Tag: Republicans

Wenzda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I was one to jump on the stage when we asked before the flash flooding in Texas killed so many, “Why weren’t they warned?” Now we have more insight into the answer. And yes, the path to this disaster goes right through DOGE.

As the Texas Floodwaters Rose, One Indispensable Voice Was Silent

When a reporter demanded to know why the summer camps along the Guadalupe River weren’t evacuated before its waters reached their deadly peak on July 4, Rob Kelly, the highest-ranking local official, had a simple answer: “No one knew this kind of flood was coming.”

Why not? Kerr County, Texas, had lots of history to go on — as Kelly went on to explain: “We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States.” The National Weather Service had even brought in extra staff that night. Most important, the service had issued three increasingly dire warnings early that morning — at 1:14 a.m., 4:03 a.m. and 6:06 a.m.

What Kelly didn’t mention, but which has since become well known, is that the Weather Service employee whose job it was to make sure those warnings got traction — Paul Yura, the long-serving meteorologist in charge of “warning coordination” — had recently taken an unplanned early retirement amid cuts pushed by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. He was not replaced.

Read more here…

This is infuriating. This was one of the many warnings we progressives, liberals, and Democrats voiced time and again: Trump and the right wing want to destroy government. They don’t care who is killed or impoverished when they do, as long as it isn’t them. And it wont’ be them; they’re protecting themselves.

We see similiar stories emerging with taxes, education systems and school districts, disaster responses, diseases, trade, employment, deportation, rising crime, and healthcare emerging across the nation. It’s horrible to read these stories. But so many blindly follow Trump and the GOP, they voted for their own ruin. And many still swear, “Yes, but this is better than what the Democrats were offering.”

What is it that they thought the Democrats were offering, they can’t really explain. They just insist that President Biden was destroying the United States. They rallyed around the price of eggs.

The price of eggs are higher now. Do they really think they gained anything by supporting Trump and his treacherous agenda, which is clearly based on Project 2025, which he dismissed over and over again.

When will they learn and reject the Trump Regime’s incompetence and destruction? How many more dead Americans will we count before they finally awaken? Repu

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Satyrda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Welcome to another day in the Disunited States of Chaos, a nation formerly known as the United States of America. I mean, come on; suddenly the Roberts Court is making rulings that will break up the uniform understanding and application of the law. The Roberts Court has consistently ruled in favor of Trump, overturning Federal and Circuit Court rulings based on precedence and previous SCOTUS rulings. Like many things in TACO’s MAGALand, history is being pushed out the door in favor of right-wing ideology.

The DSC, as we’re now informally called in many mouths, can’t be anything but disunited and chaotic. Chaos pleases the Bully-in-Chief, PINO TACO. “Tariffs,” he shouts with a pen. “Wait, let’s put ’em on hold. No, we’ll put some of ’em on hold. We’re raise some tariffs on some nations, depending upon what colors are in their flags, but only on days of the week with an n on them, on alternating even days of the month, unless it’s a strawberry moon.”

Whenever something goes wrong for PINO TACO, he engages in swift non-sensical denunciation of shadow states, democrats — sorry, I mean LIBERAL SCUM — or SLEEPY BIDEN. “So much of this is SLEEPY JOE BIDEN’s fault because he didn’t beat me after I won the election in 2020 FAIR and SQUARE as ANYONE on the dark side of the moon will tell you.”

Part of the toxic agenda PINO TACO follows is whitewashing history, erasing contributions by anyone who isn’t as WHITE, HETEROSEXUAL, and RELIGIOUS AS HIM, and we all know that this person wholly follows and EMBRACES the Bible because he’s held it in his hand and it didn’t catch fire. But it was a Trump branded Bible, wasn’t it? Which, given TACO’s low reading abilities and skills and propensity for scamming customer, probably means his TRUMP BIBLE was probably a coloring book and not the supposed word of the White, Rich God which MAGALand embraces.

TACO’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” now being debated in the Senate has been ripped apart as a giveaway to the richest of the rich while shredding Medicare. He’s attacking our nation’s education system and the nation’s universities and colleges. Analysis shows the results of his attacks on the established pillars of our nation will be harshest on MAGALand’s heart, rural areas and red states who solidly voted for TACO. Yet, torching his followers is what PINO TACO gleefully presses the Greedy Ol’ Trump Party to do. It’s almost like he hates them for being stupid and enabling him. In parallel, TACO sues news outlets and which publishes information contrary to his latest declarations, often also threatening to pull their license. He reacts most virulently when the news outlet publishes TRUTH backed with FACTS. PINO TACO reacts to TRUTH and FACTS like a vampire encountering garlic.

Topping off his chaos crazed course, PINO TACO has ordered plans to sell off public lands and clawed away the proections that keep our water, air, and land from being freely polluted. He’s threatening to withhold Federal funds from states and cities led by Democrats unless they acquiesce to what PINO TACO says, all while saying he wants to return power to the states. The knob on his bullshit machine goes to eleven gazillion, far above other machines, which only go to ten.

Yet, this stomach-churning stew of denial, slander, threats, misinformation, and chaos is PINO TACO’s plan to make the DSC a stronger, more prosperous, and successful nation. Republican voters put this lunatic into power. If only they’d rememember what the GOP party founder, Abraham Lincoln told them: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Ironically, that’s a phrase from the Bible. Mark 3:25. So you would think that everyone embracing the Bible as the mythilogical foundational guiding document for the nation would not embrace a man preaching hatred and disunity.

But then, from what we’ve seen in MAGALand, history, knowledge, and thinking mean very little.

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Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Here we are. I feel like things are piling up. Tension is rising. A big crash is building. But I can’t see what the crash will be like. Two many variables are in play.

When Trump left office after losing the 2020 election, this is where we thought he was taking us: the unitary executive, if not a dictatorship, a leader eager for revenge, willing to use military forces on any who opposed him. All the things we saw that he was, we said that he was, and now has proven to us to be what we thought he was, what we warned others about. Now we’re being shown as right. Now we’re waiting to see how far he’ll go, how deep the tear will be, how complete will be the destruction.

We know that Trump is a simpleton. But as a person who ‘speaks the people’s language, saying the things they think’, he’s a very effective tool for billionaires and the hardcore right. An unholy marriage was arranged on the right between neocons, new right, evangelists, racists, white supremacists, and misogynists. The underinformed and the rural, nursing a grudge because the Democrats didn’t seem to care enough about them were lured into the arrangement. The GOP went along because they wanted to be the party in power. They probably told each other, we can control him, if it becomes necessary.

I think the GOP were deluding themselves. The right-wing marriage is a frail transactional arrangement. It will not hold, but it wasn’t meant to hold. The left, and the Democrats were the ones moving the country forward. Getting equal rights for people. Raising the standard of living. Actually trying to improve the safety net and our education system. They — we, because I’m part of that left — are not perfect but we were looking forward, even if we sometimes move too damn slowly. Once the left is moved out of the way with their protective labor laws, the ‘nanny state’ which the right encourages them to scorn, Trump’s regime will be free to tear down the safety nets, send children back to work, and cut wages for the middle class down. That’s why removing the Department of Education became so important: it allows people to be indoctrinated. That’s why tariffs and rising prices will be secretly welcomed and accepted by the Trump Regime. He’ll keep telling his MAGAs the Democrats are causing it. And they, now well-trained to not trust the Democrats and to actively hate them, will accept it with little challenge or resistance.

What I didn’t understand until now is how many of those factions united under Trump were willing to go along with him, and will keep going along with him. That’s what polls are showing. Even as Trump does these things an his approval ratings fall, more Republicans identify and support him. It’s almost like this crises and destruction of the United States and its core strengths is what they want. Yes, there are some wretched individuals who thought that all the evil Trump would perpetrate would be done to others. They didn’t understand that Trump doesn’t care about them. Now some spill stories of regret for their voting decisions.

Now, serious questions are arising and falling. Is anyone above the law in the United States? Well, that answer is coming sharply into focus. How far above the law are they willing to raise him? Even if impeachment proceedings somehow begin, the mechanism for removing Trump from office is rapidly being torn apart.

More basic questions stand. How far are they willing to dismiss state rights as Trump seizes power and crushes opposition?

What will they do when Trump’s orders lead to the deaths of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil while those citizens are exercising their First Amendment rights? From what we’ve seen of most of them, they will go along with Trump. After all, it’s not hurting them.

Yet, they don’t see, even after all he’s done, the promises broken, and the lies made, that he will turn on them. Unfortunately, some will continue to embrace the transactional marriage because they’ve told themselves that he is a good man. To admit otherwise requires them to acknowledge that they’ve been duped, that they’re wrong.

Some already wonder, is there any hope for us after Trump? I’m not looking that far ahead any longer. Just get us through June.

Just get us through this week.

Then we’ll see where we stand.

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Thirstda’s Theme Music

Sunshine is available in Ashlandia, today. It’s Thirstda, May 22, 2025, in Ashlandia, where we’re again luxuriating under comfortable spring weather. We’re rising through the mid-fifties and will give the thermometer a pause at 71 F. Now it’s cooler than yesterday, which hit 78 F, but this is still fine weather. A variety of thin, high clouds are stretching their white fabric over the sky in several different directions, keeping us cooler. But a warming trend is in evidence for Memorial Day weekend for us, with Saturday cresting at 83 F.

In other trends besides the weather, Donald Trump told more lies. He’s lying and bragging again. Let’s call it trumgling, cause it really needs a word because it happens so often. Today’s trumgling is that gas in many states is $1.98. He never specifies which state, right? No, not his way to present evidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if some red-state pure blooded MAGAt owns a gas station and lowers prices, just to give Trump a boost. As it stands now, it’s pure fabrication. This might be part of his dementia, but Trump has demonstrated a lifetime of lying, especially when he’s bragging and spreading falsehoods about how wealthy he is or how great he is.

What’s sick and tragic about Trump’s lying is that it’s called out in the press but many people dismiss it for whatever reason suits their thinking. But the White House usually just shrugs it off. Or his surrogates insist without an eye blink that he’s telling the truth. Evidence is not provided.

Some try passing off the constant trumgling as misunderstandings. Some say that Trump is misunderstood. Either way, because of that thinking, The Neurons dug up “Misunderstanding”, the 1979 Genesis song, and have it playing in my morning mental music stream. I’ve always enjoyed the song as a power rock ballad with throwback vibes.

Coffee has been consumed and I’ve assumed the writing position. The day is going mighty fine, despite the “Big Beautiful Bill” passing in the House. Lawrence O’Donnell labels it a ‘suicide pact’ for the Greedy Ol’ Trump Party due to its eagerness to reward the wealthy with more wealthy while making it more challenging for the poor and underprivileged to survive and advance. O’Donnell figures that once voters realize what Trump and the GOTP have done, a revolt will follow. I don’t know. I’ve lost faith in many of my fellow citizens and their willingness to get involved, pay attention, and vote. Many seem bent on a self-destructive path just to ‘own the libs’ or some shit. What will happen? Time will tell.

Cheers

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Thirstda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Current political events and trends in the United States got you down? Are you, like me, frustrated and angry about what’s happening to the United States under the Trump Regime? Are you appalled by how PINO Trump and his minions are trampling the Constitution and the balance of power? Maybe you’re ready for VoodooByMoodoo.

The chances that standard law and order, court rulings, or Congress will address Trump’s lawless ways seem to be dimming. Maybe Voodoo is the answer. At the least, it might provide some stress release as you stick a pin in a little orange doll. Maybe, with luck, you’ll nail his brain or heart. I wouldn’t bet on either; both are incredibly tiny. They said evidence of either were not found during his last physical. The physician pretended

VoodooByMoodoo. When nothing else seems to work. After all, we’re dealing with a lot of zombies out there.

They call themselves MAGA.

Borrowed from Teri Seitz @teri-teri-boberry.bsky.social.

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Humpda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I want to believe. But the rug was pulled out from under me last November. I’m leery of trust and hope. They used to be my friends. Now they let me down.

I read a Brian Tyler Cohen post. Petitioning the King. Cohen writes well. Intelligently. Persuasively. Mr, Cohen says,

It’s clear by now that Trump’s imposition of tariffs has been a disaster. The market has crashed, wiping away all gains since he took office, companies are laying off employees by the hundreds, fears of a recession are reaching a fever pitch, and far from pressuring other countries into coming to the negotiating table, they’re going around the United States and entering into new trade agreements without us. New reporting suggests that Japan and South Korea are coordinating with China to respond to our tariffs. How’s that for 4D chess? At a time when American superiority is threatened by China, Trump is driving other countries into the arms of China.

And so given how disastrous these tariffs are on the economy, and given how potent the issue of high costs are (Trump himself admitted that he won the 2024 election as a result of high costs), it would lend itself to reason that he would want to avoid this like the plague. Even someone like Trump (who can’t bring himself to admit fault because he views any capitulation as a sign of weakness) can see how disastrous this is and should want to cut his losses.

Which raises the question: why plow ahead?

Right on dubious schedule, Trump announced a 90 day suspension on tariffs for all nations except his arch enemy, home to his products, China. So Trump is not plowing ahead.

Could it be that his falling poll numbers changed Trump’s mind?

Perhaps it was the turning of the worms like Joe Rogan, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, and Thom Tillis.

Maybe Trump had a good game of golf. It could be that he saw that shares of DJT were down, affecting his personal wealth, or he noticed that crytocurrency had precipitiously dropped.

I personally doubt it was any of those things. They would indicate logic, consistency, personal reflection, things that Trump doesn’t do. I think he did it to amuse himself because he likes being the talk of the world. He’s that kind of egomaniac.

I think Brian Tyler Cohen may posit it’s something else. He finishes:

Now comes the hopeful part: we’re wise to his plan.

There is a reason that the Trump administration suddenly rescinded the nomination of Elise Stefanik to be UN ambassador, fearing Republicans would lose a seat in a district that Trump won by 21 points in November. And they saw what happened in Wisconsin, where Trump-endorsed conservative candidate Brad Schimel lost by 10 points in a 50-50 state. And they saw what happened in Florida, where even though Democrats lost a pair of special elections, the races saw an average 16-point swing to the left. And on Saturday, they saw millions of Americans take to the streets to protest their overreach. This matters because this administration derives its power from the perception that it is untouchable and can act with impunity. The fact that Americans are standing up, turning out, and fighting back threatens their entire power structure. I know it doesn’t feel like we have much to celebrate, but I want to be clear: the energy, the momentum, and the enthusiasm is on one side right now, and it’s not Donald Trump’s.

Boy, I’d sure like to believe Mr. Cohen. But one thing my recent experience has taught me is, don’t get too hopeful.

That’s probably Trump’s plan: keep folks like me from getting too hopeful.

He’s diabolical in that way.

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Notice

It’s just another sign about how little Republicans care about Americans.

Senate Overturns Rule Limiting Bank Overdraft Fees to $5

The Senate voted Thursday to strike down a rule capping most bank overdraft fees at $5, a measure adopted late last year by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that had been expected to save Americans billions of dollars per year.

The rule would have limited the fees banks and credit unions could charge when customers spend more than they have in their accounts, typically $35 per overdraft. The bureau estimated it would save American households $5 billion a year. It was immediately challenged in court by banking trade groups.

Democrats are preparing to fight the resolution in the House, where they hope the slim Republican majority will work in their favor.

Call your representatives in Congress. Let them know that this is not okay. Banks make enough profits. They don’t need more.

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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.

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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.

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.

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Thirstda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

41 days into the Trusk Regime, and Trump floats the idea of militarily taking over Greenland. As in, invading them. You know, as Russia did with Ukraine and several others.

Welcome to the New Dark Ages

A bullshit right-wing site claims that Greenlanders ‘want’ to be part of the United States. An actual poll, with supporting information, reports that 85% of polled Greenlanders have no interest in it.

And what of the United States and its people? Do they want to attack nation, as the United States did back at the turn of the century? Have they already forgotten Dubya’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Most U.S. voters probably have. Because, you know, it’s hard. Hard to keep up with the Superbowl, the NBA playoffs, March Madness, the Oscars, and the stock market, along with political news, you know, when you’re sick, worried about bird flu, RSV, COVID-19, measles, and a ration of misinformation and garbage spewing from the government. Especially when money is tight and newspaper owners slant the news to kowtow to the Trusk Regime.

Not surprisingly, because this is Donald Trump, MAGA, and the GOTP discussing the idea, some Americans support the idea.

Half in US say Greenland takeover a bad idea: Survey

More than half of U.S. voters in a new survey don’t support the U.S. taking over Greenland, a prospect President-elect Trump has entertained publicly in recent weeks.

In the Suffolk University/USA Today survey, 53 percent of likely voters say they oppose the idea — including 86 percent of self-described liberals, 61 percent of moderates and 25 percent of conservatives.

Of course, I’m pretty much a fool, discussing polls and voters under the Trusk Regime. As if polls and voters matter. As if the law has a place in it. Only thing that matters in the Trusk States of America is what Trusk wants. Donald J. is the figurehead, and the GOTP answers to his whims.

Just a pause, you know, a sidebar to the activity, invading Greenland would probably take a chunk of money. Moving troops in there, etc. You know, like we’re doing along the southern U.S. border, where we now have 9,000 military members stationed there. Maybe it’s just me, but you’d think that while the Trusk Regime and the Grand Ol’ Trump Party are working to cut money to reduce the deficit, you know, probably by cutting Medicaid, they would be leery of spending money on a new military boondoogle.

But that’s probably just me. Truth is, if Donald J. wants to go after Greenland, the GOTP will quickly feed the propaganda machine about what a great idea it is and indulge him. Meanwhile, a third of the nation probably will be oblivious to it happening.

It’s the American Way in the New Dark Ages under the Trusk Regime. Because, In DOGE They Trust.

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