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What has happened to this country…
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.
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.
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.
The image below is circulating on social media.
There is so much wrong with this image, I am at a loss as to where to begin. While the majority of our Founding Fathers were deist, and many other presidents were not particularly religious, Abraham Lincoln comes to mind, Trump does not believe in anything except himself. And I am even doubtful of that. I do not even believe him to be irreligious as that would imply he has thought, even if only shallowly, about religious beliefs. If he has a god, it is green or gold. If I were a religious person I would view this depiction as a gross sacrilege. Come to think of it, I am not religious, and I still view it as a gross sacrilege. If there is such a thing as unholy, the definition is: See Trump.
What is sad to me is that politics and religion have almost always walked hand in hand. Both are efforts to control the behavior of large groups of people. Religion tends to pretty it up with ideas about improving the person and society, with ideas about aiding the believer to get to heaven or, more importantly, stay out of hell. Politics frequently dresses itself up as doing the most good for the most people, but often does not even bother with that. In the end they are both about the same thing, power and control.
The melding of conservative politics with fundamental religions is as scary to me as various theocracies, past and present. There are good reasons the Founding Fathers were so adamant about the separation of church and state.
God save us from the religious.
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.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.” ~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
Yup, that Roman cat Cicero was prescient about our current situation in the United States… just saying.
Sad part is that he was writing about a situation in the Roman Empire 2000 years ago, and it still applies today. As a species, it seems we never learn some very basic lessons, we seldom learn from our mistakes. What was it a renowned sage once asked, “are we suffering the Arrogance of Ignorance, or the Ignorance of Arrogance?” Either way, we are screwed.
And so it should not go.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
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.
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose. And do it with purpose. Don’t ever sacrifice who you are, your principles and your morals and your values to just try to get ahead in business. It ain’t worth it.” ~~ Dolly Parton
Dolly was famously loved by the LGBTQ community and was supportive of their right to be who they are.
“… [I do not] believe that we should criticize and judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are all God’s children. We are who we are, and we should be allowed to be who we are…. I just think that we should be more loving, more caring. We are who we are. If you’re gay, you’re gay. If you’re straight, you’re straight, and you should be allowed to be, you know, how you are, and who you are.” ~~ Dolly Parton
She has frequently stated:
“We’re all God’s children and God should be the one to judge, not other people.” ~~ Dolly Parton
For a great summation of the life and career of Dolly Parton here is a link to Richard Cox Richardson’s news letter, Letters from an American: August 26, 2026
She was a special soul.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
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.
“I don’t think the robots are taking over. I think the men who play with toys have taken over. And if we don’t take the toys out of their hands, we’re fools.” — Ray Bradbury
I am more and more convinced that if we did not open Pandora’s Box with computers, we are doing so with AI (Artificial Intelligence).
I would make Kurt Vonnegut‘s debut novel, Player Piano, required reading. It is not his best work, but it has an important message. Given that the novel was published in 1952, Vonnegut was amazingly prescient about our current world.
But then again, I would also make George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, required reading. I have read this novel three times for various reasons.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
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.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. ~~ Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5 by William Shakespeare
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
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.
“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.” ~~ Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune
I agree with the first part of the quote, and even the statement that it is a magnet to the corruptible. However, I believe that political power in and of itself can corrupt all but the strongest of personalities. Even if they start out with good intentions, what it does to lesser souls… well Katy bar the door.
Unfortunately, we have way too many of those lesser souls in government at all levels. But it seems to have always been that way.
As an aside, the first two books in the Dune series, Dune and Dune Messiah, are among my favorite novels, science fiction or otherwise. The novels later in the series were good, but at one level he was just churning more out as they were so popular.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
This country has more problems than a monkey on a rock, but to my way of thinking, this is one of the biggest, the out of control, growing wealth gap. The issue is explained very clearly by one of my favorite “pundits”, Robert Reich. America has never been a very fair country, but it is certainly the goal we should be aiming for.