Tag: Rachel Maddow

Fridaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Maddow Blog | As the public rejects his economic performance, Trump pitches an alternate reality

The headline about Trump pitching an alternate reality irritated me. This is nothing new. Trump has always pitched an alternate reality as a politician. He pushed and supported the idea that President Barack Obama was not a United States citizen. He damned the 2020 election that he lost as stolen. That alternate reality caught on with his MAGAfans and lured more of them in. Facts and court cases consistently reveal this as an alternate reality. Many of his supporters still live in that alternate reality. Trump went after “Sleepy Joe Biden”, disparaging him as too old and uninvolved, selling the alternate reality via hysteria about inflation that President Biden’s presidency was a disaster. He sold the alternate reality that he would “fix it on day one”, and now claims that’s what he’s done.

Trump continually bellows about what a terrible deal the ACA is for Americans, selling the alternate reality that he would have a big, beautiful replacement. He used to talk about that coming out in two weeks. Then he swung to an alternate reality that he had the concept of a plan. Now that he and the GOP control both houses, Trump doesn’t mention replacing ACA much. It played its part in his alternate reality that he had something better.

If you can cast your mind back to earlier this year, Trump and the GOP eagerly spread the alternate reality that not passing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would cause economic disaster, would not change Medicaid, would not cut SNAP, and wouldn’t add to the national deficit. As the truth about the OBBBA has emerged, enraging voters, elected GOPers are hiding from their constituents, refusing to hold live townhall meetings because of OBBBA blowback.

In Trump’s alternate reality, companies or other nations pay tariffs and they won’t raise prices, because in his alternate reality, companies aren’t profit driven, and other nations were always ripping off the United States. Even in the deals he made, Trump claims in his alternate reality that they were terrible deals and the other nations were taking advantage of the United States.

United States citizens are catching on. Republicans Say Country Not Heading in the Right Direction.

“More than half of Republicans now say the country is heading in the wrong direction, a new AP-NORC poll shows. The new survey conducted between Sept. 11 and Sept. 15 found that 51 percent of Republican voters say the country is heading in the wrong direction, up from 26 percent in March. What’s more, less than half of Republicans (49 percent) now say the country is heading in the right direction, down from 70 percent in June. Republican women and individuals under 45 are more likely to say that America is not on the right track.“

And it’s spreading.

The growing chasm between MAGA and non-MAGA Republicans on Trump’s economy

The greater problem now is that corporations are deciding that they’d rather support Trump’s alternate reality than risk upsetting him, because upsetting Trump could jeopardize their business plans and money-making intentions.

And, while the Roberts Court seems to be taken in by Trump’s alternate realities, many other judges and courts are still rejecting them.

Judge rejects Trump’s New York Times lawsuit for being ‘decidedly improper and impermissible’

I hope all of us could hold out long enough against this onslaught of unnatural realities and get rid of this plague on the world, aka, Donald J. Trump.

Otherwise, it can become very surreal.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: ouchy

Sprummer continues its Ashlandia rule, with signs of summer leaking in. Already 72 F and intensely sunny, clouds have shifted in, and our high will crest at 87 F. Meanwhile, cooler temps are petering in, according to forecasts, with highs dropping into the upper seventies.

I injured my right ankle again last night. Just stepped up onto the door’s threshold and that thing went snap crack and I was down and in pain. A night of RICE helped and I can hobble today but I need to follow up with ortho and pursue the answer to the question, what the heck?

The cats’ responses to my injury and condition was amusing and interesting. When I sang my song of pain and flopped down, Papi reacted, “Run away!” Tucker came over and rubbed his head against mine and purred.

Later, when my wife had set me up with my RICE package, Papi wanted out. Now, he normally pays little attention to my wife. This time, he came in, walked past me, and appealed to her to let him out.

Meanwhile, Tucker was yelling for food in the night’s depths. This was despite his bowl full of kibble. I shouted back that I was in pain and couldn’t help him so please have some empathy and shut the fuck up. Well, he was immediately quiet, and then came to me on the bed, settled himself against me and purred.

I owe Marjorie Taylor Greene for today’s music in the morning mental music stream (Trademark drifing). In an interview with convicted liar Paul Bannon (cough, cough) about Greene’s stand on defunding NATO, MTG accused Rachel Maddow of being the fringe. She of the wildfire-causing space lasers said, “It’s not fringe at all. It’s also not fringe because most Americans also agree that the United States should not be funding a war in Ukraine.”

“So when we’re going to talk about the question, we’re going to ask the question, who is fringe?” she added. “It’s actually Rachel Maddow is the fringe person in this story. It’s not me. It’s Rachel Maddow.”

Guess that makes me fringe, as I support NATO. See, I remember why NATO was created in WWII’s aftermath. And I support Ukraine in the face of Russia’s wars and attempts to forcibly rebuild the USSR.

Anyway, as I laughed at MTG, The Neurons pulled up Bob Dylan’s song, “It Ain’t Me Babe”. There are several versons but I went with Dylan’s original. I just like its simplicity.

Stay positive, remain strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Here’s the music. See you on the other side of midnight. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Coffeemplative

Hello, fellow sojourners of season and space. It’s Tuesday again, but this time it’s Feb. 20, 2024.

Sunshine is crashing through the eastern and southern windows and it’s already 54 F outside, though a bit ‘o wind is still stirring up the trees and ruining the cats’ outings. Layers of grey clouds smother my western view, darkening the pines’ green lines with long, heavy shadows. Rain is expected, but so is a high of 67 F. Can you dig it?

Ah, rain falls through sunshine. Where is the rainbow?

Tucker, my black and white house floof, continues improving. A side effect has emerged. He’d become less interested in Papi while he was feeling ill. Papi thus became bolder. Now Tucker is feeling better and beginning to notice Papi more. Papi has noticed he’s being noticed and is letting Tucker know he knows he’s being noticed, and warnings have been issued.

Finishing up Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow. It illuminates corners of United States history I didn’t know, such as the conspiracy circulated by the Silver Legion or the Silver Shirts. Led by William Dudley Pelley, they believed all Jews are communists, and all communists are Jews. Rising during America’s Great Depression, the movement seemed to flourish in small, rural towns and was favored by white Christians. (Any of this sound familiar?) They believed Jews were starting all the wars in the world and wanted to turn the United States into a communist nation. To save the United States, they wanted to instead turn it into a fascist nation and were looking for America’s Hitler.

I’m summarizing, of course. Ms Maddow offers more details in rousing style. This is just one of many surprising stories about fascism in America. Depressing and infuriating, it’s more history that we Americans should know. I hugely recommend the book. I, for one, was unaware of the deep roots about conspiracies that have circulated through right wing circles for decades. I always believed that my fellow Americans supported the principles espoused in our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and subsequent amendments. My ignorance embarrasses me but also blows my mind. Just shows again, I know so little about so much.

On the fiction side, I’m finishing Crime Manifesto by Colson Whitehead and beginning Widows by Lynda LaPlante.

Today’s music comes by way of JJ Cale, Brian Eno, and a television show called “The Bear”. The show often uses interesting and diverse music. I’ve been a fan of JJ Cale and Brian Eno since the early seventies. When they collaborated and released an album in 1990, I went right out and bought it. The album, Wrong Way Up, didn’t fail me. The first song on it was “Lay My Love” and showed up on “The Bear”. Since hearing it, “Lay My Love” has flickered in and out of my personal mental playlist. Today, The Neurons pushed it through into the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks).

I believe, though they won’t confirm it, that the lines hooking The Neurons were, “I am the crow of desperation” and “I am the termite of temptation”. Instead of those, though, my head rang with “I am the bastard of misinformation”. The Neurons continued my imagined stanza, “I live with what I don’t know. I try to find and remain behind, the knowledge that goes before.” Yeah, I know, I’m not a songwriter.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote, please. Coffee drinking has progressed. Onward. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: coffeespective

Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, greets us with a bleakly ‘meh’ sky in Ashlandia. Rain has retreated to a background position, haunting the mountains, where it sometimes drops as snow; Grizzly Peak is now capped in white. It’s 46 F, though, and snow is not in our future. Might rain, later, though. Not going to get substantially warmer. Sunshine does look in on us once in a while but not long enough to post a significant presence.

The homefloofs continue serving their roles in a restricted position, with no outside activities permitted from dusk to dawn. It’s the cougar thing. Meanwhile, Tucker has been scheduled for a dental assessment after drooling this week. Problem teeth and gum infections associated with gingivostomatitis plagued him before his arrival at our place. We’ve had teeth removed and treated the problem by keeping him on a grain-free diet. But it seems to be blowing up on him again, poor guy.

I continue reading Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow in parallel to my fiction reading. I don’t recommend Maddow’s book; its revelations of deep racism in the US, with laws and attitudes toward segregation and how Blacks and others were treated inspiring Nazi Germany in their approach to the same in the 1930s, is fucking sickening. I was so damn naive. Maddow points out what the laws said, and then how they were applied and interpreted so that mistreatment and segregation continued. Several presidents even encouraged segregation and set laws into place that limited Black’s freedom and equality. Were I Black, I’d be one pissed off individual.

The Neurons have fed Joni Mitchell’s song, “Help Me” from 1974, into the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). Depending on my mood — sometimes it was too soft and schmaltzy for my mood — I’ve generally enjoyed this soft, jazzy tune and its reflections on falling in love with a man who doesn’t seem like a great choice for her. Yeah, I dig it; we often must make a choice that isn’t the greatest. That recognition in another matter being addressed in my head this morning, coupled with Joni Mitchell’s performance on the Grammy’s last week, is what probably inspired The Neurons to play the song.

Stay positive, remain strong, lean forward, and vote as if the future might depend on it. Here’s Joni with her song. There goes me with my coffee. Cheers.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: jubtimism. (Yes, that’s a weird combo of jubilant and optimistic, weird in face of the dark news that keeps spitting in my face.)

Hey to all who are doing time with me on the third rock. Today is Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. Completely gray on gray today, again, with sunshine shifting and sliding through cloud breaks when it can. Daffs have broken out to spread their color across the sprinter landscape. 50 F now, no snow on the ground in the valley or nearby peaks. If you need to see some snow, hop onto I5 and drive a few miles south to Mt. Ashland. If you don’t turn off for Mt Ashland but keep going toward California, Mt. Shasta, just fifty miles away, will present a postcard image for you as the Interstate rises and falls.

I watched the Super Bowl last Sunday and saw some NFL commercials about bullying. That woke up some Neurons, who came up with a 1989 Chris Rea song, “The Road to Hell”, and have it playing in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). See, these big NFL players quoted children and adults who were bullied. The survivors talked about facing daily fear. Terror. Likewise, we have this election campaign where fear and terror are being employed in lieu of policies or intelligent discourse. If Trump wins, he promised to be a dictator. Some of his followers tried overthrowing the election results back on Jan 6, 2021. They now promise greater violence if Trump loses, as do members of Congress who carry his water. Contrary to all presented facts and evidence, they insist that Trump win the 2020 election, but was cheated out of staying in office.

And now, facing all manner of trials and criminal charges, which seem to be stacking up, Trump wants to be declared immune from anything criminal he did while President. As the first judicial panel ruling on his claim noted, that would remove the POTUS from the checks and balances built into the Constitution. If that happened, what, beyond his character, would stop President Biden from saying, “Gosh, if Trump is immune, so am I.”

So there are fears out there for our democracy and republic. Hence, The Neurons pulled up the lines from Chris Rea’s 1989 song, “The perverted fear of violence chokes the smile off every face. Common sense is ringing out bells. This ain’t no technological breakdown. Oh, no. This is the road to hell.”

Sorry if I’m as dark as my coffee this morning. Been reading Rachel Maddow’s book, Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, yesterday and today. Illuminating, of course, but sometimes history can be depressing. She traces the efforts of paramilitary groups trying to end democracy in the US back in the 1930s to give fascism a chance. They worked under names like The Christian Front, the Silver Legion, and the American White Guard. These were lunatics with powerful friends, which aptly summarizes much of the MAGA movement and QAnon. In summary, both in the past and now, I didn’t realize that so many Americans harbored an authoritarian mindset. Being a Star Trek fan, I though boldly heading toward a new era of equality, freedom, and justice. I didn’t realize that a block of people exist who abhor those things.

On the flip side of my dark street, Jamie Lee Curtis’s performance as the matriarch in The Bear was powerful stuff. Yes, we’re just catching up with the second season. I’d heard about the hit series, and decided to check it out. Glad on did.

Also on the bright side, the house painting is moving closer to fini. That’s pretty darn exciting. Looking back, the project’s genesis was in the early months of 2020. We were just collecting names for bids when COVID landed and the shutdown commenced. In 2021, we moved toward getting quotes but supplies were limited because of supply chain issues in response to the COVID shutdown. Not much was done in 2022 about the painting because…(cough, cough) COVID. Finally, in 2023, quotes were gathered and agreements made, but the painting backlog pushed us back to this year.

I’ve had coffee, thanks. Be strong, remain positive, lean forward, and voOte. Register first, of course. Pitter patter, get ‘er at her. Here is Chris Rea with his slide guitar. Cheer

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: restless

Friday has dropped in for its weekly visit, a little jaunty and restless, lookin’ for something to do.

It’s November 10, 2023, in Ashlandia, where the duck ponds are quiet and the park is still. 44 F now, sunshine has dropped it down a notch but still holds the sky, though high thin white clouds lurk, contemplating the valley, planning some kind of mood. Today’s high temperature will theoretically beat the mid to high eighties. Something similiar was rolled out yesterday but with the fog giving us a long, tight hug, it took a long time for the mid fifties to be breached. By then, the sun was beginning to take its shine elsewhere and close for the day.

In a bright spot for today, just 45 days until Christmas.

We had a good laugh the other night in my beer clatch, reminiscing about Trumpisms DJT blurted during his trial. Favorite among the ten of us hands down was his comment talking about why he didn’t receive (accounting) statements in 2021, “I was so busy in the White House with China, Russia, and keeping the country safe.” Wallace, the prosecuting attorney questioning him, “You were not the president in 2021.”

In another bizarre moment, Trump wrote, “Got a really Biased, Nasty, Club controlled, but often overturned, Judge, a Racist, Evil, and Corrupt Attorney General, BUT A CASE THAT, ACCORDING TO ALMOST ALL LEGAL SCHOLARS, HAS ZERO MERIT. A dark day for our Country. WITCH HUNT!”

The CAPS are all his because, like a child throwing a tantrum, he likes shouting. But I agree with him, it’s a dark day for the country, when day after day, Trump is out there spouting crap without evidence, making dramatic declarations with little basis in reality. A lot of it seems projection by Trump about the things he does, trying to pin it on others; we have evidence of Trump being biased, nasty, racist, evil, and corrupt, willing to pursue witch hunts. I think he shows himself to be these things every day.

But what’s saddest and makes it darkest for us is how many people continue supporting him. Of course, it’s not about the bible, nor truth. The majority of Trump supporters aren’t interested in democracy or this nation; these fascists are about keeping their man and party in power so they can glean whatever pathetic privileges and rights they can muster over others, to prop up their tiny minds and retro view of the world. Rachel Maddow was talking about that in an interview about her new book, Prequel.

With all this being thought about, The Neurons furnished the morning mental music stream (Trademark sinking) with The Doors and “People Are Strange”. Seems apt when I’m thinking about Trump and the MAGAs and Republicans who support him.

Stay pos, be real and strong, and keep leaning forward. Here we go, launching into the waves of the day. Enjoy the music, please. I will as I sip some hot, fresh coffee. Cheers, my friends. Cheers

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