Neither Democrats or Republicans are ready for when Trump passes away

 

This touches on being a follow up to a post I made a few weeks ago, but this focuses more on what happens with each party after Trump.

Or what lack of policy will not be enacted.

The Democrats still have their one page word salad and their pandering to different interest groups. They say things like universal healthcare, raise the minimum wage, tax the billionaires, etc, but never flesh it out to see how they are going to accomplish it all. I post more in this blog with more substance to some of my ideas than the Democratic party does across it’s entire spectrum of representatives and candidates. They love their message. They have no idea how to enact it.

Do they have a post Trump plan? Hard to say when half their messaging is Trump is bad and Trump is stupid and Trump gotcha posts. If Trump were to peacefully pass in his sleep tonight the Democrats wouldn’t know what to do. And would have a good chance of losing in 2026 and 2028 if any Republicans figured anything out.

Now the Republicans aren’t ahead of the game either. The infamous RINOs will try and retake the party, yet how successful will they be? And what happens to MAGA? Does it splinter into multiple factions? Or do they get lucky and someone rises to the top and takes the mantle? And this seems very unlikely. Vance isn’t as popular as the people around Vance would like him to be. Will a normal power play between Vance and Rubio break out and one of them starts spewing something close to rational political speak?

Or will the whole house of cards come tumbling down and all the extremists carve out different audiences fracturing the whole country even more? Imagine ten different Fuentes all vying for attention. Will they offset each other or create more monsters?

All this and more is possible. Somebody in the Republican party needs to start building coalitions or all hades will break loose.

And the rest of Trump’s cabinet, staffers, aides, hangers on and Congressional allies will have nowhere to go but low. Miller, Noem, Bondi, Kennedy, Johnson will lose standing quick once Trump is gone. My fear is Andrew Vought will find a way to survive since his real goal is Project 2025, not Trump, so he probably has some post Trump plans. The rest of the lot, not so much. 

Trump’s economic agenda will lose steam faster than ice thrown into boiling water. So what happens to fightfest 2025 at club MAGA? What sycophant will survive? Bessent? Pulte? Lutnick? Or?

And think about the “influencers” or whatever they want to be called. Bannon? Jones? Fuentes? Rogan? Who else? Do they still garner millions of views? Or do they fade away also?

And with all this Republican mess, who gets all the worthless crypto in the divorce?

Will the Democrats fill a void when the Republicans implode? Or will they continue to talk down to America, lecture us, and demean the MAGA population in general, completely forgetting that these are Americans also. (which they claim Trump does with their groups).

The hypocrisy of both parties is completely different, yet it is so bad that both parties have huge holes to climb out of if we ever want to get this country back on track. They finger point, say votes are wasted if you vote independent or third party, the parties run the primaries based on messaging only, not allowing fresh voices to arise, and all the while claim everything else is evil, yet doing nothing about the evil and incompetency that permeates their own party.

Now I am not a fan of either party so my hope is that when Trumpism fades, independents finally realize they need to get going and rebuild both parties or create new ones because the current leadership in both parties is a complete failure when it comes to representing the people and by the looks of it, aren’t ready for a post Trump world.

And let us hope that all this happens before July 04, 2026 so we can have a real independence day birthday celebration and welcome the world when it comes for FIFA’s World Cup in North America. Am I asking too much?

 

And since the world is coming next summer, let’s learn a bit.

Salud!

Cin Cin! Saluti!

Sante´!

Prost!

Saude!

Kanpai!

Geonbae!

Gan bei!

Nuo nke oma!

Fi-sih-tik!

Serefe!

And so much more

Cheers!

Why aren’t independents angrier?

 

I am at a lost.

 

First of all today I am supposed to be working on something good, something positive, yet I keep getting distracted by my thoughts on how far we have fallen as a country. I do a bit of volunteer work and for some of what I do I have to prepare. So as I was trying to prepare I just kept thinking about why the effort. Maybe I am feeling a bit melancholy. Or am I in a funk? Or is it because it is a cloudy day and the end of summer. I prefer spring and summer so who knows. Anyway though, I am distracted from doing good because I just don’t understand why we are where we are today.

 

I am not much of a facts guy, yet the facts don’t paint a pretty picture. I tried getting a snap shot of how the US has done in education since 1975 and what I found was there is no standardized ranking system since 1975. I did find these interesting facts since 2000.   

Overall: U.S. students have consistently performed about average in reading and science but below average in math on PISA tests since 2000.  PISA stands for Programme for International Student Assessment. (yes programme)

So is this important? Well when it comes to making America great again or some other nonsense it should be. We are average among developed nations for 25 years. That to me sounds like we aren’t doing what we should.

And we all know about the debt ballon:

The U.S. national debt rose from $533 billion in 1975 to $35.46 trillion by September 30, 2024. This represents a substantial increase, with the debt surpassing $1 trillion around 1981-1982 and growing significantly in the decades that followed due to increased government spending. 

Or how about the deficit each year and honestly this can be looked at in two ways. First the debt straight up or compared as a percentage to GDP either way it gets interesting.

Now I found charts from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, yet to copy and paste them onto a word document becomes cumbersome. You can search for them using the resource mentioned, but generally show there has been some years in late 1990’s and early 2000’s and mid 2010’s where we had a slight surplus, but we don’t get to 36 trillion in debt without some disaster years. All in all, without taking an academic deep dive into it, hard to say what all this means except we are currently in a deep pile of doggie doo doo.

One of the left’s biggest bugaboos is the wealth gap:

            The wealth gap in the United States has been a persistent issue since 1975, with significant changes in distribution over the years. The top 1% of Americans have seen their share of wealth increase from 17% in 1990 to 26% in 2022, while the middle class has lost its share of wealth. The bottom 20% have maintained their share of wealth at around 3% over the past three decades. The total market income for the top 1% averaged $3.4 million in 2021, compared to the bottom 20% who have seen their share of wealth remain at around 3%. The wealth of the American middle class has changed, with the 60% of income earners between the top and bottom quintiles having seen their share of wealth diminish since 1990. 

U.S. Senate

 

            NEW STUDY: Nearly $80 Trillion Redistributed from the Bottom 90% to the Top 1% Since 1975

• March 4, 2025

 

So why am I throwing out unrelated facts?  You can always pick and choose facts to make any  point or can skew the conversation to make facts sound good to your audience, yet when you really just look at it, in the above metrics and more we aren’t improving as a nation. Go to wages for the middle and working class, review how many people vote in our country, you can find upteen amount of lists to review, yet nothing says gold star.

So why am I bothered by all this noise? It is because time and time again Democrats and Republicans tell us they have the answers. And have they? Sure you can manipulate facts to make you sound good and I have heard many times Democrats say we balanced the budget in the 1990’s. When the reality is we had a booming economy in the 90’s that was attributed to the beginning of the growth of the internet. Many new types of businesses were born. This had more to do with government surplus than any Democrat public policy.  Republicans will say then cutting taxes for businesses is good since a booming economy helps our budget, yet when Republicans have cut taxes business doesn’t take off and we run deficits.

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

Let’s talk messaging.

How many times have you heard that tax cuts benefit the economy?

 

How many times have you been told that all we need is to do these two or three things like increase minimum wage or universal healthcare and everything will be okay?

 

And honestly those aren’t bad ideas. Yet they are weak in a vacuum. To really change the trajectory of this country it is going to take work. It is going to take comprehensive public policy that addresses an inordinate amount of issues. There is no quick fix, yet our illustrious two party system wants you to believe if you would just listen to my side ignore the other side then everything will come up roses. It doesn’t.

Both sides vet their candidates to make sure they tow the party line, their message in elections fits the narrative that they think will win votes. It doesn’t even begin to cross the rubicon and look for what are the best policies. It is all about the message.

And the messages are getting old, and have never been enough.

So some people think rank voting in primaries will help. Nope, because it is still the people the party has chosen to be in the primary. There is no new message much less new policy much less new actionable items to help us all out. Again nothing for the “all”. Just messaging to fire up the base so they come out and vote in the primary. And once they vote in the primary you have the candidate who best represents the party line, not you.

And then there are those that think we should have term limits. That is democracy on whatever is the opposite of steroids. Term limits is laziness. Voters are responsible so they should get who they want, not be held back by people who are incompetent. The two party system has made us want term limits because we won’t do the work to vet the candidates, look for fresh ideas and expect our representatives to represent us. And term limits will not solve the problem as it stands since the parties will still have candidates that tow the party line, just new names.

The original framers of our country and constitution had no idea where politics were going to go, yet I am sure, they would be horrified by what politics has become. Many even warned against political parties and their fears have come true. It is more about the party than it is about governing.

So as an independent are you angry yet? And even before I made this paltry effort to get you angry how did you feel?

Folks it is time to rethink what is before us. The duopoly of Republicans and Democrats no longer are effective in governing this country. Over fifty years ago, our two party system did create a somewhat balanced view of governing. Some days we needed conservative thinking, other days we needed to be more progressive. Yet a sense of civility and pride allowed both parties to respect each other. They still were not close to good, but they managed. Now the hate, the partisanship, the finger pointing, the lies, the incompetence dominate Washington D. C. and do not allow any intrusion into their world.

We need new leadership, new parties and new ideas to move this country forward. The government on paper, the Constitution is still the best going for mankind right now. We need to bring back the values, the principles, the ethos of our founders and update it for the 21^st century.

As regular readers know, I prefer a center right public policy tilt to what needs to be done, yet whatever we can bring forward that doesn’t rely on the current messaging from either party, but brings forth new energy and actual public policy that benefits the country as a whole, I will listen. And no, socialism and facism are not the answer.

Respect, hard work, policies that benefit the mainstream are the answers. The Republicans talk about the importance of business. Yes we need a strong economy, but the truth is that comes from the people participating in it more so than the rich getting benefits. The Democrats talk about all these feel good policies, yet have no idea what this country can afford and what actually works, but want to tell us over and over again what is bad. No one responds to lectures. No one responds to being left out of the game.

 

Yet we let both parties run over us, saying we waste our vote if we don’t vote for their side. My statement to them is we have wasted our votes for far too long.

Are you angry yet?

 

It is time to change.

 

Cheers

Dallas Cowboys comments, predictions and other Dallas Sports thoughts

 

Dallas Sports Headlines:

Two great players, two horrible trades all in one year. Sheesh, yet for one team…..

 

Will the Dallas Cowboys make the big game?

Hope springs eternal, yet we aren’t in spring, this is fall and that is what is going to happen, the Cowboys season is going to fall.

So no big game celebrations in Big D this year just like for decades now.

In fact I will venture the question will the Cowboys have a winning season. They might scratch one out, but both the offense and defense lines are the key and well.. go back to that two great players headline and we might struggle on the defensive side. The offensive side is an interesting situation. Is it truly revamped or is that Cowboy preseason hype?

Time will tell so unless it is truly revamped and stronger a 7-10 season is a high possibility, but let’s have fun, throw in a tad bit of spring for these dog days of summer and hopefully they will go 9-8. And maybe just maybe 10-7 and a chance at the wildcard game. After that, there just isn’t that much hope in this spring to go further.

I will finalize my prediction at 8-9 and hope I am wrong as heck and the left side of the ledger is a rising number.

And speaking of the dog days of summer, those red shoe Rangers are hanging in there. Tough series with Houston coming up, but a long win streak or winning  the various series even if 2-1 for most before end of the year and they have a good chance.

Once they get in I am still at a bit of a loss. Their inconsistency is weighing on me, but since this is baseball lets stick with spring and hope and say they go at least a playoff series or two. Definitely an exciting and nail biting September coming up.

 

And for that first disastrous trade, the Dallas Mavericks may still have a chance. Everyone in Dallas still thinks a better chance with Luka than without, but at least the Mavericks came away with some luck and received some potential for the year. Flagg will make rookie mistakes, that will be inevitable, yet with help, good player development coaching and some luck the Mavericks could go far. We will discuss further in October.

As always I admit I am a casual fan of the Dallas Stars so we will look into it a bit more come October also. It is always fun when both the Mavericks and the Stars are running side by side in the playoffs come spring.

 

And if Trump doesn’t screw things up, we are looking forward to all the World Cup action next summer. Hopefully we can get into a game or two in that large monstrosity of a stadium in Arlington.

 

Cheers all

Happy Labor Day

 

To all those who make our country great. Yep since this is a service economy all our labor is working to make ends meet on this glorious holiday to celebrate those who can afford not to work.

 

The irony is lost on those in Washington DC though.

 

Truly we need to let the people who labor enjoy this day. Maybe we should shut down all the retail stores, convenience stores, restaurants etc and let the people who work enjoy the day. We could all get our foods for grilling, gas for driving etc just by planning ahead one day.

 

It is good some get the day off, but we should work to give all the day off.                                                                                                                                           

 

 

And thanks to a Tumblr reader who reblogged on Tumblr last year’s post. Today’s is the elevator speech version. lol

Last night I dreamt I met Donald Trump…. and it was……

 

Interesting……

 

And cordial

 

And as all dreams go, it had that bizarre dream world to it. Yet it was also very vivid. I can remember some of the places we went.

It started out with me somehow getting to meet him to discuss my view points on what the country needed.

And of course dream world makes the fruition of this meeting unusual. After some machinations around trying to go somewhere we ended up in an almost dive of a breakfast place or sandwich shop. Hard to completely describe. The place was small, older, somewhat cramped, old four top tables where we sat at one. You ordered from a cashier that was more of a convenience store feel to it. I didn’t get anything because I didn’t have any cash on me and I didn’t want to use my debit card for the small snack I thought I wanted.

Mr. Trump got himself what appeared to be a breakfast sandwich. Eventually he only ate half and left half for me, however at that point we were on the move again.

The conversation at the breakfast table though included my ideas for better public policy and yes in dream world you don’t get to explain it all, yet I remember presenting some of my ideas. He seemed interested, but non committal.

And the whole conversation was very open. He didn’t criticize, offer alternatives, just listened.

His demeanor seemed to me that he wasn’t trying to be repentant, more like trying to understand something that he missed, but wanted something better. He seemed to have more of a reflective tone to his musings. And this is where I think him saying he wasn’t sure if he was going to heaven caused this dream. Again he wasn’t repentant in the evangelical sense, but more trying work through what he needed to do. It definitely had the feel of some soul searching. I always pray for Trump, yet in a different way than the people who pray over him. Maybe this dream was my answer for how I wanted things to go if my prayers were working. Anyway back to the dream.

He appeared calm, curious, and calculating next steps. As mentioned we left the place where we ate and went to another I am going to say something of a museum, yet small. We ended up looking at what might have been a sitting room for some body, really nice furniture, people dressed nice, yet somewhat of a uniform look there to help. We walked around for a moment. Trump appeared impressed by the surroundings. I saw some small bits of trash on a table and went over to pick it up. And after gathering it up, I turned and he was gone.

I looked around, went outside to a nicely manicured lawn area and nowhere to be found. I felt remorse that I didn’t get to say goodbye. And I looked down at my phone and there appeared a text from him and as I started to read it I woke up.

If you read my blog regularly you know I am not a fan of Mr. Trump and worry incessantly about the damage he is doing to our country. So was this an alternative universe dream, God telling me not to judge because I do not know him dream, just a dream like I mentioned triggered by him saying he was worried about going to heaven and my subconscious envisioning him as a better person, or any other of a thousand reasons for a dream. Who knows? Yet I had that dream and it was very vivid and like all dreams hard to remember thirty seconds after you wake up.

And on a completely different note I want to mention that being secular or agnostic is still a sin. We all know the first commandment, I am the Lord, your God. You will have no other strange Gods before me. Yet Jesus takes it one step further: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

And the catechism of the Catholic Church goes even further: This immediately echoes the solemn call:  Hear, O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord.

God has loved us first. The love of the One God is recalled in the first of the ten words. The commandments then make explicit the response of love that man is called to give to his God.

Or for you agnostics and secularists, God created you, loves you so you are called to love him. And hence failure to do such is a sin. There you go folks your daily lecture that you didn’t want to hear.

Or you can blame Trump since it was that dream that made me want to spell this out for you.

And Mr. President, if you want to get to heaven, call me, we can enroll you into OCIA. The National Cathedral or many local parishes in D.C. can help.

Cheers

The Republicans are making it harder to vote and the Democrats are making it easier for themselves to lose

 

Okay, a bit of a long title, but how do I get your attention.

 

If you read the news just a small bit you know Republicans are seriously gaming the system to win in 2026 and if they do, then 2028 will be a shoe in for them. Republicans have completely acquiesced to Donald Trump’s mad power play. They are throwing away the country so Donnie boy can stay out of jail. We all know that if sane people got back into controlling Congress his days would be numbered. Yet for some reason the Republican Party thinks that by letting Donnie control the world they will get something out of it, I think. I just cannot figure why so many Republicans feel the need to capitulate to him. It is stark raving madness to watch this continue to grow year over year for the last ten years. He is trying to usurp power for himself. And then what, once he passes away from old age the Republican party will be in a dog fight and our country will be dismantled. Amazes me people are being this short sighted.

And as mentioned above the Republicans are gaming the system and the headline is the Texas and now maybe more gerrymandering that is going on. And there is so much more that isn’t dominating the headlines. Read deeper into their efforts and it is a nightmare to democracy.

And yes Gavin boy is trying to out Trump Trump, yet that will fail. Trump does have a unique ability to be able to bully and denigrate and act like he isn’t doing anything wrong, but that isn’t why the Democrats are setting themselves up for failure.

They seriously haven’t learned anything over the last ten years. You go on social media or listen to some of the Democratic leadership and they are still talking down to people. Their clueless elitism knows no bounds. I have seen multiple examples on social media where someone will make a statement about a so called woke article or some such nonsense and they will be down voted like they are Epstein himself, yet the comment will be about stop telling people how to feel and give us something better. Literally almost the exact quote for one post and yet clobbered in the replies. Ridiculous! Democrats to this day cannot communicate to the country anymore. You would think after 2024 they would have learned it is the pocketbook issues dominating the political landscape right now, but no. They still lecture, tell us they know it all, shun new ideas from other sources accepting only what they think is the right way to do things.

Do I want a green infrastructure? I actually do, but the Democrats lecture instead of explain the advantages even in new business and development. How many people have heard how powerful new changes are for an economy from the Democrats? I started writing years ago the advantages of a green revolution so to speak (don’t think I used that phrase though) and probably said more in this blog about how strong our country would grow than the entire national Democrat party has said. Oh they think they tell us, but really they don’t. Not in energy, not in new businesses, not in the future, they just don’t do enough at any level to give us something or a reason why we should choose better policies. Damn crickets on real substantive ideas from the Democrats right now.

They have the gotcha posts down, the Trump is bad posts down, the Republicans are Trump sycophants down, the world is falling apart posts down, yet giving us a whole new vision to get past Trump and real build our values, our Constitution, our economy (they cannot even explain why tariffs are bad to the average voter or don’t) is very weak. They spend more time whining than fixing.

We are screwed. It maddens me that so many Democrats say we don’t need new parties when I bring it up because they tell me they are the only ones strong enough or have enough votes to beat the Republicans. Well until they change their tune, they don’t.

We need new parties and I hope and pray people hear that things need to change now or the Republicans in their short sighted blind loyalty to a demented madman is going to destroy this country. And the one percenters kissing Trump’s rear end will eat up the rest of the economy and serfdom here we come.

 

On an irrelevant note to that point, I priced Cowboys tickets to take the family. It is beyond my reach. I am not well off by any stretch of the imagination, yet I could spend some money to go to one game if tickets were reasonable. Ticket prices are beyond anyone’s rational ability to pay. About ten years ago give or take I spent $600 to take 8 of us to a Cowboys playoff game, a playoff game, and had somewhat decent seats. Now it costs almost that much for two nosebleed tickets to a popular game. A non premium game I might get three tickets. So the average Joe can no longer even begin to think of taking his kids or grandkids to a game. Now that is SAD! To get a suite for 18 people, tens of thousands of dollars. I could take the whole family to Europe off season for almost a week for less than the price of a suite for one game and we have grown. I priced it. It is $22,000 for the cheapest game for smallest suite (18 people). Next cheapest game is $30,000.00. To take 12 people to Rome in October and stay in a nice hotel, has a 9.2 out of ten review rating, which is better than the Holiday Inn I also checked and for 12 people it is $21,800 for flight and hotel. And Rome is a premium city. For the Holiday Inn it is $18,600.00 and if you get up early you can still see a game. Sure food adds to it, but food and parking add to the Cowboy game. Lisbon comparably with a hotel with 9.4 rating and breakfast included is $22,500; the Holiday Inn City Center is $20,200 and a Ramada by Wyndam is $20,000 both with 8 plus review scores. Paris? It kinda jumped up a bit, however I did find one 9.0 “great for families” for $22,000. Which is best value I ask you? Cowboys are questionable to make the playoffs so you might end up spending the money for a losing game. Sheesh

The rich think we can afford to live like them. They no longer have a clue about America anymore.

And I will make my annual Cowboys prediction next week. I have to be honest, I am waiting for this Micah Parsons disaster to play out. And even with him, the Cowboys may still struggle and without him, ugh! I still research though so we will see.

Purgatory is hope

 

I know I am not a Saint, theologian, or anyone special at any level, yet I do know people need to hear the truth. And if it ticks you off to hear that Purgatory offers hope then you may need to rethink some things.

Purgatory is hope because it still offers the knowledge that eventually you will spend eternity with God’s love.

Hell is death and I am not the first to say that, yet once you spend eternity without God’s love you have died. You may live in eternity in constant angst and everything else, but you live without love and joy forever.

I may spend a higher percentage of eternity in purgatory than heaven, but I will still have hope.

And for people who understand percentages and who know there can never be a measurable 100% with the concept of eternity, then you know how much I am saying.

Cheers on this Monday morning