Thirstda’s Theme Music

Disappointment is heavy in Ashlandia. A big storm was forecasted for us. It perversely excited us but then did not arrive. Perversely, people are disappointed. At least three posts on NextDoor and Facebook have people expressing their disapppointment that the storm did not come.

Well, it did a little. “I heard a thunk,” my wife says.

“Was that the rock on the front porch?” I noticed it when I came home.

She nodded. “Yes, I think the wind blew the top two rocks off the cairn. At least, I heard the thunk and locked out and saw the rocks and nothing else.”

Very circumstantial evidence. “I’ll put them back.” I must because she can’t balance them on the cairn. We don’t know why.

I’m disappointed, but not over the storm. I’d planned to weed around our hydrangea. Put it on my to-do list and everything. But she weeded. I’m happy the job is done but displeased that I wasn’t the one to do it. There are many more weeding opportunities. That’s little consolation.

Today is Thirstda, March 27 2025. Spring continues dancing with our expectations. We started out with a dispiriting cloud display. The sky was tiled dark and white. Showers fell. Now, it’s sunny and in the upper 50s F. More rain is expected. So is more sun. And warmer temperatures, along with colder temperatures.

Papi the ginger blade, commonly referenced as Butter Butt, is exhausted. Days of sunshine emboldened him to dash around like a one-year old. Now he’s sleeping like a kitten. Took up his favorite malabar chair seat in mid-morning, washed, and tucked the eyes shut.

He used the litter box for a bowel movement today. That’s unusual for him. He’s enormously fastidious about it. His scratching around was the clue. When he pees in the box, he steps in and then out. No scratching.

I told my wife about it. “This is literally the third time he’s used the litter box like that since Tucker passed,” I noted. “I think it’s because it was raining. He didn’t want to go in the rain and get his fur wet.”

The Neurons have lined up “Liar” by Three Dog Night in the morning mental music stream. Yes, this is a Trusk Regime production. Jonah Goldberg caught them in a security breach. He told them so. They spun it like he was a Democrat and a liar. Also pretended that it was nothing. No classified to see here, no sir. Then The Atlantic posted the transcripts. Hah. The leak was one thing; the attempted cover up is a mess. So, “Liar” it is.

Originally an Argent song — and you can hear their musical fingerprints all over it — Three Dog Night released their cover of “Liar” in 1971 and became another top twenty offering for the group in several nations.

Coffee has perked me up again. (Get it? Sure. You’re not slow.) Time to rock and roll. Cheers

March 27, 2025 0

Thirstda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

It’s time to check the economy’s barometer. Dollar Tree is selling off Family Dollar after acquiring it ten years ago. Lack of synergies between the two. I admit, I confuse the two stores. They’re interchangeable in my mind. Anyway, you would think that they would have noticed the lack of synergies back when DT was thinking about buying FT. I guess that’s business.

What really struck me about the move were these insights from Dollar Tree Chief Executive Mike Creedon, with my emphasis added in bold:

With regard to consumer spending, Creedon said that Dollar Tree, like other retailers, is seeing middle-income shoppers focus more on value. “At the same time, we are seeing stronger demand from higher-income customers who increasingly see Dollar Tree as a cost-effective source for an expanding range of products,” he said during the conference call.sales

“We believe it doesn’t matter how much money you make. Everybody is hurting right now,” he said.

‘Everybody is hurting right now.’ That’s a knee slapper. I don’t think the Trusk Regime’s billionaire cabinet and their friends are hurting at all. But maybe that’s just poor, poor, cynical me. More critically, it seems that more middle class is shopping at the Dollar Tree. That’s a strong sign for the future…not.

But come on, how can we be hurting in Donald Trump’s economy? He’s making all those moves to save the government money. Well, okay, that DOGE stuff didn’t save much money. It instead destablised the government, outraged citizens, scared Republican senators and reps into hiding, caused confusion and triggered alarm, and sent the stock market down. But he added those tariffs…and took them away…and added them again…causing trade partners to retaliate. Which, yeah, hurt farmers, damaged overseas liquor sales, and has put a crimp in economic forecasts. Retailers and manufacturers have responded with layoffs and slashed their sales forecasts.

Naturally, shoppers were affected. US consumer confidence tumbles for the 4th straight month as future expectations hit a 12-year low.

The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell 7.2 points in March to 92.9. Analysts were expecting a decline to a reading of 94.5, according to a survey by FactSet.

The Conference Board’s report Tuesday said that the measure of Americans’ short-term expectations for income, business and the job market fell 9.6 points to 65.2.

It is the lowest reading in 12 years and well below the threshold of 80, which the Conference Board says can signal a potential recession in the near future. However, the proportion of consumers anticipating a recession in the next year held steady at a nine-month high, the board reported.

“Consumers’ optimism about future income — which had held up quite strongly in the past few months — largely vanished, suggesting worries about the economy and labor market have started to spread into consumers’ assessments of their personal situations,” said Stephanie Guichard, senior economist at The Conference Board.

Oh boy, so much winning, it hurts.

March 27, 2025 0

Wenzda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Once again, I ponder, WWPD?

Former US attorney Jessica Aber’s cause of death is revealed by authorities

Authorities have revealed the cause of death of former U.S. attorney Jessica Aber after she was found dead in her Virginia home over the weekend.

Aber, 43, was found around 9:20 a.m. Saturday and likely died of “natural causes,” the Alexandria Police Department announced.

At this time, detectives have found no evidence suggesting that her death was anything other than natural causes,” the statement said. “The investigation is ongoing, and the case will remain open until the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner returns a final ruling on the cause and manner of death.”

I read this news this morning. But in a world where U.S. defense officials lie their asses off about a security leak, ignores due process, and are disappearing people from the streets, I’m suspicious about this attorney’s death. It’s the Trusk Regime’s nature to lie.

I wouldn’t put it past them to start killing people and lying about it. After all, that’s what Putin would do.

March 26, 2025 0

Twosda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Out in Texas, they’re busy building a nanny state. Cos words are scawy! Sex is scawy! Books! Scawy! Freedom to read bad! Censorship is good!

They’re trying to take a quantum leap back to another era, where sex is hidden and all the men are virile and heterosexual and women are pristine and pure. You know, like it never was, except in fiction.

Texas lawmakers advance bill that makes it a crime for teachers to assign “Catcher in the Rye”

Currently, if someone is charged with providing sexually explicit content to a child, they can argue that the content was provided in pursuit of a scientific, educational, or governmental purpose. SB 412 and HB 267 would remove this affirmative defense. This defense exists because, while some people provide explicit content to children to harm them, books that include sexual content have long been a valuable component of secondary education. Many classic works of literature, including “The Odyssey,” “Catcher in the Rye,” “Brave New World,” and “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” have sexually explicit scenes.

Under SB 412, which the Texas Senate voted to advance last week and now awaits approval by the House, teachers and librarians would no longer be able to argue that sexually explicit content can serve an educational purpose. Only law enforcement officials and judges would be exempted under the new law. SB 412 also leaves in place an exception if the adult providing the sexually explicit content is married to the child, which is legal in Texas, with a judge’s approval, if the child is at least 16 years old.

George Orwell would be proud of these ‘modern’ Texans. Set up the cameras! Thy must, in order to ensure no one is circumventing a law and providing ‘dirty’ material to children who are only seventeen. Unless they’re married. Children can be married in Texas. So a child can be married and then be expected to have sex and raise a child but until that point, knowing about sex in literature is verboten.

Man, that is one fucked up state, thanks to the uptight, fucked-up Republicans guiding them. Might as well go ahead and start calling it the Nanny Star State.

March 25, 2025 2

Twosda’s Theme Music

The cat wanted out. 3:20 AM, according to my sleep-blurred vision. Following his victory prance to the door, I gave him the usual admonitions about being safe, smart, staying close, and not letting anything get him. He meowed back with a little defiance, as if to say, “Gosh, I know! You tell me this a million times a day.”

A while later, sun was breaking in through the window. I cowered from it like a vampire. But it wasn’t the sun calling me: the cat wanted back in. 6:32. He came in, rushing to his kibble bowl like a starving maniac. I stumble-walk back to bed.

“Meow,” he said shortly, batting blinds. I want out.

“No,” I answered. “Not gonna happen.”

Of course it happened.

This is Twosda, March 25, 2025. The sun is glowing hard, heating an endless blue sky. Sensing a change in the air, the cat is eager to take advantage of it. “Sure,” I sleep-spoke to him. “You slept all day yesterday. I saw you, curled up in the malabar chair.”

“Meow,” the cat answered. “Out.”

It’s already 54 F. I don’t know what it feels like. I feel like I’d like more sleep. Supposed to get to 78 F today. Huzzah. Yawn. Seriously, I mean, huzzah, but I gotta get some coffee in me before I can give it the enthusiasm it deserves.

I’m suspicious of the weather. This is Oregon. Snow still covers some mountain tops, eyeing us in the valley. I suspect winter is gonna try to slip another storm over us. It’s just like weather to lure us with warm temperatures and friendly skins and then spring out at us like a demented drunk uncle and shout, “Got you.” And then laugh like they’re crazy.

Today’s morning mental music stream Neurons are offering The Friends of Distinction with “Going In Circles”. The gentle soulful 1969 song is in there because The Neurons think it’s funny about how the cat has me getting up to let him in and out over and over again. When it’s warmer, the pet door will be put back into place so he can leave and enter as he wants. But that temperature threshold hasn’t been achieved yet.

In recent news items, Donald Trump was caught lying. Trump said he didn’t sign controversial proclamation. The Federal Register shows one with his signature. Isn’t this rich from the administration which tried to say that President Biden’s pardons weren’t real because, signature. Autosigning thingy. “Did he know what he was signing?” they asked. Think they confused which person doesn’t know what they’re saying. Really, we know that Trump knew what he was signing; he just lied about it because it was giving him negative heat. Trump melts and lies under that kind of heat, sure as the sun’s motion.

Also, measles outbreaks are spreading. It’s mostly among the unvaccinated. You know, intelligent people, learning from what’s happening, would develop and administer vaccines to stop that. But we’re dealing with a new level of denial and irrational thinking with the Trusk Regime and the MAGAts who installed them.

Also, DOGE’s actions don’t seem to be going well with the public. So Republicans are being encouraged to lie about it. Here’s the deets. GOP begs senators to sing DOGE’s praises as support flounders

Gotta go. Cat wants in. Coffee, give me strength. Cheers

March 25, 2025 0

A Powerful Piece

Call A Spade, A Spade

Jill Dennison shared Steven Dundas’ column about Hitler and Trump. One of the most striking sections for me:

In the case of the Germans, at least in the early 1930s, even his common followers had little reason to believe that Hitler would follow through on his most extreme statements, even Jews. On 2 February 1933, a leading German Jewish newspaper editorial wrote:

“We do not subscribe to the view that Mr. Hitler and his friends, now finally in possession of the power they have so long desired, will implement the proposals circulating in [Nazi newspapers]; they will not suddenly deprive German Jews of their constitutional rights, nor enclose them in ghettos, nor subject them to the jealous and murderous impulses of the mob. They cannot do this because a number of crucial factors hold powers in check…and they clearly do not want to go down that road. When one acts as a European power, the whole atmosphere tends towards ethical reflection upon one’s better self and away from revisiting one’s earlier oppositional posture.”

Yep. We still see newspapers, Democrats, Republicans, etc., striving to downplay Trump’s intentions, just as the same was done with Hitler.

Read the whole piece. Share it widely. Maybe it will awaken more people and get them to start thinking, before it’s too late.

March 23, 2025 1

Sunda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I’ve been busy tracking the PINO Trusk administration’s actions. It’s like tracking a hurricane as it roars toward humanity. Oh no, where is it going to hit next? Hope those folks will be okay. Shame about those Trump voters who thought he cared about them. Hope they’re okay despite their vote. Because they’re other humans, right? They are human, right? I have that right, don’t I? I guess it could’ve been bot voters who won the day for Trump. Wouldn’t put it past DOGE and the GOTP at all. But that’s a conspiracy for another day.

Right now, I’m wondering about the tipping point. When will Hurricane Trusk cause enough damage that the majority of American citizens will come together in one voice and finally shout, “Enough, you fuckers! Stop it right now.”

That tipping point moment is predicated on multiple vectors and variables, so it’s a hard prediction. My original call was April of 2025. That’s what I told friends back at the beginning of January. I thought, hey, inflation, high prices, the contempt with which Trump treats history, minorities, and women; emptied shelves caused by trade wars, parks going to crap, and the air and water starting to stink; tourism swiftly cratering, rising unemployment, flopping tax revenues, threats against Medicare and Social Security, and people would be mighty miffed by April.

I don’t know ’bout April any longer. There’s a mass of individuals out there quite willing to endure those things. Mostly, I think, it’s because they don’t want to admit how fucking wrong they were about Trump. That they’ve been tricked, had, conned. Also because some of them are so underwater in the MAGA swamp that they won’t fully get what’s going on. Part of that will be because the right wingosphere will feed the MAGAts what they want, which is GREAT NEWS about HOW GREAT TRUMP IS, regardless of the truth. We’ve seen it before. Lot of them believe that Trump built an impenetrable wall across our southern border. Doesn’t explain why they worry about ‘illegals’ now, but then, that’s their thinking level.

If I had more energy, I’d propose a national betting pool. We could all pick a date and bet that is the tipping day. But that would be a messy thing to figure out, especially with PINO Trusk and his regime dicking with the numbers.

Maybe I’ll do it on another day. After I’d had a few glasses of beer. It seems like a beery thing to do.

March 23, 2025 3

Saturda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I read Raw Story’s coverage of a Daily Beast piece. This was written by Carl Gibson, Alternet.

‘Hugely unpopular’: Columnist flags 5 ways Trump has already ‘failed spectacularly’

Even though he has Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress and Democrats are in the midst of an apparent leadership crisis, President Donald Trump’s second term has so far been a massive failure, according to one columnist.

Gibson closed, Rothkopf stressed that while there is a lot of bad news for Democrats, Trump and Republicans have much more to worry about given their lack of success.

I snickered, sighed, and shook my head over this. To me, both pieces normalize what’s going on with PINO Trusk and his regime. Trump is in now. He’s dismantling the government. Stopping spending on anything he declares ‘woke’ or DEI. Terminating anyone and any program that doesn’t align with his prejudices. Dumping on the courts. Blowing up history. Destroying treaties and alliances and wrecking the economy.

He’s deliberately doing these things. He installed thirteen billionaires as cabinet members and has aligned his administration with Putin in Russia. The GOP is now the GOTP. Republican Senators and Representatives are having shouting matches with voters who protest what Trump and Musk are doing, or these Senators and Reps are running and hiding from their constituents. Republicans have shown they’re worried way less than about voters and elections; they’re worried more about falling from Trump’s grace.

In July 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump told a crowd, “Get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore! Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”

With DOGE under Elon Reeve Musk gutting agencies and raiding the nation’s computer systems, accessing everyone’s personal information, do you really think the Trusk Regime is concerned what Trump promised voters? Do you think he’s worried about approval ratings?

No. Trump is in; he has control. Everyone must bow to him.

That’s all that matters to him.

March 22, 2025 5

Thirsta’s Wandering Political Thoughts

“Fat, dumb, foolish country”: Trump says US has been “pillaged” via trade deals

I agree with PINO Trump: the United States is a fat, dumb, foolish country. It’s led by fat, dumb, foolish Republicans who nominated this obese obscenity of lying, walking meat to be the country’s leader, and conned fat, dumb, foolish hoopleheads into voting for him.

Now this fat, dumb, foolish cocksucker and his regime are pillaging the nation.

As always, when Trump speaks, he projects what he’s doing onto others.

March 20, 2025 3

Wenzda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I do not consider Trump to be POTUS.

Yes, Donald Trump won the 2024 elections. He was inaugurated. But in his actions since then, he has demonstrated he has no interest in being a president as mandated and restricted by the U.S. Constitution. Railing against rulings against him, he advocates removing or impeaching judges. Ignoring that Congress established certain functions, he is dismantling them and inactivating them without any input from Congress. He is President In Name Only: PINO.

I call him PINO Trusk, as the office now embodies the worse of Donald Trump — the lying, cheating, lawlessness many of us expected from this shallow, unprincipled narcissist — and the lawless, reckless, ignorant avarice of Elon Reeve Musk. Between the two, the ideals of our nation are being undermined; our history is being subverted; our lives are being destroyed.

Jamelle Bouie expresses it well.