirk. I’m in a triangulation of despair about the U.S.’s polarization and violence, lamenting, another gun killing, and dismayed reflection on Kirk’s rhetoric, spewed often, about killing others. Some will say that his death by gun seems karmic; he’s reaping what he ordered for others. We’ll see the question, is this a tipping point for the U.S., often played out. We won’t know until we’re further down the road. What we do know is that Kirk, as we often see from the right in the U.S. in this age, cherry-picked Bible verses to foment resentment, hate, and violence. What we also expect is some spillage from the conspiracy machine, trying to use Kirk’s death as a wedge between us, trying to make a bad situation worse. Unfortunately, that’s how some people now think.
There’s one clear bennie for Trump from this, in that Kirk’s death will be a distraction and take some pressure off Trump about his relationship with Epstein and lessen the drumbeat to release the files.
Meanwhile, from down south in northern California, emerged a story about vanishing rural hospitals. SF Gate reports, “The closure of Glenn Medical Center, located north of Sacramento in remote Glenn County, is expected to happen as soon as next month. It’s one of at least 28 anticipated hospital closures in rural California, which is confronting financial hardship under the Trump administration’s punitive health care policies that include cracking down on access to coverage for patients who are in the country without permission.” The county housing Glenn Medical Center went for Trump 2:1. FAFO.
The problem with writing this off as FAFO and moving on is that thinking people know the reciprocal and collateral effects of rural hospitals shutting down. Beyond the simple impact that those citizens will now need to travel further for healthcare, their healthcare will decline. It’s inevitable. To travel further, they’ll need to take more time off from work. Most will resist doing that, resist making those trips. That’s often how the human mind works. They’ll hold off for whatever rationalizations they fed themselves and then it will be too late for some. Unemployment will climb as these hospitals and medical centers close. The lack of such facilities will make these communities less attractive for living and business opportunities. What company will want to move a factory there, when basics like medical treatment is limited? The ironic center of all this is that they’re Trump voters and brought it on themselves by supporting Trump and his agenda. There’s no joy in seeing and knowing that. Just weariness.
Today’s song is by the Rolling Stones. This is a 1968 beat. “Sympathy for the Devil” focuses on human violence through Satan’s viewpoint. “Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name. But what’s puzzlin’ you is the nature of my game.”
I watched with glee while your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades for the gods they made
I shouted out, “Who killed the Kennedys?”
When, after all, it was you and me
Let me please introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reach Bombay
h/t to Genius.com
So now we shout out, who killed Charles Kirk? When after all, it’s you and me, and our polarized, paralyzed government. Pleased to meet you.
On to a ‘new day’. Coffee has blessed my taste buds. May grace and peace find us all. Cheers
Thirstdaz Theme Music
A warmish night granted us a muggy, warmish day. It’s still summer, Thirstda, September 4, 2025. 90 F now, 95 to 97 F will mark the thermometer before the day’s end.
Pretty freaking funny that Trump’s Never Surrender Inc PAC has surrendered to Trump dying. They’ve made that clear by asking MAGA donors for small donations in an email with the subject line, “I want to try and get to Heaven”. Trump is obviously depending on Riches 1:666, in the Bible. Riches 1:666 says, “In my father’s house, there are many rooms and elevators, but only one elevator goes to heaven. For God so loves money that he rewards those who die with the most cash on hand with an express elevator to heaven.”
Lots of political talk circulated last night. One person reported ordering something from India. DHL sent her an email demanding that she pay $42 in additional tariffs before delivery. She wasn’t sure what to think about the email. “We’re always being scammed these days,” she said. “And here is this email telling me that I need to click on this link and pay this money, wanting my credit card information. I didn’t know if it was real.” After studying and assessing it, she paid, and it was legit. But, yeah, that seem like process with a lot of scammy potential.
Our biggest political conversation related to the mysterious black bag being thrown out a White House window. Have you seen this video? Trump was asked about it and claimed the video was fake. He also said that the WH windows weigh 600 pounds and are sealed. He said that they can’t be raised. However, the WH issued a statement that said that throwing things out a WH window were cleaners doing business as usual. Sure, because they have decades of video showing things being thrown out WH windows.
Some proposed that Melania was tired of Trump and had some of his things put into a black garbage bag and thrown out as part of an argument about breaking up. My wife proposes that it was medical waste related to Trump’s absence act last week, and that they were taking it out via a different way to avoid detection. Well, that certainly didn’t work.
For my part, I’m angriest about Trump’s latest use of military force. Attacking a boat and killing everyone on board is a bad precedent. Trump isn’t the first POTUS to employ heavy-handed military power to make a statement. Gunboat diplomacy has been around a few hundred years. Administrations and the military have developed ‘more surgical’ weapons and methodology. That would be too subtle for TACO. He didn’t provide any evidence for his actions; nor did he ask for permission from Congress, etc. All that’s for those damn elites, and he’s not an elite, as he’ll eagerly remind you. He’s just white, male, wealthy, and powerful. He’s also a liar and a lightweight thinker with a propensity for embracing broken window fallacies.
Remember glam rock? Today’s music is “Turn Up the Radio” by Autograph. I was housecleaning yesterday, listening to classic rock via Alexa as I did. A favorite Boston song, “Foreplay/Long Time”, popped into the rotation. I ordered Alexa to turn up the volume. The Neurons jumped my brain with this song, of course. So here we are.
The family visit is due to commence shortly. Sis-in-law and her beau are in the area. I’ve fortified myself with some coffee. Hope peace and grace find and shelter you today and every day. Here we go again. Cheers
Twozdaz Wandering Political Thoughts
TL/DR: Get ready for a wilder, crazier TACO.
PINO Donald J. Trump is in ill health. Some of it has been admitted. We’re guessing at more.
His diet has never been a poster for healthy eating. That seems to be catching him and taking him down via obesity and chronic venous insufficiency. That latter is what they say he has. But basically, his swollen ankles point toward edema or lymphedema. Probably both. The point about any edema variation is that it’s usually an indicator of other failures, like heart, kidneys, or liver, and poor circulation. To combat the edemas requires changing diets, drinking more water while sucking up less soda, and exercising more. I don’t think the Trumpster has the discipline to do any of those things.
If he doesn’t change, he’ll get sicker. That will accelerate as he slides down the death rail at an increasingly faster rate. As he does, TACO will get flakier and more erratic, IMO. He’ll start doing wilder and more impulsive things to distract others from his impending demise. Always one to bloviate about his health and capabilities, never willing to admit a weakness or flaw, getting body slammed with sickness, diseases, and declining energy and abilities is sure to trigger him in bigly ways. And whatever happens, he’ll keep denying, denying, denying. That’s one reason why he won’t change his ways.
But he’ll keep up with his Trumpy style, bullying others, acting like a king, lashing out to gain greater fame and adulation, begging for a Nobel Peace Prize, bragging about how great and wonderful he is. Who knows what he’ll do with the military, economy, foreign relations, and the U.S. in general then. He’ll probably do something which he thinks is brilliant. The fawning sycophants surrounding him won’t tell him otherwise. The rest of us will probably be horrified.
So strap in and hang on. The Trump ride of horrors is probably gonna get weird.
Toons!
Jill Dennison posted some wonderful toons on her site. I have to share them. I will note my favorites. You should check them out and see which ones talk to you. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 