Tag: PINO Trusk

Twosda’s Theme Music

The weather disappoints me. Sunshine awoke me. That’s faded. Clouds rolled in. Yesterday afternoon turned into a rain marathon. I hoped it rain itself out.

It’s not raining now. It’s just not my idea of ‘nice’. That term for weather has gained a narrower scope as I age.

Not just the weather disappointing me. Papi fractured my sleep with his complaining and in-and-out capades. “Are you getting revenge because we took you to the vet yesterday?”

The cat miaws back. Not his usual sound, which is an extended, “Eeeeppp.”

“I didn’t want to do it,” I tell him. That’s true. “It was for your own good.” Just as Mom used to tell me about almost everything upsetting me as a child.

The vet wants us to have the cat’s teeth worked on. “She’s aggressive about having his teeth worked on,” my wife says.

“She was the same with Tucker.” Tucker had all his teeth removed. “Poor Tucker.”

“He was happier after his teeth were taken out.”

Papi’s teeth estimate is $1900. It shocked us. “Should we do Papi’s teeth?” I ask.

“Let me think about it.”

That’s just how Mom used to say no.

Besides those things, recent SCOTUS rulings have me wringing my hands. Also, I read an article about how surprised financial advisors and stock brokers were that Trump actually went through with the tariffs.

“We’re stepping into the most pro-growth, pro-business, pro-American administration I’ve perhaps seen in my adult lifetime,” gushed the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman in December.

“I don’t think this was foreseeable,” a mournful Ackman posted on X on Monday. “I assumed economic rationality would be paramount.” What an odd assumption to make about a man who bankrupted casinos.

But it was foreseeable. Those of us who didn’t vote for Trump readily foresaw it.

I’m disappointed that Ackman and his kind didn’t foresee it. I’m disappointed that he didn’t believe us when we told him this was going to happen.

BTW, this is Twosda. April 8, 2025. It’s 52 F outside. Partly cloudy. It might rain.

The Neurons are playing “Lithium” by Nirvana in the morning mental music stream. The song was released in 1991. I was still a military member then. Just arrived back to the U.S. in Feb. that year after almost four years in Germany. I was assigned to Onizuka Air Station in California. Some good years were had there.

Nursing coffee, I hear a squeegee sound. The cat runs his wet pads on the door glass when he wants in. “Swqueek swqueek swqueek swqueek.” Sunshine is up. So is the wind. I let in the cat. He turns to me and says, “Merow?”

2

Stopping You There

Trump Said Auto Emissions Don’t Affect the Environment. That’s Not True.

President Trump announced on Monday that he planned to relax limits on pollution from cars, saying that the move wouldn’t “mean a damn bit of difference to the environment.”

But decades of science show that the pollution from automobile tailpipes has harmed the environment and public health, from the days when leaded gasoline sent neurotoxins into the air and soil to the carbon dioxide emissions that are heating the planet right now.

No need to read any further. ‘Decades of science’ means nothing to PINO Trusk. Those are facts. Facts do not count in Trumpworld. We’ve already seen that with vaccinations and COVID-19. Measles and vaccines. Anything and vaccines.

Trump’s vision for the United States is a dark and poisoned place.

He’s just a monster.

1

Sunda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Donald Trump declared “Liberation Day” on April 2, 2025. The phrase was used in conjunction with his ‘retaliatory tariffs’.

It reminds me of George Dubya Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Given on May 1, 2003, six weeks after the U.S. led Iraq invasion, the Bush Administration backpedalled from the speech and the phrase. Dan Bartlett, Dubya’s communications director, said it was the ship’s banner. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed that he edited the speech and removed references to “Mission Accomplished”. Bush later stated in several different interviews that “Mission Accomplished” was a mistake.

History tells that the mission wasn’t accomplished as far as that disastrous war goes.

At the time of the president’s speech, Americans had yet to pay the main costs of the Iraq War. The years immediately following “Mission Accomplished” were the deadliest in the conflict, which has left 4,500 U.S. troops killed and over 32,000 wounded. American taxpayers can expect to pay nearly $3 trillion for the Iraq War through 2050 when factoring the costs of veterans’ care, war-related defense spending increases, and additional interest on the national debt.

On a strategic level, President Bush was even more pollyannaish. He declared that, in deposing Saddam, the U.S. had “removed an ally of al-Qaeda” and prevented terrorist networks from “gain[ing] weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime.” These claims reinforced since-disproven narratives that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden to begin with, or that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction.

The key results of the invasion were two-fold: it empowered Iran to expand its influence in Iraq and across the Middle East by removing a check, and it aided our great power competitors, Russia and China, by distracting us in counterinsurgency operations for decades, delaying modernization programs, and wearing out our all-volunteer force and its strategic assets — such as the B-1 bomber fleet — from overuse.

In the days since that Bush speech, “Misson Accomplished” has often been employed in a mocking fashion. As in, “If you were trying to prove yourself ignorant, mission accomplished.”

As the Bush Admininistration did with the war in Iraq, Trump is using misinformation to convince us this is a great idea. Trump’s tariffs have introduced huge uncertainty. His thinking defies the lessons of history and economic theory. Trump will have you believe that the experts’ opinions that he’s wrong proves that he’s right.

I have doubts. Trump has always claimed to be the greatest. Evidence proves him otherwise. He says he’s a great negotiator. Evidence shows otherwise. He claims to be a brillant businessman. Multiple bankruptcies and failed businesses undermine that claim. Trump has instead proven that he’s an inveterate con man, master of spin, and consummate liar.

I believe that “Liberation Day” will join “Mission Accomplished” as a new mocking label in history. As it happened with “Mission Accomplished”, we’ll see in a few years what “Liberation Day” means to the United States and world.

1

Sunda’s Theme Music

It’s warmer but cloudier in Ashlandia. Like several other things that could be mentioned, I’m not certain what’s going to happen. For Ashlandia’s weather, it’s 57 F. Clouds have pressed blue sky into the background. Sunshine is a hopeful possibility but rain is in the forecast.

For the United States, markets are dropping. Our government systems are being deliberatedly sabotaged in an effort to ‘make them better’. At national parks, the Trusk Regime is telling park employees to do more with less. Measles are spreading. Vaccinations are down. Tariffs are up.

It’s just uncertainty in the air today, Sunda, April 6, 2025.

Despite yesterday’s outswelling of public protest about what the Trusk Regime is doing, nothing has changed. We remain at the same stuck place: one outraged side vehmently opposed to what Trump is doing. Another side supporting him with cultish fervor. A third side seemingly detached and uninvolved, showing questionable awarenss.

I’m read interviews again and again, and that’s where it lands. Given, I can’t vouch for their veracity. Written words on the net are suspect. Perhaps they’re AI creations to spin and confuse. But Trump voters still declare that DOGE is doing great things. That the tariffs are wonderful weapons in the fight to remake America. That Trump is looking out for the average person in the street. That’s what they claim they still believe.

I don’t know. I’m trying for a pragmatic tone but I’m jaded in a dozen ways. It’s still early. The tariff war’s ink is still drying. Results of many things still float through the air like shredded paper.

Without much surprise, The Neurons are playing “Land of Confusion” by Genesis from 1986 in the morning mental music stream.

Coffee has found its way into me again. Hope you find the energy and frame of mind to make this day what you need. Cheers

2

We The People

If A Picture Paints A Thousand Words …

I’m feeling a little fatigued from the constant shit storm called the Trump Presidency v. 2.0. The April 5 2025 Hands Off protests and demonstrations were a tonic for my soul. Thanks for the compilation of photos, Jill.

8

Saturda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

A woeisme fugue is shrouding my mind.

“I give up.” My wife shook her head as she spoke. A heavy sigh followed. She explained that she spoke to her sister and niece yesterday. The two live in Florida. Both are intelligent and vivacious individuals. College educated. Democrats. Trump despisers. Sis is my age. She owns her own business. Daughter works in sales and marketing. Neither were aware that Trump had just passed his tariffs. Nor were they aware that the stock market had been dropping. They weren’t aware of most of the news that had my wife’s head spinning. In fact, her forty-year-old niece had decided that Thursday was the perfect day to invest in the stock market for the first time.

“My sister is a low-information person,” my wife said. “She’s always been like that. She used to be on top of her business dealings but now she’s moved away from those. She just wants to relax and not worry about things.”

I understand how my wife feels. We were shopping in Medford yesterday. Nobody seemed to be doing any prepping buying. In fact, the shoppers seemed like happy, oblivious people.

My wife had noticed this with her coffee group friends. Most seemed serenely oblivious to what Trump was doing. Several were planning their summer vacations.

“Is it just us and our tribe?” I wondered.

Maybe. My beer group members are acutely aware of what’s going on. It significantly depresses the female members. The male members are grim. But all have worried and wondered, what should we do to prepare?

“I don’t think most people know what’s going on,” my wife said. “And I don’t think they care.”

I agreed. “I don’t think they’ll notice until it hits them in the face. Then they’ll think, hey, what happened? Why is the national park closed? Did you see the state of that bathroom? It’s filthy! They’ll wonder why the water and sky is dirtier. They’ll try to buy a new car and will have sticker shock. They’ll try to eat out and discover businesses have closed, and those that are open will cost a lot more than they expected.”

My wife said, “You said one thing wrong.”

“What?”

“‘Then they’ll think.'”

And the band played on.

5

Thirsta’s Wandering Political Thoughts

It’s Trump’s morning in America.

“The stock market is down over fourteen hundred points,” my wife greets me.

“Hey girl,” I answer. “Good morning.”

If my wife seems gleeful about the stock market, it’s because she’s angry. Bottom line, she’s in the FAFO camp. Reads ‘The Leopard Ate My Face’ tales daily. Spoons up all those tales about Trump supporters and apologists who are now Trump victims.

Trump said he would do tariffs when he ran for POTUS in 2024. Professional economists have almost all agreed, bad, bad, bad, bad, terrible idea. Trump always thinks he knows better than everyone else. He usually doesn’t. I mean, this is the guy who bankrupted a casino.

Facts don’t matter to Trump. You knew that if you watched his tariff announcement yesterday. He displayed a chart with bogus tariff info. It shows tariffs imposed on U.S. goods. Almost all those supposed tariffs by other countries are inflated by significant amounts.

With almost no surprise, then, worldwide markets dropped after his tariffs announcement.

Some people rationalize what Trump is doing as necessary. They prophesize Trump’s tariffs will bring jobs back to the United States. Factories will spring up like mushrooms after a rain across the nation. And those factories won’t use robotics, as many modern factories do. No, they will employ human, American workers. Even though the U.S. must import many of the raw and finished materials used in modern products, imported materials which will be high-priced due to Trump tariffs, those goods produced in these new factories will be amazingly cheap because they’re made in the U.S.A. There won’t be any profit taking and price gouging, because that’s not how corporations work in the United States. And the workers in those factories will be magnificently compensated for their hourly labor because companies in the United States are known to generously pay hourly employees. Why, it’ll be the greatest economy ever!

If you believe all that, I have an automobile manufacturing plant in Ashlandia to sell you.

4

The Godzilla Dream

I was with several other people cowering in a building’s wreckage. Trying to rest.

The building was in a disaster area. It’d been storming. A dark day was ending. Night was arriving. The storm was beginning another act. It wasn’t the storm which caused the wreckage.

Talking to one another, we knew it was time. The creature was regular and consistent. It would be returning. The creature caused all the destruction.

We also knew that it knew about three of us. We’d been fighting the creature, as others had done. One by one, the creature had found and killed the others. Through conversation, we agreed, the thing knew where it was. We discussed who would fight it next. A young woman said that it would be her.

Noises told of the thing’s approach. Peering out through broken walls, we looked for the thing. Dusk was giving up its last hold. In it, we saw the unmistakeable profile of the towering fictional lizard monster, Godzilla.

Godzilla came right for us in our building. Scrambling for cover, we went in three different directions as the building was ripped apart. Cement walls flew past my head. Ducking into a dark safe room, I caught my breath and got ready to go fight.

Jumping up, I ran back out to confront Godzilla. The mechanism of how any of us were expected to defeat the creature was unclear but I was sure that I could do it.

Breaking out onto an office building’s flat rooftop, I spied the young woman raising across rooftops, jumping from building to building. Tearing buildings down, Godzilla thundered after her.

Then his tail swept around and took out the building I was in.

I saw it coming but didn’t react in time. As the building went over with cascading thunderous crashes, I drew my body into a ball and fell through the building and into a street.

I wasn’t hurt.

Godzilla was visible over a mile away. The sky was growing lighter, like dawn was coming. Then Godzilla disappeared.

I watched for him to reappear. Word arrived: Godzilla was dead. Gone. The young woman had defeated him but died in the process.

I was amazed and overjoyed. With the sun rising, we could see the city flattened in every direction. People were crawling out of the wreckage.

Gazing across the wreckage toward blue sky, I saw another creature emerging. I knew I’d need to fight it, too. As I prepared to go, I wondered if there would ever be an end to monsters.

Dream end.

Note: I’m aware that I referred to PINO Trump as Trumpzilla recently. My mind apparently worked that into a dream for me. I’ll let you decide what it all means.

0

Twosda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Bit of good news on Oregon’s political front. The Trump et al hates the mail-in ballots. Although he has used them to vote, he claims that he doesn’t trust them. Thinks they’re vulnerable to cheating. Facts show it’s otherwise, that Oregon’s voting by mail system works well. Facts, along with loyalty, empathy, history, and intelligence, have never mattered to PINO Trump, so he HATES Oregon’s voting system. (Trump also hates mail-in voting because mail-in voters tend to vote Democrat. That makes Donald sad because he’s all GOTP.)

Well, that Trump hatred drove loyal trumpdog and Oregon Sen. David Brock Smith to introduce SB 210 2025 to change Oregon’s system. Smith wanted to force us to vote only on election day, only in person.

I am proud to say that Oregon voters responded. We sent in so many comments against changing our voting system, we swamped the legislature’s website, brothers and sisters and everyone else, and the matter is being dropped.

Well done. Very well done.

0

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