Monday, July 7, 2025

Here We Go Again

     Alright, Elmo, now's a good time to bring out the Epstein files, if you've got them, at least the ones that Pam Bondi now claims don't exist after saying a few months ago were on her desk.
     Yes, they're at it again, like two snakes in a serpentarium. Just a couple days after Musk claimed to have founded a third party (with no evidence, obviously), Trump responded with a lengthy diatribe on Truth Social:
     "I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely 'off the rails,' essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks. He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States - The System seems not designed for them." 
     Number one, the guy who once claimed the Continental Army took control of the airports shows his complete ignorance of American history. The 19th century was the heyday of third parties. In fact, a quick Wikipedia search shows a long list of third parties in American history, going back to the 18th century.
      And, number two, the reason why there aren't any viable third parties these days, as Trump says, is because of a political system that's as astoundingly corrupt as Trump himself. It's a system that is viciously insistent on a two party system of political hegemony, even to the point of keeping third party candidates off debate stages by continually moving the goal posts back.
     So, when you look at it that way, there may be something to what Musk is saying when he talks about "the uniparty" (Michael Collins, the independent journalist, called it "the money party"). 

     Now Elmo is whining on Twitter about being "used" by Trump. Look at this picture and tell me who was really being used by whom?
     The tea leaves are already saying that no Democrat in their right mind would want to join Musk's little pretend America Party. True, Musk is one of the very few people in the country who could single-handedly fund such an endeavor out of his pocket but if it isn't recognized by the entities that are given the power to recognize or not recognize parties, I don't give it a snowball's chance in Hell of succeeding.
     But I can see a lot of idiot Republicans jumping on board his flaming bandwagon, which would only poach votes from Republican candidates at least in the short term and that can only be a good thing, right?

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Who Woulda Thunk It?

      Who would ever think that Elon Musk would ever be on the right side of history about anything? He's a guy whose only genius is in conning the federal government into giving him tens of billions in subsidies, tax cuts and contracts so he could blow up rockets on launch pads and cremate his own Tesla customers alive. He fathers a new baby every 10 days with the avowed intention of pumping up white birthrates. He stole the election for Donald Trump by pumping nearly $300,000,000 of his own money and nudged election results in certain battleground states, gave a Nazi salute at his inauguration, humiliated himself with that stunt in Wisconsin, supported Germany's NeoNazi party, sledge-hammered Twitter practically out of existence and through his Nazi fanboy antics lost at least 11% of Tesla's share price.
     And, oh yeah, DOGE.
     But out of all the highest profile right wingers in this country, Elon Musk was also one of the very few who opposed Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill." He hurled verbal brick bats at it over two weeks ago when it was still being debated in the House and even threatened Republican lawmakers who would vote for it.
     Then, after an uncharacteristic two week silence (after his first round of jeremiads cost him $34 billion), Musk came out swinging against the bill again after it passed in the Senate two days later. Trump wearily threatened to deport him. Musk said it was tempting to do... something.
     Obviously, Musk was acting out of self interest. The EV subsidies are a thing of the past (even though he got a nice fat tax break as a consolation prize).  Pointedly, Musk never once mentioned in his Twitter broadsides the bill's actual evils, such as kicking 15,000,000 people off their health coverage, cutting SNAP benefits so that states will have to cover the shortfall, childrens' food assistance is being axed and ICE's budget was just increased by thirteen fold, thereby creating America's first national police force, the realization of John Carpenter's "Escape From" films.
     The tax cuts for billionaires and corporations were made permanent while payments to hospitals will sunset after three years. The list goes on and on.
     It was arguably the most ruinous, most horrible piece of legislation to ever pass through Congress in 95 years (I'm thinking of Smoot-Hawley).  It was rammed through by Republicans in both chambers through reconciliation, with Trump's whip on their backs (He imposed a July 4th deadline as if Congress was a boiler room operation). It was the embodiment of Bill Clinton's famous aphorism about laws and sausages. You don't want to see either of them being made.
      In the reconciliation vote, every Republican in the House with two exceptions voted for it. Only three Senate Republicans voted against it (Rand Paul, Susan Collins and Thom Tillis). This greasy ball of pork fat, this shameless giveaway to the 1%, will add $3.3 trillion to the deficit, according to the CBO, stuff a trillion into the pockets of those least deserving of it while hurting the most vulnerable Americans. It's the biggest add-on to the deficit in US history.
     There's no other way to look at it.
      Fingers will be pointed, blame will be assigned here and there. One could plausibly lay much if not all the blame for this on Lisa Murkowski, who bitterly opposed the bill until crunch time came. Then she admitted, rather defensively, that she was essentially bribed into voting for it after Senate Republicans promised her some carve outs for Alaska. Bur the bill passed in the Senate by a 50-50 vote only when JD Vance voted Yes.
     It passed 218-214 in the House today after Trump bribed people like Byron Donalds and Tim Burchett with autographed swag. (No, I'm not making this up.) Then, just before the final reconciliation vote, Rob Bresnahan, who actually campaigned on ending trading stocks in Congress and who has since become the House's most prolific trader, sold his stock in Centene, some shady brokerage/middle man that provides no real value, and it's profiting off US taxpayers. Until today, anyway. Right after Bresnahan's insider trading panic selling, the company's stock price cratered by 43%.
 
     Thomas Nast would've had a field day with this crew.

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

How the Democrat Party (Predictably) Failed Zohran Mamdani

      (By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)
I'll be honest with you. I didn't know Zohran Mamdani existed until about three weeks ago, if that. In my defense, I cover national, not local politics. But Mamdani is bringing about a sea change in New York City politics that cannot be ignored. 
     And a candidate like Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani doesn't exactly come around every election cycle. Thanks to Bernie Sanders' presidential bids in 2016 and 2020, more Gen Z candidates than ever have been running for political office. Some win (like Max Frost in Florida), some lose. But none of them since AOC have caught fire like Mamdani. And when he defeated Andrew Cuomo, the corrupt former NY governor, in last week's Democratic primary, he really put himself on the map.
     Republicans, starting with Trump, the very poster child of New York City corruption, have of course been openly hostile toward Mamdani. Andy Ogles called for his deportation over rap lyrics (Mamdani was briefly a hip hop artist). Who cares that Mamdani has been a naturalized citizen for seven years now? That's to be expected from Republicans who literally get the dry heaves at anything even remotely smelling like patchouli oil.
     But what's just as unsurprising and even more infuriating is how he's been treated by members of his own party, starting with barnacles like Chuck Schumer. About the only "support" Schumer has given Mamdani, even after he won the Democratic primary, was to rail against Republicans for going after him. As I write this, Schumer still has not officially endorsed Mamdani. So, what is it about Mamdani that makes Democrats' blood run cold? Here's a paragraph from his Wikipedia page:
     "His campaign platform includes support for fare-free city buses, public child care, city-owned grocery stores, a rent freeze on rent-stabilized units, additional affordable housing units, comprehensive public safety reform, and a $30 minimum wage by 2030. Mamdani also supports tax increases on corporations and those earning above $1 million annually. He has been sharply critical of the state of Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people, pledging to abide by the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders by arresting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were to visit New York City."
      All of which being not merely populist but actual progressive positions. And that plus the fact that he was born in Uganda and is a Muslim, makes him extremely unpopular with the Democratic Old Guard that's looking more and more like the Republican Party before Trump. And this is why Democratic stalwarts like Rev. Al Sharpton and Jim Clyburn had stumped for Cuomo (Remember, Sharpton said not too long ago that Cuomo should resign as governor. He's also recently called for Cuomo to drop out of the race so he "wouldn't tarnish his legacy.").
     Essentially, what they're trying to do to Mamdani is what they did to David Hogg at the DNC, to the point of actually rewriting their own rules about electing officials. Hogg made waves a few mnnths ago when, as Vice Chair, he called for establishment Democrats to be primaried and replaced by younger, more forward-thinking candidates, Gen Zers like him. 
 
Where Goes New York, Goes the Rest of the Country? 
Let's not be too hasty. It's very reckless to see too much in a city election or even a congressional or senate race, especially in Navy blue New York City. But there are some numbers to which the Democratic Old Guard should pay closer attention.
    The night of the Democratic NYC mayoral primary, the mainstream media crunched the numbers and realized that a full 25% of the people who'd voted that night were people who had never voted before. That strongly suggests, at the very least, that the majority of those voters were New York City Gen Z voters just coming of age and voting for the first time. Any political scientist can tell you that younger voters, especially those in the 18-24 demographic, aren't loyal voters. They don't come out in large numbers like the older demographics, especially those 55-70.
    In fact, according to the NY Times (subscription required) last Sunday, the largest voting bloc on primary day were voters 18-30. Again, those are among the least faithful of the American electorate and there are good reasons for younger voters to avoid the polls. They've simply lost faith in both monolithic parties but young voters are especially turning away in droves from the Democratic Party. And right now, Democrats are more unpopular now than perhaps in any time in its history.
     Another statistic to which Democrats should pay closer attention and make the requisite course corrections is a Quinnipiac poll that came out about two weeks ago. It showed that Donald Trump's overall approval rating among voters was underwater at 38%, which is to be expected (although God knows why it isn't significantly lower than that). But that same poll also showed that Congressional Democrats are deeply in Davy Jones' locker at 21%, nearly half of what Trump's approval rating is.
      Does that mean Democrats are twice as destructive as Trump? No, of course not. But it shows an alarming lack of support because Democrats aren't doing nearly enough to stem the tide of Trump's wave of destruction. The Democrats on the Hill, led by Minority Leaders like Schumer and organic statue Hakeem Jeffries, still haven't gotten past the old, "Let's send a strongly-worded letter to the White House" mindset.
     And these same Democrats aren't addressing issues that are important to Gen Z voters in particular. To such voters, they're tired, old and out of touch. When a young, dynamic  candidate brings young voters to the polls in large numbers, they're not merely voting for you. That's just the end result. What gets them to the polls is when a candidate gives them hope (and not the bumper sticker hope that Obama peddled in 2008).
     The young voters who came out for Mamdani last month said through their votes and voices, "We believe in you because you give us hope." Whether Mamdani pays off that hope remains to be seen but that's what voters are seeing in him right now. And they also see the Democratic Old Guard has nothing left to offer them other than, "Republicans are bad and we're against Trump." They need to offer workable solutions and address concerns that are important to them.
     Mamdani represents that hope to countless voters in New York City and the machine Democrats like Schumer, Jeffries and Cuomo don't want that because they know they don't have it in them to reward that hope. So that's why it's always easier for them to tear down actual progressives like Bernie, AOC and Mamdani. It's always easier to kick down a sand castle than it is to build one.

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Who Is Elizabeth MacDonough?

     The Senate Parliamentarian isn't a flashy position on Capitol Hill. It's not the kind of office that puts people behind podiums and microphones so they can deliver fiery partisan invective and polemics. It's not a platform for political kabuki. In fact, it's safe to say that the majority of Americans don't even know who the Senate parliamentarian is or even what her job is. In fact, in the 17 year history of this blog, I've only mentioned the Senate Parliamentarian's office once or twice and I'll get back to that later.

     If you're wondering why Trump's "big beautiful bill" has been proceeding in the Senate at a glacial pace, she's largely the reason why. It's not because Senate Republicans are just finding their inner human and excising some of the worst parts like the metastatic cancer it is. Don't believe the mainstream media when they seem to give credit that the GOP doesn't deserve. Republicans are soulless husks who don't give a flying fuck about their constituents or the American people in general. They only occasionally find themselves on the right side of history or humanity only when it's politically expedient.

     The "big beautiful bill", that greasy ball of tax and spending cuts passing as Trump's signature domestic agenda, just had a major blow dealt to it. You have Elizabeth MacDonough to thank for that. The sticking point, or one of them, in her office were the cruel and sadistic Medicare cuts that Republicans wanted so they could justify the tax cuts for the ones holding their balls hostage in jars beside their beds.

     The Senate Parliamentarian's job is, in part, to make sure things are on the up and up in the upper chamber. It's not her job to decide what’s morally right or wrong but what's legally right or wrong. As in the House, Senate Republicans are trying to ram this bill through a process called reconciliation, which is essentially the fast tracking of a piece of legislation. Elizabeth MacDonough's office decided the bill, as it had originally stood in the Senate, was a violation of the Byrd Rule, named after the late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd. 

     The Byrd Rule is comprised of six tests and these tests are (emphasis not mine):

1) Does not produce a change in outlays or revenues or a change in the terms and conditions under which outlays are made or revenues are collected;

2)  Produces an outlay increase or revenue decrease when the instructed committee is not in compliance with its instructions;

3)  Is outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure;

4)  Produces a change in outlays or revenues that is “merely incidental” to the non- budgetary components of the provision;

5)  Would increase the deficit for a fiscal year beyond the budget window covered by the reconciliation measure; or

6) Recommends changes to Social Security.

     What this means is the Byrd Rule essentially forbids non-budgetary issues and to focus on fiscal ones, and any such non-budgetary issues would be subject to a point of order, which could derail such legislation's privileged status. 

     In short, the Byrd Rule strips out riders or amendments that are not applicable as budgetary issues. This bloated monstrosity at over 1100 pages is essentially an epic love letter to evil and moral depravity. It includes selling off millions of acres of federal public land to states and private developers (Thank you, Mike Lee), to gutting Medicaid for low-income families, immigrants, and trans people, to defunding Planned Parenthood and taking a machete to environmental protections like they were nude teenagers in an 80s slasher film. It was rushed, which is why House Republicans opted for reconciliation. And it entirely depended on sleazing past Senate rules without a fight.

     MacDonough was that fight. The land sell-off? Out. The Medicaid provider tax cap? Out. The bans on gender-affirming care, immigrant coverage, and ACA subsidies? Out. By the time MacDonough put down her red pen, the Republicans in the Senate were left holding a mostly empty bag to which they originally wished to fill with dog shit so they could set it on fire and leave on the doorstep of America.

     Elizabeth MacDonough's been the Senate Parliamentarian since 2012 when she was appointed on a bipartisan basis. For a non-elected official who doesn't vote or write laws, she wields an enormous amount of power. So, before the MSM try to give credit to the Senate GOP for some sanity and decency, remember: They have none. You have Elizabeth MacDonough to thank for that decency and sanity. And she did it not with partisan polemics but simply standing up for the rule of law in the Senate.

     I wrote earlier that I'd mentioned the Senate Parliamentarian's office just once or twice in the long history of this blog. That was nearly four and a half years ago, right after January 6th, 2021. Because, you see, part of the Senate Parliamentarian's responsibility to safely get the state electors' votes in every presidential election to the United States Senate.

     MacDonough's office was the one that was ransacked the hardest during the riot on January 6th. The people who'd done it obviously had guidance and they had a purpose: Grab the votes that made Joe Biden the president and dump the ballots in the Potomac in a reprise of old Tammany Hall.

     A quick-thinking aide to MacDonough, knowing what was going on outside and realizing the madness would soon be inside, grabbed the wooden boxes containing the state electors' ballots and moved them to a secret location.

     Yes, MacDonough's office saved the 2020 election. Say thank you, Elizabeth. 

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

The Sadness of Being Left Behind by Autocrats

     Donald Trump has proven, after just a little over 150 days, to be about as consequential and influential as the lone, robed lunatic you see on urban street corners holding up signs reading, "The End is Near!"
      The dictators to whom Trump has been shamelessly sucking up have shown in word and deed, especially in deed, that they do not take him seriously. These madmen have their own agendas and they know that Trump is, at best, a lame duck and perhaps assume that he won't be around for much longer. Take the recent violation of the cease fire between Israel and Iran:
      Without any confirmation from either country, Trump announced a big beautiful cease fire between Israel and Iran. Obviously, he unilaterally announced this so he could grab credit for it in order to burnish his credentials for that Nobel Peace Prize with which he's so obsessed with winning. Less than a day later, Israel launched a barrage of missiles at Iran and Iran, naturally, responded in kind.
     This led Trump to lash out at CNN, MSNBC and even Israel on the South Lawn today as he was about to board Marine One so he could be ignored at the NATO summit at the Hague. "They don't know what the fuck they're doing," yelled the old man who'd told us to inject disinfectants into our veins and suggested dropping nuclear bombs on hurricanes.
     Then, just five weeks ago, after an informal phone call with Putin, Trump announced that Russia and Ukraine were going to begin ceasefire talks immediately. Then hours later Russia resumed its bombing campaigns into Ukrainian urban centers, which came to the surprise of absolutely no one who knows the first thing about Putin's Russia.
     "The end is near but I alone can fix it!"
     This is a pattern we're seeing with increasing frequency, in which Trump says one thing, promises this and that then these autocrats mash their grubby fingers on their big red buttons, anyway. And, really, who with any sense can still take Trump seriously.when he says that if he were in the White House in 2014 or 2022, Russia wouldn't have dared invade Ukraine. Because one would be at a loss to even roughly estimate how many bombs and missiles Russia has launched at Ukraine just since January 20, 2025.
     That's because Putin looks at Trump as if he's a joke and, let''s face it, he's right. Russian state TV sneers at him as if he's the useful idiot he truly is. That same state TV less than two years ago detailed how they'd hit the US with nuclear warheads and posted nude pictures of Melania Trump.
     That doesn't sound like a government that respects Trump.
 
     Since it's obvious to virtually every world leader out there that our nation is run by a rage toddler trapped in a bloated old man's body, the rest of the world has already begun preparing a new world order without the United States at its vanguard. The picture above is of Trump at the G20 summit eight years ago. While the rest of the economically-advanced world and its leaders were strategizing, Trump sat by himself waiting for people to walk up to him and tell him how great he was.
     
     This was basically what it was like for Trump at the last G7 earlier this month.
     There will always be autocrats and dictators in human affairs but, more often than not, they still possess just enough statecraft savvy and pragmatism to know a joke in their midst when they see one. And Trump is the guy no one wants to be around.

Monday, June 23, 2025

Al Udeid Air Base Attacked

     Al Udeid Air Base was attacked early this morning by Iran in retaliation for Israel's and our bombing campaigns against their uranium enrichment facilities in the central and northern parts of Iran. Al Udeid Air Base is one of the hubs of our Middle East footprint. In fact, Trump visited Al Udeid Air Base just last month. Qatar is saying that all bunt one Iranian was shot down by their ground defense forces but other sources are contradicting that. But, beneath the lede in the AP article is this: "The U.S. was warned by Iran in advance, and there were no casualties, said President Donald Trump, who dismissed the attack as a 'very weak response'.”

     If it was a "very weak response" then that was by design. The Iranians fired exactly as many missiles as the bombs we'd dropped on them two days ago. Plus, Iran said they chose the base partly because it was far away from any population center. The fact that Trump knew about the bombing in advance is telling if not damning. The understanding between Iran, Israel and the US is that the missile attack wouldn't be too damaging and that no one would be killed.

     Plus, Anderson Cooper of CNN interviewed an Israeli official who confirmed all this, that Israel and the US knew about this bombing in advance and let the Iranians do it, anyway, despite there being no guarantee of no loss of human life. In other words, Trump allowed Iran to have a safety valve and allowed one of our most important Middle East bases to be bombed. That should be the main headline, not that Al Udeid Air Base was attacked.

Saturday, June 21, 2025

"Where's My Peace Prize?!"

     Well, today Mr. No Foreign Forever Wars just bombed Iran.
     Yes, the guy who'd been whining for years like a spoiled rich girl for that pony for her birthday about not getting a Nobel Peace Prize just bombed not once, not twice but three times a sovereign nation over a nuclear weapons program that our own government can't even verify. Trump announced, as usual, through social media, that he'd bombed three nuclear enrichment sites in the Iranian mountains.
     According to reports, the bombings did happen and we'd used three 30,000 pound bombs known as bunker busters, the most powerful ordinance we have short of nuclear weapons. Bunker busters are used to take out targets deep underground. They're so heavy they can only be lifted by a B2 stealth bomber. We're the only country in the world with both the B2 and the bunker busters.
     Israel has been bothering us to sell them those weapons and bombers since 2004 when the bunker busters had been introduced into our arsenal during the Bush administration. In light of our near complete deference to Israel since 1948, the mere fact that no administration has been willing too sell Israel those bombs and bombers shows you how dangerous they are.
     But, as hideously powerful as they are (they can vaporize a fleet of dump trucks), bunker busters have their limits. The Iranians aren't stupid and they were canny enough to hide their uranium enrichment facilities (Like the main one in Fordow) deep enough underground so that no one bunker buster bomb can take it out. In fact, it would take successive strikes of bunker busters before we seriously damaged whatever facilities they have (and bombing a uranium enrichment plant is never a good idea).
     Of course, there are potential geopolitical implications, not the least of which is that we have 40,000 troops in the Middle East. Plus, China and Russia are allies of Iran and they are not going to take this lying down.
     The stunt that Trump pulled today, in bombing a sovereign nation without Congressional approval, is likely extremely illegal from both a Constitutional and an international law standpoint. Trump got played by Netanyahu and let him sucker us into a proxy war that will be very difficult getting out of. He didn't have B2s or bunker busters so he manipulated the "president" of the one country that did.
     So much for "America First." This is the way the world ends, with a bang and a whimper over not winning the Peace Prize.

Friday, June 20, 2025

Donald Trump's Splendiferously Bad Week

     Everyone outside the Koolaid-swilling MAGAverse would find it impossible to find anything that reflected well on Donald Trump this past week. Let's start with the G7 summit in Canada, a nation that Donald still wants to make the 51st state.
     First off, the Canadian government had to waive the usual rules just to let Trump into their airspace much less land on Canadian soil. As a 34 time convicted felon, Donald Trump should have been forbidden from entering Canada because convicted felons can't enter Canada, according to Canadian law. 
     Secondly, as he does at every G7, Trump began pissing and moaning that the G7 won't allow Putin and Russia in on account of his two illegal invasions of Ukraine. He kvetches about it every year and the other world leaders politely nod and ignore him.
     Thirdly, Trump left early, as he's wont to do when he doesn't get his way. It's not the first G7 in which he left early, the first time being after finding out that Trudeau, Boris Johnson and Macron laughed at him over drinks on a hot mic.
     Fourthly, just before he left, ostensibly to take care of the Israel-Iran war, he held a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He opened the folder and, like the bumbling idiot he is, let most of the papers fall out of the folder. He helplessly looked at the papers and made Starmer pick them up because, apparently, he lacks the ability to bend his knees and kneel down (and, with his frontotemporal demented forward tilt, that's probably exactly the case).
     After, predictably, blaming the wind (even though it wasn't a windy day), Trump haphazardly stuffed the important documents in the binder so it looked like something a third grader with no organizational skills would take to school. Call me a nitpicker but I don't recall any other US president who ever let that happen.
     Then, a couple of days later, there was The Parade on June 14th.
     This $45,000,000 boondoggle was supposed to honor the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US Army as well as to commemorate Flag Day. But that was all just a coincidence to Trump, who secretly wishes his birthday was a national holiday, like Washington's or Lincoln's. Donnie, the Autocrat Who Couldn't, obviously expected a military parade like you see in nations with autocratic rulers, like the razor-sharp formations and impeccable marching and drilling like you'd see in China or North Korea.
     What he got instead was what we used to call in the military a soup sandwich, in which even the weather wouldn't cooperate. It started with the death of an innocent woman, Sierra Nichole Smith, who was dragged by a transport for several blocks in DC before getting hit by an SUV. 
      Yes, there were tanks, whose squeaky tracks could be heard all the way at the Pentagon, there were tanks, some even older than Trump, there were drones, always an exciting addition to fascistic displays in cock-wanding. But the real highlight of the day was the precision marching and drilling of our troops.
      Just kidding. It was more like a leisurely stroll through the park, with the troops marching not in formation or even in step. Everyone in the military knows how to march and drill. Take it from someone who's been in the military (unlike Trump). It's easy to imagine the troops who were hogtied into this dog and pony show walking as easy as you please past the "Commander in Chief" and defense secretary as a way of saying, "Fuck you."


 
     Trump's enthusiasm was well-documented. Typically, Stephen "Oddjob" Cheung lied about the attendance, claiming that a quarter of a million people showed up when video evidence plainly showed it was about 8,500, if that. In fact, when Trump began speaking, the few who were there began streaming out. 
     The spectacle was so sad and pathetic, Trump is said to have reamed out Hegseth.
     In the middle of all this, Trump all but decided he was going to get us involved in the war going on between Israel and Iran. Remember, one of the planks in his 2024 campaign platform was a promise to keep us out of foreign wars. This one issue alone has split MAGA neatly in half. Half of it wants regime change, the other half (like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon) have no taste for it. So, Trump decided he was going to kick the can down the road for a couple of weeks and to give Iran that time to suspend its nuclear weapons program that DNI Tulsi Gabbard told Congress last March simply didn't exist.
     Oh, and he demanded Iran's unconditional surrender, which made Iran laugh.
     Then Juneteenth came and, like the true cross burner he is, Trump said this:
 
     This is coming from the guy who's spent literally 22% of his "presidency" golfing and siphoning about $25,000,000 from the Treasury to that end and blew about $45,000,000 more on a bad birthday party that cost an innocent woman her life.

Sunday, June 15, 2025

"Where's My Pony?"

 
     "Someone told me I'd get a pony!"
     Today, America honors a draft dodger, convicted felon, fraud, child molester and convicted felon and rapist, someone who'd once called fallen soldiers "suckers and losers" and refused to honor them in France on the 100th anniversary of the Armistice and led an insurrection against our nation's Capitol with impunity..
     And, oh yeah, Flag Day and the 250th anniversary of the US Army. But, really, it's all about Trump's birthday (Interesting historical fact: Hitler also had a military parade on his birthday in 1939).
     I'm sure the spectacle of  watching all these military resources costing tens of millions of dollars  being co-opted to honor the most manifestly inept and unqualified person for the role of president is making tens, if not hundreds, of millions of Americans psychically, morally and emotionally ill. No other American president has ever thrown himself a military parade simply because of the optics. After all, large scale military parades, especially in capital cities, brings to mind grainy black and white news reel footage of dictators like Hitler, Mao and Stalin on reviewing stands while children threw flowers at them.
      Military parades held at the whim of dictators like Trump are designed to show strength but in reality, as many of us know, it's a sign of weakness. Any world leader, any head of state who doesn't suppress and oppress his people knows that the true proof of strength is not in showing it but in not showing it. Plus, it comes at a very awkward time, when Trump has dispatched 4000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines in Los Angeles because a bunch of brown people assembled as per their Constitutional right.
      Today's spectacle also comes on the same day some maniac, a Trump voter named Vance Boelter, shot two Minnesota lawmakers and both their spouses at their homes, killing two of them. Maybe he thought he was giving Trump a birthday present. In his car, they found a list of roughly 70 other Democrats, meaning Mr. Boelter was feeling especially ambitious today.
     It also comes in the same week that Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted in New Jersey on bullshit charges and Sen. Alex Padilla was roughed up and handcuffed by federal agents because he wanted to ask dog killer Kristi Noem a question.
      We're living in very dark times, Dear Reader. Again, this is not how a democracy is supposed to function, look or sound. Democratic lawmakers are getting shot in their homes, killed, arrested, prosecuted and handcuffed. And, lest you forget where Trump's loyalties really lie, consider this Flag Day message from his Department of Defense:

 

Friday, June 13, 2025

Are We Having Fun, Yet?

     Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Netherlands, Costa Rica, Norway, Israel, Luxembourg, Mexico.
     Why those nations? Well, I'm glad you asked.
     The 10 nations listed above happen to be the 10 happiest nations on earth, according to the annual Happiness Index. They factor in all sorts of variables while compiling their data, including how young people 30 and under feel about their present and future, whether people are eating alone or in company.
     The Happiness Report came out on March 19 this year. And, since I'm sure many of you are well aware, Scandinavia routinely is at the top of the list. Look at the number one nation, Finland. Finland has topped the Happiness Index for the eighth year in a row. And, considering how progressive Scandinavian nations tend to be, it should come as no surprise to anyone to see that five of the top seven nations on earth are Scandinavian.
     When the index came out last March,  the CEO of Gallup Polls, Jon Clifton, added his input. I'm paraphrasing him here but his point was that national happiness isn't or shouldn't be based solely on wealth and economic prosperity. Rather, he said, it should also factor in things such as a sense of belonging and knowing that others have your back.
     And Mr. Clifton is absolutely right.
     And that leads us to our place on the index.
     The United States finished 24th, the lowest it's ever been since they'd begun compiling the index. Just two years ago, in 2023, we finished 13th. It could've been better but still not terrible. But our falling 11 places in two years shows there is something very, very wrong with our nation. And Trump seizing back power in January this year can't be dismissed out of hand as a contributing factor. There is a causality, a correlation.
     Let's go back to Finland for a minute. Not too long ago, I'd written a post about that nation taking care of their homeless problem by building them shelters, integrating them with all the resources the Finnish government could offer them. After the officials crunched the numbers, they realized their homeless initiatives had an 80% efficacy rate. 4 out of 5 people used those resources to improve the quality of their lives. Then I asked, If they can do it, why can't we?
     To go back to Mr. Clifton's astute comments for a moment, our relative discontent surely stems in part from our cynicism of the US government. We no longer have the luxury of assuming that the government has our best interests at heart, that our government has our backs. Yes, there are many reasons why Finland tops the list eight years running, but I'd wager one of them is that the people of Finland know the government is on their side and that it'll be there to help them if they need it.
     For perhaps the first time in American history, the overwhelming majority of Americans (let's say, the bottom 90% that'll be victimized by the "big beautiful bill") no longer have the luxury of assuming the US government is one our side. Hardly a day goes by, even on the weekends, when we don't hear in the news about the government victimizing us in one way or the other.
     Thousands of government workers have been fired without just cause. Government agencies that used to work for the American people are being downsized or eliminated entirely. Trump's idiotic trade wars are raising prices across the board. Government funding for disease research is being slashed wholesale. People are getting thrown off their social safety nets. And ICE and other government agencies are sweeping across the country like a metastasizing cancer arresting and deporting even American citizens or legal nationals and leaving businesses and farms without adequate staff.
     Remember Ronald Reagan 's famous, "The nine scariest words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help'."
     It's as if Trump's administration is going out of its way to prove just how horrible and counterproductive the government truly is. It's as if they want us to hate the government but not to the point where we actually get angry or criticize it (Witness LA).
     And, yes, it's exactly as if Trump is trying to kill as many US citizens as humanly possible. It's not enough to say that we're living in a dystopian nightmare because that phrase has long since lost its shock value. The guy who'd sent nearly 5000 troops to Los Angeles is having a $92,000,000 military parade thrown in his "honor", a massive birthday present to feed his bloated ego, while his minions are looking for "waste, fraud and abuse".

Thursday, June 12, 2025

There Are Some Corners You Can't Unturn

 
     This is one of them.
     We keep waiting for Trump to cross the Rubicon. We keep waiting for him to cross that red line, the Point of No Return that delivers us in black Marias into that fascist nightmare that he'd been promising on the campaign trail last year. 
     News flash, people- He's crossed the Rubicon more times than a professional coyote has the Rio Grande.
     It started a little over a month ago when Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, NJ, was arrested and charged with trespassing Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark. The charges were almost immediately dropped in court but, undeterred, the government then went after Rep. LaMonica McIver, another black politician, for assault. A grand jury then indicted her just two days ago for assaulting federal officers. The charges were brought by Trump's former mouthpiece, Alina Habba, now the US Attorney for New Jersey.
     McIver's looking at 17 years in prison if she's convicted, more than all but two or three of the January 6th rioters got for their role.
     But what happened today was a new low.
     Around midday at the Wilshire Federal Building in LA today, Sen. Alex Padilla interrupted Kristi Noem’s press conference on immigration enforcement. More than one video shows Padilla approaching the podium, saying, “I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” before being immediately grabbed by several DHS goons and shoved out of the room. The video above shows him being led to a hallway whereupon he was forced down on his stomach and handcuffed like a common criminal.
     For asking a question.
     Predictably, the GOP response has been straight out of Bozo Headquarters. DHS started by saying that Padilla didn't introduce and identify himself (Note to fascist goons who may still be stuck in 1930s Berlin: There are such things as microphones and videotape and we can hear and understand English).
      Kristi Noem was the first to honk her clown nose by saying Padilla “burst into the room, launching toward the podium”, which, again, is belied by the video footage. DHS accused Padilla of “disrespectful political theatre,” you know, unlike Trump's insurrection speech on January 6, 2021.
     Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Lady G) said Padilla “got what he wanted, he’s on TV.” Professional nonentity John Barrasso ragged on Padilla for missing Senate votes (?!). Always reliable ventriloquist dummy Mike Johnson said Padilla's actions were “wildly inappropriate” for “charging a cabinet secretary.” Among senior Republican senators, only Lisa Murkowski of Alaska defended Padilla, saying the assault on Padilla's person was "horrible" and "shocking".
     Democrats, for all the good it will do, took to the House and Senate floors to lambaste the administration for using such heavy-handed tactics against a sitting United States senator.
     All this, of course, is in response to the unrest in Los Angeles over ICE raids. Crowds gathered, the LAPD was, of course, brought in to restore order. Then, because a bunch  of brown people were assembling in large numbers, Trump called in the California National Guard (against a governor's wishes, the first time that's happened since 1965). First it was 2000 Guardsmen. Then 700 Marines. Then another 2000 Guardsmen.
     Anyone following these events coming out of LA can see that Trump is just quivering for any pretext to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807. But since Trump hasn't done so (yet), that means he's violating Posse Comitatus (which could be seen as a belated check on the extraordinary powers the president can give himself in the event of an invocation of the Insurrection Act as well as safeguarding states' rights) in the act of sending in those 700 Marines.
     We're not even five months into this administration and we're already witnessing the prosecution, arrest and violent detention of lawmakers who just happen to be people of color, the very same people the Fourth Reich posing as a democratic institution is systematically wiping off the public records. Even asking a Cabinet official a question on behalf of one's constituents during a press conference is viewed as a seditious act.
     Because totalitarian regimes don't like being questioned. They don't like being criticized. They certainly don't like being humiliated. This is why not a single figure who ever set up a fascist or totalitarian regime ever had a sense of humor.
     Keep in mind, the asshole who illegally sent Marines into Los Angeles is in two days going to have a Soviet/North Korea-style military birthday parade that'll cost nearly $100,000,000. 

KindleindaWind, my writing blog.

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