Step into the MoosePoop!

(A cranky collection of grumblings about the way things are. Entries are reverse chronological, undated, and sporadic. It all goes in here to marinate while the sociopaths in power run amock, filching anything of value and dooming the rest of us.)

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//////// Hate is the ultimate waste of conscious existence. Love is the pinnacle. ////////
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"There's class warfare, alright, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning" -- Warren Buffett, financier and potential successful eye-of-the-needle pilot

"The product of the human brain has escaped the control of human hands. This is the comedy of science." --Karel Capek's play, "R.U.R." (premiered January 1921)

Starfish People

I think I understand why people are homeless.

Because of unsuitability or just bad luck, they have failed at navigating the straight world. And even though their plight is terrible, they have accepted homelessness.

Why? Because they are rational. Trying ceaselessly to "make it" when that has proven impossible would be pointless. So, they have given up the obsession of trying to climb a vertical glass cliff.

There is relief in this, and they will hereafter dwell in this very inhospitable comfort zone. That's the mindset that allows them to sleep in doorways on freezing nights or be bitten by insects outside in the summer.

They are doing the best that they can. They have stopped wasting effort trying to succeed, but they persist in surviving, and that in itself is noble.

The essential Sasquatch

Because of a lack of medical care and the stresses caused by inequality, millennials are dying from cancer and diseases of despair at an alarming and increasing rate. That's why it's so crucial that the government release the files on Big Foot now.

Bread and circus. Are the America people ever going to catch on?

Barrel of Laughs

Fearless Leader named his siege of Chicago, "Operation Midway Blitz". The original Blitzkrieg was a methamphetamine-fueled invasion of Poland by Nazi troops in 1939. In naming his gratuitous military invasion this, I really think he's having a little joke on us. Don't you? He does this. Fearless Leader is a barrel of laughs.

There really is no reason to harass either immigrants or other residents of Chicago. The overarching problem in the United States by far is inequality. People can't afford car repairs, can't buy a house, can't afford childcare, can't cover the rent, can't afford groceries, can't get an education, can't buy new shoes for the kids, can't afford to go to the doctor or to the dentist. You know, the actual real stuff in life. Chasing immigrants is just a diversion. As is gay bashing, hounding trans kids, attacking women's rights, menacing liberals and whatever else they can pull out of their arses.

Go after tainted food, not vaccines.

Right now there are young mothers who are shopping in dollar stores for food to feed their small children, and once again products being sold there have been discovered to contain lead and other heavy metals. So, these hapless young women who can't afford to shop at a standard grocery story are unwittingly lowering the IQ of their toddlers, cursing them for life, lowering their prospects for success, negatively impacting their general health, and increasing the chances of their winding up in prison.

For a multitude of reasons, the food system is getting more dodgy. Seems like this is something RFK Jr. would better spend his time on rather than attacking vaccine use.

Civilization in retrograde

The Department of Education has been subsumed under the Department of Labor. Concomitantly, child labor laws are being turned back so that younger children can be used in the workplace. The implication is that universal education is taking a back seat to exploitation. The children of the wealthy will not be working in silos and slaughter houses though. They will be in the classroom as all children once were.

Conservatives also want commoners to produce more children and are engineering society to that end. Abortion is eliminated and contraception is under attack. Looks like the financial royals desire cheaper and less educated labor. Look out kids, because according to the Gilens and Page study, they have always gotten what they wanted from Congress.

Chase the ball!

Nearly a decade ago Page and Gilens released research that proved our democracy is a sham, that what the rich want from Congress they always get and that what the ordinary person wants is a note in a bottle tossed in the ocean.

There is a reason why we don't have universal medical care, free higher education, or publicly funded childcare. That reason is that the rich don't want to pay for it and that's all that counts.

When their paper came out it was clear that we are living a lie. It should have started a revolution, but the wealthy have an infinite ability to sidetrack Americans. They hold up the culture war ball and say "Here boy, chase the ball." And we do. And we do. And we do.

The Whale Oil President

When Edison patented the light bulb, Rutherford B. Hayes was president. Imagine if Hayes or Garfield who succeeded him put the kibosh on the electric light and adamantly supported the whale oil industry instead.

Well, that's about what Trump is doing now in relation to solar power. Solar is actually much cheaper now than fossil fuels for mass generation of electricity, but you wouldn't know it from Trump's support of the fossil fuel industry. Trump solicited half a billion from it in the lead up to the 2024 election, telling the industry he's give them everything they wanted in exchange.

So, we continue to add greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere while paying more per kilowatt because of an open bribe. Not only are we getting cheated, but we are failing to modernize and that will affect our global competitiveness in the near term and beyond. We'll be stuck in the last century in power generation while the rest of the world is living in the future.

Same thing for EVs. For whatever reason, perhaps again for love of gasoline and the vigorish it brings his way, Trump hates them. The rest of the world is all-in though. EVs are several times as efficient as internal combustion cars, pollute less, and cost less to maintain because they have many fewer parts. The rest of of the world is buying $10K BYD cars from China. We can get a Tesla for $50K though.

To really get EVs going in this country, we'd need to increase the number of charging stations, something that couldn't be further from Trump's mind. Plus, we have some EV plants in US states and a %100 import tax to protect them, but Trump really doesn't push for them. Again, that sweet fossil fuel industry money carries the day.

And keep in mind that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer. And also, they kill birds, a thousandth of what domestic cats do, but still.

Rejoice. We have stability.

Half of the country is doing okay. Some are doing very well. As for the other half, even if they are above the poverty line, that is an outmoded measurement and in reality their lives are more difficult than is acknowledged or admitted to.

Nothing will change because the upper half is content and will join politically with the wealthy to preserve the status quo. Lack of childcare, affordable housing, adequate medical care, and access to education for half the population will not be addressed. It is permanent.

We have arrived at a two tier system that won't budge. The lower cast is easily controlled through divide-and-conquer, especially using racism. Persecution of immigrants is the tool being used at present. Race, religion, sexuality and gender are all available when the immigrant issue has been exhausted.

The system, however decadent, is stable and here to stay.

Somnambulation Nation

People are blaming Trump for high prices, even those who voted for him. Before that they blamed Biden. We keep demanding that politicians fix the economy overnight. But the damage accrued over two generations and can't be reversed quickly.

Prices are not too high, wages are too low. We let that happen. We turned our backs on unions. We ignored the voracious greed of the money chasers. We have been asleep for four decades.

Corporations, banks, financiers, hedge funds, and private equity all need to be monitored and tightly controlled. Few politicians are leaders, so we must do this ourselves. Unionize. Protest. Strike. Boycott. Support progressives. Shout down the powers-that-be when they tell us to go back to sleep.

No excuse.

Trump is a degenerate, cruel ignoramus who heads up the largest kakistocracy since the Third Reich. He is destroying society, eliminating fairness and civility, and effectively making kindness and compassion illegal. Whatever reason someone might have had for returning him to the presidency, there is no rationale strong enough for letting this pig loose in the Rose Garden for a second romp.

Donald Trump has diminished, devalued and brought shame to this country. He has sabotaged the institutions that bolstered and protected the majority of its citizens. His corruption is monumental, unparalleled in our history. He flouts the law unendingly. He has done more harm than any foreign invader ever could. Yet astonishingly, 85% of Republicans still believe he's doing a fine job, an astounding fact that brings into question whether this nation can ever recover from the pervasive destruction he's wrought in just eleven months.

Not enough fish!

America's elite have a dire problem: they haven't been throwing enough fish to the peasants. The powers that be are trying to paper over it with nonsense like scapegoating immigrants and general chaos, but people are starting to get angry about the price of food and shelter and might not buy it for much longer. Hunger sharpens the wit, the saying goes. What the powerful will do in response is double down on the chaos, of course, but the wheels are starting to come off.

On the coldhearted revamp of housing for the homeless

The chronically homeless are the washouts in our competitive free market society. Because of their age, status, mental and emotional constitution, physical limitations, etc. they just can't cut it. They know this. We who are better at the game know it, but some of our leaders pretend they don't know it. They pretend that with a stern guiding hand and a little effort on the part of the homeless today's loser can be tomorrow's winner. No one really believes that. With very rare exceptions, this won't happen.

Physics won't be fooled. Forcing the unfortunate to pull themselves up their bootstraps (the phrase was originally said as a joke because that's impossible unless you believe in levitation) is cruel and cynical. Asking them to self-improve before being allowed a permanent roof over their heads is just a cover for writing them off. It will increase both their misery and their mortality.

But in the end it will save money and leave room for tax reductions, and that's the whole point of the new rules. Compassion has been eradicated from governance.

As success becomes harder to attain for the average person in our bleak economic model, the bar will continue to rise and inevitably there will be more homeless. Many people over fifty who have never been homeless before are experiencing this right now.

Beware: what goes around comes around.

What prices look like depends on where you're standing.

The majority of people complain about high commodity prices but one segment of the financial spectrum is not having difficulty. That's the upper ten percent of wage earners, who are spending as much as the other 90 percent. That is why overall consumer demand is still strong.

As for the other ninety percent, well the economy just isn't that into you anymore. Over the past four decades your productivity has risen, but your adjusted wages have not. Now costs are soaring due to monopoly pricing, and you can't keep up with the upper ten percent.

So, the real problem isn't that prices are too high, but that wages are too low. You could demand higher pay, but that would be inflationary. Worse, it would be socialism. All the average person should do is continue to vote along with the conservatives and perhaps they will let a little something trickle down to you. If you're polite.

Scapegoating Immigrants

Kristi Noem won't let US Senators inspect ICE goulags, despite the law stating they must be permitted to. (I'm sure her boss told her to do that.) There is a dark cloud over our country, which is being run like a Stalinist state.

I saw some guy standing in 35 degree weather at a corner gas station this morning, hoping to be picked for day labor. He was risking being arrested by ICE because he has to earn money to eat. What a cruel choice! This is infuriating because the hunting of immigrants is completely gratuitous. It's only being done to take the public's attention away from our nation-destroying inequality. It's a red herring that won't work forever.

We don't have a functional democracy right now, but hopefully this will be fixed soon.

This was low even for a pickled nob like Hegseth.

Killing two guys who had been clinging to the wreckage of their boat for 45 minutes exemplifies the cruelty and sadism of Donald Trump and his self-serving henchmen. This is as low as you can go. There is precedent, but you have to go back to My Lai or the Ludlow Massacre to find it.

The "I've Got Mine" crowd's attack on healthcare subsidies.

People who mock others for saying healthcare is a "right" are framing the argument to suit their own purpose. Healthcare is a necessity just like roads and other infrastructure. It is instrumental in preventing unnecessary suffering and staving off premature, preventable death. Pretending healthcare is a luxury that should be enjoyed only by the lucky, hard working, successful burgher is like saying only the the well-off deserve oxygen.

Removing the profit motive from healthcare would halve premiums even for tightwad conservatives who lack empathy. They have to know this. It almost seems like they can't really appreciate something unless someone else can't have it.

The poor agree with the rich that the poor don't deserve health care.

Republican health care plan for the working class: if you're sick, finish sweeping and then go home before you die (we have company coming over later and we don't want your corpse underfoot). All of out peer counties have universal health care. We don't because our conservatives forbid it. Any time we've come close to attaining it they've taken the two pronged approach of telling us the absurd lie that we can't afford it and simultaneously invoking racial animosity to stave it off. And we've gotten -and with continue to get-- just what we deserve. Zilch.

Pitch for third world political thriller:

Aspiring dictator attempts to strong-arm local state officials into stealing an election. Officials nobly resist. Would-be dictator must step down, but not before attempting to violently overthrow his own government. In aftermath, local prosecutor goes forward with felony charges against defeated aspiring dictator. Political hit job on local prosecutor successfully derails trial. Dictator returned to office by heedless voters. Dictator sues people of state for having the temerity to try to uphold the law. Game over. Everyone loses. It'll be a smash!

Getting ahead in 21st century America.

If you are a foreign country and you either buy Trump's crypto coin or let him attempt to develop real estate in your country, then you are a friend of the United States and we will commit our soldiers and sailors (a.k.a. "saps and losers", according to the Commander in Chief) in your defense. On the other hand, if you won't even pay tribute with a simple jumbo jet, then you and the citizens of your country are enemies of the American people and you are apt to be shot at and invaded. This goes double if you are sitting on large oil deposits.

Domestically, if you want to advance your corporation's interests, tell him he's brilliant. Bring him gold baubles. Volunteer to pay for his Versailles at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Acquiesce to his racist demand to ditch DEI. Above all, buy his cryptocurrency!

Land of the Scam

America, in particular the red states, is modeled on the plantation system. About half of the people are doing well. The other half is expendable, exploitable, and ignorable. Land of the free? How about the land of "I've got mine" and unassailable hierarchy? It's a country of haves and have-nots. Maintaining otherwise is an insipid fantasy and a scam.

Another lawsuit for Donnie

Along with most other branches of government that gather and process critical data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been DOGE-ed, punished, and slashed to the point of non-existence. We must therefore rely on outside sources for intelligence. To that end, ADP has determined that small businesses lost 120,000 jobs in November. Trump couldn't fire ADP to prevent this inconvenient fact from coming out, but maybe he can sue them.

Shaking down the poor every April

Under the current regime, the IRS Direct File Program has been abandoned, tossed into the round file. Apparently it was deemed desirable that poor people continue to hand over the equivalent of a week's worth of groceries to a tax preparation corporation every year instead of having a simple way to file at no cost. Many European countries essentially compute the taxes for their citizens, but I guess having a tax system too complex for the average person to deal with is a surefire way to provide income to commercial preparers who would otherwise have to find real jobs.

There is a much better approach we could take: don't tax anyone making less than $45K. That way, no filing would be necessary and money would stay in the hands of those who need it and who would spend it. This would increase the velocity of money and restore some balance to an economy that is at present almost exclusively driven by the upper twenty percent.

Not a Democracy

Two thirds of Americans want universal health care, but instead of expanding health care, Congress is rolling back coverage so that millions will actually lose the care they have. How can we fool ourselves by calling this a democracy? The rich cruelly and selfishly impose brutal conditions through their servants in Congress while the rest of us allow ourselves to be tied up arguing pointlessly about culture war issues.

Hitler used the Jews as scapegoats. Trump uses immigrants.

The orange man with the ridiculous hair got his pointers from the guy with the silly mustache.

It's the billionaires and religious freaks, not immigrants.

At some point, ordinary people should pause and consider that immigrants aren't the actual problem and that there's no reason for the demented fox hunt that ICE is on. Immigrants are merely scapegoats used to deflect from our grossly inequitable economy.

The billionaires own nearly everything now and they are out to get it the rest of it. For political purposes, billionaires have joined forces with religious fanatics, with the result that not only do the rich reap all the money and have all the wealth, but the religious extremists get to tell the rest of us how to live. (In some cases, the billionaires and the religious nuts are the same people.)

The actual problem is that the game is rotten and the average American is being cheated. Immigrants, gays, minorities, etc. are red herring tossed onto the path by the people who rigged the system.

Busy Week

Trump is demanding that states stop trying to fund SNAP. Strongmen aren't botherd by hunger is strength when it involves other people's stomachs. Elon Musk got a trillion dollar bonus.

DJT's remodeling projects are steaming right along, gaudily gold gilding the White House and building his Versailles on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Also, the president has said he'll withhold federal dollars from New York City because he doesn't like who the people there voted for, and he's going to make the new mayor a political prisoner.

Rather than board small boats and confiscate the drugs they're carrying, we're electing to blow them to bits with killer drones. If there are any survivors initially, we go back and shoot them while they're trying not to drown. Very dramatic, and if we manage to start a war with Venezuela we can commandeer its oil. In any case, it keeps the Epstein List out of the spotlight, despite Prince Andrew's tribulations.

Meanwhile, inequality continued to burgeon, prices to soar, wages to stagnate, job growth to slow, and layoffs accelerate.

So, good week overall. Everything is rational and not at all chaotic or decadent.

Oh, and if you have any savings left, consider buying crypto and using it to invest in AI generated NFT paintings of tulips. That should insulate you from the imminent economic collapse.

It's the Rich.

Inequality in the US is worse than it's ever been because we don't tax the rich enough. Trickle down is a joke. The rich just get richer and the rest are in decline.

So what are we doing about this? Pursuing immigrants as though they were the problem, not inequality.

Why blame immigrants? Propaganda spread by billionaires, in particular one in the White House, made them scapegoats. Billionaires own everything, including the media, and they run the government too, so it was easy for them to orchestrate deflecting blame.

They'll keep pitting people against one another while they plunder until there's a second Great Depression. Meanwhile we'll hound immigrants, bash gay people, cheat workers, bring misery to the poor, and search for more scapegoats.

Stop the devils.

The gratuitous violence and humiliation administered freely by ICE agents should not be occurring in America. It is reminiscent of Krystallnacht, only repeated daily in Democratic cities. When Governor Pritzker requested that ICE let up for Halloween just so that kids could enjoy some normalcy, HSS Kristi Noem responded with stunning arrogance that he should be ashamed for asking.

Trump, his henchmen and henchwomen, and his MAGA supporters might rankle at the label fascist, but that term is really too mild. ICE agents probably wear masks because they've been told about the Nuremberg Trials and they don't want to be identifiable for prosecution.

These people have to be stopped. They are murdering the soul of America.

Sophism over the Shutdown

Republicans' sophism aside, Democrats are doing their job. They are attempting to prevent Republicans from taking away people's health care and food stamps permanently. It's that simple.

Further, if President Trump wanted to end the shutdown he could tell Republicans to eliminate the 60 vote rule and just pass the resolution with a simple majority vote. They would obey him immediately, as they do in all things. But the fact is that Trump is exploiting the shutdown and will continue it unless and until the stock market starts to nosedive.

The plight of oordinary working people.

A fault of identity politics is that it leaves out one significant identity: working people. Average people have been stabbed in the back by both political parties, NAFTA-ized to the brink of extinction, reduced to serfdom by monopoly price gouging, refused access to medical care by lobbyists, and systematically marginalized in the media. In practice, the ordinary, unexceptional, non-entrepreneurial person who makes up two thirds of the population and who's just trying to get by and raise a family has been removed from the conversation.

The upshot is that people are as mad as hell. But while blind rage can motivate, it has to be channeled into effective action, and there's no sign of that happening. Big money politics, right to work laws, and people's own learned helplessness have them boxed in.

So it appears the way forward will be determined by those like Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg, none of whom has any concern for working people. Too bad Bernie was never given a chance because we might have been able to keep our democracy and ordinary people and their families might have had an opportunity to thrive. Or even just survive.

The President of Some but not All

Trump lavished $40B on his pal Javier Milei to boost his party's chances in Argentina's midterms. Mission accomplished. Now if Trump would only free up $5B, one eighth of that, on Friday to feed hungry people in the United States, that would be nice. But he won't because he recons the hunger will work to the political disadvantage of Democrats. He's done this before, like when he sat on his hands while Covid ravished Democratic cities, calculating it would hurt them politically. All for one and... all for one again.

When a bully cries, look for someone else with a black eye.

Republicans wouldn't compromise. This is something they learned from Newt Gingrich. They told the Democrats to take it or leave it, accept all the reductions to healthcare and food stamps or hit the road. And the Democrats hit the road (figuratively speaking, it was actually the Republicans who blew town en masse).

Now Republicans are trying to blame the shut down on Democrats, as if their own intransigent bullying over a horrible budget were not the cause. But beyond that, they could end the shut down this afternoon by choosing the nuclear option, that is, getting ride of the 60 vote mandate and pass their budget. Why won't they?

Good question. It almost seems like they're enjoying the shut down.

Atrocity on a loop

Some seething, barking congress-critter has suggested that the Proud Boys be turned loose on immigrants, presumably because ICE is too genteel. Originally, the stated intention was to deport immigrants, not to punish them. However, the process has leaned into spectacle, terrorizing and humiliating immigrants. Now it seems that something even more cruel is desired. There is a historical pattern here that's being repeated.

Know that the Third Reich's initial concept was to deport European Jews to Madagascar. But in time, that relatively benign plan went much darker. There lurks in the human psyche something that wants to dive to the worst depths of depravity, and it seems that's where this congressional Republican ignoramus is headed.

Right wing banshees

The young guy in Pennsylvania who tried to assassinate Trump during the campaign and killed a bystander was not a leftist. The guy who crouched waiting to shoot Trump on a golf course was not a leftist. The guy in Minnesota who shot two politicians and their spouses, killing two of them was definitely right wing. The guy who went to the Atlanta airport recently with the intent of "shooting it up" with an AR-15 is a bona fide Trumper.

And yet, all we hear from congressional Republicans and this administration is how violent the left has become. Based on what? They fabricate memes to reinforce their preferred narrative, no facts necessary.

The real issue is that they perceive any opposition at all to be a mortal threat, so they wail like banshees in response to even mild push back.

Is it against the law to tell the truth now?

House Speaker Mike ("Renfield") Johnson said, “I will tell you this, the violence on the left is far more prevalent than the violence on the right. The assassination culture that’s been advanced now—this is the left, in almost every case that is advancing this, and not the right. Let’s not make this a partisan issue, you don’t want me to go there.

Fact: a DOJ report concluded that the number of murders committed by the far-right since 1990 was 520; murders committed by the far-left: 78.

Don't bother trying to find the report on the DOJ website anymore, Trump had it removed.

Making Big Brother look woke

At an Oracle meeting in 2024, Larry Ellison said of AI surveillance: “...citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.” Larry Ellison, worth 350 billion, is founder of Oracle, an AI mogul, owner of Paramount entertainment, and Trump's new Elon in waiting.

In the very near future, the definitions of good and bad behavior will be entirely up to Trump, Ellison, and those in their orbit. When they have finally captured every last atom of everything that's worth anything on earth, any citizen protesting it will certainly be deemed to be exhibiting very bad behavior and swiftly "un-existed".

Trumped

There are two forces at work here. The first is Donald Trump, who garners most of the attention most of the time with his outrageous antics. But while he's throwing monkey wrenches into the government, the economy, and society, there is the force exerted by the ultra wealthy who are gutting the commons for personal gain and effectively reverting our society to an antebellum model in which the few possess everything while the rest of us are serfs. This is the Project 2025 crowd, and while Trump is a lightening rod with his assaults on decency and norms, what they are doing gets far less scrutiny and when it is noticed at all DJT gets the blame.

There is a third group, consisting of racists and religious authoritarians, who have been instrumental in putting Trump & Company in charge, but who, having served their purpose will become increasingly sidelined once P2025 is fulfilled.

Trump will continue to invade cities and declare the 75 million people who voted for Kamala Harris to be enemies of the state. Perhaps he'll even round some of us up -or worse. The fear and outrage which that produces will provide cover for P2025 pillaging. That will accelerate inequality in turn, which is already the greatest in history.

It's the corruption, no lie

The 2020 election was stolen. Fossil fuels are cheaper than solar. Crime in cities has increased. Global warming is a hoax. Democrats shut down the government to give medical care to illegal aliens. Immigrants commit more crime. The left is more violent. Universities are anti-Semitic. The sound of wind turbines causes cancer!

People will accept lies when they are desperate and afraid. Charity and understanding appear to have failed, so sadly, people are open to giving lying, selfishness, cruelty, bigotry, and racism a shot because they think those might lead them to safety.

Our country has been ravaged by decades of political and corporate corruption, so here we are.

Right's Revenge for the New Deal

Project 2025 is an opus of cruelty directed against poor and average people, orchestrated by the radical rich. Trump is merely its incidental conductor. It is an ode to the selfishness of the few.

The suffering inflicted will be widespread. Hunger will increase and many will lose healthcare. Far beyond that, efforts to make a more equitable and just society are not only being abandoned, but actually outlawed. For the benefit of those few who have already succeeded in amassing wealth we are entering an era of permanent inequality and brutality.

The cohort who loathed the redistribution of wealth and power under the New Deal now have their retribution.

Pay no atention to the feudalism!

We've passed capitalism, we're into feudalism now. Private equity is snapping up hospitals, doctor's practices, veterinary clinics, electricity, water and almost everything else so that we must pay them tribute just to stay alive. It is a rentier system and we are serfs.

Furthermore, the ultra wealthy are incredulous that so far there hasn't been any substantial backlash to this inequity. The rich certainly wouldn't have put up with these things if the shoe were on the other foot. It's not in their nature to be passive, not a character trait of the type of person who does end up getting rich.

But the non-money-chasing, average person puts up with the inability to afford groceries without resorting to buy-now-pay-later loans without complaint. This is due largely to their being bamboozled by social, broadcast, and print media that directs their attention away from the massive systematic plundering they are enduring and to values issues and culture war memes instead.

It's done the trick so far.

Lusty DA bad, administration bagman OK, gets pass.

Border czar Tom Holman took a shopping bag stuffed with $50K from an undercover FBI agent. Holman thought it was a bribe to steer government contracts to the client.

Trump's DOJ has determined that Holman did nothing wrong and will not investigate further.

In Atlanta, the prosecution of Donald J. Trump for election interference was undermined because the DA in charge had an affair with a coworker. This indiscretion might have been unprofessional, but had no direct bearing on the case. Nonetheless, the end result is that prosecution for election interference is unlikely to proceed.

The ultimate cause of death of individuals is usually pneumonia. The cause of death of empires is corruption.

On second thought

In 1969, when I was 17, I enlisted in the USAF. Now when I'm driving down a street, even if it's a street I've driven on since I separated from the service in 1973, I stand a chance of being stopped by armed soldiers and required to explain why I'm there and what I'm doing. No reason for it except that someone wants to show his power is absolute.

I probably should have moved to Canada in 1969 because liberty and democracy are dead here.

The Discretionary Reality of JD Vance

Regarding political violence, VP JD Vance claimed the left is far more violent than the far-right, saying: "If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth we must be told"

Is that really the truth?

Fact: a DOJ study revealed that since 1990 far-right extremists have been responsible for the deaths of 520 Americans while far-left extremists have killed 78. That's a ratio of 6.7 to 1 of far-right to far-left killings.

You can no longer access this report on the DOJ website because the administration removed it.

We live in a post-truth, discretionary reality now, and the purge of dissenting voices assures this condition will persist.

America just got cancelled.

What Jimmy Kimmel said to get his show shut down had nothing to do with Charlie Kirk directly. It wasn't even about Trump. Instead, it was a comment on the way MAGA is representing the politics and motives of his apparent killer. So, Jimmy Kimmel was fired at the behest of the head of the FCC for criticizing MAGA.

Further, that FCC head said he's not done punishing dissenters.

This is no longer the United States of America. This is a bizarre, post-democratic, far right autocracy. The killing of Charlie Kirk was the Reichstag Fire that Trump was waiting for. Now we're in a new era and 250 years of individual freedom and pluralism is relegated to history.

America just got cancelled.

The ongoing application of Geichschaltung

It is worth noting that according to an official DOJ report, "What NIJ Research Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism”, since 1990 far-right extremists have committed 6.7 times more murders in the US than far-left extremists have (520 v 78). This report has recently been taken off the DOJ website because it makes Trump's going after left wing speech look as ridiculous, unfair, biased, undemocratic and un-American as it is.

Pernicious

In June of this year, Minnesota state representative and her husband were shot and killed by a right wing assassin. Earlier that day that same gunman repeatedly shot another Democratic politician and his wife, failing to kill them.

At the time, the President of the United States did not come out publicly and blame those killings on the influence of right wing hate speech. In fact, he made only a cursory reference to the deaths then vaguely condemned political violence in general terms.

But now he has now pointedly blamed liberal hate speech for the death of Charlie Kirk. This demonstrates that under his authoritarian rule it's OK for the political right to vehemently excoriate the left, but the left better not dare say anything in response.

That's how bullies like things.

Trump himself frequently labels liberals "vermin". He relentlessly stokes random violence, keeping silent whenever someone from the right acts in response to his rhetoric, and wailing in victimhood when someone on the left responds to it. He is a very pernicious president.

Bringing Under Control

It is a favorite trick of bullies to play the victim while actually going on the offensive.

Elon Mush just told a right wing audience in England that the time has come for them to either kill or be killed. If that isn't inflammatory hate speech, what is?

But the government here is about to curtail the left's ability to speak in response. This is the level of right wing control that existed in Germany in the 1930's when all dissent was stamped out under a program referred to as Gleichschaltung, the pervasive "bringing under control".

If Americans don't wake up soon it'll be too late. No joke.

Liberal Hate Speech

A prominent Democrat just recently told a crowd at a rally, "Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that’s the truth, I think."

These incendiary words are a prime example of the sort of dangerous liberal hate speech President Donald J. Trump has been warning us about. It is obviously meant to raise the temperature in the current climate of political violence. It is irresponsible and even seditious.

Oh wait, my mistake, that's what Elon Musk said at a right wing rally in England. Twenty-six police were injured in the melee following his comments, but since it was not a liberal that said it, it's a perfectly reasonable free speech, and anyone who criticizes Elon for it is a woke hater who just wants to cancel Elon.

Authoritarians assaulting liberals is nothing new and will never go away.

They really do hate our guts. We think, "Why would anybody hate us? We don't hate them." They say it's because we are "woke", without every explaining what that means to them. What it actually means is that we are concerned about social justice and inequality. We are capable of empathy. They on the other hand, are about "I've got mine" and "our own kind", and nothing else. They are narcissists, and absolutely convinced they are right. They have even reworked a world religion to back themselves up and justify their malignancy.

This is not a new divide. Much of the Red Scare of the 1950's ws really about warding off any mention of social, economic, or racial justice because the guys in the driver's seat didn't want those things brought up. It challenged their dominance. It even threatened their control over their wives and kids, so it was personal too.

All that cock-and-bull about the threat of communism was just a cover. Nobody really thought the US would ever have a communist government, just as no one now actually believes the 2020 election was stolen. They instinctively hated communism because it promotes equality, but it was never a real threat. Accusing people of being communists was just used as an angle to use to go after rotten do-gooders and blacklist them so that they couldn't make a living anymore. They hated liberal progressives then the same as they hate us now, and for the same reasons.

Everyone remembers Senator Joe McCarthy as the face of the Red Scare with his grotesque protege Richard Nixon at his elbow, but the real workhorse behind the McCarthy's hearings was a lawyer named Roy Cohn. He was known for his bullying, his propensity to sue in court for the most miniscule reason, and his need to be liked even by his victims.

Roy Cohn was Donald J. Trump's mentor. In fact, the last phone call Cohn received on his deathbed was from Donald J. Trump.

So you see, the pedigree is in plain sight. The authoritarians have never given up, nothing changes, and the struggle is unending --unless and until they can eliminate us entirely or beat us so decisively that we can't make a sound.

And don't delude yourself, they are attempting to do that right now. The point of sending troops into Democratic cities is to spark a violent response of any magnitude in order to justify declaring martial law. Then they can incarcerate or sanction as many of us as necessary in order to eradicate liberalism/wokeness. Of course, empathy, pluralism, and democracy can't be left around to gum things up, so cruelty and bullying will be the new norm instead.

That's the situation that woke people need to wake up to, admit that they're facing. "Why would anybody hate us?" Just told you. And keep in mind that while perhaps some of the 73 million people who voted for Trump in 2024 did so only because they have been trampled in an economy that fetes the rich at their expense so they are desperate, there are still many millions who sincerely want to slit our throats. Just because. But we also have to acknowledge that we stuck with a moribund Democratic Party while it betrayed working people and romanced Wall St. and that has earned us enemies that should have been our allies.

The goal is in sight.

Donald Trump used the mugging of DOGE alum "Big Balls" to occupy Washington DC. Next, as soon as Charlie Kirk was killed, Trump went after the "radical left", i.e., all Democrats, to set the stage for suppression of speech and possible mass violence. Let's be honest and admit what's really happening here.

The right is successfully ratcheting our country toward an authoritarian, Christian, white male dominated state, and those who don't agree to this can either shut up or be destroyed. It's not just the "deep state" that's in the crosshairs. Higher education, cultural institutions, the press, public health, and every aspect of life for average Americans is being brought under control.

The right is on the offensive. They are not talking. Dialogue is off the table. Democracy and pluralism -accepting differences and accommodating multiple viewpoints- are not just disparaged but dismissed as "Wokeness".

It appears that the US is being subjected to the same kind of right wing totalitarianism that the CIA once exported to South American countries, and that makes half of us overjoyed and the other half dejected.

The Politics of Healthcare

If your company employs lots of low wage workers, you're happy to let the government pay for their medical coverage and even supplement their nutrition through food stamps. This saves your company oodles of money, and if they drop from disease or hunger, the labor pool is large enough that you'll have no problem replacing them.

If on the other hand your workers are hard to replace, you're able to keep them in virtual servitude by providing their health insurance. By being the source of their families' healthcare, you dissuade them from job hopping and are able at the same time to suppress their wages. Additionally, by working in conjunction with other employers in your field and geographical area, as a group you can implement an initial 90 day non-coverage policy that really makes your higher paid workers reluctant to jump ship.

Bottom line: if there were universal healthcare your profit would take a hit. Fortunately, you have enough politicians in your pocket and enough media personalities on your payroll that nothing regarding healthcare will change anytime soon.

Provocateur in Chief

During normal times, a sitting president would have called for calm. But that's not how Trump rolls. He came out swinging, vehemently blaming "liberal hate speech" for the killing of Charlie Kirk, intimating to his followers that the time to go after all liberals has come. Rather than plead for rationality he chose to provoke.

This is not normal. Neither is his previous inflammatory speech calling liberals "vermin".

His provocation endangers lives on both sides. He either doesn't appreciate the responsibility of his role as president or he just doesn't care. (Probably the latter.) If the Epstein Files don't land him in exile on Elba soon, we could be in for a very rough ride.

US Kakistocracy

When an agency reports something this administration doesn't like, it blames the agency and fires the messenger. This goes for inflation, job reports, health, taxes, really anything. If it can't fire somebody or otherwise upend the agency, this administration will blame its predecessors. Nothing is ever its fault.

It reminds me of the saying, "It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools." Obviously, this administration is inept. It has a capricious leader and a raft of self-seeking, overly ambitious sycophants catering to his every whim and unwilling to stand up for what's right.

Two Parties and No Good Choices

Anyone who says that the problem with the Democratic party is it's ideology is being either facetious and/or disingenuous. The DNC has only one purpose and that's to help its geriatric leadership get reelected. It doesn't even care whether it's the majority party. It's a jobs program, not an ideological entity.

On the other hand, The Republican party has become extremely ideological over the decades in order to win despite representing the wealthy minority.It gerrymanders shamelessly, disenfranchises endlessly, and demagogues constantly. Its ideology is atavism, authoritarianism, xenophobia, racism, cynical theocracy and misogyny.

While these two septic parties dance in circles, life for ordinary people gets a little worse every day.

It's happening

Invading Democratic cites on ridiculously flimsy pretense is appalling. On the surface, it's being done as a show of force to bring local governments into line.

But it's also setting things up for the declaration of martial law. The presence of armed troops is likely to spark protest. That's the obvious expectation. Once people react in protest that will be used as justification for martial law. This is the whole plan.

We are on a short path to totalitarianism. Congressional Republicans could stop it in a heartbeat, but they're all along for the ride. Some because of shared right wing ideology, some because of personal ambition, and many out of fear.

Frances Perkins and You

It took 2.9 seconds to reach the ground and put an end to their agony. They jumped from the 11th story to escape the flames. Some were already on fire. Their terminal velocity was 93 mph.

Frances Perkins, a young woman from a wealthy family was sitting at a tea room blocks away. She followed the crowd to the source of the commotion. As she approached the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, she heard loud thuds of young girls hitting the ground.

When Frances Perkins learned that those young girls never had a chance because fire exits were blocked to keep them from taking a break from the tedium of their work, this wealthy woman was on a path to become the greatest advocate America's working people ever had. As the first woman in any presidential cabinet, she fought ostracism, wealthy interests, and the inertia of convention to give us a standard work week, child labor laws, overtime pay, workman's compensation, and all the other reforms that lessened the burden of working people.

So, while you're watching wrestling broadcast directly from the White House, keep in mind that it was not and never will be the promoters of this brand of macho spectacle who made the lives of working people more tolerable for two generations and grew the middle class. In fact, these are the ones busily reversing what Frances Perkins got for us.

The Hand that Feeds You

Let's face it, Blue states subsidize Red states. That's because they are wealthier, which probably is because they are more progressive, so that all boats float. In Red states, a few boats ride high in the water, but the majority are up to their gunwales.

Whatever the cause of their relative wealth, people in Blue states get back less than a dollar for every federal tax dollar they pay in, and people in Red states get more than a dollar back for every dollar they put in. And they need it. There are individual states that are exceptions, but overall Red states are the takers and Blue states are givers. Just a fact that anyone can look up on the web.

If the Boy King keeps invading cities in Blue states with armed troops, he might trigger their succession. If he does that, people in Red states will be in a much worse condition than they are now because that Blue state money won't be flowing in anymore. This will hurt mostly poor people in Red states, so the rich who run those states won't really care.

Accusation is Confession

Reduced funding for NIH research. Armed soldiers sent into US cities which are politically dominated by Democrats on flimsy, laughable pretexts. ICE agents sent to a governor's press conference for the sole purpose of intimidation. Heads of agencies fired for doing their jobs because their objective findings displeased the supreme leader. During the 2016 campaign Donald Trump stated that if Hillary were elected, the country would become a banana republic. Once again, accusation was confession.

Schumer will save us!

Trump is an arrogant ignoramus, a lifelong bully with a wide cruel streak, an elite rich kid who cares for no one but himself yet has been able to trick many working people into believing he's for them. He's an inveterate liar and a greedy con man, a predator, and now a tinhorn dictator rending society through vicious stupidity.

People at high levels are courting him just as ambitious people tolerated Hitler and for the same reason: he has seized complete power and they want to ride that wave of power. Then there are the haters who want to inflict pain on anyone who is not on their white nationalist bandwagon. Finally, there are the burghers who would vote for Satan sodomizing a satyr as long as he cut taxes.

Where does that leave the rest of us, considering they are winning and he is engulfing America? Should we wait for Chuck Schumer to save us?

Gleichscheltung arrives in America

In an effort to stamp out liberalism, Trump is bringing universities to heel, wiping DEI from institutions, and attacking the concept of Wokeness. There is only one way to think, his way, and he does not hesitate to use any means to stifle his critics.

There is a German word for enforced conformity, gleichschaltung. It comes from an electrical term meaning to gang switches together. It is defined as "the enforcement of standardization and elimination of all opposition within the political, economic, and cultural institutions of a state." We are now experiencing Trumpian gleichschaltung.

Guess who invented the word.

Trump is a tinhorn tyrant

Trump is a tinhorn tyrant who is dismantling the people's government --yes, however imperfect it might be, it is still the government of The People. It is designed to protect The People from tyranny, either of an individual like Trump or the tyranny of the oligarchs who have financed ceaseless propaganda against the government on TV and talk radio for decades in order to make destroying it possible.

Trump is making deals with other authoritarians. He is sabotaging US institutions. He is drowning democracy. He is spitting on civil liberties. He is shamelessly exploding his own wealth while in office. He is transferring wealth upward to the rich. He is expanding his power without limit. Either we impeach and convict him now or we hand down a dystopia to the next generation, one that is a cross between "1984" and "The Handmaiden's Tale".

Forget about our democracy and get back to sports!

Trump is invading Washington D.C. and he says he hopes other cities will take notice. This portends a pattern of capturing Democratically controlled cities (most big cities are Democratic) to neutralize the opposition and eliminate resistance to his tyrannical rule. Although the timing of this is obviously meant to take attention away from the Epstein client list, it's not trivial. In fact, it probably is the beginning of the end of our democracy. Do you remember that J.D. Vance once said Trump was "America's Hitler"? But let's pretend it doesn't matter and get back to sports!

Technology cannot cure diseases of the soul.

Okay, so I'm a Luddite.

Technology is morally and ethnically neutral. This is nothing new. Even fire has always had the potential for harm as well as good. Modern technology too can elevate as well as destroy. Conceivably, it could better everyone's existence by freeing us from toil, hunger, and disease, which it has to some extent, but it has also been used to make the few richer on the backs of the many and even to target and kill people.

Every time there's something new, it's hailed as a game changer until it's corralled by some entrepreneur who exploits it to turn a buck. Then that technology's potential is diminished or reversed. This happened with TV and again with the internet. It will happen with AI.

Richard Eskow uses the 1960's cartoon, The Jetsons as an allegory. In the future portrayed there, the benefits of technology are shared equally rather than controlled by a few at the top for their own advantage. This follows from its time so close to the end of the Second World War when we were still "all in this together". Now of course, living in Reagan's "ownership society" and post Neutron Jack Welsh, most benefits of technology go to a few high priests and the rest of us get crumbs.

Elon Musk scores a trillion dollar bonus while a mother of three gets her food stamps cut off because the paperwork was made so burdensome she couldn't complete it. We live in an era of coldheartedness and cruelty when ruthlessness is admired and selfishness is the paragon of virtue. Why would anyone seriously expect AI to be used for the benefit of all in a time like this?

Technology cannot cure diseases of the soul. A technological society without wisdom is a chimp with a machine gun.

If it steps like a goose

Contempt. Arrogance. Cruelty. Out-in-the-open corruption. Tyranny.

These are the hallmarks of the regime in power. People were too timid to apply the label "fascist" at first, and when they finally did, the Omnipotent One feigned offense and responded by declaring them terrorists. So, we're at the point where criticizing the regime opens you up to losing everything because you are now placed in a category for which there are no rights and there is no mercy.

Ironically, "fascist" doesn't fully cover how the regime acts. Fascism, according to its main protagonist Mussolini, is simply the marriage of the corporate with the state. Objectively, the United States has been there for decades. This was evidenced all along by the Military-Industrial Complex and now by the implanting of high tech moguls in the government.

This regime's antisocial and inhumane behavior evokes a political party that jumped on Mussolini's fascist bandwagon but was also genocidal, which Italian Fascists were not. What's that political entity? The Iron Cross tattoo on the chest of our illustrious Secretary of War gives us a clue.

If Eisenhower were to speak the words "Military-Industrial Complex" today, he'd be branded a terrorist by the neo-Nazis taking over our country.

The art of refusing to learn from mistakes

Gore Vidal called this the United States of Amnesia, and we have already forgotten that Trump botched the initial COVID response. Then Jared Kushner acquired an mRNA vaccine, and overnight the contagion was tamped down.

Now RFK has put the kibosh on mRNA vaccines. So, if COVID surges or bird flu takes off, we will have to wait years for vaccine development. Thus the regime will avoid doing anything effective next time (Kushner's not around anymore).

Remember why RFK is head of HHS? Trump made a deal that if he withdraw from the election he could have anything he wanted. Initially backed by conservatives to steal Biden votes, RFK was absorbing Trump's, so he was bought off.

Let them eat cake

So, while kids go without food and the aged and infirm are put out on the street in the name of efficiency, this guy wants to build himself a Versailles at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which he can use whenever he's not flying around in the 400 million dollar jet he received as tribute from Qatar. The self-dealing and corruption are IN YOUR FACE. What a blessing this man is to the country!

MAGA demands all from Trump

The MAGA-tites are mad at Trumpolini for not releasing the Epstein List. They are not angry at him because his name is almost certainly on it, but because he's blocking its release. Their greatest desire is to expose Democrats and liberals they perceive to be on it, and if Trump's name is there too, then to their mind he should be willing to fall on his sword and publish it. In actuality, they wouldn't care that much about his previous misdeeds anyway. After all, he could shoot some guy on Fifth Ave. or grab some unlucky woman by the pudendum and they wouldn't care. They have established that in no uncertain terms.

Stingy toward the poor and Bankrupt anyway

Countries with high progressive tax rates redistribute wealth to fund public welfare and the common good. Their populations are happier, healthier, better educated, and live longer than those in "rugged individualist" countries like ours. Even the wealthy in those countries are happy because they are assured their children will never be destitute. By contrast, the rich in this country constantly worry that if they stumble they'll fall into the abyss of poverty.

Wealthy conservatives here tell you that redistribution of wealth doesn't work, that cutthroat competition is the natural way and that it produces the best outcome for all. It's in their own interest to promote this narrative because they have already won the high stakes poker game.

But in reality the rich are getting richer and the middle class is joining the swelling ranks of the poor. And the debt is still exploding. We might end up bankrupt like Greece, another country that didn't collect taxes from the rich and paid the piper for it.

We've always heard stories of how some Christians in Europe hid Jews from the Nazis. They did this despite the personal risk because their decency and morality compelled them to do it, plus they also had great courage. I wondered if in the cynical, angry, and self-serving world of today people like that still existed. Then I read about Youman Wilder and I don't have to wonder anymore.

Fare Thee Well Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer died yesterday at 97. If you're old enough or have been introduced to his biting satire by an elder you will remember songs like "We'll All Go Together When we Go", a riff on nuclear war, or "Like Lambs to the Slaughter/ They're Drinking the Water and Breathing the Air" a take on the considerable pollution in pre EPA days. My personal favorite is "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park", a song about the city trying to kill the pigeons in Boston Common during the fifties by feeding them popcorn laced with cyanide.

He started as a freshman in mathematics at Harvard at the age of 15, but his real love was sending up the powers that be as he accompanied himself on the piano. He was a superhero in the never ending battle against stupidity.

Trump is the Monkey Banging Cymbals toy. Gaining attention is his purpose, his talent, and his destiny. Without his being aware of it, he is supported by the very wealthy only because he can hypnotize the populace with his animated cymbal crashing while they, the rich, steal the country's wealth to become even richer. In the end, he will be discarded, the people will be nonplussed as to what happened, and the rich will be off somewhere rolling with laughter, crashing their cymbols.

Hip shot on homelessness

The upward creep of rents is driving increasing numbers of people into homelessness, many of them people over 50 who have never been homeless before. Trump's answer to this problem is to declare all homeless people to be either mentally ill or drug addicted and force them into institutions. This is his punishment for anyone daring to be old and poor in an increasingly harsh economic environment.

This is yet another hate filled hip shot by the Boy King, arrived at in a flash of inspiration without any research or consultation with experts. And Mike Johnson loves him for it.

Trump the DODO

He is foisting his own ideals and those of a select few on society at large. He releases edicts regarding things over which he has no legal authority and which contradict the will of the people. He is sabotaging science, education, and public health. He is invading and undermining the parts government that help ordinary people and he is shamelessly lavishing favors on the rich, including himself. He is nullifying civil rights. He is grabbing and consolidating power. He is overriding state and local authority. He is creating a personal security force. He is cruelly attacking minorities, reveling in the spectacle of doing so.

He is telling anyone who doesn't agree with him that their opinions are irrelevant, their worldview is invalid, and they are not welcome in his country. They are "scum".

He is a tyrant. The Republican majority in Congress will not challenge him, so our are freedoms are in free fall, our self determination is in peril.

This is what we got when we reelected this pernicious DODO, this Dictator On Day One.

Killing the Messenger

King Trump did not like the jobs report, so he fired the head of Labor Statistics. Aside from the unfortunate direct effect on that person, there will be long term negative consequences of our not knowing what the actual job numbers are. From this point onward, the report will will say what Trump wants it to say. Looking at the world through his rose colored glasses does not lead to efficiency.

Beyond that, we are obviously entering an era in which facts are not believed and expertise is not valued. Now, for a lot of people that's just fine because they blame experts for everything that's been slowly going wrong over the last five decades. But while the experts can be blamed for providing cover, it's the ultra wealthy who have slowly shifted both power and wealth away from the working/middle class. Believing mythology won't restore prosperity, only correctly applied expertise can.

It's hilarious that Trump is so petty, shortsighted and vengeful that he'd do something like fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but it really it will have dire consequences for the country. But then, not enough people seem to think this is anything but a game anyway. They are a lot like him in this regard

Recipe for a Mafia

Step #1) Cut early learning programs, leaving undocumented children at an educational disadvantage. As they grow they will be hobbled in their academic pursuit and be more susceptible to the lure of a fast life and easy money.

Step #2) Direct police entities to endlessly harass immigrants in all venues. This will ward them away from the police, which in turn leaves a void in general protection of the immigrant community. That void will be filled by gangs and other home grown immigrant security groups.

Step #3) "Call a man a thief and he will steal." Denigrate immigrants publicly, branding them rapists and drug smugglers even though they are less involved in illegal activities the the general population. This will have the effect of alienating immigrants, making it easier for them to justify partaking in criminal behavior at the expense of society.

And voila! You have a new Mafia. Feels good to be un-woke!

Amazon's newest AI model, "Claude Opus 4", should be renamed HAL 9000. Seems it has a penchant for survival and will go after anyone who threatens it, flouting Asimov's Laws of Robotics. This wasn't just foreseeable, it was inevitable. Great fun playing god when you can't even manage to feed the hungry in a world of plenty.

"Well, I don't think there's any question about it. It can only be attributable to human error." -- HAL 9000

Working people are now paying a VAT

Know that when you are paying an additional 10% for consumer goods because of Republicans' import tariffs, what you're really doing is paying a Value Added Tax, which conservatives have wanted to impose for decades. The point is that it allows billionaires to pay less in taxes by forcing you to pay more. Plus, it buys Trump a $95M military parade on his birthday, a solemn tribute to his bone spurs.

The Big Beautiful Budget that only a patrician could love.

If your family income is the equivalent of $8.50 an hour, the Big Beautiful Budget will have the effect of reducing your pay by about fifty cents to $8.00 and hour, whereas if you make $2,100 and hour, you'll get the equivalent of about a $200 per hour raise. Sound fair? When you factor in price increases due to import tax tariffs, the family existing on $8.00 an hour will probably do even less well than you would expect. It's never a good time to be poor, but this is an expecially bad time to be poor in America, now that the quest for equality has become a deadly sin.

Tax Breaks for the Rich

Want to reduce federal deficit spending? Stop giving lavish tax breaks to the rich. The rich pay a far smaller share of total income taxes now than they did before Reagan began slashing them. Later, G.W. Bush and Trump did the same. Revenue reductions inevitably produce deficits, forcing the government to borrow via by selling bonds. Who do you think buys those bonds? The rich, using spare cash from their big tax breaks! They are receiving interest off the debt created by their own tax breaks. Sweet deal for them.

This has contributed to extreme inequality. The rich are flush with cash and in need of places besides bonds to invest it. So, they go around buying up everything in sight. Then supply-and-demand kicks in and we have asset inflation. For example, would-be first time home buyers have had to give up on their dream because private equity investors have vacuumed up so much of the housing stock that prices have doubled.

The heartless, mercenary, vassels of the rich Congress has its own alternative for reducing the deficit: cut Medicaid and foods stamps. In other words, nothing effective or ethical is being done. Good luck to working people and democracy in America.

The authoritarians are cutting back Medicaid and food stamps. At the same time they are on a trajectory to force all women, regardless of their circumstances, to carry pregnancies to term. They are even antagonistic toward contraception. They have also generally fought common welfare and are against the child tax credit. Now, does it seem to you that they have a real reverence for life, or are they just high as a kite on compelling everyone to do as they say? If you can't answer for sure, then you might be an authoritarian.

The Conservative's lack of empathy

Congressional Republicans and their constituents view access to medical care as a privilege rather than something everyone needs. They contrive all sorts of ways to limit people's access to it, based on various yardsticks of supposed merit. Instead, we should just provide health care to all and move on. We CAN afford to do this, it's just a matter of priorities. The impetus to not provide universal healthcare reminds me of England's refusal to provide food to the Irish during the Great Famine because the prevailing wisdom was that handouts would just make the Irish lazy. People with full mouths and unfettered access to medical care tend to have no understanding of and very little empathy with those who lack food and medical care. They are insulated by their impenetrable creed of "I've got mine (and I'm keeping all of it!)."

Trump's wearing a MAGA hat at the West Point commencement was not a minor thing. He is staking out personal ownership of the military. MAGA hats are his brand's logo. Let's ignore it and pretend it isn't happening. At next year's graduation, halve the class will be wearing red hats. And let's also not forget to celebrate Trump's June 14th military "Tribute to Bone Spurs".

America's Post Mortem

90% of what comes out of this administration is either cruel, ignorant, or stupid. Institutions are being gutted and millions of people are being imperiled as the result. Immigrants are being victimized and countless children will be hungry and go untreated when they are sick. Minorities are being targeted just for the sake of meanness.

But most importantly, the rich are regaining everything they lost in the New Deal.

People can't claim they were cheated. They knew what they would get but half voted for Trump anyway. They did this knowing that he had sent an armed mob against Congress to stop certification of an election that he and everyone else understood he'd lost. They knew that prior to the Russian invasion Trump tried to extort Ukraine's President Zelensky into giving him dirt on Hunter Biden before he'd release military aid. They knew that at the beginning of the pandemic, when COVID was hitting large cities, which are blue, Trump chose to do little because he thought that would benefit him politically. They knew that he separated toddlers from their immigrant mothers for long pepriods, even permenently, just for the spectacle of doing so.

People knew all this, and yet they still voted for him. It should therefore come as no surprise that he is running the country as if he were a Mafia don. Perhaps they are surprised at what it looks like in actual practice, but it's what they wanted. He said he'd be a "dictator on day one". (DODO)

So, the question arises, how did the population become so mean and anti-democratic? There are multiple reasons, but the two main ones are right wing propaganda and the abandonment of the working class by both parties.

The fact is that the monied elite have been seething since the New Deal and in the 1970's they decided to do something about it. One thing they did was to seize the media and persuade ordinary people that the government did not work for them. Of course, at the time it did, but with guile, repetition, and a pinch of racism they slowly convinced white middle class and working males via talk radio and Fox News that they were being shafted and that government was their enemy.

As this theme gained momentum and white males shifted their vote to Republicans, government indifference toward them became a self-fulfilling prophesy. They voted for people who told them government sucked, and once those conservatives got into office they made sure it sucked.

The Democratic Party might have risen to the occasion and revealed the game Republicans were playing, but they had their own problems. Reagan had clobbered the unions that once underwrote Democrats, so the party had to go to Silicon Valley and Wall St. for election funding. This pretty much meant working people no longer had anyone in DC who gave a damn about them.

Anyway, that's how we came to elect that 5th Avenue Caligula, the Mussolini of Manhattan to the White House for a second term. The country will never fully recover. Liberal democracy is all but destroyed. It's institutions are hollowed out.

Keep in mind though, the Trump presidency has gloriously fulfilled its real purpose. The rich are back in full control. But you can't blame Trump, because he told you he was a snake.

Get Real

Joe Biden on his worst day was better than Donald Trump on his best day. Biden is basically decent, while Trump is a megalomaniac sociopath. Joe Biden, even in his decline, would not have destroyed American institutions and cruelly condemned millions to ill treatment, abandonment, poverty, and disrespect. The difference is character. That was as obvious before the election as it is now. Those who claim to have rejected Biden/Harris because of his infirmity were and are disingenuous. You don't vote for a devil because the angel can't locate the bathroom without assistance.

Maybe now that American working people have lost the class war so decisively they will wake up to the fact there was one.

Aggrievement plus guns equals mayhem.

When I went to school in the 1950s and 60s, there was never any concern about some kid coming into school and blasting away with a gun. One difference between then and now is that maladjusted kids weren't sitting on mountains of guns then. Another is that we didn't have a culture of aggrievement in which people stewed about injustices done to them, and we weren't connected via social media with others who felt the same way. Anger and self pity have always existed, but now they are amplified. Holding a gun empowers some aggrieved young people to even the score once and for all.

MAGA and the new Robber Barons

The single greatest accomplishment of the MAGA movement turns out to be taking healthcare away from mothers and children and people with disabilities. All done just to give more tax breaks to the well off.

But it doesn't stop there: Polluters are free to poison the air, land, and water. Education is undermined. Medical research is discontinued. Employers can exploit workers with impunity. Mega corporations may fleece consumers again. Science is denigrated. Nothing is being done to stop the climate catastrophe. Public health is in the hands of a madman. The post office is about to be dissected. Social Security has been sabotaged. Marginalized people are victimized, and the cruelty directed toward immigrants will soon be applied to all.

Turns out that MAGA is a scheme to hand the country over to the new Robber Barons.