Tag: politics

Saturda’s Theme Music

Saturda, June 7, 2025, has fallen upon us splay-legged with sunshine and muggy with clouds. 84 is Ashlandia’s rough temperature, depending on where you stand. It’s cooler by the creek in the park in the old trees’ shade. Today’s high will be in the low 90s, beginning a string of days with highs in the 90s. Looks like summer is doing a temperature check preparatory to taking the stage.

My wife remarked today, “How long will it be until some U.S. citizen will challenge a masked ICE gunman and get shot?” She thinks we’re due for another Kent State moment, when Ohio National Guard killed four demonstrators in the early 1970s. I agree with her point. Any time we have armed people being pressured by resistance, the chance for violence goes up. Wonder what oddsmakers are saying about it? I hope my wife’s fortune telling is wrong.

Today’s song come about from broodling — that is, brooding and noodling — about another novel underway. Sipping the first dark brown hot fluid this morning, I thought, “You gotta find a way for what you want to say.” I answered myself, “Yes, but do you know what you want to say?”

Bored with the exchange, The Neurons unleashed Oasis and their 1994 song, “Supersonic”, into the morning mental music stream. I recognized that they did it because there is a line which goes something like my thoughts. I didn’t do much more thinking about it at that point because Papi was urgently wrapping himself around my legs while purring like an old VW Beetle. I fed him and then he and I hit the backyard sunshine to take the day’s measure for a few minutes.

Stay safe and have the most solid day you can develop. Me, I’m in for more writing, more yardwork, more reading. It’s a rough life but it’s where I landed. Cheers

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Frida’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Did you see Trump’s fantasy spin involving himself, Lincoln, and Reagan?

It’s been out for a while so you probably have. I saw it again today and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

See, he has a painting of himself with Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. Titled ‘Great American Patriots,’ illustrator and painter Dick Bobnick created this. Mr Bobnick describes his painting, “Three American presidents who changed American History for the better in the areas of race, taxation, religious liberty, military strength, international relations, the economy and morality.”

I’m going out on a limb and suggest that historians are going to disagree with Bobnick on his assessment of Trump. Many people already disagree with his conclusion that Trump changed history for the better in the areas of morality. Trump is an actual felon, convicted in a court. Been married several times and cheated on every wife. Trump lies and lies and lies and lies and lies, and is in the business of weaponizing the legal system to go after his enemies. This is not the epitome of ‘morality’.

Trump has no idea who Lincoln and Reagan are. He has no idea who he is. He has a warped and twisted vision that the three of them are cut from the same American fabric. He, an unchecked and unrepentant serial liar whose every action and word is tearing our nation apart, dares to compare himself with Abraham Lincoln, who worked so hard to re-unite the nation, a man with the nickname of honest Abe, renown for his honesty and integrity. Con Don Trump thinks he’s on par with Abraham Lincoln. My body splits with laughter just considering the insanity.

That’s just half of the comparison going on. The third person depicted is Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator. And rambling, word salad Donald Trump. Trump who said, “You look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me, it would have been so easy, and it’s not – as important as their lives are, nuclear is so powerful. My uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power, and that was 35 years ago. He would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right – who would of thought – but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners, now it used to be three – now it’s four- but when it was was three and even now I would have said, it’s all in the messenger fellas and it is fellas because you know they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so you know it’s going to take them about another 150 years but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators so and they, they just killed, they just killed us.” That’s from an August of 2016 speech. He’s gotten much worse in the years since.

And he compares himself to Lincoln and Reagan. It’s so surreally, magnificently — and Trumply — unreal.

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Frida’s Theme Music

Here we go. It’s Frida, June 6, 2025, memorable as D-Day in the big one, WW 2, which was finished with an atomic bang. Trump, meeting with the German Chancellor, gave us more cringespeak while discussing the war and D-Day.

USA Today: D-Day was ‘not a pleasant day for you,’ Trump tells German leader

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attempted to provide President Donald Trump with some positive reinforcement by crediting Americans for ending a war in Europe during his visit to the White House on June 5.

He reminded Trump their meeting was taking place a day before the 81st anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces, most of them U.S. troops, invaded Normandy, France, marking the beginning of the end of World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany.

We are having June 6th tomorrow, this is D-Day anniversary, when the Americans once ended a war in Europe,” Merz said.

“That was not a pleasant day for you,” Trump responded. “This was not a great day.”

WTF, PINO TACO? Guess that’s why the United States and most of the world remembers and honors D-Day. But not you, TACO, no. Honor, courage, and sacrifice are outside of your awareness. So is history. There’s no room in you for these things because your oversized ego pushes everything but greed, malice, and lies out.

Back to local deets. It’s cloudy but sunshine from somewhere still streams in. Current temperature at 11:30 is 80 F. We expect 91 today. Rain? No. Wildfire smoke from somewhere? Maybe. We’re tracking that shit. Gotta stay vigilant.

Today’s musical inspiration was incubated with highlights about the growing Musky TACO rift. Noted weird hair spokesperson Steve Bannon jumped in to urge PINO TACO to seize little Musky’s SpaceX toys. That’s in accordance with the Retribution Clause in the Constitution: “If a business pisses off the royal President, said President may seize assets from the pissee.” The pissee would be little Elon Reeve Musk, of course.

I was chuckling to myself, wondering if this is dinner theater to distract us from some other Musky TACO monstrosity but still had the bandwidth to mutter, “What fucking losers.” Hearing that from me, The Neurons jumped in with the 1994 Beck song, “Loser.” Remember 1994? Much better person in the White House back then. Not perfect but about 10,000 times better than the meatbag currently in the Oval Office.

Beck’s “Loser” was not about others. The weird rift reflects how low he felt at the time. But such logical distinctions escaped The Neurons, as it often does. So I have Beck performing “Loser” in the morning mental music stream, and I’m gifting it to you as a Frida special.

Time to kick it. Wishing you the best of days in always and all times. Coffee has been ingested. Here we go. Cheers

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Time To Stop Kidding Ourselves – Reblog

This is a reblog of Jill Dennison’s post, “Time To Stop Kidding Ourselves“. I tried using the Reblog button first, but that WordPress feature continues to fail for me. I ran down an article to answer fix it but the fix didn’t work. So here I am.

That aside, Ms Dennison points out that we’re already living under an authoritarian regime in the United States, and our behavior needs adjusted to face that fact.

The article is worth a read. Here’s a taste to push you over there.

Cheers

Time To Stop Kidding Ourselves

Posted on  by jilldennison under Bits ‘n Pieces, education, Election 2024, Free Press Issues, Global Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry

Ithink it’s time to stop kidding ourselves.  I am as guilty as any when I say things like “we are on a slippery slope leading to a dictatorship”, or “the Trump regime greatly resembles an authoritarian government.”  No, folks, we’re not “on a path” to an authoritarian regime … we are already HERE.  Most of us in this nation have zero representation in our federal government today – the only ones who truly do are those who are still foolishly applauding a dictatorship, who have somehow been convinced that it will make their lives better.

I recently came across a few articles published by the Open Dialog Foundation in Brussels about authoritarianism – what it is, how to survive it, and how to communicate with friends, co-workers, and family who have drunk too much of the Kool-Aid.  I wanted to share the first one titled “Year One Under Authoritarianism; What to Expect?” with you – I think you’ll recognize many of the signs …

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Wenzda’s Wandering Thoughts

I’m on a doom-scrolling slowdown. I wasn’t even generally doom scrolling. I was just going through the news and blog posts. Too often when I did, I found myself muttering, “Bastard,” after reading something. Like, the tale of the manhunt for the father who killed his three daughters. “Bastard.” Or the Trump appointee idiot who doesn’t know the U.S. has a hurricane season. Is he American? How long has he lived in the United States? If he’s been living in the U.S., has it been under rocks in Utah or somewhere? “Stupid bastard.”

There is Trump, of course. Donald J. “Trump Again Chickens Out” TACO Trump. And Rep. Mike Johnson. Both are bastards. Unfeeling, uncaring, unprincipled bastards. Bastards who have sold whatever was left of their souls.

Johnson was called out for only citing CBO figures as accurate when Dems are in charge. Trump’s budget bill is called the OBBB. They say it means “One Big Beautiful Bill”. I believe OBBB means “Only Bullshit Being Boosted”. More and more constituents are calling their reps and senators on it. Not that the Republican side of things will care. See Joni “We’re all dying” Ernst, for example. More Republicans are reacting to criticism by claiming, “I didn’t know that was in the bill.” See Rep. Mike Flood and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for example.

Then there’s hate crimes like the murder of Jonathan Joss, unarmed and shot to death while mourning the loss of his home and pets. Shot dead by some asshole who hates gays. “Bastard.” The murderous bastard who killed Jonathan Joss probably won’t get the punishment deserved. There’s too much systemic hate, bias, and prejudice built into our judicial systems for fair trails when the victims are gay.

This is our nation now, bending over backwards, encouraging us to look away from the shit happening on our streets. People being disappeared by armed masked paramilitary who show no insignia or badges. People killed for being whatever disturbs thin-skinned, cowardly white people.

This is Trump’s America. The land the MAGAts want, a hateful place where the truth is spit upon, where science is dismissed and undermined, where murder and violence is called for by the POTUS against anyone deemed ‘his enemy’, where the past is being whitewashed of contributions by any person that TACO doesn’t like or admire, and that is a long list of honorable, intelligent people who refuse to kiss his ass.

“Land of the free and home of the brave?”

Not in Trump’s America.

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Wenzda’s Theme Music

Welcome to Wenzda, June 4, 2025. Blissful on the back patio this morning. 65 F and sunny, the backyard was vibrant with greenery, and absolutely still and silent, a perfect setting to sip coffee, catch rays, and rebalance my circadian rhythm. Papi the butter butt floof was my sole companion. Fresh from eating breakfast, he was content to clean himself with occassional passes against my calves. 80 is again the mark nature has set for us as a high in Ashlandia.

Happy Pride Month. June is Pride Month. Fools and charlatans in the Gold House, the place previously referred to the White House, contest the need to celebrate Pride Month. They prefer to believe that anyone who professes anything but straight genders and roles are crazy, making it up, or other ridiculous things. And I say, screw them. We will keep building and progressing. It might be on pause while they’re in control, but they are not moving us back, no matter how hard they try, no matter what they do. We will build an inclusive world where all people are equal without any qualifications imposed by anyone else. It’s strikingly hypocritical that the right will say things about God being the creator and giving rights and simultaneously deny that God created anyone who dares say, for example, my name is Michael, and my preferred pronouns are she and her. “How dare you,” these self-annointed arbiters shriek. I ask them back, “How dare you. Who the hell are you to decide who the rest of us are? Screw you.”

In honor of Pride Month, let’s begin with “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga. Wikipedia gives us a good summary of the song.

“Born This Way” is a song by American singer Lady Gaga, and the lead single from her second studio album of the same name. Written by Gaga and Jeppe Laursen, who produced it along with Fernando Garibay and DJ White Shadow, the track was developed while Gaga was on the road with the Monster Ball Tour. Inspired by 1990s music which empowered women, minorities, and the LGBT community, Gaga explained that “Born This Way” was her freedom song.

Lady Gaga said, “I want to write my this-is-who-the-fuck-I-am anthem, but I don’t want it to be hidden in poetic wizardry and metaphors. I want it to be an attack, an assault on the issue because I think, especially in today’s music, everything gets kind of washy sometimes and the message gets hidden in the lyrical play. Harkening back to the early ’90s, when Madonna, En Vogue, Whitney Houston and TLC were making very empowering music for women and the gay community and all kind of disenfranchised communities, the lyrics and the melodies were very poignant and very gospel and very spiritual and I said, ‘That’s the kind of record I need to make. That’s the record that’s going to shake up the industry.’ It’s not about the track. It’s not about the production. It’s about the song. Anyone could sing ‘Born This Way’. It could’ve been anyone.”

Got my coffee. I enjoy a cup in the morning. I was born that way. Have the best Wenzda you can. Cheers

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Twosda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

First up, PINO TACO is poisoning Americans, followed by American Resistance.

It’s not enough that the TACO Regime is encouraging people to avoid vaccinations, which is helping measles stage a deadly return. Now the inept and ignorant TACO Regime is POISONING OUR FOOD SUPPLY!!! Yes, deadly tomatoes are out there! IT’S ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES!!!

FDA alerts 14 states about deadly tomato recall expansion

My confession: I don’t know if this salmonella outbreak can be attributed to the TACO Regime and the DOGE cuts. A look back through history shows that these outbreaks happen. But PINO TACO would not hesitate to hyperventilate with all caps and exclamations points were a Democrat POTUS. So I’m really just emulating TACO’s style.

Does a post like this help with civil discourse and problem solving? Hell, no. But when the GOTP and TACO Regime stops doing it and get serious, so will I.

Next, American Resistance! This was posted over on Mock Paper Scissors. WP still won’t permit me to properly reblog from them, so here’s my work-around. Summary: Masked gunman are trying to round people up. Without badges and insignia, they could be anybody.

More, Please

San Diego neighborhood makes ICE agents retreat

— Ted Cruz called the FBI on me (@weareronin.bsky.social) 2025-06-02T21:29:26.661Z

This should give us a little lift to start our day. Make no mistake, if you get the mellow beach bums of San Diego to rise-up, anyone can rise-up.

The thing that worries me is that without badges or other identifying insignia, any crack-pot militia can start playing this game and rounding-up people in white vans and disappearing them, and vigilantes are not exactly known for rules. We need more of this to stop the Gestapo/ICE (and maybe the Proud Boys).

As much as I hate saying this, IF you are white use your white privilege if you see this happening: it’s your Superpower against these fascists/racists. Demand to see warrants signed by a judge, and don’t let them disappear people.

(Hat tip: Scissorhead Purplehead)

Remember to resist this and other un-American behavior on No Kings Day, June 14th.

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Twosda’s Theme Music

Summer is pushing more blue sky and sunshine on us. Chastised clouds have slipped the area and the sun reigns supreme. 70 F at 11 AM, we’re anticipating…78 F as our high. Sweet to me.

Papi the butter butt floof loves this warm weather. He came in this morning. We shared a purrful visit, then he stuffed himself on kibble, wet food, treats, and water. Now he’s floofsconced in the vinca. Only his sweet ginger and white face is visible among the green leaves.

Today’s music arrived with a boost from my wife. I was listening to a video which played a few seconds of every Billboard weekly number one hit song in the United States from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969. This came to my attention via 1440’s deep dive into the history of rock and roll.

My wife came in as the video advanced through “These Boots Are Made for Walking”, “The Ballad of the Green Berets”, “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration”, “Good Lovin'”, and “Monday, Monday”.

“What year are you listening to?” she asked.

“Guess,” I replied.

She tried 1970, 1968, and then 1965. “1966,” I said. A little later, Bobbie Gentry sang, “Harper Valley PTA”.

My wife sang along and then said, “I love that song. But the very first record I ever wanted was “Society’s Child” by Janis Ian. I think I was thirteen. I asked for it for Christmas but I didn’t get it.”

I looked it up. “That came out in 1967.”

“How old was I then?”

“Ten.”

Anyway, The Neurons slipped “Society’s Child” into the morning mental music stream when I wasn’t paying attention. My wife thought the song had hit number one; I never told her that it didn’t break the top 10. Of course, bigotry and racism and it’s controversial topic of interracial dating kept it from getting airtime.

I’m at the coffee shop, my fix at hand. There was a line and a hold up. As I waited, the manager came around with my drink, along with the side of ice water which I always request. “Where do you want these, Michael?” she asked.

Laughing, I answered, “I can take them,” but she insisted on delivering them to my table for me.

Sweet service, if you can get it. Cheers

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Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Trump shares unfounded conspiracy theory claiming Biden was ‘executed’ in 2020

Trump Amplifies Another Outlandish Conspiracy Theory: Biden Is a Robotic Clone

Someone else wrote the original post. TACO shared it to his followers.

What’s weird to me is not the unfounded conspiracy that former President Biden was assassinated. Hell, no; the right wing has been a conspiracy machine since the beginning of this century. They’re just going deeper and broader by the day.

No, what’s really revealing and absurd about this conspiracy theory is that Joe Biden was replaced by a clone or robot, and yet, weirdly and inexplicably, ‘they’ replaced him with an aging version of himself who struggled with his memory and energy level and now has cancer.

Sounds about as solid as Greedy Old Trump Party planning gets.

Remembering other shit TACO has claimed…

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