Category: Politics

What has happened to this country…

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Paula Poundstone, “Hey Donald Trump”

I subscribe to a few newsletters, less than a handful, to get the writer’s take on various happenings in our political world.  I will occasionally read other pundits as I come across them.

However as an alternative to ponderous, pedantic punditry , I am pleased to present for your consideration, the comedian Ms. Paula Poundstone and her “Hey Donald Trump“video series on her YouTube channel. She dishes out pithy, on point, topical commentary about Donald J. Trump as he presides over his ongoing freak show. She has been putting out about one a day for  quite a while now. Fortunately, from her comedic point of view, for Poundstone, and unfortunately for us as citizens of this country, tRump gives her plenty to satirize. They are short, usually around three minutes, entertaining, and frequently have the bonus of watching one of her cats crawl all over her.

I have included one of her recent videos below for your amusement and to give you an idea of what they are all about.

As an aside, if you ever get the chance to go see Paula live, jump at it.  Señora and I did so a few years back here in St. Louis at The Sheldon, and she was absolutely hilarious. She has some set pieces that she does, but most of her act is crowd work.  She has an extremely quick wit, and is an absolute master of this type of comedy. I will admit I was glad that we were a little back and to the side of the stage as I did not become fodder for her wit.  However, those that did, seemed to enjoy it.

If you listen to NPR you might know her as an occasional guest/contestant on their program Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!   She is unquestionably my favorite guest.

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James Talarico Victory Speech

I have a personal semi-rule to not annoy folks with more than one post a day, but today I am going to make an exception.

Below is the victory speech of James Talarico, who just won the senate seat from Texas, defeating a truly awful Republican candidate, Ken Paxton.

I did not watch the video, but I read the transcript.  It literally gave me chill bumps as I read it as it was one of the most hopefully things I have read in a long time. He talks about the country we could have instead of the country the right wing oligarchy has been trying to force fed us.

I find it somewhat amazing as if I did not know more about Talarico he would be the type of person I would tend avoid, a seriously religious Christian.  However, while he is upfront about his beliefs, he is not pushy. That is refreshing.  Outside of the religion, his core values seem to be my core values.  He gives me hope that maybe, just maybe we can get our country back, maybe, just maybe we can get our democracy back.

I have included the video of his speech as well as the transcript. Either would be well worth your time.

Transcript of James Talarico’s Victory Speech

We just took back Texas. We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas. We just showed that a politics of division is no match for a politics of love.

And we just sent a message to every Continue reading “James Talarico Victory Speech”

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Quote of the Day – Woodrow Wilson

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it; what we have to determine now is whether we are big enough, whether we are men enough, whether we are free enough, to take possession again of the government which is our own.” ~~ Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States

It is time to cowboy up (or cowgirl up) and take our future out of the hands of the oligarchs, the super rich.  Voting Democrat for the upcoming mid-terms and eliminating the current rubber stamp Congress would be a great first step.  I absolutely cannot believe what this country is devolving to under tRump.  I could list many of the reasons, but if you have been paying attention, you know what they are.

It is time for a change.

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Quote of the Day – Harry S. Truman

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan “Down With Socialism” on the banner of his “great crusade,” that is really not what he means at all.

What he really means is “Down with Progress–down with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,” and “down with Harry Truman’s fair Deal.” That’s all he means.” ~~ President Harry S. Truman‘s in remarks at Syracuse, New York on October 10, 1952.

How timely to have Continue reading “Quote of the Day – Harry S. Truman”

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Trump’s $90 Bribe Sent to Fredrick Wellman, Democrat Running for US Congress

The $90 bribe(ostensibly sent to help with Medicare cost) from the Enshittificator-in-chief was just donated to Fredrick Wellman, Democratic candidate for the 2nd Congressional District in Missouri.

The district we live in is very conservative.  It has a history of sending some of the worst Republicans to Congress.  The current US Representative is Ann Wagner, who, IMHO, never has had an original thought, never deviates from the Republican talking points, and is absolutely the wrong person for the job.  She is an adamant climate denier and anti-abortionist.

However, she is indirectly responsible for the tag line Continue reading “Trump’s $90 Bribe Sent to Fredrick Wellman, Democrat Running for US Congress”

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What To Do with Trump’s $90 bribe

There is an old Johnny Carson joke about an elderly gentleman and a sweet young thing (SYT).

The elderly gentleman asks the SYT, “would you sleep with me for a million dollars?”

The SYT replies, “sure, why not?”

Then the elderly gentleman asks, “would you sleep with me for a dollar?”

“Heck, no,” said the SYT, “what do you think I am?”

The elderly gentleman replies, “we have established that, now we are just haggling over the price.”

Apparently the Enshittificator-in-chief aka tRump thinks Continue reading “What To Do with Trump’s $90 bribe”

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A Small Delight

I received a text this fine a.m. from someone purporting to be Trump.  It might well have been some sort of political garbage from him, who knows these days.

It started out:

THIS IS PRESIDENT TRUMP

I need to ask David something personal.

Will you stand with me if…

Then it had a link.

Well, obviously I did not click the link.  Instead I went to the menu and selected “Report as Spam and Block”.

Doing so gave me much more pleasure than any effect my reporting and blocking the Enshittificator-in-chief might have on this out-of-whack universe.  However, a wise bear once told me, “take your pleasures where you can.”

Then, lo and behold, I receive a second text from someone purporting to be Don Jr.  It starts out:

It’s Don Jr. My father and I need you to do one thing: update your voter verification record. David — then it gave a link.

Another report and block, but this second action did not give near the same pleasure as the first.

If only I could report and block them in real life… whatever that is.

And so it should not be.

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Quadrillion versus trillion

Sorry.

When I originally posted my article The Three Biggest Lies, I was rushing out the door. I mixed up trillion and quadrillion.  A trillion has 12 places (1,000,000,000,000) while a quadrillion has 15 places (1,000,000,000,000,000) after the first set of numbers.

C’est la vie.

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The Three Biggest Lies

  1. Sure, I will respect you in the morning (clean version)
  2. The check is in the mail
  3. I will give every American $5,000 if the Republicans win the mid-terms, or so sayeth El puta pendajo

Let’s see…  the current population of the United States is 342,620,143.  Multiple that by $5,000 and you have an amount of this blatant bribe of $1,713,100,715,000. To put it another way, 1.7 trillion dollars.  Even if he is just talking about taxpayers in the United States of which there are 153,800,000 that number is $769,000,000,000 or 7.69 billion dollars.

Yeah, right!

That, my friends, is the definition of inflation, when the government starts printing money wildly like would be needed for that give away.

To give you some perspective, the first number is roughly what the United States spent on social security in 2025, a program that the Republicans are trying to eliminate as they say it is too costly.

Sorry.  When I originally posted this as I was rushing out the door, I mixed up trillion and quadrillion.  A trillion has 12 places (1,000,000,000,000) while a quadrillion has 15 places (1,000,000,000,000,000) after the first set of numbers.

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Venn Diagram for Upcoming Election

Apologies to the comedian Don McMillan, an engineer who has forged a very good comedic career using Venn diagrams. This is not his Venn diagram, but I like his idea of using Venn diagrams for such things. Check him out on YouTube.

If you like what the Enshittificator-in-chief has done to this country, the economy, the world, our relationship with our allies, the return of childhood diseases, a food inspection program in shambles, a military in disarray, the dismantling of our social safety nets, ICE harassing folks simply for the color of their skin and murdering citizens and non-citizens, climate change about to hit us like a sledge hammer, a man who idolizes murderous dictators, a man who started an unnecessary, unwinnable war that has killed hundreds of innocents, a man who has made $2.2 billion using the office of the President,  a man who has made the United States the laughing stock of the world, and a man who is mentioned 38,000 times (according to the New York Times) in the Epstein files, then by all means vote Republican in the upcoming mid-terms.

Remember that Trump could not have done any of this without the Republicans enabling him or minimally, lacking the backbone to stop him.

Venn diagram of what happens when corruption meets incompetence

May Ahura Mazda save our souls.

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