Tag: social media

Twozdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

First, the ‘good news’.

The number of measles cases in the U.S. are on the rise.

No, that is not ‘good news’.

It is vindication.

The data clearly shows that the measles vaccinations policies followed in the U.S. for the last several decades were working. The science was understood.

Now, led by a charlatan in Health and Human Services, one Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and emboldened by the Trump Regime, the U.S. has had over 1900 cases reported in 2025. With winter striking and people keeping closer proximity, measles outbreaks in several states are growing. It’s doubtful to me that the TACO Regime will take action to address these outbreaks. The outbreaks are part of the Project 2025 strategy to undermine health and morale in the United States. While it’s not explicitly stated as such, that is the intention which emerges.

Trumpsanity continues plowing over the nation.

Trump is suing the Pulitzer Prize Board. It’s been going on for a few years.

In late 2022, Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board, which, he claimed, defamed him by refusing to retract prizes it gave the New York Times and the Washington Post for their Russiagate reporting.

Trump, in the lawsuit, alleged that the Times and the Post defamed him in their articles and that the Pulitzer Prize Board, by awarding them, defamed him as well. Many Trump critics attacked the lawsuit as frivolous, pointing out that the Pulitzer Prize Board itself didn’t write the articles he claimed were defamatory.

~snip~

Recent articles reveal that the Pultizer folks reacted by demanding records from Trump to prove what he’s claiming.

As of Thursday, the case had reached the discovery phase, with the Pulitzer board submitting a 12-page filing with a “litany of broad discovery demands” for Trump’s legal team. In addition to demanding more typical documents pertaining to Trump’s various lawsuits and claims about the political impact of the Pulitzer Prizes, the board also requested a wide range of documents detailing much more personal and intimate details.

This includes “all” of the president’s tax returns dating from 2015 to now, so as to show any potential financial harm caused by the Pulitzer board’s actions. It also requested health records and prescription histories to demonstrate proof of Trump’s claims of mental and physical anguish.

“To the extent You seek damages for any physical ailment or mental or emotional injury arising from Counts I-IV of Your Complaint, all Documents (whether held by You or by third parties under Your control or who could produce them at your direction) concerning Your medical and/or psychological health from January 1, 2015, to present, including any prescription medications you have been prescribed or have taken,” the filing explained. “For the avoidance of doubt, this includes all Documents Concerning Your annual physical examination. To the extent you do not seek such damages in this action, please confirm so in writing.”

~snip~

One, I’m very pleased that the Pulitzer Prize Board is pushing back and not capitulating, the path which so many universities and media organizations followed. Two, I love that response: this is what you’re claiming, so show us the receipts.

Of interest now is how the TACO Regime will react. I expect bluster, of course. Claims of executive privilege will probably spring up as well. TACO never likes revealing paperwork because the paperwork inevitably reveals the depths of his deceit and lies.

Trump showed again he’s an empty shell of a human.

President Donald Trump responded to the mass shooting over the weekend at Brown University, telling a crowd gathered at the White House that “things can happen” while offering “deepest regards” to the families of students who died and urging a speedy recovery for the injured.

~snip~

I couldn’t find any statements that Trump made about the disastrous flooding in Washington. Sure, the Trump Regime signed off on assistance but he, personally, said nothing about the disaster. No, he’s too busy slamming Rob Reiner after the actor and his wife were murdered by their son.

Trump, in a post on his social media network, said Reiner and his wife were killed “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”

He said Reiner “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness.”

~snip~

That’s Trump. Always going lower. Always taking the lowest, tasteless, classless road possible.

Compounding the Trump Regime’s struggle with truth and success, unemployment is rising.

Statistics and history show that U.S. unemployment climbed to 4.6 % in November 2025. That’s the highest rate since September 2021. It’s also change-your-diaper time for Deflecting Donny, once again.

Employers across the U.S. added 64,000 jobs in November, beating economists’ forecasts, new government data shows, even as new October figures revealed a loss of 105,000 jobs, a sign the labor market remains under pressure.

The unemployment rate in November rose to 4.6%, the highest level since September 2021.

~snip~

Trump will blame President Biden for the rising unemployment. That’s a given, even though it’s been Trump’s economy since the 2025’s first month. Trump might even blame President Obama for this poor unemployment, because that’s how loosely connected to reality Dopy Donny is these days. The wires between his brain and reality are frayed and broken, and it is showing in his speeches and reactions. He’s quicker to jump to hostility and bullying than in previous years. Those attacks are often not landing as they have in previous years.

Sadly for Trump, at the same time that reports claim the nation added more jobs in November, ‘beating economists forecasts’, October figures were revised, showing it was worse than originally claimed. The job numbers were also revised downward for August and September.

Man, talk about a bad trend. Tsk, tsk.

Wonder if Vegas is putting up odds that the November jobs numbers will be revised downward in January?

4

Another Must Share

Banana Inc.: An American Autopsy

This comes from Xraymike79. But Nan deserves credit for sharing it at her site, Nan’s Notebook. Please give it a click and read. Cheers

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A Wrap Up

A wrap up of some terrific posts by other bloggers about the October 18 No Kings II rallies.

#AntifaWasHere

Willow Croft has a good suggestion.

I know I’ve been a bit AWOL what with finishing up school, planning my move, and all that, but I had this idea. The MAGA goons/the Trump Administration is spewing out all this nonsense about Antifa, so what if we (the collective resisters) take the hashtag #AntifaWasHere and attach it to posts ranging from volunteer activities to random acts of kindness for friends, neighbors, elderly, etc. etc.?

No Kings … Then, Now, or Ever!

From My Less than Humble Opinion:

Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, and other Republicans in Congress are calling today’s protests a “Hate America” rally sponsored by extreme leftists, pro-Hamas activists, hardened criminals, and terrorist organizations like ANTIFA.[2] Apparently, they’ve never read the first amendment to the Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

No Kings #2 Was A Success!!!

Jill wrote,

I think that We the People proved to the leaders of this regime that we will not lie down and let them kick us, will not give in and will fight to the death against their lawless attempts to  replace our democratic republic with a dictatorship run by a cruel and evil tyrant.  Remember these images next time you hear Felon Trump say that “everybody” loves him or “everybody” believes what he is doing is right.

Success!

Robert Hubbell wrote,

No act of resistance is wasted, and no act of resistance is unsuccessful. Because in resisting, we redeem ourselves, we consecrate ourselves, we reclaim our dignity, and we assert our agency as American citizens who control the destiny of our nation.

No Kings, the Rally Heard ’round the World

Earl wrote,

Yesterday’s No Kings Rally wasn’t just a protest — it was a reckoning. A mosaic of causes, signs, and voices, all bound together by one unifying thread: We the People have been stirred to action. Not by policy differences. Not by party loyalty. But by the cruelty, the malignant narcissism, and the corrosive influence of Donald Trump.

Fascism began as a Roman metaphor: a bundle of sticks (fasces) symbolizing strength through unity. One stick breaks easily. A bundle resists. Mussolini twisted that into authoritarianism. Hitler weaponized it. And Trump? He tried to make the bundle serve only him — demanding loyalty, punishing dissent, and mocking the vulnerable.

But yesterday, we reclaimed the bundle. Not as a tool of domination, but as a symbol of democratic resistance. Many years ago, Chief Tecumseh taught the same lesson with arrows. The Founders echoed it with E Pluribus Unum. And yesterday, the signs told the story.

No kings!

we said no kings
we’ve had enough
of golden thrones
and royal fluff

yet here he comes
in tie and spray tan
declaring:
“only I will, only I can!”

No Kings

Athena Scalzi wrote,

It was so amazing to see older folks and younger people alike coming together, and I saw a friend there who gave me a sign, so I was thankful for that. It was such a great feeling to look around and see everyone coming together for the same cause, to speak up against the tyranny and tell the world (or at least Miami County) “this is not okay.”

#NoKings Day in Brooklyn

Diane Ravitch wrote,

Thousands of people turned out to participate in the #NoKings March, which started at Grand Army Plaza and ended at the southern end of Prospect Park. We were surrounded by people carrying signs and chanting “Hey hey hi ho/Donald Trump has got to go.” Many signs were very clever. I couldn’t photograph them all.

I liked the little girl who had a sign that said, “I should be worried about tests/Not my rights.”

The Fight Continues for Democracy

From The Contrarian:

This No Kings Day was the one of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history—with upwards of seven million Americans estimated to have gathered across all 50 states, with thousands more protesting across the world, to stand up against tyranny; stand up against corruption; and stand up for the ideals that make this nation exceptional.

And finally, The Borowitz Report:

Over 400 of Elon Musk’s Children Attended No Kings Rallies

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In yet another indication of the heavy turnout for the No Kings rallies, over 400 of Elon Musk’s children attended the protests, according to estimates released on Sunday.

Donald J. Trump, furious at the size of the No Kings crowds, claimed that the estimated attendance of 7 million “is much lower when you subtract all the people who were there to show their hate for Elon.”


1

1982

Daily writing prompt
Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
View all responses

I’ve lived without a computer before. It actually wasn’t terrible. Yes, I’m now spoiled. Personal computers have been life changing.

But jump back to 1982. I was in the U.S. Air Force, stationed at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, an island that belongs to Japan. Commodore’s VIC 20 had us abuzz about computers. While we could easily see how it would make many things easier, shopping wasn’t yet on the menu. Nor was getting news updates. It was only toward the end of 1983 that I began learning about the concepts of ‘bulletin boards’, the Internet, and the worldwide web.

So back then, we watched television. Movies were watched via VHS tapes. That was the latest, greatest tech move for us, and such devices were still running close to $1,000. But we had one to help us weather the lack of entertainment inherent in being overseas. Remember, this was before satellite TV, too, for all practical purposes. All that stuff was just coming out, as were microwave ovens. They were also huge, bulky, expensive machines, but we purchased on of those, as well.

It’s hard to believe how fast everything changed. In late 1983, I bought my first CD player. It played one CD at a time. Returning to the U.S. from Japan, we gave our VHS player to my wife’s parents, and bought ourselves a new, smaller one with more features, including a remote control. That was the same year that I bought my first computer, a small but heavy Kaypro. Running at 4.77 megahertz, with a tiny green screen, it ran on CP/M and offered minimal RAM and two floppy drives that used 5 1/4 inch disks. It was a wild scene. We learned how to add RAM, make things faster, and double our floppy disks’ storage. Ten megahertz machines were being touted as possibilities, along with 64K of RAM and a 5-meg hard drive and 16 color monitors! Wow!

Back before that, we read. A lot. Books were checked out from the library, and research was done at the library. I subscribed to multiple magazines, such as Writer’s Digest, Autoweek, and Road & Track. Went for walks, played sports, read newspapers, which were delivered daily. When I lived in San Antonio, Texas, I subscribed to both the San Antonio Light and the Wall Street Journal. Even with the computer and VHS player coming along, and the CD player, and DVD players, most of that didn’t change. We still visited malls to shop, and used Sears and Spiegel catalogues to make orders, calling in to toll free numbers to put the order in. Board games like Risk, Life, and Monopoly were popular with us, along with Trivial Pursuit, and card games like Tripoli and King on the Corner, and Solitaire.

No, the big change came when the Internet finally fired up. My experience with it began in 1991, when I came back from Germany. Slow as hell, to be sure. Connections through modems which had to be hooked up. LOL. That changed fast, too, as built-in modems came along. I was both a Compuserve and AOL subscriber. Email was a new, exciting idea.

Then, suddenly we went to 256 colors and beyond on our monitors. The mouse became popular. 100 megahertz machines were being sold. I remembered buying and installing a 100-meg hard drive, and laughing. How was I ever going to use that much storage? It seemed so excessive. By then, our floppy drives were down to three-inch little colorful things. Now, we’re like, floppy drive? What the heck is that?

Going online was a wild scene back in the mid 1990s. Weren’t many websites in those early days. The games were something else. Research, news, and sports all became much more accessible. Then, boom…social media. That’s when things really flipped.

I’ve gone a few days in 2025 without my computer and without the Internet. Like before, we read, played games, and went for walks.

Just like it was 1982, just forty years ago, when I was younger, and so was the personal computer.

9

Social Media Sez

Trump’s BS isn’t going over well in the socialsphere. The right-wing bubble might be lapping it up but here in the real world, mocking Trump is growing as a pastime.

Some straightforward truth…

A little history…

In closing…

Laurence Britt’s list was displayed in the holocaust museum

And something from Trump’s alternate reality…

4

Satyrdaz Theme Music

Cool rain commences. It’s Satyrda, August 18, 2025. 72 F, we’re two degrees short of our expected high.

Papi loves this weather. The back door is open and the ginger floof makes it his territory. Lounging there, he can monitor us and the outside, grooming after breakfast.

We’re on final vacay prep. I take my ‘puter, so I’ll post but less often and more inconsistently. We’re there mainly for the ocean’s influence. That’d be the Pacific. Our rental place is a few hundred walkable yards from where the ocean beats the rocks and sprays mist the air. The floofsitter will be staying in our house, as her place has some repairs going on. She and Papi get along quite well. I trust the situation in her hands.

I see that Trump hit the trifecta with wholesale vegetable prices in July. Stories I’ve read say the veggie prices jumped over 39 percent.

What led to this? Well, a trio of issues, mainly. One, unpredictable weather, you know, like the increasingly erratic weather caused by climate change, which Trump claims is fake news because he and his supporters are either too dense to understand it, or they view it as a siphon on profits, and without money, life has little meaning for ’em, outside of hatred.

The second cause for the wholesale price jump was cited as labor shortages. That was predicted loudly and continually by anyone with a brain larger than a pea who has paid attention what goes on in the U.S. These labor shortages are directly attributed to Trump’s ICE disappearance policies and heavy-handed gestapo strategy.

The final nail in the almost 40 percent price increase was Trump’s tariffs. Again, very predictable except to the mango clown waddling around the Offal Office and his simpering minions.

Now, on the right, they like to claim that the labor shortage isn’t that bad. That ‘Murican will take over those migrant jobs. They love fables like that. They also bulk up their reasoning with claims that machinery now does most of the vegetable harvesting. While true that machines are used in many circumstances, hand-picking is needed for anything that’s going farm to table. Machines are used for harvesting veggies and fruits destined for canning and animal feed.

Read the whole article about the wholesale price jump at Wholesale Vegetable Prices Are Skyrocketing. What Does That Mean for Shoppers?

This news came from the BLS. Trump just fired that agency’s leader after the downward revision of labor for the previous two months, information which showed that the economy is going down the toilet. Trump hates info like that, so someone over at BLS is gonna get their head handed to them.

The bad economic news also comes on the heels of the Putin and Trump talks about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump’s sucking up and lack of results make him look weak, and Putin ably handled him. Net result: Trump won nothing but praise from Putin for being a victim. Trump loves believing he’s a victim, one of the most unfairly treated people in the world, so he ate that shit up with a large spoon.

Shame, though. All this bad press has diminished the focus on the Epstein Files, and how deep Trump was in with Epstein. His lack of efforts to release the files and irritation whenever Epstein gets mentioned, coupled with his delicate handling of the felon named Maxwell, leads many to think that Trump is bigly mentioned in that file, and not in good ways.

Donald Trump with his buddy, the late convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

Today’s music is brought to you by my sister. She mentioned yellow on a social media platform, sharing a post asking, “Who is your yellow?” A yellow is a person who brings joy into your life without trying. When I read that, The Neurons pumped up “Yellow” by Coldplay in the morning mental music stream. So here we are.

Coffee is making itself at home among my Neurons. Getting ready to pounce on another day. Hope peace and grace carry you on to the best days you can live. Cheers

0

Thirstdaz Theme Music

It’s another Thirstda. With it, I realized, we’re on the cusp of August’s middle. Today is August 14, 2025.

We have a mild cooling trend underway. 68 F now, today’s high will peak at 86 F, falling from 93 F yesterday. Tomorrow is projected to be cooler yet. Rain is expected Satyrda and Sunda, with respective highs of 78 and 80 F.

I admit, I’ve never paid close attention to the Trumps. It shows; I often confuse the Trump women – Ivana, Ivanka, Marla, Melania. Lot of times, my Neurons will roll over and declare that Trump is married to Ivanka, his daughter. I suspect it’s my brain responding to casual connections projected in social media prompting my confusion. Anyway, Mea culpa.

An article I read asked and pursue the same questions in my mind about planned Trump’s White House ballroom construction: surely things like this are subject to oversight, permits, laws and regulations. The article reported that Trump has not applied for any permits. I, of course, snickered about that. I easily imagine Trump wiping out those requirements with his patented triad of weapons, the executive order, lies, and bullying. If oversight agencies aren’t checking him on other matters, why would anyone be naive enough to believe heritage, construction, and safety laws and regs will be applied? We know they won’t. This ‘law and order’ POTUS is pretty damn lawless. Part of his lawless path was charted by the Roberts Court, who decided something like, if the President does it as part of his official duties, it’s okay. So, there. He can build whatever unsafe, unregulated tacky outhouses that he wants on the land the We the People own. We the People can’t do a damn thing about it except write posts, protest, and call our elected reps. Oh yes, and try to vote him and that whole cancerous mass out of office.

Today’s theme music was caused by my wife. She and I were talking about a television show, Misfits, which we used to watch. She said, “Remind me.” With little thought, Les Neurons began playing the 2001 Nickelback song, “This Is How You Remind Me” in the morning mental music stream. This is how The Neurons work. All that’s needed is a tiny jiggle of a small connection between a song and a moment and they’re off!

Coffee is watering my nerves and energy is blooming in me anew. Time to risk getting dressed and going outside and interact with other humans. Hope grace and peace find you today and every day. Cheers

5

Munda’s Wandering Thoughts

One of the great things about the modern net is the ability to make friends. I have friendships with people I’ve never met. As I enjoy their social media posts and their blogs, I wonder what they’re really like. I’d like to be able to sit at a table with them and get to know them.

Conversely, I worry about them. Some are in Australia dealing with a cyclone. Are they okay? Some are in Ukraine, and I worry for their safety, sanity, and nation. Some of these friends are at risk for mental health or physical health. I worry about them if they’re absent from the net for a few days.

So, nice having friends around the world. I hope they’re all okay.

2

Thurzda’s Theme Music

Pop, pow, sunshine has laid out winter. Sprinter holds Ashlandia in its palm and leans hard toward spring. Blooms and blossoms and things are cropping up on trees as life feasts on the strong sunshine. Current temperature is 58 F and the weather ‘they’ say we’ll punch in over 68 F by the day’s completion. Cool beans.

Papi the ginger blade, aka Meep and Butter Butt, loves the sunshine but seems a little perplexed by its presence. Circumstances have promoted him to the only floof in the house, meaning he is also number one floof. He’s still adjusting to his duties but has taken to sleeping in every chair and surface he can find. It’s like he’s stating, “This is mine, and this is mine, and that’s mine, too.”

My wife and I were chatting this morning. She was indulging in her ritual doomscrolling and worrying that she’s in a news bubble. share the concern. Trying to ensure I’m not, I chased down online newspapers in Des Moines, Bismark, Santa Fe, and Tempe to peruse their samples. They mostly focused on local news stories. Only one mentioned PINO Trusk and DOGE. Most said little about politics in general. Interesting. They do seem like the sort of newspaper my wife is constantly bucking for in Ashlandia, a local site focused on local issues, just telling us what’s happening in the community, like why the firetrucks raced down the road with sirens screaming. We rarely get that sort of info these days, unless someone in the known takes to social media such as Reddit, Facebook, or NextDoor to tell what happened.

I have a 1981 R.E.M song, “Sitting Still”, rocking the morning mental music stream. I think The Neurons directed its playing because of the sense that we’re sitting still, waiting for the fall out from the Great Shitsorm of 2025 and the Great Undoing. I’m personally searching for validation of how I was taught the world works from A-Z, including the economy and features like supply and demand, inflation, and tariffs, and the Federal government and its systems of checks and balances. News about angry constituents at GOTP townhall meetings keep my interest piqued: many people are pissed off about what they’ve seen happening — or so it’s reported in my bubble. The GOTP response is to not hold meetings to hear what the people are saying. I’m sort of amused and intrigued whether this tactic can and will hold, especially if cuts to Medicaid are initiated. So I’m sitting still, waiting for results.

Fer instance, eggs. The price of eggs was a big deal in the 2024 elections. Now, The price of eggs is expected to skyrocket by more than 40% this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Meanwhile, the PINO Trusk cuts have reached home with several friends in Ashlandia. They were planning river trips. To use the rivers, passes are required. To limit the number of passes, a lottery system is used. The Federal government runs the lottery. With the PINO Trusk cuts, there is now no one to run the lottery.

Well, coffee has signed a treaty with me to provide energy. I’m going with it while coffee still exists and is affordable. Hope your day is strong in many good ways. Cheers

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