Tag: TACO

Thirstdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Paul Krugman consistently writes about the Trumpcession vibes.

Trumpcession vibes are a feeling that things are worse than hard data shows us. My wife and I feel it. Not all of it has to do with Trump. We were forced to change home insurance companies last year because our previous company said they no longer wanted to insure homes in our region because of fires. So that price increased substantially. Electricity prices have gone up. Food prices are up. Coffee prices are up. Gasoline. Some of this is related to Trump’s trade policies and tariffs, and some prices are affected by weather and climate change. The world is complicated. We can make the case that Trump isn’t doing anything about climate change except mocking anyone worried about it, so in that way he’s causing prices increases.

Our household’s Trumpcession vibes arise because we don’t trust Trump to tell the truth. By extension, we don’t trust anyone in his regime to tell the truth, nor any of his supporters. Evidence has been presented that Trump Regime members and their supporters will lie heavily and frequently to make Trump look good. Couple that distrust in them with the soft data of what’s going on, and yes, we have Trumpcession vibes. For instance, how can SNAP benefits be cut without doing damage to the economy? Can’t. The SNAP cuts affect my state, Oregon, and my state government’s ability to help the homeless and needy. The state’s inability to help locally affects our local agencies and governments’ ability to help. From our point of view, it’s all a giant snowball rolling down a steep mountain, gaining speed and momentum, and coming fast. It’s going to be a big mess when that snowball finally slams into the world. That’s how we feel in our household.

It doesn’t help anything that Trump keeps lying about prices and tariffs. Trump insists against the evidence presented that everything is cheaper and getting better. And he lies to convince everyone that he’s telling the truth. But he has a deep history of lying and cheating. Like the boy who cried wolf, we just don’t believe Trump much any longer.

Trump’s Inflation Spin Backfires as Costs Spike Again

I ‘like’ how the story gives Trump the benefit of the doubt and calls Trump’s lies ‘inflation spin’. That’s part of the problem. The media and pundits often sugarcoat the crap that Trump does. Some of that sugarcoating is because Trump, the eternal child-bully, threatens anyone who criticizes him with lawsuits or other punishment, no matter how valid the criticism is.

In other news, Stephen Miller has been speaking out of his ass.

Truth be told, Miller is just mindlessly echoing what Trump mindlessly spews.

Trump calls Democrats who told US military to refuse illegal orders ‘traitors’ who could face death penalty

I’ll be damned. Trump does sometimes tell the truth:

And for those who are always throwing bothsiderisms at the wall to see if they’ll stick, a timely reminder has arrived that the two sides are not the same.

Finally, in response to this Trump rant, we respond…

QUIET, PIGGY!

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Thirstdaz Theme Music

It’s a sunny but pale blue sky heavy with chilly hair outside my windows. Sunshine coats the rooms but the heating system works against the tilting, spinning, revolving Earth’s travel through space. It’s gettin’ colder here. Winter is on the way. 42 F today, 52 F is our high after a night of light rain.

Power outage struck at ten fifteen PM. It was to last three hours. Social media kept us informed. No, not the city, or emergency services, or the power company, or any official outlet. Those were mute. This was off hours, don’t you know? Nobody works on social media for any city org during night’s darkness. Nope, it was neighbors on FB and NextDoor sharing where power was out, the probable cause and the city’s estimate for when it would be back up. One had learned the last by calling the power company. Overall, we all refrained from calling the company because we knew it was a wide outage and we knew they were busy. But we hungered for information. Social media filled that gap.

The Neurons have “Breakdown Dead Ahead by Boz Skaggs going in the morning mental music stream. This is in direct response about 1) stories of Trump losing his grip (along with tangential questioning about who will run the GOP with Trump gone) and 2), the fucked-up place where We the People stand. Thanks to the Roberts Court, Project 2025, aided in some part by the super wealthy who own media chains and outlets, we’re drifting further and further from a nation of equality and freedom. A twisted form of ‘Christianity’ is being given a pass to the detriment of other religions. Prices are rising, affordability is falling, and the regulations which worked to give us fresh air and water and healthy food choices are being shoved aside.

Meanwhile, yes, since the Trump Epstein shutdown has ended, and the Trump files — sorry, it was a slip — the Epstein files are being released. CNN has pointed out the massive loophole to that. Basically, anything ‘under current investigation’ is exempted from being released. And who makes that call? The Trump AG and DOG. That loophole aligns with the suspicion many of us carry that the Trump Regime will not let the full truth out and will protect Dizzy Donny. As my wife summarizes in her succinct way, “Oh, we knew it was going to be dirty.”

The truth of what happened with the four smirkers is still out there, waiting to be uncovered.

I’ve checked the front and back entries. No peace and grace out there. Don’t know when they’ll show. They haven’t been answering my outreach. Tried emails, texts, phone calls, and there’s nothing. It’s like the Trump Regime has disappeared peace and grace. Meanwhile, I comfort myself with hot, black coffee. Okay, here we go, boiz and gurlz. Cheers

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Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Deep breath; release.

Trump’s lying has been documented and analyzed yet again.

Analysis: Trump keeps lying while accusing others of lying

President Donald Trump tells a lot of lies. Trump also regularly accuses others of lying.

And sometimes he does both at once – telling a lie about something while accusing someone else of lying about it. In other words, the president has been dishonest even about others’ honesty.

It’s a subset of his years-old “I know you are but what am I?” tactic of trying to turn common criticisms of him against his opponents. And he’s used it a bunch this fall.

In other news, water makes things feel wet.

Dale: Reflections on four weird years fact checking every word from Donald Trump

I thought Trump’s deception was bad then. It got much worse. In 2017, Trump averaged 2.9 false claims per day. By 2018, it was 8.3 false claims per day. What started as a side project I could handle in a few hours a week started requiring regular all-nighters. By the time I joined CNN in mid-2019, it required a second reporter, Tara Subramaniam.

Trump’s 2017 dishonesty tended to be impromptu ad-libbing. His 2018 dishonesty was much more scripted; he used serial lying as a deliberate strategy in the midterm elections. Then he used serial lying as a deliberate strategy in his 2019 Ukraine scandal. Then he used serial lying as a deliberate strategy in his response to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic – holding daily “briefings” so wildly dishonest that CNN needed me to go on TV right afterward to debunk the nonsense viewers had just heard.

~snip~

Yes, what’s weird these days is not that Trump lies.

Trump now jokes about his lying. What is weird is that some people still believe him. Or, more weirdly, that they are upset when it turns out that what he lied about something and it hurts them (see cattle ranchers, timber companies, soybean farmers, and families of immigrants, for example), yet they still support him because they think the Liar-in-Chief is better than anyone else out there, that this liar will somehow lead us out of the chaos that he’s created.

Some of Trump’s recent lying weirdness is all about the tariffs. Trump has been saying for a long time that American consumers won’t pay the tariffs that he imposed on imported goods for everything and anything.

Trump says foreign countries paid tariffs; American companies say otherwise

Now, though, Trump is reducing tariffs to lower prices. The question before us is, if we don’t pay the tariffs, how will this lower prices? Why will changing the tariffs matter, sports fans?

We know the answer: it’s because Trump is lying.

Trump scraps tariffs on beef, coffee and tropical fruit in a push to lower grocery store prices

Remember, Trump is reducing tariffs to lower prices at a time when, in his constant lying, Trump claims that prices are down and that stories about prices being high are lies the Democrats are telling. How the hell does that make any sense at all?

Fact check: Trump’s lying spree about inflation

“Every price is down,” he said Thursday. “Everything is way down,” he said at another Thursday event. “Prices are down under the Trump administration, and they’re down substantially,” he said Friday, adding, “Everybody knows that it’s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden. And the prices are way down.”

None of that is true.

~snip~

The evidence that Trump constantly, religiously, and consistently lies is fully and pervasively documented. Now Dozy Donny wants us to believe that the Epstein files are a Democratic hoax.

Where Is Democrats’ Transparency on Epstein?

As President Donald J. Trump said, “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party.”

~snip~

Trump also wants us to think that with all the time that his AG has had the Epstein files, with all the time and access that the DOJ under him has held onto the files, that he will not make some attempt to redact or remove references to him, or to hide them. Why should I believe that? With his history, any document issued under Trump’s name is automatically suspect by anyone familiar with history, facts, or the truth.

Yet, with the evidence of all of Trump’s lying filling the net, Dizzy Donny expects us to accept on his word that the boats which he ordered the U.S. military to destroy are all narco terrorists and drug dealers.

Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more nuanced

GÜIRIA, Venezuela (AP) — One was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver.

The men had little in common beyond their Venezuelan seaside hometowns and the fact all four were among the more than 60 people killed since early September when the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs. President Donald Trump and top U.S. officials have alleged the craft were being operated by narco-terrorists and cartel members bound with deadly drugs for American communities.

~snip~

Man oh man, when oh when oh when will the MAGAts catch on to this lying?

That’s the wrong question, isn’t it? The right question is when will they care enough to stop supporting Dozy Dizzy Donny and his regime of distraction? When will they accept that they’ve been conned? When will they realize and admit that Trump is destroying the United States, ripping off the treasury, and enriching himself?

Way it’s going, we might have colonies on Mars before any of that takes place.

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Wenzdaz Theme Music

Blue sky. I see blue sky and sunshine. It looks so different today, Wenzda, November 19, 2025, then it did on Twozda, November 18, 2025. It’s only 40 F out under that blue sky and sunshine. Fall’s full impact has arrived as we shift toward winter. Dead leaves are browning, curling up and resting everywhere, like sayin’, done. Gonna be up to 50 F, so wear shorts.

Today’s song is one by The Wallflowers called “The Difference”. The Neurons gifted it to me because I was walking through the house and thought, something looks different. Then I stopped and puzzled through WTH looks different. Nothing came to mind but as I walked off, The Neurons began “The Difference” in the morning mental music stream.

Off I go to another medical appointment, some ultrasound for this or that, or maybe the other. One of those NPO things. I’m hungry and thirsty and keep automatically reaching for things to put into my mouth, forcing me to chastise myself, don’t eat that! Don’t drink that. Put that down! Bad boy.

I’ve been thinking about the economic bubble we’re in. This is the AI bubble. Look how much investment is attached to it. It’d driving employment, production, and growth plans. Big thing about it that I can see is that companies like Amazon are salivating over the idea of hiring less people. The GOP, especially Trump, is drooling over this. I guess they’re thinking, let’s use AI to hire less people so we can build more things that less people can afford, thereby increasing the wealth gap yet more.

Of course, others think, we’ll use AI and its predictive and analytical processes to more precisely predict weather! Except the Trump Regime cratered many of the satellites used in weather forecasting. He’s gonna turn them over to Musk’s companies. It feels like a bad idea, like it goes against that proverb, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Seems like as robotic manufacturing and AI management grows, less people will be working and more people will need assistance for things like food, medicine, and housing. As the GOP doesn’t want to give those things, it feels like we’ll then have greater homelessness, more sickness, and higher levels of deprivation and starving. But given that the GOP is erecting the means for the wealthy to live isolated and insulated from the masses, most of them won’t know. They don’t care but not knowing will help them sleep easier, and don’t we all want the wealthy to rest easy? Isn’t that why we cut them deals on their taxes and give them freebies, hmmm?

Sorry, the inner cynic broke free of his moorings and tossed around on the cynical sea. On to other things. May peace and grace find you, if you can afford it. Way it seems to be going, only those who can afford it will know peace and grace. At least I have coffee. Thank dog Trump lowered the tariffs that he raised on it, right? Of course, that doesn’t offset all the other things driving up the costs of food and coffee, does it? But what do we know? I know; let’s build some AI so we can ask it what we need to do. Then we can ask AI what it thinks of tax cuts for the wealthy, tariffs on imported goods, using the military on your own citizens, separation of church and state, climate change, things like that. Man, it’s getting to look like a fugly future.

Wish I could sip some coffee and mutter to myself over this, grumble grumble. Have a better one. Cheers

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Twozdaz Theme Music

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray outside my window, today, Twozda, November 18, 2025. It’s a bleak and dark look which does little to inspire the mind, body, or spirit to move. Our present temperature is 42 degrees F but it’s gonna surge to 45. Rain? Maybe, in the realm of a quarter inch or less.

Papi the orange floof dislikes this change of meteorological circumstance. He went out several times. Dissatisfied with his experiences, he’s sulking in the living room on his favorite chair, thinking of sleeping.

I ran two miles yesterday afternoon. Felt quite good after that, all lubed up and flexible, if you will. Supremely satisfying to having pieces working in rhythm with a thumping heart, heaving chest, and dribbles of sweat finding their chaotic paths down my skin. The warm shower afterward felt oh so good. With time’s passage, I’m now permitted to wash my incision sites, and gave them the first light cleaning they’ve had since the operation on Nov. 5.

The Neurons have provided me with “Stormy” by the Classics IV from 1968 as my morning mental music stream entertainment. I felt they offered this on Papi’s behalf, as The Neurons kept repeating, “Bring back that sunny days!” I’ve gone with the 1979 Santana cover.

Trump continues pursuing an altered reality which is only accessible by putting his head up his ass. He’s joined there by people who eagerly endorses his warped ideas on humanity, civilization, and society, such as the Heritage Foundation, purveyors of Project 2025. As Heather Cox Richardson explained, it’s all about having a world for the wealthy supported by the poor. Different rules apply for the wealthy. White men have major roles in keeping it organized and civilized. Ms Richardson tells us that we’ve gone through these before, with southern ‘gentlemen’ in the mid 1800s, and such business ‘leaders’ as Carnegie and Mellon, who seemed to have very low opinions of anyone who wasn’t wealthy and didn’t think those people worked hard enough. Sound familiar? You should read the whole thing.

Letters From An American

I don’t know if peace and grace are going to show when it’s so gloomy looking outside. I don’t really blame them, as today’s weather is not an inviting presence. I’ll make do with coffee again. Here we go, once more into the breach. Cheers

0

Mundaz Theme Music

Munda, November 11, 2025, has shown up in ugly shades of gray. Fog, rain, and clouds mix it up, leaving no room for sunshine to run. It’s 44 F, will get up to 46 F with rain coming and going.

Back from a follow up with the surgeon who removed my gallbladder. Was scheduled for 9:15. I arrived at 9. By 9:15, I was driving back home. My incisions all are healing fine, I’m reporting no issues, he’s noticing no issues.

Today’s music is “Vasoline” by Stone Temple Pilots. The song is about being stuck in a messed up situation. “Flies in the vasoline we are, sometimes it blows my mind, keep getting stuck here all the time.” Thinking that while reading of Trump craziness, I thought, “We’re going to be stuck here in this messed up situation for a while.” “I hear you,” The Neurons responded, and dumped “Vasoline” into the morning mental music stream.

Trump was calling the Epstein files a Democratic hoax. Claim there’s no there there. Ordered DOJ investigations into it to see what connections are there between Dems and Epstein. Twist and turn, twist and turn. Then, like a child, he’s pivoted. “Go ahead, release them, I don’t care. I’m taking my ball and going home.”

Then there’s the tariffs. On. Off. On. Off. They’re there for national security. To protect ‘Muricans. No, they’re there to pay off the national debt — which, BTW, is gaining bigly under Trump. A trumpzillion has been added to the debt since Trump took over. Next, there’s China. “They will buy soybeans.” China: “Soybeans? What are you talking about?”

The Trump Regime is announcing ICE surges, national guard deployments, and military operations. Twist and turn, flail and burn. Hence, the song, “Vasoline”. We’re stuck in the vasoline of Trump’s altered reality. If it doesn’t blow your mind, you’re not paying attention.

And ‘member that DHS raid of the Chicago apartment building in the dark of night on September 30, 2025? The Trump Regime crowed about those dangerous occupants. From Crooks & Liars:

Horrific DHS Raid In Chicago Was A Violent Propaganda Scam

Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to President Donald Trump and an architect of his “mass deportation” policy, said that the building was “filled with TdA terrorists” and that the raid had “saved God knows how many lives.”

Read that whole report. ProPublica followed up on the raid. No terrorists. Barely anyone with a parking ticket. Just another example of the TACO Regime attacking Americans, breaking laws, trampling the Constitution, instilling fear, and sowing chaos.

May peace and grace find us soon. Till then, I’ll coffee up and struggle through the vasoline. Cheers

1

Sundaz Theme Music

Sundaz has slipped in, wrapping an autumn day around its shoulders. Sunshine and clouds and shuffling and bumping one another. Temperatures are moldering around the low 50s with plans for the high 50s. We’re now halfway through the eleventh month of 2025, as it’s November 16, 2025. With 2025 slinking toward the end, we wonder, are we on the right path as a nation? My Neurons answer with a resounding, “Hell, no.”

My sisters reported on progress cleaning Mom’s house out. She’s lived there thirty plus years. Stuff accumulates. Bills and paperwork. Memorabilia. Clothing. Food, utensils, bowls, dishes. Three sisters reported for duty, taking what they wanted for themselves, otherwise tossing things, filling up the trash and recycling cans. Sad, depressing, normal.

Today’s music comes from being outside at midnight last night. (Yes, it was a cat thing.) I was looking for the moon, the northern lights, meteorites, alien spaceships, bears, cougars, etc. But The Neurons took it in a different direction, bringing up a cover of “Shame on the Moon” by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. I remember that song arriving on the radio scene and singing it to myself later as I walked at night, admiring the moon. It’s a mellow song for a mellow day when they tell us rain is on the way.

It’s Sunda so the news cycle is slow. I can’t pretend to guess what Traziness will strike. He’s retreating on tariffs, sweating bullets over the Epstein files, and continues to rule over Project 2025 chaos, inflicting dumbassery and cruelty wherever and whenever. The Trump Epstein Shutdown is over but the Trump Epstein Shitshow goes on.

Have a great Sunda. I’m gonna strive to do the same. Coffee is up. Here we go, one more time. Cheers

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Satyrdaz Theme Music

It’s the darkest of times, it’s the dumbest of times, it’s Trumpiest of times. Borrowed from Mock Paper Scissors.

Bold sunshine shoots the windows today, Satyrda, November 15, 2025. 52 F now, the other numbers are 65 and 42 F for the day’s highs and low. Sunshine and blue are dominating like an NFL team playing a high school JV team. Lovely to rest my eyes on the panorama and what remains of the colorful leaves after the wind tore through over the last several days.

I was walking yesterday evening. Sidewalks and paths are wealthy with discarded leaves. I kicked ’em up as I passed through them like I was six years old. I always enjoy making that ruckus among the leaves. Meanwhile, I deliberately summoned the music to “New York State of Mind” by Billy Joel. My lyrics were adjusted to “Ashlandia State of Mind” and our local streets, activities, and centers of interest. After singing it last night and gazing out on this morning’s view, The Neurons resurrected the song for my morning mental music stream.

The Trump Regime has made statements about demanding all SNAP recipients re-enroll. They believe the debunked myths that SNAP is corruption riddled. 42,000,000 are receiving SNAP. The huge effort to re-enroll them all will fall on the states and the recipients. Recipients who are often children, working poor, struggling lower middle class, elderly and disabled. If this doesn’t scream, THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT, what does?

With the Trump Epstein Shutdown ended after a record run, attention is swinging hard to the Epstein files and Trump’s place among their annals. Dizzy Donny is displaying deeply demented demeanor. Many like me speculate that he knows the terrible things the files will reveal. Here’s hoping for the best.

BTW, that idea about 50-year mortgages is crackers. Won’t do much for helping affordability. Folks still need down payments, need the income for paying property taxes and insurance, and insurance is going higher and higher in many regions due to more extreme weather — but please, let us not say anything about climate change. Heaven forfend the TACO Regime even thinks about doing anything about that. See, with mega AI centers being planned and built, pollution will go yet higher. Demands on water will go yet higher. As will demands on electricity, causing the price of everything to increase, crushing affordability, but never mind all that. Realizing those things and planning to address those things takes something other than greed, lying, and cruelty, and that’s all the Trump Regime has.

The day is calling and the coffee is singing. My hope remains that peace and grace lift themselves up with a mighty shake and come around to yours and mine. Here we go again. Cheers

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